I do not want to talk
About the things we've gone through
Though it's hurting me
Now it's history
I've played all my cards
And that's what you've done too (...)

The winner takes it all
The loser standing small

~Abba

The stupidest idea of ​​this winter,
51285 stairs

The cyclists do not like stairs. There is even a saying: if you can resist, then resist. If you can sit down, sit down. If you can lie down, lie down. I had many strange ideas, but this was by far the worst. For a man who runs sporadically, and the stairs avoid as much as he can, the vision of walking a day is more abstract than driving 600km by bike. I have a fondness for the Marriot - I've been working in this building for two years. This time the goal was simpler (a similar sense to sitting in front of the computer): enter 65 times to the top of the hotel. Despite the lack of official classification, I deeply believed that I would do it first (by removing the largest number of entries during the day, for which I was the only reward, I left already for good morning). In this way, I planned to temporarily shorten this unpleasant activity. According to the rule: the faster you do something unpleasant, the less time it will take.

I go where I'm going, I'm not going where I'm not going
I go where I like, I do not go where I do not like

~Kazimierz Staszewski

The plan was quickly verified. On the spot it turned out that among the participants there is a whole lot of ultramarathoners, running races for 100-200km. They talk about some rivalries in the Sahara or other Himalayas ... But what to do: goal is a goal. When I started to walk at a good pace at 8.00, so with one minute break in the pee, I finished after midnight. From more or less half the distance, we stopped with our friend in the top three fastest and so we stayed until the end. It's hard to write any account of the event, which consists in walking in circles, in addition without a direct factor of rivalry. Of more interesting events:

• Somewhere around afternoon, the organizers ended up drinking - it's good that I had 30 liters of stock. I gave it half.
• I wanted so quickly to stop entering that I did not get a dinner at the restaurant. Fortunately, I had a million sandwiches, bananas and bars - I gave half of it: there were no buffets on the route
• Around 10 o'clock in the morning an obscene crowd at the elevators. In addition, they started to overheat (winter, the period of making the mass) and there was only one acting. This caused that for several hours the entry time fluctuated around 8 minutes, and the exit time was ~ 20 minutes.
• Reporters as usual did not disappoint. I thought there was no better question than Was it difficult to win?. Everyone, no matter TVN, TVP, or my favorite Superstacja, had such an intelligence set: Good morning, which is your floor. Oh. So how much longer? OK thank you :) Once I was surprised, because instead of "ok, thank you" it fell: "how many?".

But I would walk 500 miles
And I would fight 500 more
Just to be the man who walks a thousand miles

~ The Proclaimers

The entry itself turned out to be less tiring mentally than I thought. The first 5 appeared after an hour. Then up to 20 traffic jams and queues. In the middle of everything, everything got worse and between 30 and 45 it was luxurious and actually without tiredness. Problems began at the end: the last few entries are drama. Even quite a serious drama. It seems to me that I would not be able to do one or two more without going to a half-hour rest - I think I aimed perfectly. Of course, I had a plan to go, so I would not have to wonder if I was going too fast or too slow. Up in the second zone (Z2), down: in the first zone (Z1). Of course, all this blood in the sand and heart rate looked like this:

Seemingly the majority spent where I should be, but those 30% in Z3 and Z4 are, however, 5 hours. Damn - it's 3 hours on the doorstep. The chart shows quite well how much fatigue the occupancy of the lifts was, and hence the frequency of entry. From about the 10th hour, people have disappeared (WTF, as it sounds - 10 hours). The time for regeneration has shortened, so the heart rate has not dropped where it used to be. I did not give advice to enter as high as at the beginning. Somewhere around 7 o'clock you can see the effect of a broken elevator. Strava attributed Suffer Score to this activity: 1454, referred to as Epic, and I doubt I would cross it many times in my life.

I do not know what to say about Marriott Everest Run. I'm happy that I graduated, but I can summarize it as usual: "It was fun, but never again .... at least not for the next six months. " Interestingly, in addition to general fatigue, I did not even get any major injury. Conscious of the fact that real fatigue comes not the day after, and two days, I have withheld this entry. I am surprised to admit that despite the sleep lasting over 15 hours and the minimal soreness in the buttocks, I am like new. On Saturday night, nothing indicated it, when at 3:15 I was sitting in a car with two kebabs in my hand and I wondered if I could get home or if I could not take a chance.

Finally, I reached the top as " second... the first one that does not win. It's a nice feeling how reporters talk to the first and congratulate him, and you pass a few minutes later next to him, unnoticed ;-) 

The key thing that arises when looking at this relationship is: "FOR WHAT?". I do not tolerate this question, and I consider it a sign of ignorance to ask it. But I will answer: I can! 

Meanwhile, a piece of film depicting what one entry looked like (I am aware of the error in the text, but I stuck it together on Sunday):