For the third year, Missy Courts will climb all 45 floors up Cincinnati’s Carew Tower on Feb. 17 in the American Lung Association’s Fight for Air Climb.

This time is more poignant, though, because the 50-year-old Mason woman now has lost both parents to lung cancer. Her mother died in 2009, and her dad died last fall.

“You just kind of go on. You have to,” Courts said. “It’s definitely a weird feeling not having any parents.”

Her daughter, Danielle Dierig, 28, of Florence, Kentucky, has climbed with her every year. Her son, Derek, 25, of Cincinnati, will join them this year on their 13-member team, Climbing for the G’s.

Courts, administrative assistant in the Mason High School guidance office, walks and exercises regularly. She’s doing some additional training for the event by using the StairMaster and elliptical.

“I don’t think anything could prepare you for the first time. It was the longest 30 minutes of my life … I had thought it was like 50 minutes or something. I got about probably six or seven floors and thought, ‘I can’t do this.’’’

Some climb for the physical challenge. The Vertical Mile category includes seasoned athletes who go up and down the tower 10 times, plus eight more floors and six steps to equal a mile.

Area firefighters, most in full gear, climb the tower in a friendly competition for the fastest firefighter award. This year’s participants include some Fairfield, Mason and West Chester Twp. firefighters.

Most climbers are like Courts, who’s in the At Your Own Pace category. They participate because someone in their family is affected by lung cancer, asthma or Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD).

Before heading up the Carew Tower stairs today, Courts will sign a banner in memory of her parents, Bob and Sara Hulse of West Chester Twp.

Courts first participated in 2011, a little more than a year after her mother died of lung cancer at age 71. At that time, her father had just been diagnosed with his third round of lung cancer. Meanwhile, her dad was a lifetime smoker and had COPD. He was 76 when he died.

Doctors believe her mother’s cancer was caused by second-hand smoke, growing up with a father and older brother who smoked, and then living with a husband who smoked, she said.

Last year, the American Lung Association in Ohio, Cincinnati office, raised $164,000 for education, advocacy and research efforts, said Liza Aromas-Janosik, development manager. The goal this year is $185,000.

Courts thinks the climb also provides a snapshot of living with lung disease.

“You’re in an enclosed stairway that doesn’t have the circulation that the rest of the building does, so it gets really hard to breathe,” she said. “You kind of get a feel for what it’s like even if you don’t have the issues.”

For more information on the climb, visit www.midlandlung.org.