Stair climbs are the hardest of the hard. I never felt as sick as I did after running the Corning Tower Climb-a-ton in Albany. 42 stories of up without a step of downhill for entertainment. Every 10 floors the stairwell changed direction, the first two transitions were grand, the third one had me staggering like a drunk. There’s no way to express how much pain can be compressed into such a short distance, it’s the only race I ever ran where the finish line was the beginning of the suffering. Never did my lungs & head feel so bad as in the hours that followed. A Cystic Fibrosis charity had organised the race, they wrote to all entrants afterwards. The opening line of the letter “Now you know what CF feels like…”

Easily the most direct connection between effort and cause I’ve ever experienced. Made me see how lucky I’ve been.

As for the stair climb, never ever again.