Stairs

Miles Run:39.72
Miles Biked:85.99
Total Miles:125.71
Stadium Stairs Run*:1020
Steep Steps Run*:536
Days to Rainier:144
Summit Team:8.55
Aspirin Tablets:35
*for each round trip only the upward steps are counted

Dang, soon the stats alone will be their own blog post!
Wow! I really don't like running but I found something I like even less. Running stairs! Yeah it is pretty much the reason they invented Tylenol (Also known as the soldier's candy). Being a total rebel, I decided that Aspirin is the real non-conformist pain salve. (Actually I am just too cheap to buy the more powerful stuff to numb the achilles pain). The upside of the stair addition to my routine is that now I have a new stat. Since the progression of stats is denominated in miles, people, and pills, I will record my stair progress in ascended steps, so the number can look all cool and impressive.
So where do I run steps? Naturally I had to choose the most ridiculous place in three states. It is called "Rura Penthe". That is my name for it (ever seen Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country? In the movie, Captain Kirk and Dr. McCoy are sentenced to a life sentence to be served at the Klingon dilithium mines on a god-forsaken ice planetoid called Rura Penthe). The stair's official name is probably something like "the Thistle street pedestrian link." Regardless of my fanciful name or its official designation, it is factually the longest continuous set of stairs in Oregon, Idaho, or Washington State. It is horrible.
Pictures will come at some point.
That stair case kicked my butt. The first section is a set of 204 wide steps with a similar height and tred dept as a typical flight at UW's Husky Football Stadium. The average height of each step is about 6 inches. The upper section boasts 11.5 inch steps andan indeterminant number of steps. I tried to count them, but each time I decended from the top, I kept losing count! It seems my body had determined that death was iminent therefore blood no longer needed to be pumped to my brain. Apparently, my body was indignant at my brain for deciding to destroy the body and "turned off the tap" as it were.
That is the first time I have ever been so winded that I couldn't count.
Each step required a leap and delicate landing only to precariously teeter on the edge of oblivion, the only option was to launch myself toward the next towering step. Each of the four times I found myself at the antipenultimate step, my heart was a roaring jet engine deafening my ears; at the penultimate step, every fiber demanded a halt; at the ultimate step, my soul rallied, my imageo-dei was recalled, and I rejoiced. The culmination of each conquering trip toward heaven was my knife.
Carving another tally into the heart's wood of some long-since-dead pine tree, a cellulose Ebeneezer to God's gift of pain and expectation of my goal: Rainier.
Only 144 days left.
Also the cadre grows: Greg (who has beaten some 14,000+ Colorado peaks) and his bride-to-be Melissa (who has run the 26.2 tour de morts some strange folks associate with that beautiful and desolate plain in Greece).
We are men and women dedicated to a cause. Our espirit de corp is high, our passionate temporaires raison d'etre is a white rocky peak less than 200 miles from where I sit.

So why do I keep writing these awkward diatribes about pain and foolish self-abasement?
I really want to stop doing this whole training thing. I just want it to be over. But I am committed (not institutionally, though sometimes I wonder if I ought to be, :P). And I need to remind myself. I need to keep the goal in mind. I write these for the same reason that I sing the song All My Tears by Ex Nihilo; I need to be reminded that after this is finished there is a glorious End.