Wearing all their gear and carrying 42-pound packs, firefighters lumber up a five-story tower two by two.
They hoist up another 42 pounds to the top before stomping down the stairs, where they each hit a 160-pound beam out of the way with a sledgehammer. They weave left and right around obstacles until they reach the fire hoses, which they lug back, aim and fire.
They each grab a 175-pound dummy and drag the "victim" to safety.
The ritual is the Firefighter Combat Challenge, and no one has performed it more times than Pat Hartley, 54. The Gainesville Fire Rescue firefighter is the only one who's competed in the challenge every year since it was started in 1992.
He's always qualified for the highest level of competition, placing at the world championship three times - second place in 1994, fourth in 1995 and third in 2004. His best time is 1 minute, 53 seconds.
Though he qualified for the championship again this year, city budget cuts forced him and five other Gainesville Fire Rescue firefighters to take the year off. He didn't attend the championship, which took place in Las Vegas from Nov. 4 to Nov. 8.
"I wasn't going to fork out ,3,000 to pay for it myself," he said. Next year he said he'll start saving early and hope the competition will be close enough for him to drive.
The competition takes place across the United States, as well as in Canada and Australia, and gives firefighters a chance to show off skills through tasks that mimic what they do at a fire.
Hartley first attended a regional competition in Orlando in 1992 with four coworkers. The team came in second place out of 12, qualifying the members for the national competition in Anaheim, Calif.
"We tried to prepare, but it was new to everybody, even all the other competitors," Hartley said.
The team didn't place at nationals that year, and since all the teams were from the United States, there was no world championship. Australia and Canada would start competing in 1994.
Nowadays, Hartley starts practicing six weeks before a competition, using a five-story tower identical to the one in the competition.
Gainesville Fire Rescue persuaded the city to buy the tower for them four years ago. It looms over the parking lot behind Station No. 2.
Hartley is out there constantly, coworker J.D. Perryman said. Most of the firefighters start going to bed at 8:30 p.m., Perryman said.
"And if we get a call at 1 o'clock, he's out there still running the tower. He's out there dragging dummies around and it's scary," he said.
Hartley has worked for Gainesville Fire Rescue for 22 years and at Station No. 2 for the past 16. Before that, he worked briefly for Ocala Fire Rescue.
A Williston native, Hartley was always an athlete. He attended SFCC on a scholarship, throwing the discus for the now-defunct track team.
Unsure of what he wanted to do after community college, Hartley completed his six weeks of fire college in 1983.
Today his son, Joel, is a firefighter with Alachua County Fire Rescue. The two competed in the tandem event at last year's Southeast regional competition - the first and only father-son pair in the challenge's history.
But not all Hartley's memories of the challenge are happy. At the 2004 world championships in Ottawa, Canada, Hartley was favored to win the over-50 competition as he faced the Canadian champion in the last race of the day. It was close until the end.
"So here we go, pulling the dummy, pulling the weight and I'm thinking, 'I'm finally going to win the world championship,'" he said.
Hartley was about 15 feet ahead when he tripped on a bump in the carpet, landing with the 175-pound dummy on top of him.
He was five feet from the finish line when his opponent rushed past him. He came in third.
Hartley's competitive nature makes it hard for him not to stress out about races, he said.
The race may be a few minutes of physical hell, he said, "but two or three hours up until then, you're putting your mind through the same thing because in your mind you're thinking, 'I hope I don't screw up.'"
Most of the firefighters he used to compete with left the race long ago. When they started not doing as well as they used to, they gave up, he said. But Hartley continues.
He said he thinks he could have placed in the top three at the world championship this year if he had gone.
Next year he'll move up to his first year in the 55-and-over age bracket, Hartley said, giving him a winning edge.
A self-proclaimed "maniac about working out," Hartley said he can't give up on this contest.
"I do it just to have something to do, to be competitive at," he said.
