Stairways to Heaven

The BackBlast:

41 souls met in the Gloom of The Hotbox on this 9/11 morning. Snoop is on Q and starts us rolling at 0530

The Thang:
50 SSH (Bastion rolls in at around #35)
Go and grab a ruck, bag or neither. We are told that the standard number of stair climbs we are looking for is 12. Going up five flights. Big mix of guys with gear the whole time / some with gear half the time / others with no gear. It’s all good – think about why we are here. Not about us. This is a celebration of life for first responders who were in dark, dirty, smoky stairwells 24 years ago.
The sweat starts kinda quickly and after a point, the air in the top of the stairwell is noticeably MUCH hotter and thicker. Decent amount of mumblechatter happening, but you only hear pieces of it as guys are passing you on the way up or way down. Festus was in front of me and trying to tell me something about “inheriting” and “69”. “Not sure if this is the time or place to discuss that, Festus… How can you inherit a 69?” Old ears can’t hear squat in a small space with lots of background noise. That’s on me.
You are passing PAX that you know well, some that you sorta know and some that you don’t. And passing them many times. Lotta shoulders, elbows and sandbags bumping in the small space of the stairwell. At least we have a choice to be here. And it’s pretty well lit. We aren’t wearing boots, helmets, heavy clothing and moving in the light of a headlamp, with smoke and dust filling the air. Finally done with the 12 rounds of stairs at around Minute 42 or 43. On to some PT in The Hotbox -10 Hand Release Merkins / 15 Low Squats / 20 Hatching Butterflies.

Naked Moleskin:
Be thankful of what you have – faith, family and F3. Be thankful of the guy on either side, in front and behind you. Make yourself more durable, so that when called upon, you have the ability to do what needs done. Don’t like running? Hit running bootcamps to build up your cardio. You can run like the wind? Go to a gear workout and improve that aspect of your fitness.

Dredd took us out and reminded us of why we do what we do

Scrooge