Patio fundraiser a peak performance
When Mike Brown woke up on Friday, he decided to scale Mt Everest – in his backyard.
The 49-year-old Christchurch painter and dragon boat coach calculated he would have to walk up and down his 1.26 metre-high patio steps 7022 times to reach Mt Everest’s 8847m summit.
He started at 10am on Saturday, carrying all his food and bedding in a back pack. A completely exhausted and emotional Brown, finished close to 32 hours later at around 5.50pm last night.
‘‘I just woke up on Friday morning and thought I’d give this a crack before I go back to work on Tuesday.’’
Brown hoped to raise $2000 to buy a tent to provide shelter at competitions for his dragon boat team, the Southern Dragons. Donations were sitting around $2200 at 6pm yesterday.
‘‘We’ve been a bit short of funds and this is one way to give it a crack.
‘‘I coach a lot of millennials that have put a foot wrong here and there. If I can lead by example, they seem to respect that a lot better.’’
When The Press first talked to Brown he had been going for 25 hours with just a one-hour power nap.
‘‘I’m definitely pushing my limits. It kind of feels like I’m a wee bit delirious. I’ve had to push through.’’
His knees gave up after a few hours so he had to heavily bandage them to keep going.
‘‘The body is so sore. It feels like I’ve been at the bottom of a scrum for 80 minutes.’’
Brown has been munching on fruit, nuts, chocolate and rolled oats to get him through and yesterday morning he had consumed close to 20 litres of water but he was really craving some bacon and eggs.
‘‘I forgot about salt. I’m starting to get cramps.’’
During a live Facebook post showing his final ascent, Brown, who was in obvious pain, said he would not recommend doing such an activity but he was amazed at what the body could do.
He was looking forward to eating those bacon and eggs.
‘‘I might have a wee beer too and go to sleep.’’
‘‘The body is so sore. It feels like I’ve been at the bottom of a scrum for 80 minutes.’’
Mike Brown