“I keep saying it’s my last one, but when you do quite well, you’re keen to have another go.”
Veteran Nelson Airport firefighter Murray Hart sparked a new record in the Supreme Grand Masters category at the annual Firefighter Sky Tower Challenge on 18 May.
The event is the optimum challenge for firefighters across Aotearoa to burn through the pain, ascending the 51 flights of the tower’s stairs while carrying a 25kg carbon fibre cylinder, to fundraise for Leukaemia and Blood Cancer New Zealand.
The challenge has four main categories, with the Supreme Grand Masters set for firefighters aged 60 and over.
Murray, who marks four decades fanning the flames next month, says conquering the second tallest building in the southern hemisphere for the eighth time in a recording-breaking 13 minutes and five seconds, was unexpected but “pleasing”.
“I didn’t really expect to do quite that time, I had done a lot of training, and I thought I would be similar to last year, but I was over a minute quicker,” he says.
“It’s a good cause and a great day up there too. It’s an amazing day around the Sky Tower with 1000 firefighters and all their supporters.”
The 67-year-old says his fuel for the record was his training, which he ramped up around four months before the challenge.
“I keep pretty fit all year, a lot of hill work, and the bulk of my hard work is done on Tamaki Steps [in Tāhunanui] with a heavier set of breathing apparatus, which I actually wear up the tower.
“I was training for an hour and a half up there virtually every day for the last three months.”
Nelson Airport firefighters and challengers Matt van der Heyden and Alec Hampson joined Murray in raising more than $12,700. Around $11,000 of that was raised at the Walk the Runway event in January.
