Everest Challenge 2018: Ground Zero

"One may walk over the highest mountain one step at a time." ~ John Wanamaker

Several years ago I worked with some back-country, outdoor enthusiast types.  They were in the midst of an inter-office fitness competition, the Mount Everest challenge.  None of them climbed Mount Everest literally (as far as I know although some of them could have conceivably done that, very fit and dedicated athletes they were!); it was basically a stair climbing challenge.  Someone had calculated the number of steps from the ground floor to the top of the building we worked in (8 stories I think) and the average height of a stair riser and computed the number of stairs it would take to climb the height of Mount Everest.  At various times during the day, my co-workers would lace up their runners and climb a bunch of stairs.  There was an internal website for participants to track their progress and see how everyone else was doing.  It generated a fair amount of competition and encouragement among the group and some friendly banter among the more dedicated ones.  That job was a temporary position so I did not get in on the stair-climbing fun and to be honest, I don’t recall all the details of the challenge (such as what was the prize for the winner!) but I always thought it was a neat idea and thought I would like to try it.

Its a new year with new goals and aspirations.  A few of the “to-do’s” on my 2018 list are health and fitness related: lose a little weight, get more fit, run a 10K in under 1 hour and improve my jump vertical (that one is not officially on the list but I have been embarrassed by my pathetically small vertical for a long time, like more than a decade.)  To reach some of these fitness goals in 2018, I am going to try and replicate the Everest Challenge.  I now work on the ground floor office and I live in a bungalow so climbing stairs doesn’t really work.  But I live right next to a big ass coulee that is about 30.48m (100 feet) deep.  The summit of Mount Everest has an elevation 8,850m.  That’s about 290.4 times higher than my coulee.

I have no idea how easy or difficult this may be so I’m going to keep it just this simple: count the number of times up the coulee.  If I decide to buy an altimeter at some point I may make it more precise.  If I am feeling ambitious I may pick a steeper route up the coulee or attempt the stairs on some of the pathways in town.  I will go as fast or slow as I feel like on any given day.  No calorie counting or weigh-ins or programs or tracking apps or intermediate milestones.  At the moment I don't have any accountability partners or competitors (except my dogs).  Just me and the coulee.  One step at a time.

The goal is to get to the summit of Mount Everest before the end of 2018.

Edit: for anyone who may not know, here is the Wikipedia definition for a coulee:

Coulee, or coulée (/ˈkuːleɪ/ or /ˈkuːliː/)^[1] is a term applied rather loosely to different landforms, all of which refer to a kind of valley or drainage zone.  The word coulee comes from the Canadian French coulée, from the French word couler meaning "to flow". The term is often used interchangeably in the Great Plains for any number of water features, from ponds to creeks.