Cowboy Hazel

I am shocked by how improved today's stair workout was over last week's. A week ago, 10 trips up the 110 steps* left me hardly able to walk for a couple days. Today, I did 16 trips and now don't have any pain in my legs at all. Crazy.

Of course, it was still a hell of a workout. I was sweating like a greased pig in just shorts and a long sleeve t-shirt despite the fact that it was only 46 degrees out. My legs started to shake pretty bad after the 11th trip and I had trouble getting back down the stairs without falling. But, I was still able to keep a solid pace, never letting two feet touch at the same time. All the trips were within 4 seconds of each other, so there was no significant fade. When I finished up and started towards home, I got noodle legs again, but only for a couple hundred yards and was able to run 8:04s instead of last week's 8:30s.

I broke out my calculator and figured out that if the Empire State Building Run-up is 1,576 steps and 86 floors, today's 1,760 steps is equivalent to just over 96 floors. That makes me feel a little better about my odds of actually finishing this thing in a decent time. Let's hope.

* I recounted today a couple times and kept getting 110 instead of 109.