I wrote on Friday about how miles per week I walk while commuting–on top of the miles I log while training for half marathons and marathons. Today, it dawned on me that I’ve been deliberately avoiding the elevator at work since I started a month and a half ago. So I counted…’cuz that’s what the Numberz Runner does…

When I previously worked on the 20th floor and 16th floor of buildings in Chicago’s Loop area, I never gave the stairs a second thought except during fire drills. Now that I work on the fourth floor of a very old building with a VERY slow elevator, I can’t imagine not taking the stairs. A modern elevator salesman would have an easy sale if the decision were mine.

Plus, the elevator only fits about two people to begin with. And it makes so many noises I’m convinced that eventually I’ll be trapped for days…

One of the flights of stairs in my office building. Up and down, up and down.

Our office is on the fourth floor. There are 8 different flights of stairs. All of them have 9 stairs, except for the first flight which only has 8 for some odd reason. So five days a week, I’m logging 71 steps up and another 71 down.

Then I realized that I’m actually going up and down multiple times per day–sometimes as many as 3-4. I have a lot of local clients now, so I’m regularly cabbing around the city for meetings and presentations. And I’m also going to lunch somewhat consistently as I try to get to know my new team members (there are no restaurants in our building, so lunch means another trek up and down the stairs). And finally, I realized that I also have to go up and down a whole bunch of additional steps at the train station downtown…but that’s a count for another day.