stairs

It's stair running season!  Yay!

In my town we have several spectacularly long and steep staircases climbing their way out up the steep cliffs that the Red Deer river has carved out over thousands of years. 

Sprinting the stairs is my favorite form of exercise outside of roller derby.  I don't know why I like doing it, actually, since it makes me feel a bit sick.  It's the only exercise outside of non-stop burpees that makes me want to throw up within ten minutes of starting.  Perhaps it's the thrill of the light-headedness?  Why ever I like it, I do like to get out a few times a week to the stairs.

Running the stairs is fairly popular activity amongst the crazier of the outdoor exercisers around here.  On a nice summer day, you can hardly move on the steps for all the sweating, agonized people running up and down.  I've met other people who like to hang out at the wooden pavilion right at the top with spiked coffee, watching the stair runners for entertainment.  Apparently I'm not the only one who often feels like throwing up.  Some people do.

Here is kid camp at the base of the stairs. 

The childs like to have a snack and then spy on people walking the paths on the other side of the river.

They also like to spy on me while I do my stair laps.  I hope sometimes too that the childs use their binoculars to look at nature but I won't hold my breath.

After the stairs (honestly, I can't run it very long - twenty minutes at the best), the childs and I truck off down the paths and off the paths to do a bit of exploring.

Girl child is a bit of a daredevil and is convinced that I hate adventure, but we do enjoy exploring our urban wild areas. 

When we're done with the nature, there is a full playground at the top of the stairs where the childs can run out the rest of their energy while I read a book.  For not having to venture more than ten minutes away from the car, we can enjoy and exhaust ourselves fully over a couple of hours.  And we don't even have to carry our picnic stuff around with us. 

Anybody else enjoy their wild urban spaces?  I don't know what we would do without ours.

My theatre kids.  Why can't they ever just smile nicely for me?