Standing at the Trailhead of Winter

The afterglow of having participated in an event with hundreds of others, everyone smiling, laughing, encouraging each other on, and generally just coming together for a cause never ceases to amaze me. It's such a good feeling, and I just want to wrap myself in it for days. The Hilton: 32 Floors of Pain I was ready well before my 8 am start time, so Hubby and I went to the check-in desk. Even though my stomach was churning from nerves, I forced myself to eat a banana and drink some Powerade. I've been working on the eating and drinking before and during my workouts, and I've seen such improvement in my performance that I didn't want to let the nerves change that for today. I knew I probably hadn't eaten enough with just the one piece of fruit, but I couldn't do any more than that. I was able to continue sipping water, though, and I made sure to continue drinking the entire event. I used to be really bad about this, so I'm happy with this aspect of my st...

One week remains before my stair climbing event. The nerves are starting to kick in. As this event will be the first of its kind for me, I have no idea what to expect. I've been stairstepping, but the machine can't truly prepare me for actual, most likely concrete, stationary stairs. I need real stairs this week to get a better sense of what's in store. I lamented my need for real stairs to my friend, and she suggested I run the stairs in one of the parking garages here in town. Brilliant! Why hadn't I thought of this? And from where I was sitting across from her at the coffee shop, looking out the window, I saw the perfect parking garage. Tomorrow its stairs shall be mine. I do think I've made fitness gains training for this event. I was able to go 40 minutes today at a speed I couldn't do four weeks ago. From the stairstepper, I went to the elliptical for an additional 20 minutes, getting in 1.7 miles, the farthest I've been able to do in a 20 minute per...

Inspired by Natalia , I searched for a stair climbing event close to home and found one in February that's not too far away. I signed up, my hubby all the while shaking his head and telling me I'm crazy. I'm excited and scared at the same time. Stair climbing is completely new to me; I didn't even know stair climbing events existed until I read about Natalia's participation. Even then, the idea to participate myself didn't occur to me. Yesterday, when I was on the stair climber for the first time, the thought crossed my mind that maybe this is something I could do during these colder months as I wait out the freezing temps, the snow, and the wind for when I can once again get outside on the bike. A quick internet search offered up several choices right in my backyard. I chose the 2011 Fight for Air Climb . Take a look at my page, and if you can donate a dollar or two, that'd be great. If not, a note of support would be just as wonderful. Now I need to figu...