An Airdrie resident celebrated her 40th birthday in style on June 11, successfully climbing to the top of the McHugh Bluff stairs in Calgary.
Lovepreet Deo, an Airdrie resident with cerebral palsy, said she wanted to do something special for her milestone birthday this year. Having completed half-marathons on her bicycle in the past, she added she wanted to come up with another movement-related challenge.
“I wanted to do something different – something to challenge me,” said Deo, who has lived in Airdrie for 12 years after previously living in Calgary.
She ultimately settled on climbing the 167 wooden stairs at McHugh Bluff. The 11-flight staircase is located on the north side of Memorial Drive, across the Bow River from downtown Calgary.
“To be honest, I’ve always heard of [these stairs] and I’ve heard they’re some of the hardest stairs to climb, so I just wanted to give it a try,” she said.
Taking on the stairs June 11, Deo managed to get to the top in less than an hour, pausing once for a 15-minute break.
She said there were plenty of family and friends at the top of the stairs to cheer her on, while members of the public who were there to exercise also stopped to provide her with some encouraging words.
“A lot of people stopped and told me to keep going, and that was amazing,” she said.
A video – posted by Cerebral Palsy Alberta on social media – captured the final moments of Deo’s climb as she arrived at the top of the steps.
Afterwards, Deo said she could hardly believe she had accomplished the feat.
“When I was about to take my last step, my trainer was behind me and said, ‘Look down, look at how far you’ve come,’” she said.
Her trainer, Dawn Sorsdahl, has coached Deo since 2016 and said Deo has always been driven to accomplish whatever athletic endeavours she sets her mind to. Sorsdahl highlighted some of the other exercise challenges Deo has achieved, such as competing in a half-marathon bicycle race and the 20-kilometre Cerebral Palsy Association's Life Without Limits Challenge in 2016. Those accomplishments earned Deo the Personal Inspiration Award from the Alberta Abilities Lodges Society that year.
“She was like that at the beginning, when we first started training,” said Sorsdahl, a wellness specialist and personal trainer at Genesis Place Recreation Centre. “She would look at a machine and say, ‘I want to use that.’ Sometimes I’d say, ‘OK, but we need to work our way up and do certain movements before I can get you on that machine.’
“But she always had a goal, whether it was trying a new weight machine, a cardio machine, joining a spin class – she would have a goal and we would take steps to accomplish it.”
After reaching the top of the stairs, Deo said she celebrated the achievement by checking out the view of downtown Calgary, with the Rocky Mountains in the background.
Now that she has accomplished her birthday goal, Deo said she has another stair-related challenge in her sights – summiting all 802 steps to the top of the Calgary Tower.
“I know she’s thinking of [cycling] the Legacy Trail as well, so she’s always thinking of the next step,” Sorsdahl said.
