Allrightythen! It looks like X Gym put on another stairclimbing clinic  tonight (12/3/09) in the 56 floor WaMu tower. The credit really has to go to God though, because we even stomped on our own times from last year by miraculous margins! Thanks to everyone who was praying for us! It obviously worked!

Here are the awards they offered tonight and who won them:

1st place male: Jesse Berg (X Gym Friends and Alumni team)

2nd place male: Kevin Crossman (X Gym Team)

1st place female: Kourtney Dexter (X Gym Team)

2nd place female: Jamela Leddy (X Gym Team)

1st place team: X Gym Friends and Alumni

2nd place team: X Gym

1st place relay team: X Gym

2nd place relay team: “Loaded for Bear”. Sorry X Gymers- we only had one relay team. My bad! I didn’t know they were awarding a 2nd place relay team this year (they didn’t last year). If I would have known, I would have formed another one (Kailyn Jeff and John were chomping at the bit). Then again, it was nice to let some other people win something   Loaded for Bear was actually really fast, so good job guys!

1st place trainer: Kevin Crossman (X Gym). Kevin isn’t actually a trainer, but that’s OK. X Gym still got the award. Jesse is a spin instructor in Chicago, so technically he won this award, but that still would have given us the award, since he was on the X Gym Friends and Alumni team.

1st place gym: X Gym

I should also mention that between the two X Gym teams, we won 8 of the top 10 overall best times, and:

• Jesse reset the race record for this 21 year old event, with a time of 5 minutes and 46 seconds!

• Kourtney was only a few seconds slower than her time last year (when she reset the record), despite the fact that she had the flu tonight!

• Jordan won his age group!

• Mike won his age group!

• Kevin won his age group and division!

• Kourtney won her age group and division (obviously)!

• Jesse won his age group and division (duh)!

• Jamela won her age group and division!

• I won my age group and division!

• Mellisa won her age group and division!

Goodness gracious! Quite the night! Time to take a day off now. We deserve it! But then it’s back on the training saddle Saturday morning folks! We gotta get ready for the Columbia climb next March! Yes, we are crazy. It’s what makes us “special” and obviously God likes us that way.

In closing, I’d like to send a special thanks to Allison and everyone else at the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation for all they did to make this an amazing event. It was first class! The X Gym teams raised over $4,000 for the cause this year, and the donations are still coming in, so please consider your gift to this great cause by clicking here: . Thanks so much to everyone who has already given! Your support means a lot to us and the money you have given really does make a difference in fighting this horrible disease.

12/5/09 update: Jesse wanted to do another climb before he flew back to Chicago this morning, so we took him to our 63 floor training building. He smoked it in 6:59! The previous record was 7:29 (by me). Holy antigravity Batman! OK Kevin – now you have a real challenge to shoot for, because you’re faster than me now…

Jeff Dinkin’s flight back to LA is scheduled for this evening, so climbed with us too, along with some other Flight Club Seattle members, and we got a super cool Christmas picture that I just posted on flightclubseattle.com.

After we took Jesse to the airport, Jeff was Jonesing for more, so we decided on an outdoor sprint up the 388 step Capitol Hill stairs. It’s a great 2 minute fanny kicker, but he wasn’t satisfied with once, so we did it again. Then we went to the Kirkland X Gym and I worked him out (including TRX lunges). He’s crazy, but we love him for it. I guess all of us have to be at least a little bit crazy to do this sport anyway, right?