Updated: 02/18/2009 2:03 PM KSTP.com | Print Story
By: Tim Sherno

SHERNO: What I thought about as I lay on the ground of the 50th floor of the IDS Tower

It was kind'a like this...  steep, skyward, and seemingly never-ending.

If you didn't see the post before this one, here's the short version.  A few of us from 5 Eyewitness News were invited to participate in the annual Climb For A Cure at the IDS tower... a fundraising event to help fight cycstic fibrosis. 1,280 steps. 50 stories. It was Saturday morning... and I promised I would recount the event. Ok, good. All caught up.

I was in Rochester over the weekend for a hockey tournament. I had to wake-up and drive back up to Minneapolis to do this. Too early. No coffee. I bought a banana at a gas station, but I had to spit it out. It was green and tasted like chalk. I was already at a disadvantage.

Park the car, hustle to the bottom of the building. Look up... woo. It looked taller then I had remembered. A lot taller. I started asking around, "Did they add to it? Can they do that? How do they even do that?" But I could tell from the looks I was getting that (a) nobody added to the IDS tower, and (b) I sounded like a weenie.

At this point, I want to say I have been suffering from a pretty severe cold. It may actually be a mild pneumonia. Some kind of pulmonary stress. Anyone else would have put themselves on injured reserves and sat this one out. Frankly, I really should have been hospitalized. Someone should have stopped me.

I chatted with my team-mates before the race. Tom, Colleen, Jennifer and of course Leah. Looking back, I recall Leah pointing and saying 'You're going down," but at the time I thought she meant someone else. And besides, it was time!  Our team, St.Paul Fire's Junkyard Dogs lined up in single file and began our assault on the tower. I happen to be behind Leah.

Leah seemed weightless. She sprang from step to step with ease. In fact, I think I recall her singing, "La la la...la tee la la la" it was that easy for her. It wasn't so easy for me, right around the 4th floor I'm pretty sure my pneumonia kicked back in because it was suddenly really difficult to catch my breath. Any breath. Even so, I stayed just a few steps behind Leah who continued to vault up each flight two, sometimes three steps at a time.

Then, somewhere near the 35th floor I noticed a small group of people in the stairwell. One guy was holding an oxygen tank, and I'm pretty sure one of the other guys was a famous Olympic Stairclimb trainer from Sweden. Anyway, I didn't think anything of it. Leah seemed to know these guys and stopped to chat,  I didn't think anything of that either and just passed her... on my way to the top!

But then. Just about 3 flights from the top, I heard Leah yelling, "Coming through!" and "Get outta my way!" and "Sherno!! I"m coming for you!!!"  I turned my head to the right to look, and she passed me on my left. I felt a sharp pain in my side, an elbow? Maybe. I tripped and fell, cutting open my knee and hitting my head on the concrete step. Before I knew what happened she was gone. Dizzy, head spinning, blinking away the sweat and the blood I started back up again. One flight left, I heard cheering as Leah crossed the finish line... I sprinted through the doorway a few steps behind her, but just then, the timing system malfunctioned and it took the operator about :20 seconds to boot it back up again to record my time. My official time was 11:33... Leah finished at 11:14. Just about a dead-even tie if you factor in the clock issue, problem.

That's the story. Yep. Just like it happened. Sure in paper she beat me, but, in reality it was a tie. I may have been ahead a step or two now that I think of it.

There are those who say Leah beat me fair and square, that my story is an outrageous fabrication of a man with a mouthful of bitter grapes! To which I say, "Does anyone really think I would make up a story like that just because she beat me by :19 seconds?" Is it really that far-fetched? I mean... well, ok. Maybe a little. The guys in the stairwell and the elbow are a little over the top, huh?

Ok. Fine. Congratulations Leah. Way to go. I'm proud to get beaten by you...fair and square.

See you next year!