Want a booty kickin exercise...

Without any fancy equipment? Try running stairs! (And I use the term running loosely). OMG! I was needing a good workout for my T,Th mornings because I HATE cardio machines but need the cardio burn. I've been running in the mornings, but I've become too efficient at it and found myself not willing to push myself. Plus, my shins are killing me. So, I decided to run the stairs in my office building. I should preface this by saying that we have a gym on the 13th floor of my office (top floor) so I'm able to shower and get ready for work there. Last Thursday, I told myself I would go up and down the 13 floors two times. I started off bounding up the steps. imagining myself as a gazelle leaping gracefully across the Savannah, until, ohhh, about the 5th floor when I had to stop, bend over and suck in air like I hadn't taken a breath for days, all the while waiting for the intense burning in my quads to subside. My visions of gazelles quickly turned into images of water buffalos giving birth. I made it to the top floor, gasping and panting like the afore mentioned water buffalo, and again had to suck wind and drink about a gallon of water. Round two wasn't any easier and just for spite (of myself), I did it one more time for a total of 39 floors! For the next few days, my calves screamed each time I took a step. I think they were saying something like "listen heifer, we're gonna go postal on your a** if you do that again." It was awesome.

Today, I aimed for 4 times, up and down, for a total of 52 floors. By the fourth time, my legs were as wobbly as noodles but I made it. It took me two minutes going down and three minutes going up. I plug my headphones into my ears and rock out to a hodge-podge of different songs. I love passing people on the stairwell (and they are few and far between) as they make their way down a flight with coffee and donut in hand. It's such a good cardio burn and I don't even have to be going fast. I have vowed to do this routine on T and Th for the entire month of March. Hopefully, by then, my gazelles will reappear and quickly get devoured by the lioness within me.

BTW, I'm making this my blog today too. I think I got carried away with my story. I was just going to post that running stairs is an awesome workout!

Whew! So I threw in a little more to my stair routine. My building actually has 14 floors. There's one flight that leads down to the parking garage. I thought to myself this morning that I should add that floor in as well. Since I'd never been down there, I did a little exploring and saw the parking garage and thought, I should run around it and then do stairs. So...I did. I went up and then down the stairs and ran two laps around the garage. I did this three times, the stairs four. I'd say, all in all, it was just under 1 mile of running and 56 floors. Also, on my last set of stairs, I decided to bound (like that gazelle) up them. I had to stop every other floor to catch my breath, but I made myself bound up them. What a freaking awesome workout! I was sweating and panting hard afterwards.

An added bonus is that my pants are starting to fit a little looser!

Did you see the episode of biggest loser this week and all the stairs they had to do...unreal!:sick:

I did! I love Tara! She kicks some serious *kitten*! And...I did think about my stair running while they were doing the stadium stairs. Awesome!

I generally judge if an exercise is rough by whether my college rugby team did it. We had an 18 floor building in my college and would do monsters for all 18 of them for one of our workouts. Those SUCKED! (I.E. up 1 flight, down 1 flight, up 2 flights, down 2 flights, up 3 flights, down 3 flights...etc) it took like an hour, and you were meat at the end, but man was it a good workout! I think if I tried that now, they'd find me dead at about floor 10. And yes, they let us rest at the half way point. thats 171 flights by the way.

Whew! I'm tired just reading that. When I become better at my routine, I just might have to try this. I'm thinking it will hurt. It will hurt real bad! I like that.