Thankful for Pain-Free Calves or The OUSA Staff bonds through Exercise (ugh)

Now that my calves don't feel as though they are about to rip apart, I can tell you about the newest OUSA staff bonding adventure - The Everest Challenge.  But first, a bit of background.

Back around September, we signed up in mini-teams to do the New Zealand Challenge.  For every 30 minutes of exercise, you got to check off one box on a map of New Zealand.  This map had a bazillion little boxes that started in Bluff, NZ's southernmost point, and ended in Cape Reinga, NZ's northernmost point.  The Events Team divided up into two mini-teams: VanDan (Vanessa and Dan) and L Bitty (Laura and Kitty).

Luckily, since Vanessa and I walk to work every day, and it takes about 30 minutes, checking off at least one box a day was easy.  It did encourage me to walk home more (which is like walking home in San Francisco) which takes me about 45 minutes due to all the hills.  With extra walks and weekly water aerobics class, I was doing a fair job pulling my weight.  My dear teammate Kitty had some minor setbacks in her quest to increase her daily exercise output.  She and her hubby Dan took a couple of bike rides, and due to their crazy dog Chian who was along for the run, one bike ride ended with Dan crashing and the next one ended with Kitty crashing.  Dan was out of work for 2 weeks due to cracked ribs.  See?  Exercise IS dangerous!  Although team L Bitty finished a few days behind VanDan, we had fun, exercised a bit more, and didn't have anymore hospital visits.

I didn't think it was possible to top this kind of work fun.  Silly me.  Enter The Everest Challenge.  The Everest Challenge celebrates New Zealand's biggest national hero, Sir Edmund Hillary, Scaler of Mount Everest.  The challenge is " to climb the equivalent distance that Sir Edmund Hillary climbed from Base Camp to the summit of Mt Everest within 47 days."  While we've thrown the 47 day deadline out the window, we have once again formed teams (VanDan and L Bitty, Take 2) and are throwing ourselves into this exercise debacle.

The tricky part about this challenge is that you have to climb.  That could be stairs or hills or whatever goes up...all of which are obviously this asthmatic's forte.  The website makes it sound so easy: "It is as easy as climbing a flight of stairs, only 20 steps and you can cross-off one box (20 steps is approximately 3.5m).  Remember, you must climb!  Don’t forget to count the hills on the way home or walks up hills in the weekend.  As a guide, to complete the Challenge we recommend an average of 22 boxes – or 22 flights of stairs – per day." WHO CALLS THAT EASY??!!  Crazy Kiwis...

Regardless, in order to meet this challenge head on, every day a group of OUSA staffers meets at 10:30am (and some meet again at 3:30pm) to climb the stairs of the Richardson Building here on campus. (I go byself sometime during the day, so I don't have to be around my colleagues when I start wheezing and gasping for air and complaining.)  The Richardson Building has 20 flights of stairs, but it only counts as 11 flights/boxes on the chart. Grr.

Apparently, if Vanessa and I walk home, we get 57 boxes, because we're walking from 0 meters to 200 meters.  I haven't done it since The Challenge started, but I think I might so I can get it over as fast as possible.

While yes I would agree that this is probably helping my cardiovascular system, making me feel good (whatever), and improving leg muscles, since we started on Monday, my calves are screaming "Sit down, Bitch!"  For the past week, they have felt like they were about to snap anytime I walked but especially when I went down any incline.  Going down the stairs at home in the middle of the night for a bathroom break was testing fate.  It's a miracle that I didn't fall down the stairs or just give up and sleep on the stairs until morning.

Today, Thanksgiving Day in America, I'm thankful that my calves don't hurt like hell every time I take a step. Team L Bitty has 99 boxes done. Only 897 to go.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.