After about a week-and-a-half away from the stairs, it was time to resume training. I have two races in Chicago coming up in about a month, and I want to be ready! Plan A was to head downtown to train in a skyscraper, but I ended up working late, so that didn’t happen. Plan B was training on a new-to-me public stairway in the Hollywood Hills… one that just happens to be down the street from a major celebrity’s home! Here are the stairs:
And that’s just the first third of them. Here’s the rest:
The first fifty are one long, uninterrupted flight, but after that, there are a bunch of landings that break it up. In total, there are 136 steps.
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Lots of these Los Angeles public stairways were built as pedestrian shortcuts, because the roads in the Hollywood Hills are long and windy. If you’re on foot in this neighborhood, using this stairway will save you from walking about three-tenths of a mile.
I decided that I would combine running and stairs for this workout, and complete a loop, where I would run the stairs up, and then run back along the road to the bottom of the stairs. I kept my heart rate up, but it was a pretty casual affair. I could have given myself an interval, or timed my stair climbs, or kept a certain pace during the running parts, but I didn’t do any of that. I just kept going at a steady and aggressive clip that pushed me but was maintainable.
After my third climb up the stairs, I decided to wander in the other direction, and that’s when I saw a building that I instantly recognized. Comedian and actress Kathy Griffin lives in this house:
I know this because I’m a big fan of Kathy’s. How big? I currently have eleven of her stand-up specials saved on my TiVo. I watched every episode of her reality show My Life on the D-List, and the show ran for six seasons. This house, by the way, was featured nearly every single week on that show, and that why I’m so certain it’s hers. (You can see it in the first few seconds of this clip on YouTube.)
I didn’t go knock on the door or anything, because, like the title of this post says, I’m not a stalker. Plus, it’s gated. Plus, there’s this sign:
So I just walked on by, and continued on my way up the street. Then, I walked by a second time a few minutes later on my way back to the stairs. And that was it. I didn’t see anyone in the windows. I have no idea if anyone was home. I have no idea if Kathy was watching every step I took on her security cameras.
I’m super curious, though, if Kathy ever works out on the stairs just down the street!
Once I got back to the stairs, I resumed my run/stair loop, and did it three more times. I wanted to end the workout with some box jumps up the stairs, but it was getting pretty dark, and there aren’t streetlights on these stairs.
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All in all, my workout was 51 minutes long. I traversed a total of 3 miles and climbed 816 steps. Most of that 3 miles was running, but there were a couple walk interludes when I started getting tired. I did time my final climb up the stairs – I wanted to end strong, with a sprint, especially since I wasn’t gonna do the box jumps. I made it up the 136 steps on 1 minute, 7 seconds. That seemed pretty good, especially at the end of my workout.
Keep it up, David!
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Keep It Up, David! 