Les, wore me out watching. How many miles do you walk during that process? Clearly a well worked-out method.
When we had LEU Treehugger flying, I decided one nice day to go for an altitude record. Our field is about 750 ft MSL, and I climbed and climbed, finally reaching about 1800 MSL, only about 1000' above ground. That was all she had. Old girl was definitely over-weight and underpowered, and I was a challenging load. I think our light-weight guy, about 75 lbs lighter than me, could have broken that record easily.
I know you will do better. Have a great weekend.