Racing up the 101

I gingerly opened my eyes as my dark room was suddenly illuminated by my light.
"Oh! The race is today!" I practically jumped out of my bed in anticipation. We were going to run up Taipei 101 with it's 91 floors, and 2,046 stairs! The problem was, I was still kind of sick with a flu/ cold...
Well, God was going to have to help me. I knew we had to take a health check-up too and that made me a little nervous.
All of us runners; my dad, my mom, Inah, Benjamin, and myself, met at the MRT (metro). My dad noticed that Benjamin didn't have his tag on his shoe.
"Do you have it? You can't run without it." my dad commented.
"Yeah, it's in my bag right... right...Where is it?" He said, rummaging through his bag. Apparently, he left it at home! Luckily he rode his scooter and was able to zoom up the mountain, find it, and meet us again in time.
We just milled around in the drizzling rain for about an hour until we could line up. They had separated us all into groups because of the amount of people and how narrow the staircase was.
I remember looking up at the 101 as far as my neck could tilt. It was slightly intimidating yet exciting at the same time.

 Soon, my parents got in line with the rest of us not too far behind for the health check up. I was starting to get nervous. I wasn't sure want to expect. Soon enough, I could see they were taking people's temperatures.
"Uh oh. I've had had a fever the last week. It had gone away, but it still makes me nervous."
Benjamin was in front of me and when he finished, he kind of paused to see what would happen with me. As the guy put his instrument over my forehead, I prayed and tried to prepare myself for the likely disappointing of not being able to run. Those three seconds seemed so much longer! He looked at it and said, "Okay, good" and waved me in. I couldn't believe it! I was so excited, I was in! I high-fived Benjamin and Inah and went to find my parents.
I ended up being in the same group as my dad. We waited and slowly winded our way in line into the building. As we got closer, we saw that they sent people one at a time with a few seconds in between to space them out. Being next in line, the guard looked at his watch, said 'go', and I was off!
I knew that there was no way anyone (at least no normal person) could run all the way to the top, but I was excited and decided I would run at least a little and then maybe at the end. Well, after 12 stories (so 24 sets of stairs), I had run all I could. My lungs started hurting really bad but I kept going; 24th floor, 30th, 35th, 49th, 52nd ... man was I getting tired! It wasn't so much that I was tired, but that my lungs felt like they were going to collapse! I started stopping more often for water, but every time I stopped, I would start coughing like crazy.  I wanted to be done by the 60th (something) floor.
"Maybe I shouldn't have passed that health check." I thought ruefully. "Okay, think positive, Enjoli" I told myself. "I can do this! I'm running/walking up Taipei 101! How cool is that?"
Each floor seemed farther and longer apart though. I was just trying to survive, I decided. 84th floor, 85th, 88th, and finally 90th! Just one more! I was able to somehow run up the last floor only to walk the few steps to the finish line.
"Yes!" I pumped my hands into the air. I survived!

 I saw my mom and her video camera as I passed the finish line, but I was feeling really faint and just wanted to sit down, "and maybe get some water." I thought as I made my way over the the water stand. I grabbed a cup and sat down at the closest, open place. It was so hard to breathe, I felt faint and a little nauseated, but I was done! After a while, my mom found me. My dad had come just a few minutes after me. Somehow, I made it to the elevator and back to the bottom of the building. By then I was feeling a lot better and felt like a could function again, haha! Once there, we got our medals, bag of goodies, and our certificate. I had made it in 30 min, 7 seconds.

 Wow, God is good! I don't know how I did that; only with God's help! Afterwards when people asked how the race was, I responded; "Honestly, it was awful while running up, but so exciting and rewarding when I finished. But some advice; never run up the 101 while you are sick!"