Two years ago, I wrote about my long history with my favorite step machine. I was prepping for my first tower climb race, the Empire State Building Run-up. Since then, I have completed 4 races, two at the Empire State Building and two at 1 World Trade Center. Meanwhile, my trusty Stairmaster Freeclimber 4600PT broke down.

But good news: I found a new one.

On three separate occasions, I have had to get my step machine repaired. The first two times, a plastic part failed, which caused the chains to sometimes skip. These repairs are expensive. The house call alone costs a couple hundred bucks, and the parts aren’t cheap.

This last time, the problem was different. The steps would simply not resist my weight and drop down to the floor. Again, I called my local repair shop. The repairman replaced the alternator, which drives the variable resistance, and my broken power supply, but the problem still persisted. He said that the next most likely culprit was the control board that drives the alternator. But he recommend that I stop trying to repair the machine at this point, as it would probably cost more than the value of the machine, and we might just be spending money to unsuccessfully chase issues.

And so, my machine sat, broken, for most of the past year. My fitness has suffered, as I have lost my main source of cardio. My most recent tower race was worse than the ones before, as I had nothing to train on.

But then, on a lark, I decided to search Facebook Markeplace for my model. Truthfully, I didn’t immediately search. I started an agent session in Notion to brainstorm what I might be able to do to fix my model, and the agent found a nearby listing of a Freeclimber 4600PT. The listing was 7 weeks old.

I reached out, and it turns out it was still on sale! Pretty quickly, we agreed on a price. Then, the seller let me know that unfortunately, the power supply was dead. Lucky for me, I still had a replacement power supply from my last attempted repair.

The same night, I scrounged up enough cash for the purchase (I had left my wallet, with my ATM card at a bakery, and wouldn’t get it back until the next day). I folded down all the seats in our Pacifica to make room for the 6-foot tall piece of equipment, and drove 40 mins to pick it up.

I brought my power supply with me to the purchase, and it worked fine with his unit. There was, however, one snag. Despite being the exact model I was looking for, the seller’s unit had a completely different console. And the console lacked the only workout I ever do: Fat Burner Plus. This was a dilemma.

In the end, it was a great price, and I decided not to let perfect be the enemy of good. I can get used to a new workout.

So now, I’m back in business.

Now, I just need to figure out what to do with my broken down unit.

The friends we made along the way

Besides the joy of having my favorite stepper back, one of the best parts of the experience was working with the seller, Anthony. Parting with the stepper was emotional for him, as he had also spent a lot of time on it and used it to lose significant weight. But he had shifted to using a recumbent bike, instead, for lower impact.

It was hard for him to part with his 4600PT, but I think he was happy that it was going to another superfan. And I was just as psyched.