A Failure to Step
About three weeks ago, I decided to select my most dreaded machine in the gym and focus on improving my performance and attitude toward it. I selected the stair-stepper (aka: “Stairway to Hell”). At that time, after about five minutes on the thing, I was done; silently cursing it as I made my way to the water fountain. Each day thereafter, I tackled the machine at the end of whatever workout was scheduled. During the final week, I did two-a-days with a stair-stepping conclusion each time. My goal was to climb the Empire State Building (a total of 1860 steps) within 30 minutes by the close of the week. At the beginning of that final week, I decided to tackle the entire set of stairs just to see what my time was. Keep in mind, five minutes tops when I started this. On first attempt, I made the climb in 53:38; a far cry from my 30-minute goal. At that point, I turned to two friends for advice (really, just consolation, lol). I had done the math and realized that setting such a publi...