Cowboy Hazel

I made a discovery today: Running up 2,200 stairs hurts. A lot. I'm not sure why, but today's stair workout was significantly more difficult than last week's. I was already struggling by the time I made my third trip up. Only 17 to go... That made it worse. I started to focus on the "landmarks" and they became a kind of mantra: King Cobra can, landing, dirty napkin, orange graffiti, landing, black graffiti, light stair, top... I was hugging the handrail on my trips down and having to go pretty slow, not because I was being lazy, but because my legs were shaking so bad it was tough to not fall. There were lots of people out and they were unusually friendly. An old man stopped to tell me, I wish I could still do that. It's been a long time. I smiled. Some little kids waved as I passed. I got head nods and smiles, and even a Buenos tardes. The 20th trip sort of snuck up on me. I found it was easier to keep going without thinking of how many were left, so I hadn't really been paying attention to my watch. So, when I looked at it for the first time in a while and saw I was already done with the last set, I was very pleasantly surprised. I'd just run up the equivalent of 120 flights of stairs. Sigh of relief that it was over. I stumbled back down to the bottom, then tried to start running. My legs were like noodles again. I slowly transitioned back into running on flat ground and, after some struggling, got the pace under 9:00/mile. A couple miles later, after making a right onto Malcolm X, I saw the Empire State Building towering off in the distance and it all suddenly seemed worthwhile. Six more days.