St. Andrews Stairway (x4) PLUS Weigh-In Update

My legs are still sore from last night’s workout. It was the best workout I’ve had in a while, partly because I pushed myself, and partly because it happened in a very cool new location. That location is called the St. Andrews Stairway, and it’s actually not very new at all.

Back in the 1920s, a public stairway was built up the side of the Hollywood Hills, to allow residents on higher streets an easy way to come down to catch the streetcars that used to zip around Los Angeles (hard to believe, but back in the day LA used to have one of the largest public transportation networks in the country). The stairway is cleverly called the St. Andrews Stairway, as it starts at the end of St. Andrews road. Despite it being there for nearly 100 years, I didn’t know it existed, even though last fall, I ran right past it during an evening run. It didn’t catch my eye during that run because it wasn’t lit at night, but that changed last month.

I read online a few weeks ago that some 8 or 9 decades after initial construction, the city of Los Angeles finally made good on their promise to install streetlights on the St. Andrews Stairway, and I realized that it was relatively close to my office. So last night, I laced up my running shoes and went for a run. And even though I’ve only been twice (once last night, and again today to take some photos to share here), I’ll come out and say it: I love the St. Andrews Stairway!

There are 153 stairs (I counted myself). That’s basically a 10-story building! Here’s what they look like from the bottom. The arrow is pointing to the wall at the very top of the stairs, all the way up on Tryon Drive.

weSPARK Universal Studios Backlot 10K RECAP!

My legs are still sore, ladies and gentleman, from the 10K race I ran on Sunday. That means I really pushed myself. And I’m really proud of how things turned out. But I’m jumping ahead of myself… I should start at the beginning.

Sunday was a beautiful day for a race: sunny and clear, although it was hot. It ended up being 90 degrees that day, and even though the race was held early in the morning, it was obvious that the day was going to be a scorcher. I got to Universal Studios a little before 8am, and met up with a bunch of friends that were also participating in either the 10K or the 5K run/walk. My buddy Mikael took this picture of me near the starting line…

Creating My Own Olympic Memories

Check it out, I’m in LONDON!

Okay, Okay, I’m lying. I’m nowhere near London. But I did have a fantastic afternoon on Saturday that directly connects me to the events happening over in England. Everything about this post has me nerding out, so get ready, because I learned a ton putting it together, and hopefully you’ll learn something too.

Construction Update

I have an update about the new building going up in my neighborhood. I blogged about the building last month, and the gist of the post was that I was hoping Hoping HOPING that it wouldn’t be an Arby’s, because if it was, it would be proof that the universe was out to sabotage me. Refresh your memory by reading the entire post here. Remember this picture?

The building isn’t finished yet… but it has been announced what it’s going to become.

A Letter to Myself at Age 23.

Thanks to a couple recent events, I’ve been reflecting a lot on my life ten years ago. The reflection began on Friday, my anniversary. On that day 10 years ago, I arrived in southern California. That means I’ve lived in Los Angeles for a decade, which seems both like a monumental amount of time and like no time at all. On top of that, Friday was a big day for another reason: There was a reunion of a big group of friends from that period in my life, many of whom I haven’t seen in years.

I made it to Los Angeles fresh out of college, and my first job here was 

Back in the Pool

Quick reminder: You have until 11:59pm PST tonight to enter to win my awesome Edible Arrangements giveaway! ENTER HERE!

If I owned a Magic 8 Ball, and had I asked yesterday if I should go swim laps, and then shook it shook it shook it, the answer that would have appeared would’ve been “All signs point to yes.”

Here were the signs:

• When I turned on my TV yesterday morning, my TiVo was recording the episode of Will & Grace where Jack taught Will how to swim. (Jack: “They’re opening a new pool at the gym, Will. C’mon, you should come with! It’s full of cuties – it’s like hot guy soup! Well, except between 12 and 1, when Paul Sorvino does laps.”)
• While going through the mail, I saw this postcard, for an open water charity endurance swim event:

More on that postcard later.

My point is that the postcard and the Will & Grace episode got me thinking, and I couldn’t remember the last time I swam laps. I like to think that swimming is a regular activity in my workout arsenal, but it’s been over three months since I’ve been in a pool (I had to look that up – so thankful I make note of every workout!).

So yesterday afternoon I got in my car and drove to the pool. It felt good to do some hardcore cardio – my first solely cardio workout since my foot injury – and over the course of the next hour, I swam:

• 5 x 200 yards warm-up (200 free, 200 IM, 200 kick, 200 pull, 200 IM) = 1,000 yds total
• 500 yards free (focus on consistent pace, 70% exertion)
• 6 x 100 free + 50 free (the 100s were at 80% exertion, the 50s were all-out sprints) = 900 yds total
• 2 x 200 yards cool down (200 IM, 200 free) = 400 yds total
• Grand Total: 2,800 yards.

A wonderfully tiring workout. The smell of chlorine on my skin as I write this brings me back to my competitive swimming days growing up. And I felt more aerodynamic (or hydrodynamic, I suppose?) in the pool than every before, thanks to my spiffy, pool-friendly haircut!

For a lot of the workout, I was thinking about that postcard. It’s promoting the American Lung Association’s Distance Swim Challenge in August – an open water swimming event in the Pacific Ocean. I’ve never swum for exercise in the ocean (I’ve only frolicked and gallivanted) and the idea is very intriguing. The ALA sponsored the skyscraper stair climb I completed a few weeks ago, and their events are well-organized and well-run, so that part doesn’t concern me. It’s the actual swimming.

Open water swimming is quite different than pool swimming, and by ‘quite different’ I mean ‘much harder.’ Pools don’t have waves to contend with (sure, there are little ones made by other swimmers, but the lane lines break them up). Pools also have walls, so every 25 yards you can push off and gain momentum for the next length. Oceans lack both walls and lane lines, but they do have currents and waves, so addition to moving your arms and legs, you gotta pay attention, so you’re moving in the right direction (or risk swimming way off course or in giant circles). Plus, the lack of walls and the presence of currents (which may be working with or against you, depending on where you want to go) means it’s quite difficult to gauge how far you’ve swum (and how much remains), and that can really challenge your endurance, pacing, and stamina.

Oh, and have I mentioned that oceans are salt water, whereas most pools aren’t?

There’s also sharks. I’m not afraid of sharks, but the list of differences between pools and oceans would be incomplete without them.

Yep. Open water swimming is a whole different beast than pool swimming. And I’m considering registering myself for this event. Right now I’m just considering it – I don’t think I’ll make a decision for another month or so. Right now I have my upcoming stair climb challenge to focus on (have you donated yet? It’s goes to a great cause!), and then, after that, I have another fitness challenge already lined up at the end of May that I have yet to mention on this blog (one challenge at a time, folks!). So if I make a decision in early June, I’ll still have over two months to train and prepare.

I’d also have to pick the distance. The event offers 1.2 mile, 2.4 mile, 4.8 mile, and 12 mile swims. My gut says go with the 1.2 mile, since it’s my first open water event. 1.2 miles is very doable for me in a pool. It’s 2,112 yards – that’s almost 700 yards less than I swam yesterday. But I have a feeling 1.2 miles in open water would feel a helluva lot different.

So, I’m thinking about it. Have any of you done any ocean swimming, either as a stand-alone event or as part of a triathlon? How did it go?

Meanwhile, I just calculated that yesterday’s swim was 112 lengths of the pool, which is a hair under 1.6 miles.

Keep it up, David!

My First Gym Memories

While better, my foot is still in pain, so this is Day 2 of trying not to put any pressure or weight on it. I did end up going to the gym last night, and doing some seated, upper-body weight lifting, and that felt good, and I may do that tonight as well. I’m aching to do some cardio, but I know I can’t. Still haven’t decided what to do about this Saturday’s big stair climb challenge. I’ve gone to bed the past two nights hoping that I’d wake up miraculously better, but so far, that hasn’t happened. The stair climb is now 3 days away, and I’m leaning towards postponing it, because even if I do wake up miraculously healed, after a few days off my feet, I don’t think I’d be ready for 163 nonstop stories. I want to be strong and prepared for this challenge, and not unsure if I’ll make it, and definitely not holding back because of fear of injury.

I got a really interesting question from a reader last week about gyms, and I thought I’d take a minute and answer it in this post. Here’s the question:

I’ve never been a member of a gym, for a host of reasons…all of which are mental hangups of one sort or another. I’m wondering if you had any misgivings or reluctance that you had to work through when you *first* started using a gym? And if you did, do you have any tips on getting over a mental block and taking that leap?

I was incredibly hesitant when I joined my first gym. I just went through my files, and found my first contract – I signed up for my first gym membership in July 2007,  a solid two and a half years before I began the weight loss journey that I’m currently on. I don’t know how much I weighed back then (I went for years without ever stepping on a scale), but I looked similar to the ‘Before’ pictures in the Photo Gallery.

Scratch that. You can see EXACTLY how I looked, because I found this picture, taken the exact same month I joined my gym:

The Slurpee is a nice touch. “Before” pictures with food always make me cringe just a little bit more.

At the time, I was full throttle into a walking program of my own design: I would walk for 45 minutes, 5 times a week, and I ended up going a couple of years without ever skipping a walk. Most of the walks were done immediately after work, which served the double purpose of getting some exerciseandclearing my head after long, stressful days at the office. I wasn’t pairing my exercise with any sort of healthy eating – I was eating tons of junk food, and although I wasn’t weighing myself, I’m fairly certain, looking back, that my weight loss was minimal, if any.

I started thinking about joining a gym during a summer hiatus (I was working at “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” at the time, and we had breaks during the summer while the show aired reruns). I was getting bored with my walks, and I was ready for a change. At the time, I was living less than a mile from a gym, and I would drive by it daily. My mind would fill with reasons not to investigate: Gyms aren’t for people like me, they’re for meathead jacked-up musclemen. You’re going to stand out like a sore thumb and everyone will point and stare, and possibly laugh. It’s a waste of money – you’ll join, go once or twice, and then never go back, and all that money goes down the drain.

Those thoughts cycled through my head, but after talking with some friends, I decided the least I could do was go and get a guest pass. Most gyms offer a guest pass (that are free and good for 3 days to a week, depending) so potential customers can try out the gym before committing to a membership. I was nervous when I first walked in and was greeted by a friendly staffer named Askia. I inquired about a guest pass. I’m sure I wasn’t physically shaking out of fear, but it sure felt that way. One of the first things Askia asked was what I was looking for out of a gym, and what my goals were. I thought about it, and responded: “Well, I’m like to switch up my exercise routine, and hopefully, lose some weight.” It seemed like a good thing to say, even though I’m not entirely sure of its truth, given the way I was eating back then.

Askia nodded his head, leaned forward in his chair, and a big smile spread across his face. “Well, what took you so long? We’ve been here waiting for you.”

And, just like that, most of my nerves went away. Askia made me feel welcome, and made me feel comfortable. He showed me around the gym, pointing out its features, and answering all my questions. I ended up forgoing the guest pass, and instead, I pulled out my wallet and walked out a member.

I remained nervous for the few weeks when I would arrive to exercise. I usually avoided eye contact with everyone, came in my workout clothes so I didn’t have to spend any time in the locker room, and stuck to the cardio machines with my headphones in. Slowly, I felt more at ease. I saw other bigger people working out beside me. I figured out that most people at the gym were pretty focused on what they’re doing, and don’t pay any mind to the other people in the room. There were plenty of the jacked-up musclemen I presumed would be there, but they weren’t intimidating. And, in addition to them, there were lots of people of other shapes and sizes, too.

By the end of my first month there, I wasn’t feeling self-conscious at all. The staff was starting to recognize me when I walked in, and I saw familiar faces on the machines around me nearly every visit. The only time I felt terribly awkward was on a few occasions when a certain older gentleman would walk by me when I was on the elliptical, and start applauding, loudly, while proclaiming things like “Yes, you can do it!” I know that was his way of being encouraging and supportive, but at the time, all I wanted to do was punch him in the face for drawing attention to me.

Not a single day has lapsed since that day in July 2007 where I haven’t had a gym membership. I’m grateful that I joined my first gym when I did – even though I wasn’t seriously trying (or ready) to lose weight, when that time came a couple years later, I knew the gym inside and out, and was able to jump in and really push myself without those fears of standing out and being laughed at. I don’t bring a camera into the gym very often (it’s not good gym etiquette), but the picture to the right is from the end of 2010. I’m not afraid to sweat at the gym!

I’m not afraid of anything at the gym.

KEEP IT UP, DAVID!

The View From 63 Stories

Pour yourself a beverage and relax, ladies and gentlemen, because this is a long one. It’s also a good one (with lots of pictures!), because right now I’m feeling a kind of pride that I’ve only felt a couple of times before in my life.

The pride stems from Saturday morning, when I participated in the American Lung Association’s Fight For Air Climb 2012, and believe me, before I felt that pride, I felt a lot of other things, starting with ‘What the fuck have I gotten myself into?’

That’s what went through my head when I turned the corner in downtown Los Angeles and saw the 63-story Aon Center looming, just a block away. The Aon Center used to hold the record for being the tallest building west of the Mississippi, and it’s still the second-tallest building in Los Angeles (and California). Less than a month ago, I committed myself to racing up the stairwell, for charity, all the way from the street to the roof. I was familiar with the Aon Center, but had never looked at it with the knowledge that, in a matter of minutes, I would be inside it, climbing, climbing, climbing, until the stairs ended and there was nothing above but open sky. The Aon Center is tall – it tops out at 858 feet above the pavement – but when I turned that corner, it seemed ridiculously tall. Monstrously tall. Ominously tall.

It was so tall that when I stood at the base of it, I could barely make out the top – it seemed as far away as the horizon.

The Fight For Air event was a big deal. Hundreds of people were signed up to climb. They had closed down an entire block of Hope Street to create a plaza for climbers to congregate. The check-in tables were in the middle of the intersection of Hope and Wilshire.

Check it out – my bib number just happened to be my birth year! That’s a good sign, right?

Climbers were assigned line-up times. It’s not a free-for-all – they send climbers in, one at a time, on 10 second intervals, for safety’s sake. My line-up time was 9:45am. I got there about an hour ahead of time, and after checking-in and attaching the timer chip to my shoe, I did a lot of stretching and chatted with Heidi and Tom, two friends that came along to cheer me on. I looked up at the building every once in a while, and it seemed like the damn thing was growing taller with every passing glance.

At 9:30, I told Heidi the truth: I was getting really nervous. “Don’t be,” she said. “You’ve been training for this. You’ve got this.” She’s right: I’ve been on the StairMaster more times than I can count over the past couple months, and 63 stories on the StairMaster is practically nothing for me – I’ve climbed over 63 stories no less than 20 times.

But I knew climbing an actual stairwell would be a completely different animal. StairMasters don’t have landings that mess with your rhythm and pace, and while they’re strenuous exercise, you’re not lifting your full body weight with each step on the StairMaster, because the stair gives way under you. So I talked with my friend Laura on Friday to get some last-minute tips and advice. Laura’s done the Fight For Air Climb twice before, in the 73-story Renaissance Center in Detroit, and she gave me all sorts of new things to worry about:

“Here’s the thing, David – the stairwell is going to be hot and muggy. There’s no air flow in a stairwell – no breeze, not much ventilation. Wear the lightest clothes you have. Plus, stairwells aren’t cleaned as regularly as the rest of the building, so the people who climb before you are going to kick up all kinds of dust. There were water stations and oxygen tanks every 10 floors, and when I climbed, there were people who couldn’t breath and were using every oxygen tank that I passed. I made it to the top, but breathing wasn’t easy – which is ironic, because the event is, you know, organized by the American Lung Association.”

Yikes. I decided I would mentally prepare for a completely miserable experience, so I could be pleasantly surprised if it actually wasn’t that bad.

When it was my group’s turn to line up, all my thoughts of dust and sticky stagnant air were quickly replaced with ‘Whoa – this is actually happening! It’s time!’ - and I got really excited. Tom snapped this photo of me in line:

I’m next!

And I’m off!

The first part of the stairwell (which directly accessed the sidewalk) was very confined, but once it cleared the two story lobby, it opened up and became much less claustrophobic. Organizers put up posters on nearly every landing, and there were tons of encouraging signs on the risers of the stairs themselves, reminding me to ‘keep going!’ and ‘stay focused!’ (My favorite was ‘you’re almost there!’, which, when posted on the 15th floor, really stretches the definition of ‘almost’.)

In addition to the various warnings, Laura and I had also discussed strategy on the phone, and she stressed how important it was to find a maintainable, consistent pace and not blow your wad on the first 20 floors. Guess who did exactly the opposite? ME! I’m exaggerating somewhat – I tried to preserve energy, and thought that’s what I was doing, but the excitement of the whole event must’ve gotten the better of me, because by floor 16 I was huffing and puffing and my legs were starting to buckle. Up until that point, I was taking the stairs two at a time, but I couldn’t maintain that, so I slowed up and switched to one step at a time.

My personal goal was not to stop. I had my iPod, so I listened to some of my favorite songs and focused on reaching the milestone floors: 21 (1/3 of the way), 32 (halfway) and 42 (2/3 of the way). I tried not to look at the floor number signs on every landing, but they were hard to miss. I took water at every water station (there were 4 or 5 total), and there were also volunteers with noisemakers cheering us on at other floors as well.

I’m not going to lie: It was tough. Brutally, excruciatingly tough. Thankfully, none of the Laura’s climate-related predictions had come true: it wasn’t stuffy or warm, nor did I feel accosted by dust. But my entire lower body was throbbing and aching by the 45th floor, and I found myself relying on the handrails a little more frequently, but I kept going. And going. And going.

At the 48th floor, I started counting backwards: only 15 floors to go… 12 floors… 8 floors… 3 floors… I got energized when I saw natural light flooding the stairwell, and I picked up the pace for the last flight of stairs, and before I knew it, I was on the roof. WHOA – I was ON THE ROOF! Volunteers were right there, handing me a towel and water and removing the timer chip from my shoe. Meanwhile, I was looking around, because that rooftop instantly became one of my favorite places on the planet.

It was an overcast, gray, foggy day, and at that height, you’re in the middle of the fog. On a clear day, I would’ve been able to see the ocean, and mountains in every other direction, but not on Saturday. I loved how the only thing the punctured the fog was the top of the nearby US Bank Tower, the only building in town that’s taller:

You couldn’t get right to the edge of the roof, but I love this next picture. Wanna know how high up I was? The teeny-tiny-looking circular building over my shoulder is actually the Staples Center, the giant arena where the LA Lakers play:

When it was time to get off the roof, I headed down the only other staircase with roof access – a narrow, very steep little number that looked like something you’d see on an aircraft carrier. This was actually the scariest part of my morning – my legs were still wobbly and aching, and the staircase was slick from moisture in the air. Plus, I had to duck to avoid hitting my head on a beam (I’m thankful for the big ‘watch your head!’ banner, because I’m exactly the tall klutz that would smack my forehead).

Once safely on the 62nd floor, I followed the signs to another stairwell, which I took to the 60th floor, where there were elevators to take us to the lobby. Before I got on an elevator, I wandered a little bit – the 60th floor is completely empty, unoccupied office space (I wonder what the rent would be!), so I headed to the windows for a couple more pics that showed how high I was.

It’s freakin’ HIGH!

The elevator took us to the second floor, and there was an escalator to get down to sidewalk level. Heidi and Tom were waiting at the base of the escalator, clapping and cheering. I grabbed a banana, and we hung around for a few minutes, and I got a massage in a massage tent.

As Heidi, Tom, and I were leaving, I looked up at the Aon Center one final time. And you know what? It didn’t seem so tall anymore. That building has 1,377 steps from the street to the roof, and I climbed each and every one of them. A smile is creeping across my face as I type this, and I suspect it will always return when I think about this day. One of the things I remind myself, especially when I’m having a bad day or feel tempted to give up on my health-related goals, is that I’m capable of extraordinary things. I can do whatever I put my mind to. And climbing the Aon Center is the perfect example.

On Saturday night, I got my official race results. In total, 632 participants climbed the stairs. I finished 110th.

**UPDATE!** Because of a cheater (read about it here), I actually finished 108th out of 632. That’s 83rd percentile, bitches! I finished 79th among men, and 23rd in my age group (Men 30-39).

My favorite statistic is my time: I climbed those 63 stories in 15 minutes, 24 seconds! My pace was 14 seconds per floor. I was hoping, based on my StairMaster training sessions, of averaging 20 seconds per floor (21 minutes total) – so I CRUSHED my expectations! Woohoo!

That’s not the only thing I crushed. Thanks to contributions from 22 tremendous supporters, I exceeded my $630 fundraising goal and brought in $697.38 for the American Lung Association. Amazing – you guys are the best! I appreciate each and every cent and feel so honored to be the cause of such generosity. Thank you!

Don’t put your wallets and purses away yet! My second stair climb challenge is just three weeks away, and it’s also a fundraiser. I’ll be climbing the tallest building on Earth (in my own special way), and you KNOW you wanna be a part of that! Get the skinny (and make a contribution) here.

As for the American Lung Association’s Fight For Air Climb 2012, I’m thrilled and unbelievably proud of my performance this weekend. I’ll leave you with one more picture – Heidi made this sign and was waving it when I descended the final escalator into the lobby after the race:

T-Shirt Windfall

Last month, I visited Zara, a clothing store I had never been to before. I had heard good things from a couple friends, and I was curious what the store had to offer and how I looked in their clothes. I wrote a post about how the outing was a complete bust: I’m too broad and big (even with my 163-pound weight loss) for their silhouettes. I was far from distraught about the experience – at the end of the day, knowing where not to shop is just as helpful as knowing where to shop. But I did have a moment of disappointment (just a moment, nothing lingering), because it was another bust in my ongoing quest to find a good, well-fitting, basic t-shirt.

For the past year or so, I’ve been on the lookout for a retailer that sells good quality, basic tees in a variety of colors. My search has always been a back-burner one – I haven’t gone out just to shop for t-shirts, but when I’m in a store for another reason, I’ll check out their offerings and try them on. The perfect t-shirt for me is flattering (duh), made of a heavier fabric, long enough to cover my belly with my arms raised above my head, and priced reasonably. Turns out that’s a tall order to fill! And it turns out the best t-shirt for me was right under my nose the whole time.

One of my favorite t-shirts right now is simple, black, and made by Champion. I wear it about once a week (provided I’m keeping up with my laundry). It is an all-occasion t-shirt: I work out in it, wear it casually with jeans, and wear it under fancier clothes sometimes, too. I’ll even wear it horseback riding, like I did in the Caribbean a few months ago:

That t-shirt came at a sporting goods store (I forget which one) about a year ago, and even though I recognize it as a favorite item in my wardrobe, for some reason, it never occurred to me that I should go and buy more somewhere. Perhaps that’s because I was stuck on the idea that my perfect t-shirt would be a store brand (like Old Navy or American Eagle) or a in-house brand at a bigger store (like Sonoma at Kohl’s or one of Macy’s in-house lines) – and Champion is neither of those. It’s an established brand that’s found at a number of retailers, certainly, but there aren’t Champion stores (except maybe at outlet malls?).

I was driving around recently when I heard a radio commercial for Sports Authority, promoting a sale on Champion basic jersey t-shirts. I had a flurry of epiphanic thoughts:

• “Hey, I have one of those!”
• “That’s a really good deal!”
• “I should go and buy some, since I love the one I already own!”
• “Ohmigod, Champion makes my perfect t-shirt! Why haven’t I ever realized this? David, go and stock up NOW!”

I made it to Sports Authority the very next day, and walked out of the store with six brand-new t-shirts:

Right now, I have t-shirts in my drawer that are size L, size XL, and one or two XXL – since sizes vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, I fit in all three (these are ridiculously smaller than the t-shirts I was wearing at my heaviest, which you can see here). The Champion t-shirts are size XL, but I know from experience that they’ll shrink a little bit.

Wanna know the best part (excluding, of course, the satisfaction of knowing that I now have a go-to brand for t-shirts that look great on me)? They cost me $6 apiece! The Sports Authority sale price (which is unfortunately over) was 3 for $18. Score!

Keep it up, David!

Great Big Birthday Announcement!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! It was 33 years ago today that I was born at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Pontiac, Michigan. Yep – 33 years down, and a helluva lot more to come!

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what I can do for myself in honor of my birthday. I’m sure I could find something to purchase, but nothing special is coming to mind, and it’s probably not a wise choice anyway, since money is a little tight.

What I’d much rather do is honor myself by making a new commitment to continued good health. I want to challenge myself to kick off my 33rd year with a bang. I want a big, grand, sweeping adventure that embodies the idea that I’m not done keeping it up. And I know exactly what I’m going to do. I’m announcing my new workout goal!

No, David, think BIGGER. This is your BIRTHDAY! You can do better than that!

Okay, okay, you’re right. Time to step up my game. I’m announcing TWO new workout goals! And they both involve lots and lots of stairs.

Before I get to the details, I have a little catch-up to do. You all know about my Skyscraper Collection, right? Every time I complete a StairMaster workout, I find a skyscraper somewhere in the world with an equivalent number of floors to what I just climbed. Click here to see my Skyscraper Collection – so far, there’s 23 buildings in it, and right now I’m adding buildings 24 and 25!

I’ve used the StairMaster twice in the past week at the gym, and they were tough workouts. I didn’t set any new records (like I did a few weeks ago when I climbed the equivalent of the Empire State Building), but I’m really happy with the results. On Monday, 2/27/12, I spent 21 minutes on the StairMaster, and climbed 94 floors while burning 350 calories. Yesterday, on Sunday, 3/4/12, I spent 18 minutes climbing 83 floors, burning 300 calories. Not too shabby!

The buildings I’m adding to my collection are both in Dubai (for a specific reason I’ll get to in a bit). Say hello to 23 Marina (on the left) and The Index (on the right!):

• 23 Marina is 90 stories, the second tallest all-residential building in the world, and the third-tallest building in Dubai. It’s terribly exclusive – there are only 288 units in the entire building, including 57 two-story units that each have a private elevator and a private pool on a balcony. No joke! Start saving your pennies now! The photo was taken in October, when the top was still under construction. I can’t tell if the building is officially finished or not, but according to the interwebs, lower-level apartments have been turned over to their new owners.
• The Index is 80 stories – the 6th tallest building in Dubai. It was completed in 2010, and is a mix of residential and office. It’s cleverly designed so the concrete cores at both ends shade a majority of the building from the rising and setting sun, drastically slashing energy needs and air conditioning costs.

Yep, I climbed both! They’ve both been added to my Skyscraper Collection, which means…

…it’s time for my TWO BIG BIRTHDAY ANNOUNCEMENTS!

I love my Skyscraper Collection. It’s changed the way I think about StairMasters. I used to hate them, but now I look forward to using them, because I find doing the research and adding the towers to be so much fun.

But I want more than just pretending to climb skyscrapers. I want to climb a real skyscraper. So… drum roll please… I just registered for the American Lung Association’s Fight For Air Climb 2012!

ANNOUNCEMENT #1: On Saturday, March 31st, I’m climbing the 63-story Aon Center building in downtown Los Angeles! It’s the second tallest building in Los Angeles, and was the tallest building west of the Mississippi from its completion in 1973 until 1982. Take a look at it (the center building) – it’s tall!

Here’s the best part – you can support my quest to climb to the Aon Center’s roof! The Fight For Air Climb is a fundraiser, and I need to raise $100 in order to climb the stairs. It’s not that much money, really – if 10 of you donate $10 each, I’ll be set. Or, 20 of you could donate $5 each. It doesn’t matter to me! Why don’t you talk amongst yourselves, figure it out, and when you’re ready, visit my donation page to make a contribution. All the money benefits the American Lung Association, is tax-deductible, and you can search their database to see if your company has a gift-matching program, which doubles the value of your donation!

I’m so excited to climb a real-life skyscraper, and I’m looking forward to standing on that roof, 858 feet off the ground, sweaty and exhausted, looking out over the city around me – hopefully it’s a clear day!

I’ll need to do a lot more training on the StairMaster to prepare – and it’s only 25 days away! Because I’ll be spending a lot of time on the StairMaster, I’ve also decided to up the ante, which brings me to…

ANNOUNCEMENT #2: I’m setting a new StairMaster goal to add the tallest building in the world to my Skyscraper Collection. Pop quiz: What’s the tallest building in the world? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

It’s the Burj Khalifa, in Dubai (this goal was why I picked those two other Dubai buildings above). It is an astonishing 163 stories tall. Whoa! It’s nearly twice as tall as the Empire State Building, and almost three times as tall as the Eiffel Tower. It’s just a monster of a building.

Does it look familiar? That might be because it was prominently featured in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol – Tom Cruise clung to the side of it, thousands of feet above the ground, wearing only suction-cup type gloves.

Reaching this goal will not be easy, and that’s exactly why I’m setting this challenge. My current StairMaster record is 104 stories (a good 59 stories shy of the Burj Khalifa), and after those 104 stories, I felt ready to collapse. So I have work to do in order to push through.

I think it might be too much to try to reach my Burj Khalifa goal before I do the Fight For Air Climb. Perhaps I’ll shoot for sometime in April. I’m not sure yet, we’ll see how my training goes. Whatever I decide, I will keep you posted!

I’m geeked about my two new workout goals – I think it’s a stellar way to kick off the new year. Happy Birthday, and…

…KEEP IT UP, DAVID!