Stairs...Why'd it Have to be Stairs?

Last night my husband had a volleyball game at church. Instead of just watching the game, my friend Tasha and I decided to get a little exercise ourselves. Tasha suggested we run the steps outside the church. She's always getting me in trouble like that.

There are two sets of steps outside the church...each with 28 steps. One set has 3 landings and the other only has one. We decided that we should at least start with the harder flight. 

At first my goal was to run up 10 times...just because its a nice round number. I tried to stay near the handrail, since I've been know to trip UP steps in the past...and I have a low pain tolerance.  

My two kids plus Tasha's pre-teen son were with us.  They seemed to be all over the steps, circling us like sharks. (Hey...isn't this shark week?)  it sure seemed like there were more than 3 of them. At one point my son decided he wanted to give me an extra challenge and he jumped in front of me. Trying to get around him I felt like live action Frogger dodging cars. One I passed him he grabbed my leg and I had to drag him up the second half of the stairs. Running stairs is hard enough, but an extra 60 pounds of dead weight doesn't make it any easier. I can comfort myself knowing I burned off at least an extra bowl of ice cream thanks to him. 

After 10 reps (280 steps...yes we were counting) we decided we should go for 15. Fortunately by now the kids had gotten tired of the steps and had moved on to playing in the parking lot. (Yes, we were the only ones in that part of the church and there were no cars around).   Five more reps later we were done...or so we thought. 

Walking back to the gym we had to walk up the other set of 28 steps...so we decided we might as well run those too. That gave us a grand total of 16 reps. We were so worn out that we didn't do our calculations until we we're inside the comfortably air conditioned building. 16 reps of 28 steps gave us a grand total of 448 steps. Being that close to 500 we foolishly made the decision that we could go back outside and do 2 more reps. 

This time we chose the steps with more landings. More landings=more breaks=less chance we would die. We finished our last two reps and felt the need to collapse. We were done.  D. O. N. E. Done!

Somehow we ended up at the bottom of the steps again, (probably something to do with the picture above) and the gym was still at the top of the steps. LAST TIME...and I mean it. We ran up giving us a total of 19 reps. 532 steps total. A new record for us (of course our old record was 0...but that's not really the point.). Tasha's husband later tried to talk us into more reps to make it an even 20, but that just wasn't happening. 

____________________________________

Week in review

I know I didn't post everything I did this past week (I didn't want to bore you) so here's a quick summary of what happened:

Friday Night

• Planked for 20 seconds
• Bowled a strike!  The whole family went bowling with some friends on Friday night and I bowled a strike.  It was the first ball I threw...and the only strike I bowled that night.  My next ball was in the gutter.  I just wanted to let you know how random I can be in all aspects of my life. (Oh, I bowled a 112 on the first game and was the undisputed winner.  Yay me!)

Saturday

• Planked for 30 seconds.
• Sweated outside in the yard.  More cross training for me.

Sunday

• Planked for 30 seconds
• Took a much needed afternoon nap

Monday 

• Ran 3.74 miles.  Today I went back to my 10k training program.  The goal was to run a total of 40 minutes (with three 1 minute breaks).  At the end of my run I tacked on one more minute for good measure.  3.74 miles in 41 minutes.  That's just under 11 min/mile.  Awesome pace for me!  My total walking distance (warm up, cool down, intervals, and a little extra at the end) was 1.28 miles.  Total workout time...1 hour exactly.
• Planked for 20 seconds.  I know, I was supposed to plank for 40 seconds.  I made the mistake and tried to plank shortly after running.  I just couldn't do it.  The plan was to try again later in the day...but I forgot.  I'm sure my subconscious just didn't want to...or something like that.

Tuesday 

• Planked for 40 seconds.  Today was supposed to be a day off...but I still needed to complete yesterday's plank.  I planked first thing in the morning because I didn't want to forget.  Plank...done!
• Elliptical for 33 min.  I finally went back to the gym on base.  It was nice to get in some cardio that doesn't hurt my knees.
• Weights.  After the elliptical I spent about 20 minutes on weight machines.  I started with the inner and outer thigh machines that I love (to hate).  Next I wanted to try a few new machines, working a few other muscles.  The first machine I sat down at wasn't set up for someone my size.  After about 5 minutes trying to adjust it (and I'm sure there was more than one person laughing at my ineptitude) I finally gave up without ever using the machine.  Who needs to lift weights anyway?

Wednesday

• Ran 4.04 miles.  Today I went back to running.  The goal was to move up the next step on my Bridge to 10k program.  Unfortunately, I fat fingered the app...and I redid my last run.  I didn't realize it until I was 15 minutes into my workout. Doh!!!  What I should have done is run for a total of 45 minutes (with two 1 minute breaks).  So...I punished myself by running what should have been my cool down.  That means I ran 45 minutes with three 1 minute breaks.  Not too bad.  It was humid like a sauna...and I learned that there is a limit to the amount of sweat my dri-fit shirt can absorb.  Good thing it misted a little on and off to cool me occasionally.  In addition to running I walked 1.03 miles for a total workout time of 1 hour exactly.
• Planked for 45 sec.  This is really starting to get hard!

Thursday

• Planked for 45 sec.  I'm not sure I'm ever going to get to 5 minutes...
• Cycle for 6.4 miles.  Loving my new bike shorts.
• Ran 532 steps.  Ouch!

Friday

• Ran 3.1 miles.  Since Monday I've done cardio every day.  I wanted to keep that up, but finish the week on something easy.  I decided the best way to do that is to run a straight 5k.  After all, I don't want to get too used to running intervals, or I'll get too dependent on those breaks.  It was super sunny this morning, so I modified my route to stay in the shade.  On days like today shade is my best friend.

I can't believe that I actually ran 3 times this week...but my knees are not happy with me.  I'm probably going to have to give them a rest next week.  But there will be no rest for the planks!