Queen Anne Stairs!

Bhy Kracke Park overlook

Yay! I'd planned for this run way back in January but knee woes had to delay this group run until April. Stairs! JH and I were marking the course for the group run. I was a little nervous about the distance as i really wanted to do the entire loop (11 miles) but considering this is a hard 11 miles with all those stairs, i wasn't sure how the knee would hold up. 

Warren St - build 1904

I should not have worried! As I was also counting how many stairs there were with a counter, I could not run up the stairs without getting off count. Careful stair climbing combined with the nature of marking a course with a lot of turns (ie lots of starting and stopping) meant that this felt like a pretty easy run and i had no troubles. The only trouble was some steep downhill that did not have stairs. I didn't feel comfortable running those and chose to walk which felt better on my knee.  Still, I had to slow us down the last couple flat miles back to the car. This was a fun one and the group who had been well prepared for a "urban adventure run" had a blast which was great.

Finally I was able to detour the group to check out the oldest stair in the city.  I'd kept missing it when scouting and planning this run. These were build according to city records in 1904. Only 100 years young!  These are at Warren Ave N & Ward St. 

And just how many stairs were on this run? Keep in mind that i did count curbs as there are plenty of streets in these neighborhoods which do not have curb cutouts. Considering that there are approximately 25 stairs in one floor in most buildings and this number counts up and down stairs in this loop, that's a lot!  Take half the total and divide by 25 gives you 45 floors of stairs up and down.  OOF!