Getting in shape... going downhill?

The Hustle Up the Hancock was in the news again a couple of weeks ago. The Hancock event is a fundraiser for the Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago. The idea is that people voluntarily run (or walk or, one might think, crawl) up the stairs of Chicago's iconic John Hancock Building; runners can choose the full 94-floor course or the "half course" -- 52 flights of stairs.

I need a rest just from typing that last sentence.

And I always feel worse after watching the news stories about the climb. At least a couple of Chicago TV stations will have one of their sports reporters participate in the event -- seemingly without breaking a sweat -- and then, to add insult to injury, they interview some of the other runners -- perhaps a 95-year old great-grandmother who just finished the full course in a personal best time.

It seems unreal to me. I plan my commute to work around escalator repairs -- in order to avoid climbing stairs. I'll go to a different station; I'll ride on the front of the train instead of the back. I mean, if I wanted to walk uphill or down, I could always move to San Francisco or something, right? I'm a flatlander.

Of course, sometimes I get fooled and an escalator has gone out during the night and I get stuck climbing... c...l...i...m...b...i...n...g the stairs, legs feeling leading, breathing heavily, seeing spots....

My office is on a floor in the low teens in my little corner of the Loop. I could no more climb up the stairs to my Undisclosed Location than I could fly there.

But, recently, after seeing the news stories about the Hustle Up the Hancock, I thought, you know, maybe I could walk down the stairs.

I know I need to walk more and the weather in Chicago is seldom conducive to taking a lunchtime stroll. Just walking down the stairs on my way to court would probably double what would otherwise be just a block-and-a-half walk. At least it would seem like it to me.

Thus it happened... just a week or so ago... I screwed my courage to the sticking point and, instead of waiting for our unbelievably slow elevators, ventured into the adjacent stairwell.

The door locked behind me.

For fire safety reasons, people have to get into the stairwells. For building security reasons, except on the first floor, most of these doors automatically lock to prevent reentry from the stairwell.

So I didn't worry about the ominous clicking. I forged ahead.

I stepped bravely downward... and twisted something.

No, seriously.

I was cringing by the time I reached the 10th floor....

Limping by the 5th....

Barely holding up under the strain as I opened the lobby door.

I was embarrassed to tell Long Suffering Spouse about what had happened when I got home that evening. I tried to tell her, in hushed tones, outside the hearing of Youngest Son.

But kids -- teenagers in particular -- have an uncanny ability to hear things they're not supposed to hear. Youngest Son burst into the room where we'd been talking and immediately interrupted: "You pulled a muscle going down a flight of stairs?"

It took me a couple of days to heal up enough to make the attempt again. I still had pain... but I made it.

A couple of days later I went down the stairs three times without incident. I proudly whispered my achievement to Long Suffering Spouse -- but, still, somehow, Youngest Son heard it from the other room and came running in.

"Feel the burn," he said. And then he laughed.

Sometimes I really hate kids.