Need to Raise Your Heart Rate? This Should Work
Not being a fan of heights, the video below certainly raised my heart-rate. I'll have to ask my doctor if 350 beats per minute is a good thing...
I think it's safe to assume that British climbing daredevil James Kingston and I will not ever be pals who do stuff together. Might be because our ideas of what constitutes a good time are wildly different. Where I love long walks on the beach, hot chocolate, puppies, and French manicures, James likes to free-climb (no safety equipment) the world's tallest structures. As you may have surmised, this is not a buddy match made in heaven.
James recently scaled the Eiffel Tower in Paris, of course without ropes or harnesses. He and his climbing partner had to dodge French security during the climb, only to be arrested upon setting foot on the ground. No charges were filed, and James had to promise not to climb the Eiffel Tower again for 3 years. But nobody said anything about Dubai.
Dubai is where you'll find the world's tallest residential building, the Marina 101, which tops out at around 1,394 feet. And, yes, James just climbed it. He says it was the most dangerous climb he's ever attempted, and with good reason. After scaling the building, he then climbed a crane on top of the Marina 101.
From Fox Sports:
Kingston wrote on YouTube that the Marina 101 was the tallest structure he's ever scaled, and that the footing was dangerously slippery at the very top of the crane.
"The crane that runs up the side of the building must be somewhere over the 450 meter mark as the building itself is officially set at 426 meters and the crane arm sits above it by quite a distance. Put it this way... you'd be dead if you fell off the top of the crane and landed on top of the building.... I [made] my way up to the tip of the cranes arm. It was pretty steep and was completely covered in grease/dust as it had been there for so many years. It was the slipperiest crane I've ever been on... parts of it were like ice! I finally reached the top and as you can see, the view was incredible."
If you can handle it, take a look:
While we're at it, here's James and his Eiffel Tower climb:
Okay. So, we've all hit that target heart-rate for the year then, right?