Busy Morning

Ninety-one floors, 2 046 steps and 390 meters are figures that I am sure will stick with me for quite a while.

I made it through the entire run up (walk up, really)! I stopped four or five times and finished in 26 minutes and 10 seconds. It’s been a long time since those rowing days when pushing to the max was not enough. I wasn’t even near maximum capacity, considering how well I was feeling afterwards, compared to those that collapsed at the finish line, I think I went a little too easy. I wasn’t even sore the next day—just a little tired, that’s all. But I must say, it was quite painful during the climb and my heart rate was above 180 most of the time. I finished second in the FTV team, just two minutes behind my favorite director, who’s also the hiking club captain. Now that he knows that I’m no cupcake when it comes to sports, he’s invited me to train with him for the Taipei ING marathon. How nice! However, I don’t think I will get to run in any of the courses, unless I can figure out how to report at the same time...

After I did my closing stand-up at 101, I grabbed a couple of onigiri’s and a bottle of water the sponsoring convenience store provided, pulled on my red company windbreaker over my run up shirt, tights and towel, and literally ran to the next location—Taipei City Hall. My cameraman was already there, wanting to get the shoot over with, probably because it was raining. It was a charity sale that the news director sent us to cover.

Right as I was doing my closing stand-up for that, someone from the news room called said to get over to Sanxia in Taipei County, which is 30 minutes away from the city, to cover a fire. When we got there, the first thing we saw was firemen sitting on the ground, eating their obento. The fire had been almost completely put out. After some more grumping from my cameraman, we headed back to the station. Apparently, stories like these are very hard to catch—the success rate is about 10%. When we got back, it was only 13h00 and my real work day was just about to begin.