Chinook building stair climbing Health Heroes

On February 9th, the Chinook building’s Healthy Building Committee announced a 6 week stair challenge for tenants of the building. Participants write their name on a boot or shoe, and that icon climbs various peaks that correlate to local mountains – Mt. Si, St. Helens, Rainier . . . Almost 100 people participated in the challenge. Many peak baggers “summited” Rainier. For Bill Lasby and Mike Kaufmann in Public Health’s Environmental Health division, Rainier wasn’t enough. These two super steppers work on the 11th floor. They bagged Everest during their stair climb challenge, and lived to tell about their improved health and workplace camaraderie following the event.

Following is their story as submitted by Bill.

“When we first started, Mike who is 66 had trouble climbing the 10 flight of stairs from the first to the 11th floor. Slowly he became stronger and began to do more stairs on breaks, after lunch, before work etc. Then he began to push me with his efforts.

We set goals to meet the Mt. St. Helens challenge. Then we were trying for Mt. Rainer. Each person in our competition pushed the other person to reach for new goals. Our legs became stronger, and Mike indicated that he had lost 14 pounds in the process of doing the stairs between Feb 10th and March 20. The exciting thing was watching Mike get healthier and stronger and helping his health.

I had been going to the gym and walking each day, but the stairs became a interesting challenge as well. One day I would do 80 and Mike would do 100 flights of stairs. My best day, I completed 146 flights of stairs. We keep pushing each other to new heights, and I would end up doing multiple sets of 16 flights after work to keep up with Mike. In the end, we agreed to finish at Mt. Everest, and completed 1282 flights of stairs each ending in a tie.

The stair climb strengthened both of our healths, spread through our work section as we got more people to participate, and was a very positive thing for both of us. Thanks to the Healthy Building Committee for the idea. We are continuing to do about 20 flights a day since the event ended, and our health and overall physical condition is better for participating as well.”

Congratulations Bill and Mike, and to all the participants in the Chinook stair climb challenge!