CrossFit Eastside - Our Third Annual Big Climb

2008 Results

2008-03-17T10:49:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everyone who participated in the climb and donated to the team. We raised a little over $3,000 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

The link below is our team results for the timed racers.
BigClimb2008Results.xlsx

Day of the Climb

2008-03-12T16:22:00.000-07:00

Everyone who is registered should have received an email from the Big Climb organizers explaining what to do the day of the climb.

Everyone needs to be at the climb NLT 9:30am on the 16th. Parking at the tower is free and carpooling would be a good idea. There is a post on the CrossFit Eastside Google Group looking for carpoolers to meet up at CFES. Send mail to the group to work out carpooling arrangements.

Since we have a large team this year Aaron will check the team in and pick up our numbers prior to the start. All racers should meet near Specialty's Cafe in the lobby to receive your number from Aaron. Once you have your number you can pick-up your T-shirt and goodie bag. Free bag check will be provided if you need it.

If you have a CFES shirt wear it. Shorts and running shoes are a good idea but wear what you will be comfortable in (clothing is required).

We have reservations at the Pyramid Alehouse for after the climb. Our reservation is for 12:00 so you should have enough time to make the climb and get over to the brewery. PLEASE bring cash to the restaurant. There will only be one bill for our entire group. We reserved space for 25 people so if you want to go and have not notified Aaron please do so ASAP.

Starting up

2008-02-22T13:38:00.001-08:00

OK, folks, it looks we have a start time for our grand stairclimbing adventure: 10:00am. Perfect! Not so early that it's a traumatic wake-up time (for some of us) and not so late that the stairwell will feel like, well, a stinky, soggy well.

You can check the Big Climb start times page here to verify that you're listed with the CrossFit Eastside team (if you registered before the 17th, you should be listed now; if you registered later, you can check for updates every few days).

3rd Annual Big Climb

2008-02-07T12:38:00.000-08:00

It’s time to dust off your climbing shoes! Stair climbing shoes that is. CrossFit Eastside is putting together our third annual Big Climb for Leukemia team and we need your support. If you haven’t been a part of the team in the past, the Big Climb is a race up the Columbia Tower stairs; for time of course. The Big Climb will take place Sunday, March 16 at the Columbia Center in downtown Seattle. The 69-flight course includes 1,311 steps, 19 steps per flight and 788 feet of vertical elevation.

I would like to see everyone from the gym participating in the event, but if you cannot make it please consider making a donation for the team. Last year we collected over $900 to help fight blood cancer. This year our goal is to raise at least $2,000.

To register for the team go to http://www.active.com/donate/2008bigclimb/CFES and click on “register for the event.” Make sure when you register that you select CrossFit Eastside as your team. You will be taken through a registration process that includes paying a $35 fee.

Donations can be made online by following the above link or you can write a check made payable to The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and drop it off at the gym. Remember, your donations are tax deductible.

As some of you may know, my brother was recently diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and is undergoing treatment. I’m sure some of you also have family or friends who have been affected by blood cancers. My hope is that through our efforts at The Big Climb we can make a difference in the lives of cancer patients.

Check out http://www.bigclimb.org/ for more information.

Your Team Captain,
Aaron

Stairmastery

2008-02-06T00:17:00.000-08:00

Tips for getting upward bound:

• Take two or more stairs at once, and use your arms. Handrails are your friends.

• Push off your full foot. Stepping or running from the balls of your feet will just make your calves and quads hate you. (Perhaps you’ve heard us say “Heels down!” once or twice before?)

• Find a rhythm, sync your breathing up with it, and just crank through the steps. Nice and consistent. It’s like doing “Karen” (150 wall-ball shots for time): breathe, go, breathe, go, breathe, go…. Become a human stairclimbing machine.

Paul Peterson, Woodinville firefighter and awesome CrossFitter, gave us this advice before past year’s event:

“As a long time competitor in the Firefighter challenge, I have a couple of tips for you. The first is do not go out too fast. Pick up the pace later in the game if you still have it and remember to pull with the arms, as the stairwells are very narrow. If you have the leg length, double stepping will definitely improve your time. Get your CrossFit attitude on and fly up that tower! Oh ya and most important remember to take in that great view at the top and don't let Duggins beat ya.”

After completing the climb, we all totally agreed with his assessment.

Any other tips? Post them to comments. Please. We welcome all the help we can get.

Raising up some funds

2008-02-05T23:58:00.000-08:00

OK, crew, the Big Climb is less than two weeks away, so it’s about time to step up (ha) our fundraising efforts. It’s not required that you solicit donations in order to participate, but the reason they bother to put this thing on in the first place is to raise money for leukemia research, so let’s see what we can do as a team. Here's some info to help get you started.

Where folks can donate

Your friends, family, coworkers, networking buddies, and casual acquantainces all can earmark their pledges specifically to support your effort. They do so by making a donation from your personal page. (You can find the URL for it by selecting your name from the drop-down menu at the top of this page: http://www.active.com/donate/2008bigclimb/CFES.) Any donations specified for you also get rolled up into the team total.

Soliciting pledges

E-mail works great for asking for support from your friends and family, since you can send the link to the page where they can make an easy online donation (on credit card, even!). Mention that you’re doing this with a team of people from your favorite gym and give some background on the event.

The letter I’m drafting looks like this. Feel free to use/revise any parts of it for your own:

"Hi folks,

CrossFit Eastside has now been around long enough now to be having a second annual go at the Big Climb for Leukemia on Sunday, March 18. We have a team of folks committing to climb the stairwells of Washington state’s tallest skyscraper (that’s 69 flights of stairs, 1,311 total steps, and 788 feet of vertical elevation), all to raise funds to support the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's mission of working toward a cure for leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin's disease, and myeloma.

Last year our team of eleven dedicated folks completed the challenge. We placed 11th overall (out of 85), and we raised over $1800 for blood cancer research. This year, the CFES community has expanded significantly, and our buddies at Rainier CrossFit, CrossFit Westside, and CrossFit Mt. Baker will be participating as well, so we expect to do collectively even better.

Toward that end, if you’d like to support the cause, any amount you can contribute helps. It’s easy to pledge online:

http://www.active.com/donate/2008bigclimb/Carrie

-or-

htt http://www.active.com/donate/2008bigclimb/CFES.

Much appreciated. Results and photos will be posted to www.crossfiteastside.com after the event.

Thank you!"

Corporate matching

Lots of companies—for example, Bill’s little software outfit up the hill that many of you spend too much time at—match employee donations to charitable causes such as this one. If you or your coworkers donate, you can typically double the amount of money that goes to the cause by submitting a matching request.

If you happen to work at Microsoft, here’s the process in more detail:

Employee (you or your coworkers—those people whose kids’ various fundraisers you probably supported)) makes a $25+ pledge for the Big Climb at http://www.active.com/donate/2008bigclimb/CFES or your personal subpage.
Employee reports donation (to 0001089 Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Inc Seattle, WA Human Services) at MS internal site http://give/default.aspx and chooses Match Now.

That’s basically it.

More tips

Fundraising tips from the Big Climb organizers are at http://lls.org/all_page.adp?item_id=218688.

Done! (2007)

2007-03-20T10:36:00.000-07:00

Results and pics from Big Climb 07 are posted on the main CFES page:

http://www.crossfiteastside.com/2007/03/venimus-vidimus-escendimus.html

and

http://www.crossfiteastside.com/2007/03/what-team.html.

The Day Of (2007)

2007-03-14T22:16:00.000-07:00

You know what's cool? CrossFit Eastside has one of the largest non-school teams signed up for the Big Climb this year! Amazing participation! Sunday is going to be AWESOME! I'm sure we have lots of questions floating out there, so it's my hope we can get most of them answered here.

Eastsiders' Carpool

We will be meeting at the gym around 11:00am and leaving by11:30am sharp. Don't be late; you don't want to miss the party train! Westsiders, you're on your own to arrange transport, carpools, etc.

Uniform

If you have a CrossFit Eastside shirt, wear it. If you prefer to wear some revealing, spandex outfit, by all means, go for it! I might just join you. :)

Arrival and Check-In

Please arrive at the Columbia Tower by 12:45. We will all meet up on the 1st floor near the check-in tables. I (James, that is) will check in for the entire team and distribute numbers and timing bracelets to all o' y'all. Look for me in the flamboyant pink tutu (and your CFES buddies in their usual GSGA garb). We should be pretty hard to miss as a group.

After

Food and drink and general good times with fellow CrossFitters. See info at http://www.crossfiteastside.com/bigclimb/2007/02/after-stairs.html. Non-climbing friends and family are more than welcome to join in (if they can stand us).

Logistics Info from the Big Climb Coordinators

Thanks for signing up for this year's Big Climb for Leukemia event. We have 4,000 participants signed up which tops our record from last year! Please read this newsletter carefully:

There is free parking in the Columbia Center parking garage. Enter the garage from Columbia St. between 4th & 5th Avenues. The address is 701 5th Ave. Allow extra time for parking and getting up to the event floor.

For security reasons, no backpacks or baby carriers are allowed in the stairwells.
No pets are allowed in the building.
If you are part of a 10+ person team, your team captain will check you in.
After checking-in you will line up on the 1st floor and be escorted to the start line. You will enter the stairwell in about 10-second intervals.
Racers should wear their timing chip on the RIGHT wrist.
Please go up the stairs single file and allow others to pass you on the left.
There are six "water stops" in the stairwell. If you need to stop or take a break, please do so at the water stops.
Everyone takes the elevators back down. You must switch elevators at floor 40 to get to the 1st floor. Floor 40 is our Rehab area which will have bananas compliments of Costco, Jamba Juice samples, Xlerator drink samples, fruit compliments of McCormick's Fish House & Bar, bagels compliments of Oroweat, and more water. [Wow, would you like some carbs with that!? Oy.]
T-shirts can be picked up either before or after your race. You must show your bib # to get your shirt.
There will be a free bag check area on the 1st floor.
Results will be posted on the 1st floor about 15 minutes after your race. You can also view them online at http://click.lls-email.org/?ffcb10-fe261572716d017d761d78-fdeb1677776c0d7576117576-fef915707d600d-febe1c7571610674-fdf4157670600d7474147273. Results will be refreshed hourly on event day.

After the stairs (2007)

2007-02-28T23:25:00.000-08:00

Let's enjoy our post-workout bliss together at Fadó Irish Pub & Restaurant, just a quick walk from the Columbia Tower. Feel free to invite friends & family to join the fun; we have a pretty large area reserved. They are expecting us between 2:30 & 3:00pm.

Oh no, more stairs! :-o

Fadó Seattle
801 1st Avenue
http://www.fadoirishpub.com/seattle/

Link to all teams in the event (2007)

2007-02-26T15:56:00.000-08:00

Start times for the event can be found here. Note the other CrossFit teams representing (Rainier CF and Mt. Baker CF)! Sweet!

Start time (2007)

2007-02-25T18:45:00.000-08:00

Hey gang... In case you hadn't heard yet, they moved our start time to 1:30pm! That should give y'all a little extra St. Patty's Day recovery time. ;)

O Captain, Our Captain (2007)

2007-02-10T11:25:00.000-08:00

The imitable James Duggins will be our fearless leader in this stairclimbing endeavor, tasked with handling all logistics with the event coordinators, helping recruit participants, and coming up with a theme and dress code for the team. (Uh oh.) Feel free to post your suggestions here. (Marc already suggested that we pre-party with a pie-eating contest...)

CFES team fundraising page (2007)

2007-01-30T15:00:00.000-08:00

You can track our 2007 Big Climb fundraising progress, make donations, and find other team members' individual pages (in the drop-down menu at the top of the page) at our CFES team page.

2006 results

2007-01-30T13:29:00.000-08:00

Last year, CrossFit Eastside's Big Climb team raised over $1800 for Leukemia & Lymphoma research and placed 11th (out of 85 teams), based on the combined times of each team's top three finishers. This year, we expect to have a bigger team (and even more fun!) Don't miss it.

Team CFES 2006 individual results
(out of 1383 total racers / 542 women):

Darren Darsey...............10:32, 62nd
Michael Street..............10:56, 103rd
Ian Jackson...................11:15, 136th
Bill Browning................12:09, 240th
Jenika Gordon...............12:11, 246th/28th
Irena Netik...................12:13, 250th/30th
Kim Mabee...................12:33, 311th/37th
Carrie Klumpar..............14:09, 602nd/129th
James Duggins...............14:57, 727th
Vinay Venkatachalapathy..16:14, 882nd
Odiscious Dozier............24:35, 1299th

See last year's event report for the full story.

Registration link (2007)

2007-01-29T23:55:00.001-08:00

All right folks, it's time to get prepared for the Big Climb!

Registration link:
http://www.active.com/register/index.cfm?event_id=1359215&subevent_id=729092&amp;amp;amp;team_id=320982

Please make sure you select the Timed Event and select our team from the pull down menu, CrossFit Eastside.

See you at the top, y'all! :)