Stairs, Hills, and a Road ID Coupon Code!

Tues evening (the same day as the interval swim in the previous post), I wanted to do some stairs. I checked the stairs by the JJ Hill house, and the lower half was perfectly clear of ice or snow. So I packed up my clothes to change as soon as I got done with teaching at the College of Visual Arts. CVA’s main building is an old mansion on Summit Ave, so when I changed in the bathroom, my clothes were scattered all over the top of a tub once used by a very well-to-do family:

I ran down Summit to the JJ Hill steps. Here’s the icy path up top leading to the main set of steps:

The first few “flights” of steps were a bit icy. Here I am looking down from the top:

Once I got through some icy sections, the rest was perfect. Here’s a bit farther down, looking the rest of the way to the bottom (down 87 stairs):

So here’s what I decided to do for my workout:
1. Run down to the bottom of the stairs, run back up until it got icy, then down, then up, then down, then up, and then down to the “exit” on the right side of the path that can be seen part way down on the right in the image above. (That’s running up 261 stairs!)
2. Then (all tired and out of breath), I’d run some back-road hills HARD on my way back up to Summit Ave.
3. Finally, I’d take it a bit easy down Summit back to the top of the stairs.
4. Repeat.

Here’s what the first part looked like when I ran down, then up and down a few times before “exiting” on the curve:

And here’s the map of the entire loop. It’s 1.14 miles long:

I did that loop 5 times, which is 5.7 miles, lots of little hills in that back stretch, and up 1305 stairs total. Have you ever seen an elevation chart look like this over 1.14 miles?

Down stairs, up and down a few times, rollers and steep hills on
the back roads, and mostly flat on Summit back to the start.

Those stairs had me working up a sweat even though it was only 15 degrees that night! During my 3rd round on the steps, I had sweat dripping off my nose. When I got back to CVA, I quick snapped a photo in the faculty office to show how sweaty I was:

You know, running stairs in the dark on an icy night WITHOUT a Road ID was probably not a smart idea. Pharmie has stories of people stuck in the ICU of the hospital where she works and nobody knows who they are because they had no ID on them. I could have slipped on those steps last night (I had 2 close calls) and ended up knocked out lying at the bottom. So it was time to get my own Road ID. Here’s what it looked like as I was putting in my info:

(It’s yellow to match my “bowl full of sunshine” shorty-shorts!)

I also ordered a Firefly reflective wrist band for night-time running visibility.

ROAD ID COUPON CODE:

Road ID was so happy with how the giveaway went last week, that they wanted to offer my readers a 20% discount on their order for the next 20 days! A bunch of people commented or e-mailed me that they needed to get a Road ID or update the tag on their current Road ID. Now is your chance!! Use this code to get 20% off your entire order:

PC621528SIAS

(the ending SIAS is for “Steve in a Speedo”)

I tried it on my order to make sure it worked, and it saved me about $6! (Enter it in the “Coupon/Promo Code” box.) So spread the word! Go pick up your Road ID and use that code for 20% off!

(BTW, this is NOT some sort of affiliate marketing thing. Yes, the code has my "name" at the end, but I don't make a % with each use of the code. It's just a "thanks" to my readers from Road ID for becoming a fan of Road ID on Facebook and following Road ID on Twitter during the giveaway last week. I've been accused of this being an affiliate scheme, and it's not true. Use the code, save 20%, be safe, and enjoy life!!)