The Stairs

Yeah so its Tuesday and in my quest to squeeze in exercise in my already too busy day I decided to climb the stairs at work today. Ok let me not take full credit...So last week my trainer Charles Harris took me outside of the gym and pointed me to the steps *insert confused look here* He made me walk up and down the stairs in the mall 5 times. I'll be honest I don't do stairs. I don't like them! I whined a bit but he made sure I kept doing it anyway it. All in all I am not a fan and it was HARD! Okay hard isn't the right word because it doesn't fully convey what my body & mind were feeling at the time. But Charles was patient...to a point...and I got it done.

So this Saturday he says *insert his HUGE smile here* (I told him that smile doesn't help) he tells me to do the stairs 7...SEVEN... TIMES! I told him no way! I have to put my foot down lol anyway I moaned a lot but I did it. And to his credit he went up and down all 7 trips with me! But in my defense even a nice elderly couple told him he was working me too hard! *humph*

A/w I work on the 7th floor in my building (the top floor). I have gone down the 7 floors for fire drills, etc. but never up. So today I said in honor my trainer I will walk the stairs all 7 floors and I did. It really wasn't that bad. Going down was fine and I guess its really more like 8 floors b/c there is a Ground level, then a 1st floor. From Ground to Level 3 was good then going towards the 4th floor I realized it went from 2 sets of 8 steps to 2 sets of 10 steps!?! WTH?! What kinda building is this?! Where is the consistency!? lol

Fortunately, the government has had a big push to improve the health of its employees so there is this campaign called "Be a stairmaster" I'll have to take a pic and post it. So they have been encouraging employees to use the stairs. I will be honest I hate when someone gets on the 1st floor only to get off on the 2nd floor but if I worked on the 2nd floor I am sure I'd be doing the same lazy thing. Anyhow along the stairs there were fun facts posted such as trying low fat and soy cheese vs. full fat, tips on healthy snacks, and other healthy facts. Nice. I will suggest they change that weekly b/c it you use the stairs daily that will get boring. Then again this was my first time so who knows maybe they do change it up but I doubt it lol

Anyway it reminded me of something on my TO Do List "The Empire State Building Run-Up." Basically a much of crazy people each year (over a hundred runners from around the world) participate in this unique race up a total of 1,576 steps to the Observatory deck on the 86th floor. Yeah I know right? Well when I read about it in Runner's Magazine I said "Sweet, that's on the To Do List" I forgot about that so now we have a goal. Aside from that if Charles takes me on the stairs Saturday i wanna be able to breeze up them for the first time and see his face!

Some fun facts:

NYRR Empire State Building Run-Up FAST FACTS:
The race climbs 1,050 feet, or approximately 1/5 mile.
The 86 flights have a total of 1,576 steps (18-19 steps per flight).
Soaring 102 stories and 1,454 feet above Midtown Manhattan, the Empire State Building is the world’s most famous office building, and the tallest building in New York City.