Conquering Kilimanjaro from home
- 22 June 2021
Itikaas, a student of grade 5 from Oakridge International School Bengaluru conquered the famous and World’s Highest Freestanding mountain — Kilimanjaro by taking stairs for hours. Inspired by Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt and strong will to perform fitness activities, he decided to take this challenge to scale the height of the famous Tanzanian mountain of 5,895 meters in his own home.
To conquer the challenge, the 10-year-old climbed over 93000 steps in 23 days along with his family. Being the captain of his team of 5 members that include his parents and grandparents, he ensured to keep them motivated all the time with his encouraging team meetings. The steps and the floors they climbed, which was accomplishable because of their 3-story house with each floor having 18 steps and a terrace to walk.
Coupling intensive fitness work into their day-to-day activities like yoga, meditation, push-ups, plank to keep them going with extensive research, ITIS_FIT_FAMILY (team name) performed various activities together. Itikaas’s challenge would mean climbing the stairs up and down for around 10-20 times a day without using the elevator and walking for one and a half hours every day on the terrace to conquer the challenge.
He made posters for each floor to make a note of the floor count, and for the step count, the team used a step counter app and walked about 1000-4000 steps a day. The trick was simple “the earlier you reach the count, the sooner you complete the expedition.”
After 23 days of continuous effort, they were able to complete the challenge to fully climb Kilimanjaro as a team. “The best thing about this challenge was working with my teammates, making plans together, and giving pep talks to keep each day motivated,” said Itikaas. Though he aspires to become a scientist in the future, that doesn’t stop him from aiming to start running in Marathon and take up necessary training for it. His inspirational story not only encourages us to include fitness into our lifestyle but also promoted stair climbing as an exercise routine.
“They are confined physically but who can prevent the Oakridge students’ imagination from soaring high and transforming domestic spaces into the exciting terrain of Kilimanjaro?! We are proud and immensely impressed by Itikaas’s ingenuity and tenacity in acing this Global Campus challenge,” said Pallavi Mishra, School Prinicpal.
Written by Preeti Sahu – Shaping Brands and Inspiring Connections
