I have learned that climbing up and down stairs is one of the most mechanically sophisticated things our legs do in a day. It requires strength, it requires balance, it requires the sense of touch, it requires confidence. Most of us learned that when we were 1 to 2 years old. Trial and error, the odd fall, the death grip on the railing. Easy when you're 1 ... the ground isn't very far away. Not so easy when you're 45.
I finally have most of my energy back. I own a treadmill, but walking on that at home is BORING, my bike is on the trainer, but riding that at home is BORING (and I won't ride it off the trainer - the risk of falling is too high), so I've been pretty good lately about getting into the gym.
Now me, being me ... maybe a little intense, maybe a little focused, maybe a wee bit Type A, looked around and said "what is the thing that challenges me the most".
Stairs
So, I got on the stair climber. Not the stepper, the stair climber - the thing that is like a treadmill but with stairs.
The most terrifying 5 minutes of my life.
It didn't help my peace of mind that I wasn't wearing my glasses so I couldn't really see the controls, and that there is no safety stop magnet like there is on a treadmill. When the machine is moving, you can't feel the stair when you step on it, you don't know how much of your foot is actually on the step, and it's keep-up-or-fall-off ... life gets pretty interesting.
But I did it. Sorry brain ... you really need to shut up. I think the biggest challenge was overcoming the self-talk about "what if", calming the fear and just focusing on each step.
That was a couple of weeks ago. Today I'm up to 15 minutes, and going fast enough to raise my heart rate and break a sweat. It's not the 45 minutes I could do a year ago, but 51 weeks ago I couldn't walk.
One final frontier to go ....
Running.
