"I think you should do a blog about stairs. A photo-blog."

Way back on Day 1 of 30 Days of Blogging I talked about my attempt at giving up sloth for Lent. I've put on a lot of weight over the past few years, and recognize that this is unhealthy, so I tried to use Lent to introduce some healthier habits into my life, like taking the stairs. When I posted it, my friend Rod said:

"I think you should do a blog about stairs. A photo-blog."

and that's our topic for today.

Since Lent ended, I've kind of been backsliding a little. I've taken the stairs a few times, but fewer times than I've taken the elevator. Maybe revisiting the whole idea will help me to refocus on the idea that it might be better for me to be less enormous.

This is the outside stairwell on my building:



It doesn't look so terrible in that photo, because you're still down in the parking lot. It looks like a nice, long, slow ascent. This weird optical illusion is aided by the fact that the stairs are, for some odd reason, only about three inches high:



and also because the stairwell has a bend in the middle. It totally doesn't look like three stories worth of steps, right?

When you get on the stairwell and start climbing, you don't notice the first step:



because you're wide awake and full of energy and haven't started climbing yet. You will notice something else, though: For some random reason people seem to think the staircase is a perfectly acceptable place to stop and try to carry on a conversation with you. Hi, can't you see I'm wheezing here?

Anyway, the first leg of the stair case isn't terrible. Not only that, but it leads to a big step where the staircase turns and you get to walk on level ground for two or three steps:



but that's only for a second before you have to start the second, worse leg of the stairs:



This is the leg when your legs hurt. You get that slightly trembly in the knee feeling like your legs just want to give out, but you have to keep climbing the stairs because the shame of laying down and dying on them in full view of every coworker who pulls their car into the parking lot all morning long and then being picked apart by vultures and crows is too horrible to contemplate, and yet you somehow manage to contemplate that very thing anyway, and it keeps you climbing until you reach the third floor. Because our building is built on a hill, the third floor is also the first floor on the front of the building.

The third floor also presents you with options:



You can use the stairwell right there to climb to the last floor, or you can walk down to the one closer to your office. I always walk down to the further away one, because there is never anyone on that outside sidewalk between them. It means I can wheeze in peace without having to talk to anyone. The long slow stretch means I can catch my breath before the last staircase, and the outside sidewalk means I can do it without walking past the open doorways of all the neighboring offices along my hallway.

Eventually the sidewalk runs out, though:



and there's more climbing:





and then we're finally out of stairs.