Yesterday I got an e-mail from Danny Chew saying that he plans to climb up Pitt’s Cathedral of Learning Building at least a 100 times this Saturday. That would be more than 40,000 feet of climbing! Danny Chew has won the Race Across America twice. His goal is to ride one million miles in his lifetime. He reached 600,000 miles on September 10th, 2006. Below is the e-mail he sent.

Twas 14 years ago that I set my 86 times up Pitt’s Cathedral of Learning Building record in 12 hours. That record has stood for long enough, so I plan to break it (shooting for at least 100 times up) this coming Saturday, February 10, 2007 starting at 8am. I plan to average about 6-7 times (actual climbing time of 6-8 minutes) up per hour – meaning it will take me just over 13 hours (ETA: 9pm)to tie my 86 times up record, and about 15 hours (ETA: 11pm) to reach my projected goal of 100 times up! Then depending on how I feel, I may just go on for 24 hours and 150 total times up.

Don Erdeljac will be my main support person. Please feel free to come out and do some climbs up with me. The Cathedral of Learning Building is located on the University of Pittsburgh campus between Forbes & 5th Avenues in Oakland. If you show up late, the 5th Avenue side entrance doors always seem to be open. I will be climbing up all 764 steps between the Ground and 36th floors – taking the elevators down each time.

I will be counting my laps on the top (36th floor) with tally marks on a yellow sheet. I will also have guest sign-in sheet on which you can write down how many times you climbed up that day. The vertical mile (12 times up) is a common endurance goal for some people.

With over 400 vertical feet one time up, 100 times up would be more than 40,000 feet or over 7 miles up – much greater than from sea level to the top of Mt. Everest! Stepclimbing records are posted on my website.