Stoltzekleiven Opp

Today Maxwell & I ran the hillclimb we've been training for, the Stoltzekleiven Opp. This race takes two days because so many people do the roughly 1 km of stairs up to Sandvikfjellet. The operation runs like clockwork though. They release a runner every ten seconds throughout the days it's run. There are cameras with live feeds of the Halveis and the Mål (sorry we didn't know in advance so we couldn't tell anyone). You don't get a shirt unless you finish, and the hill is brutal. We've been training since Maxwell heard about the race at school when he met the record holder while climbing the steps for gym class. I bet him a sushi dinner that he couldn't beat me. I also did a lot more training, because I've still go that marathon in Savannah coming up in November. The best we did together training was around 20 minutes, so I thought with the adrenaline of competition I might be able to push it down to 18. And I pushed myself. Hard! I was sucking in so much air as I spider crawled up the second half that I got dizzy a couple times. When I saw the clock at the end though, I knew I had won. I was right at 17 minutes! Maxwell had started about 15 minutes before me, so he and Zara were there at the top to cheer me on. Maxwell ran up to me and asked my time. 17:05, I answered triumphantly. A grin cracked across his face as he said, oh, I got 15:52. Show me, I replied disbelievingly as he handed me the ticket with his splits they give you when you finish. And so I bought him sushi at Sumo for dinner.