Staring at the Stairs

This morning I woke up from a crazy dream and hobbled my way down the stairs. Every part of my legs were hurting and as I sunk down into the chair to check my email while I ate my bagel I wondered how I'd be able to run. It turns out I ran fine, of course now my legs hurt even more but I suppose that is to be expected. Today was the first day I did the stairs. The stairs is just what it sounds like, 4 flights of stairs to a beautiful lookout. We had to run up and down them twice before continuing our lap. Normally John tells me to bypass the stairs, but not today. I took it as a sign of progress, he knows that I would be able to do make it up and down without dying. I made it up and down twice and finished running the first lap, today I ran the whole way even up the hills. It did take me 30 minutes to do that first lap, but I suppose I couldn't expect to go faster with the stairs than I do without them. The second lap was hard, I walked around the stadium and finally started to run again when I got to the parking lot. I think today was the first time I've ever reached the meditative state where you feel like you could run forever, I believe it's called the zone. My zone only lasted until I got to the stairs then it was completely destroyed. I only made it up and down the stairs once on the second lap. I thought I'd cut my losses and attempt to make it back to my car without having a heart attack. I did manage to run back to the starting point with a fair amount of ease. When I say ease I mean that I didn't keel over and was able to breath. All and all today was a good day, the run was good and the stairs are a sign on progress.