The Fight For Air Climb (formerly known as Run The Republic) is one of the major fund raisers for the Colorado Chapter of the American Lung Association. Their goal is to help craft policy for those that struggle with Lung illnesses. The event is to climb the stairs of the tallest building in Denver…the Republic Plaza. This building is 56 floors and has an amazing view of the front range at the top!

The day of this event is the only day that  stairwell in the building is open to public use. There are hundreds (maybe thousands) of people that participate in this event. The organizers do a great job of staggering the start times so that the stairwell doesn’t get too congested. You only hope that your start time is early in the day as the stairwell gets a little hot, humid and muggy from all the sweaty people!

This was our inaugural year for this event. We called ourselves Team Sherpa. We had a good sized team and raised just over $1,000 for the cause. I finished in 19 minutes 26 seconds and had to stop every few floors to catch my breath. I have a long way to go as the guy that won the event climbed all 56 floors is just over 6 minutes! I was not in great shape but hoped that this event would kickstart my weight loss journey.

Everyone had a great time and we look forward to returning in 2010!