I Hate Climbing Stairs but My Fifth Time at ‘Scale the Strat’ Was Better Than Ever, Here’s Why
Scale The Strat is an annual Las Vegas charity event where participants climb more than 1,400 steps to the top of The Strat Hotel to raise money for American Lung Association research, education and advocacy efforts. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death worldwide, and other lung conditions, such as COPD, asthma or respiratory infections add to annual lung-related deaths and significantly affect quality of life.
I’m proud to say that my team, Team Sexton – named in honor of a dear friend’s former boss, Mike Sexton, who passed away – was among the top fundraising groups in 2025. The event raised more than $230,000 this year.
My Motivator for 2025
Each year, I ask myself if maybe I should skip the event. Honestly, stairs are not for me, and training can be a little stressful. Scale The Strat is the only stairclimbing-focused fundraiser I know of and a lot of people are afraid to sign up because the activity is seen as extreme.
This year, however, I had a big motivation to climb those stairs, even though my body and mind told me ‘no.’ My mother, Sally Hamburg, who taught me many life and business lessons, lost her battle with lung cancer last April. Navigating her loss has made for a challenging year at times, but I’ve been fortunate to have a great support system, my friends from this event are no exception. This year, I climbed in my mom’s memory, and even wore her earrings!
A Little Pain and a Lot of Gain
About two months before the date, I began training with my group. We met twice a week at casino parking garages, or other areas around town where we knew we had access to flights of stairs, in order to condition ourselves for the big day.
This year’s training was more challenging than ever. I had put on some weight over the holidays and realized on a recent vacation I was struggling to climb stairs. I also had respiratory challenges a few months ago, a dry cough, and I don’t take breathing for granted. These all felt like warning signs that my health was a little out of sync.
So, I decided to use the event as a healer. Training could help me address my health, and the climb would be a great way to process my grief, plus, I could enjoy it all while being in community with others.
As I climb the stairs, my strategy has always been to look up, never back, and this year remembering my reason for climbing definitely made it easier to do so. Community helped as well. I met other climbers and heard their stories about who they were climbing in memory of. I kept at my own pace, steady and slow, and felt more energized at the top than ever!
I’m also so grateful for my team. We’ve grown from a few of us to more than a dozen today. Many now bring along friends or neighbors and we now have attorneys, bankers, finance community leaders, a health coach, among others, on board.
My mom was an empath who loved giving, and when she was alive encouraged me to climb those unforgiving stairs so that I could help others. I’m sure next year I’ll face similar hesitations about scaling The Strat, but she’s now my motivation to do it again. Our team is always looking for more enthusiastic climbers. Reach out if you’d like to join us!
