{"id":1582,"date":"2012-03-03T13:45:43","date_gmt":"2012-03-03T17:45:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hnetalk.com\/?p=1582"},"modified":"2012-03-03T13:45:43","modified_gmt":"2012-03-03T17:45:43","slug":"spring-in-my-steps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/2012\/03\/03\/spring-in-my-steps\/","title":{"rendered":"Spring in My Steps"},"content":{"rendered":"

Step, step, step, step, step, step, step, step, step, turn.
\nStep, step, step, step, step, step, step, step, step, turn.
\nStep, step, step, step, step, step, step, step, step, turn.
\nAnd people complain about treadmills being boring.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018Tis the season for stairs. Lots of them. Like a relationship you just can\u2019t end, the stair climb rears its head to welcome Spring until you can no longer ignore its lure. You can tell by the cadence at irregular intervals in the stairwells every day. By the extra water bottles piled up in the recycle bins and stop watches replacing neckties. I’m thinking about adopting \u00a0the every other\u00a0\u00a0step method, but for now my foot lands\u00a0on\u00a0each stair…double the fun! \u00a0I mostly use the right hand rail. I stare at the floor. I swear at the 18th floor landing…and yes, I do wear headphones.<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure I have lousy form. I am far too comfortable in relaxed fit jeans and have a few too many years to be very fast in real life (vs. in my own mind \u2013 where I conquer the well o\u2019 stairs with blazing speed). And I just learned I have good endurance and poor stamina which just means I can climb stairs for a long time but can\u2019t climb them quickly for a long time. I don\u2019t care \u2013 anymore. But I DID care two weeks ago when I made a monumental training mistake. I ignored every bit of good sense and good strategy I learned and did too much-too soon. Let\u2019s just say for the first time out I should not have climbed from the lobby to boiler room four times. Actually, it wasn\u2019t the climb up that did me in, it was the runs down. Like clockwork, delayed muscle soreness syndrome kicked in and 48 hours later I was walking around with fiery knots in my calves and a big L on my forehead.<\/p>\n

So if the training is so awful, why is it so popular?<\/strong>
\nWe can give credit to the Lung Association Fight for Air Climb event scheduled for Monarch Place next month. Nothing like a good cause, a conveniently located event and some well-established workplace rivalry to get the blood flowing.<\/p>\n

Sometime in the morning of March 3, 2012, I\u2019ll take my place in a lineup of athletes of assorted skill levels and talk myself into walking up to the starting line and actually starting when my turn comes. Like the others I\u2019ll have a specific time to begin\u2026every 30 seconds another brave soul will start their ascent up 48 flights (24 floors).<\/p>\n

This will be stair climb #3 for me. I\u2019ve used it as an excuse to stay fit in the winter. The thought of those flights ahead of me keep me honest. And, stair climbing is great cross training for running, so it\u2019s a fantastic way to get ready for the ever-popular Holyoke St. Patrick\u2019s Day 10k. But there is no mistaking that stair climbing is just that \u2013 stair climbing. No amount of running, spinning, squats or lunges will take the place of actually hauling your body up those flights. With luck (actually, with lots and lots of practice) my finish time will be around four and a half minutes. (a lifetime, really) The good news is that it\u2019s only a few minutes. The bad news is that it is the longest darned few minutes ever. Minutes full of monotony, drudgery, agony, sweat, pain, mental anguish \u2013 and suddenly you are at the top. These climbs are relentless, endless — then, suddenly, they’re over. They’re hard work, they’re paralyzing, they’re inspirational. It\u2019s \u201clife in a stairwell\u201d \u2013 one step at a time, keep moving in the right direction\u2026you get the idea) and at the top you cross the finish line. (whoo hoo! We LOVE goal-meeting and we REALLY love GOAL-CRUSHING!!) In my case I rush to the nearest trash can, just to be safe, and after a minute of recovery it\u2019s safe to high five the finishers crowded around the water table.<\/p>\n

And, with cough drops aplenty, we take the elevator down.
\nIt\u2019s so obvious how hard the climb up is\u2026As in life, the descent is completely effortless.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Step, step, step, step, step, step, step, step, step, turn. Step, step, step, step, step, step, step, step, step, turn. Step, step, step, step, step, step, step, step, step, turn. And people complain about treadmills being boring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[15,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-goals-and-motivation","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6ZZxW-pw","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1582\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}