Mt. Huashan, I Hear the Views are Amazing!

Last weekend Matt and I went to visit Mt. Huashan.  I had previously heard about this on Pinterest, and once I realized that it was in Xi'an, I was very eager to visit.  It's billed on their website as "the most precipitous mountain in China."  It has 5 peaks and it is quite a hike.  If you have heard of it before, it was probably for the particular area called "planked path," which of course, I wanted to see.

Previously I had mentioned that Matt and I are planning to do the Great Wall Half Marathon. We are in no shape to do the full especially with the advertised "5164 steps."  After my painful experience at the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, I realized I definitely needed some serious step training before the half.  Walking up the 32 flights of steps in my apartment building, while challenging and also painful, was boring as anything! Hence, my plan to visit Mt. Huashan.

I explained to Matt my reasons for wanting to go and the various ways to get there.  (Bus, train, ordering a private car.) Who are we kidding, there was no way we were going to take a bus and the train often just feels like too much trouble trying to get a taxi to take us to the station and having to arrive on time or miss the train, so we decided on a private car and we also decided to go out there the evening before and spend the night in a nearby hotel so we could get an early start in the morning and have the whole day to spend on the mountain.  Assuming we would be tired afterwards, we also got the hotel for the following night and booked the car for Sunday afternoon to take us back.

The next morning, after a very Chinese breakfast during which we were stared at quite a bit as the only westerners staying at the hotel, we were ready to go.  As usual, we were severely overcharged for a taxi which at the last minute added two more people.  We were waiting quite some time because the man was arguing with one of the ladies at the front desk.  They got in and he said, "Hello, may I ask you what they are charging you for this ride?"

We said, "70."

"That is also what they are charging us.  I am very disappointed. We are going to the train station and that should only be 50."

"Unfortunately, we have gotten used to it." Matt replied.

"I am Chinese," he said, "but I am from Hong Kong, I tried to tell them this is wrong but they don't care." Then he added, "You are going to the mountain which is even closer. It is about half the distance."

So, basically they were ripping us all off, but we were getting it worse.  Again, we are used to it and we can't argue with them, which apparently didn't help anyway.

Eventually, we made it to the mountain.  Oh, and I forgot to add that it was completely cloudy and raining fairly hard.  Everyone outside seemed to have on rain ponchos.  We went into the convenience store outside the visitor center and purchased two ponchos.

Then we went inside and purchased a map.  The whole place was very confusing and people kept cutting in line in front of us. (Very annoying.) We weren't even sure if we were in the right place, but then I noticed an information desk so we went over there to make sure we were in the right place.  One of the girls there spoke English and she said we were in the right place to buy tickets.  We showed her our map and asked where we were and how long would it take to get up the mountain if we didn't take the cable car?

She pointed to the bottom of the map and said the shuttle will take you to either the east cable car (20 minutes) or the west cable car (40 minutes).   Here is the map in English.  (Ours was entirely in Chinese.)

Map of Mt. Huashan

Basically, the west cable car will pretty much take you all the way to the top.  The east cable car takes you to North Peak.  From there, it is about a 3 or 4 hour hike to East Peak. We asked how long a hike to East Peak if we didn't take the cable car, to which she replied, "About 7 hours."

Matt and I looked at each other, and decided we were fine with a 3 or 4 hour hike up and 7 hours uphill was overkill.  After all, we still had to come down.  We purchased our tickets for the mountain, donned our ponchos, and boarded the shuttle bus in the rain.  We got off the shuttle 20 minutes later and walked past the trail to "circumvent the mountain." It looked very steep and very long despite the clouds hiding most of the mountain.

This is the start of the trail if you don't take the east cable car.

We walked further on to purchase the cable car tickets.  My plan, which I discussed with Matt, was to take the cable car up to North Peak, hike on to East Peak, and then go see Plank Path, and then hike all the way back down the mountain without using the cable car because we needed the downhill training.  Matt agreed and we purchased one way cable car tickets and then boarded the cable car.  If you look back at the map, we got on where it says "Start" and got off at North Peak where it says "End." (I added in the larger words so you can see where we went.)  We got off at North Peak and proceeded to hike up to where it says "East Peak."  As you can see, we still had quite a hike, even with the cable car "cheat."

I hear the views from the cable cars are amazing, but all we could see was white.  

The entire way up was nothing but stairs. And very steep stairs at that!

Matt not looking too eager to go up.  

About five minutes after we got off the cable car it stopped raining! We were very happy about that.  It was still very cold, about 50 degrees F or 10 C. I quickly shoved my poncho into my waist pack in case it rained again and up we went. The mountain was pretty crowded considering the poor weather conditions but I hear the crowds are much worse in summer and the temps can be very hot.

We were moving along at a pretty good clip.  I was wearing a windbreaker, over a warm running shirt, over a tank top.  After about 15 minutes, I figured I would take off the running shirt and just leave on the tank top and the windbreaker but I was so sweaty already that I just took both off and was just wearing my tank top.  Everyone else was bundled in jackets so I probably looked really strange because it was not at all warm. Even Matt was asking me, "Aren't you cold?" But, I also noticed that everyone else was really huffing and puffing and hanging onto the chains and resting all over the place.  I was passing people all over the place so I think some of my stair work had paid off.  I was feeling quite fit!

A brief glimpse of the view!

Midway up, the clouds broke and the sun came out.  It lasted about two minutes and then the clouds rolled right back in! Eventually we made it to East Peak which is supposed to have the best view of the sunrise.  Many people sleep at the hotel at the top of East Peak in order to see the sun rise in the morning.  As we looked out from the summit, it was rather anti-climatic.  Still, we took a selfie at the top because it was kind of funny.

East Peak, I swear it! Although it could have been anywhere...

Looking out, all we could see was white.  A man came by and saw us and asked if we would like some help so he took our picture for us except that the iPod must have been on video because that is what he took so here it is:

It's only 6 seconds but I included it because you can see all of the locks that are all over the place.  Those locks are getting to be quite a thing these days.  Paris has that Love Bridge, and I noticed it starting in the English Garden in Munich.  They were all over Mt. Huashan.  They sell them on the mountain and they will engrave them for you with your names on them.  Personally, I think it looks rather unattractive and should not be encouraged but that's just me.  

After East Peak, we went off to find Planked Path.  We ended up at the top of South Peak and then had to go back down again to finally make it to Planked Path.  Once there, you need to climb down a ladder on the side of the mountain to get to the plank.  The line didn't seem too long, but you could tell that it was still going to take forever because they would only let a few people go down at a time.  Also, you still couldn't see ANYTHING! So what was the point of hanging off a cliff/plank if you couldn't even see how treacherous it was? We decided to skip it and went into one of the many restaurants up there to get something to eat.  

 This wasn't the restaurant, just a place where we got a snack earlier in the day.  Apparently I didn't take any pictures of the restaurants but they were all over and you literally had to walk through them to continue on with the hike.

The Ladder in the Sky

 This was on the way up to East Peak.  It's called the "Ladder in the Sky."

This was what the beginning of the downward trail looked like.

 After we ate, we decided that since we had already climbed to the top of the highest peak (South Peak) we were done hiking upward and it was time to head down.  It was probably around 3:30 by this time, and we had been on the mountain about 5 hours.  At this point, I said, "Besides, it will take us a couple of hours to get down especially since we aren't taking the cable car." We walked until we got to the point where one sign pointed to a path that said it was going to the East Cable Car, and the other sign said, "Circumvent the Mountain." It was here that I said, "This is where we should go down because we said we were going to walk down.  The cable car is that way but we said we weren't going to take the cable car down."  Again, Matt agreed,  so down we went.  After about 20 minutes and good distance downward on some very narrow steps Matt said he needed a break.  I said "Fine."

While we were resting, it finally dawns on Matt that we aren't taking the cable car down and he seems genuinely shocked by this fact, despite me asking him at the beginning, and reminding him again before we started down the mountain.    At this point it was too late to go back up again and he would just need to suck it up and keep going downward which eventually he did but not without telling me the entire way down how much his legs hurt and how ridiculous it was to walk down etc.

Look how far that is!

I didn't really see the need to complain so much since it wasn't going to get us down any faster but some of his complaints were actually kind of funny so I let him go on and on and on....

Taking a rest midway down or so.

Matt taking a call from his mother.  Any excuse for a break.

A bit of a clearer view of the trail we came down.
(It was the same one we passed on the way to the cable car)

Eventually we made it down none the worse for the wear.  I actually felt surprisingly good.  The air was so clean and fresh. We boarded the shuttle bus to go back to the visitor station where I bought a book with pictures of the views since I missed most of them. According to Fitbit we took 27,990 steps that day, and climbed 337 floors. (Fitbit only counts floors up and not down so basically double it for the flights of stair.) It said 11.5 miles but it was probably more like 10 since some of those steps were really narrow. I'm sure we will try and make it back another day since it is just a 2 hour drive from where we are living. And next time we won't bother staying at a hotel because this is what our hotel room looked like:

Japanese Style Hotel Room

Yeah, because after I climb Mount Huashan, I want to squat down as much as possible and sleep and sit on the floor.  It feels really good. 

And surprisingly, after all that, I wasn't nearly as sore as I was when I just climbed the 32 floors in my apartment building and then went for a 4 mile run.  I definitely think we are ready for the Wall!

I Hate My Chinese Shower!

When we first moved into the apartment, I must admit I didn't love it.  It's big enough, our bed is pretty good, and there is a nice view.  I can't say much for the kitchen.  I don't particularly like it, but it doesn't repel me. The bathroom, however, is another story.

Actually, there are two bathrooms. A large one and a small one.  They both contain "showers" however the small one has no hot water in the shower so, when they showed it to us they said, "Don't use that one."

Judging from the water damage to the floor outside the smaller bathroom, I suspect it is because it doesn't drain properly.  I have no desire to find out though and have never tested my theory.  Especially since the smaller bathroom is mine.  Matt agreed to take the larger one.  Each bathroom only has one small pedestal sink so there is no where to put anything so it makes sense to split up the bathrooms.

In addition to the sink, there is a western style toilet and a hand held shower nozzle that also attaches to the wall.  There is no shower curtain or doors.  It is basically RV style.  Now in an RV, I am grateful to simply have any shower at all.  In my home, however, this bugs the crap out of me.

I must admit, when I saw the shower, I was really surprised and not in a good way.  I didn't decide that I actually "hated" the aforementioned shower until I had used it.  The water just basically pours out all over the floor and spreads all the way to the sink and behind the toilet and just everywhere!  It doesn't quite make it to the door, but it just pools up and sits there and doesn't dry.  If you came in later to use the toilet, it would still be wet and you would be walking in puddles of water.  I just couldn't seem to understand this concept so I went on Yahoo Answers to see how other people were dealing with this problem.

A few people had already asked the question of what to do and most of the people who responded obviously had no clue what a Chinese shower looks like because they all kept telling them to put down big fluffy floor rugs or to hang a shower curtain.  (Floor rugs would just get soaking wet and a shower curtain would do nothing because there are no barriers on the floor to keep the water contained.  Also, some of the water goes down the drain but the floor is definitely not tilted for drainage, in fact I think its just the opposite.

My Chinese Shower

Two drains yet still doesn't drain properly.

I suppose from the two pictures it just looks a bit weird and not really that much of a problem but I am telling you, I hate it!!  I was trying to google how others deal with their Chinese showers and the first thing that came up was the Urban Dictionary definition.  I am definitely NOT talking about that kind of a Chinese shower.

Eventually we figured out to remove one of the drain covers or it would just overflow.  I also bought a long handled squeegee and after every shower we have to squeegee the floor.  It goes a little something like this:

It is so annoying.  Gone are the days of just quickly rinsing off.  It takes forever for the water to heat up and while the water is running it is just flooding the floor. You absolutely have to squeegee every time.  I have taken up an every other day shower schedule and to be perfectly honest, if I can push it another day I do. Also, I try and make sure that I go for a run just before I shower so that I can wait longer until the next shower encounter.  I tell myself that all anyone really needs is a brisk whores bath in the morning. I'm not so sure that's true, but that is how much I really hate my Chinese shower.  

Xi'an City Wall

In the middle of downtown Xi'an is the walled city.  I posted a few pictures of it in the Hash House Harriers post. It is number 2 on the TripAdvisor list of attractions to see in Xi'an so about three weeks ago Matt and I went to go see it.  It is supposed to be wider than it is tall and it is about 9 miles to go all the way around it.  It is so large that they rent bicycles out on the top.  There are about 11 different entry gates but it looked like only about 6 of them are open.

We consulted a map and chose the Anding Gate because it looked like it was the closest one to us.  Luckily, it was one of the ones that was open.  The ticket price to get onto the wall is 54 RMB or $9 US apiece.  We wanted to see it because we were thinking that it may be a good place to go for a long run as it can be rather difficult running in the city due to traffic.  The park is really nice, but crossing the street can be a pain. (Although I am getting better at timing the lights and dodging traffic.)

We went earlier in the day trying to better our chances of getting a taxi to pick us up.  We lucked out and got one fairly quickly who didn't try to charge us higher than the meter.  He dropped us off and pointed to where to go.  It was about 16 RMB.

The entrance looked like this.

Anding Gate Entrance

 When you walk in you see a courtyard that looks like this:

 Off to both of the sides there are  long staircases going up to the wall and that is where we entered.

 Once up top there were many people walking and bunches of people riding bikes as well as tuk tuks driving around for people who didn't want to walk.

 It is very wide up on the top with lots of room.

 We started walking around the wall. The stones are not always very even so you do have to watch where you are going but it is very nice.  The bathrooms were very clean and they had both western style and squatters.

 The signs are all posted in both English and Chinese.  I wanted to see the train station which is Anyuan Gate almost exactly halfway around from where we started.  We were trying to decide if we would take a train to Beijing for the half marathon or fly.  So after walking about 4.5 miles on the wall we exited the wall at the train station.

Xi'an Railway Station

The train station was a hub of activity.  There were no English signs at all.  Everything was in Chinese. It was kind of exhausting just being there so we pretty much decided... fly.  With that taken care of we decided to come back and run the following weekend.   Trying to get a taxi back from train station was not difficult.  There were tons.  Getting one that would not try to rip us off completely... not so easy.  One guy wanted 80 RMB.  Granted, we were farther away at this point but to go from 16 to 80? Please.  We said no and walked away from that spot because he was getting all his friends to try and get us to pay 80.  We were super tired of walking though by this time.  Eventually we found a guy who would take us for 50.  Fine, whatever.

The next weekend we were up and dressed to go running and empty taxi's just kept passing us by.  They wouldn't even stop for us.  We must have waited for 20 to 25 minutes.  Finally some guy stopped and said he would take us.  We had been just about to give up.  We were just about there and I noticed that he hadn't turned on the meter.  When we got there though, he clicked a button and the meter came on and it said 33.  Not sure how he did that, but the exact same ride had only cost 16 the weekend before.  Again, whatever, we would have offered 40 at that point to anyone who had stopped.

Anyway, we paid our $18 to get up on the wall again, and both did ten miles and felt much better.  It really was a nice run.  Tough on the legs because the bricks were uneven and not a forgiving surface but that is pretty much what we will be running on during the Great Wall Marathon so it is good training for that.  Also, it is a pretty amazing experience if you think about it.  During my run I was thinking, "I am running on the Xi'an City Wall!"

Ten miles done!

Afterwards, we stopped at one of the convenience stores up top and got some water, Gatorade, and snacks.  We were very hungry.

Afterwards, it took forever but we were finally able to get a taxi back.  He charged us meter price and it was under 20 RMB.  All in all, a pretty good day!

Just Call Me "Big Spender!"

Today has been a bit of a sucky day.  One of those days when everything seems to be getting on my nerves.  I've been here a little over a month.  I've been in my apartment for about 2 weeks.  The noise has been continuous and varied. I'm not getting a ton of sleep which is not helping matters any.

This morning I spent 2 hours booking the flights to Beijing.  I received CONFIRMATION that the flights were booked.  Now, (8 hours later) I just received a call from the booking agent saying that there was a problem with the credit card so they cancelled the booking and now the flight is full.  Please rebook.

Why??  So the same thing can happen again??  Why bother sending me a confirmation if it is not a confirmation??  Why not maybe call me before the flight is full and ask me to pay another way? By Paypal perhaps as was offered on the site? SO FREAKING ANNOYING!

This used to happen when we tried to book with Turkish Airways online from Saudi Arabia.  The credit card company would refuse it thinking it was fraud, but at least they never said we had a confirmed reservation and then called us 8 hours later saying that they cancelled it.  They simply said we had to call in which we did and everything was booked.

It's just that nothing is ever easy here.  Simple day to day things can be a bit of a struggle.  Just going to the grocery store is a mile walk to get there.  Then you have to figure out what things are when you can't read the labels and then wait in line forever to pay.  Follow that up with another mile walk to get back carrying whatever it is that you bought and it is just a pain in the ass.  Yes I said ASS!

The other day I went out to buy a rice cooker.  How hard can that be?  This is China right?  So I went to Lotus. I hate Lotus but they have tons of appliances and stuff and if I want something, I pretty much have to go there.  The thing about Lotus is that they have tons of people standing around that work there.  95% of them speak only Chinese.

The first thing I bought when I got here was a hair straightening iron at the Lotus.  We looked around and didn't see any and then Matt asked a girl, and I made straightening motions on my hair and she produced a very small Phillips brand travel size straightening iron.  It was 249 RMB ($40 US).  I bought it and was pretty much a piece of crap.  It was so tiny that it took forever to use and it didn't get all that hot  but it was better than nothing.

Later, on another trip to Lotus, I saw a bigger straightening iron.  I also saw that it had temperature control and went up to 220 C.  It was 200 RMB ($33 US).  Now it is very difficult to just look at something in Lotus.  As soon as I show an interest in something, someone either comes up to me and stares at me or starts talking to me in Chinese.  If I am just looking, I either say nothing and hope they go away, or I go away and hope they aren't there the next time I come into the store so I can get a better look and decide if I want to buy it.  This time, I didn't need to decide, I wanted that hair straightener.  So, I turned to the lady following me around and I pointed to the hair straightener. She shook her head no and started speaking to me in Chinese.  I pointed again to the hair straightener and she again shook her head at me and started explaining something to me in Chinese whilst pointing to some curling irons.  It was then that I noticed her rather unfortunate perm and clued in to what she was saying.  Which was basically, "That won't curl your hair! You need to buy this!"

At this point another sales woman came over and the two of them started talking to each other basically deciding whether or not they should let me buy the hair straightener.  Thinking that I should still be allowed to have a say in this whole conversation I once again pointed to the hair straightener.  Then I pointed to the curling irons and shook my head no.  At this point a young girl behind a counter got into the conversation and I think it was then decided that they would let me buy the straightening iron because they started opening up locked cabinets and looking for one in a box. The girl behind the counter said, "Straight."  Exactly!

So while the one girl was looking for the iron, the lady with the perm took me over to the cashier where I paid and then came back and waited for another ten minutes or so until they found one in a box.  "New!" they said, thrusting the box at me.  I said "Xie xie"(Thank you) and left.

*note- autocorrect changes xie xie (sounds like shay shay) to die die.  Today has been a sucky day but  in case I miss an autocorrect, I didn't tell anyone to die twice.

So anyway, back to the rice cooker.  This was the day after the hair straightener incident.  The rice cookers are located very near to the hair dryers, curling irons, and one lone hair straightener that no one wants to sell you.  I walked over to the display and there were about 12 different rice cookers there.  I had no sooner gotten there when a young girl came up to me and said, "Can I help you?" Since she spoke English, and I was there to buy and not to look I said, "I want to buy a small rice cooker."  She picked up one for 219 RMB and said "This is the best one."  I pointed to one below it for 99 RMB and said "What about that one?" She again pointed to the 219 RMB  one and said, "This one is best."  Then along comes bad perm, recognizing me from the day before and she starts pointing at the more expensive cooker and speaking to me in Chinese.  So then they team up to sell me the 219 RMB cooker.

Now I don't need a fancy rice cooker.  I just need it to cook rice.  But I can't even get a look at the other cookers because they keep pointing to the more expensive one.  Then they open it up and the rice pot inside is gold.  They open the cheap one and the rice pot inside is silver.  Again, the English speaking woman says, "This one is better."

"How is it better?" I ask?

She gives me a confused look and says, "I don't understand. This one is better."

So then I say, (pointing at the cheaper one) "I want that one."

"That is the last one. Only that one. No good. This one is better."

At this point I realized that this was taking way too much effort and chances of me getting out of there with the cheaper rice cooker were not looking very good.  Doing a quick calculation in my head, I realized that we were talking about a $36 rice cooker vs a $16 one.  $36  wasn't going to break the bank and didn't seem unreasonable to pay for a rice cooker so I said, "Fine." Then they took me over to pay and got me a new one in a box, took it out and plugged it in so that I could see that it works. As they were starting it up I realized that other than "On" and "Off" I had no idea what any of the other buttons said.  But, at this point I had already paid for it so they packed it back up and sent me on my way.  Once home I took a picture of the front and sent it to my husband and asked him if he could get someone to translate the buttons for me.  By the end of the day I had received the picture back.

So glad that I paid extra for the "Congee" setting since I have no idea how to make Congee!

So yesterday I tried it and the rice was a little burned but edible.  Nothing stuck to the "fabulous gold pan" inside so I figured, "Whatever, it's fine."

Of course today being a super sucky day, the damn thing wouldn't even turn on.  Filled it up, plugged it in and nothing.  Checked the cord, tried a different outlet, NOTHING. Nada, zip, zilch, great big goose egg! Because that is just what kind of day this has been.  

And now what am I supposed to do with this damn thing? Repackage it, walk a mile with it and try to figure out where the heck I am supposed to return it to, and then probably find out that they won't let me return it because I used it, only I won't understand what the heck they are saying to me because I don't speak Chinese! 

No, I will add it to the growing list of things that have broken the first or second time that I have used them.  ( I'm so glad I bought the "better" one. )

This reminds me of the story of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.  

I keep having to remind myself that some days are like that.  (Even in Australia, and apparently especially in China.) 

Oh, and did I mention that my husband texted me earlier to let me know that the electricity is going to be off tomorrow from  5 AM to 8 PM?  That should make things more fun.  I'm so glad that I walked the mile to Lotus yesterday to buy meat and frozen things.  I may as well just start wiping my butt with renminbi because it seems like I just keep buying things only to throw them away.  

Big Wild Goose Pagoda

The day after the Hash run, Matt and I went downtown to go shopping.  He was looking for shoes.  (We didn't find any and they were all ridiculously overpriced but that is neither here nor there.) The mall that we went to is very near the "Big Wild Goose Pagoda." Here is a picture of it from the second story of the mall. 

 It was originally built in A.D. 652 and it only had five stories.  Later it was rebuilt to have seven stories and it is 64.5 meters high.  Because we were so close, we decided to go see it. It is located in the Great Ci'en Temple.

This is a picture that I took once we were inside the walls. There were lots of other little buildings around, and we spent a good bit of time peering into each of them.  

Eventually we decided to climb the Big Wild Goose Pagoda. It's only 7 stories high so I didn't even think twice about climbing it.  There were also stairs leading up to it and all around the entire area but  nothing too challenging.  I took some pictures from the top.

Nice view and it was a pretty clear day as well.  Very often the pollution here is pretty bad.  Anyway, according to my fitbit, we did 22 floors that day.  That isn't a lot.  Lately, however, I have been lucky if I can get in 4 or 6.  It's pretty flat here so I really haven't been doing any stairs at all. A lot of walking but not a lot of stairs.  

The next day my quadricep muscles were killing me.  Going upstairs was painful but going downstairs was really bad.  I guess the combination of not doing any stairs for a while and then doing 22 pretty much all at once was not a good idea.  It was about 3 days before my quads quieted down.  

At the time, this really wasn't a huge problem. I wasn't "training" for anything so I wasn't trying to keep to any schedule.  I just didn't run for 3 days and then on the fourth day I managed a run.  Also, the farthest I had been running here is about 7.5 miles.  Usually I do around 4-6 when I go out.  

Recently, we looked into the Great Wall Marathon.  It's held in May and it is said to be one of the toughest in the world.  With that in mind, we were looking at doing the "half marathon" distance.  I didn't hear back from the people running it and then eventually they said they were full to local expats but they would put us on the waiting list if someone cancelled.  I promptly put it out of my mind and figured that it was probably for the best.  

About a week and a half ago, we heard back that we got in. Which is great, except that the half marathon elevation map looks like this:

The huge peak on the map is entirely stairs.  And that big drop is more stairs down.  (I'm pretty sure that the down was what really caused the pain more than the up.)

On the website they bill it as "5,164 steps into history." Now I am assuming that the "5164 steps" are for the full marathon.  If you look at the full marathon elevation map, it starts the same but then they finish by doing the huge peak again from the other direction.  (No thank you ;)

The point of this I guess is that if my legs were screaming from Big Wild Goose Pagoda, I just may be in a little bit of trouble here if I am going to attempt to do the Great Wall Marathon by May.  Still, it looks freaking amazing.  I can't not do it.  But even if I am just walking this... we are still talking about 2,582 steps.  

With that in mind, I  walked up and down the ten floors to my apartment.  I didn't notice anything so that was good.  I was out of breath going up but not a big deal and my muscles were fine the next day.    Since the stairs are all at the beginning of the route, I decided to try doing stairs before my next run so I ran/walked up the stairs in my building from my apartment on the 10th floor, to the top. This was 22 floors up and then 32 floors down.  Then I ran 4 miles in the park.  My legs were really heavy for the first 1.5 miles but then they were ok so when I got back, I ran/walked the 10 flights up to my apartment.  So in all 32 flights up and 32 down plus a 4 mile run.

The next morning my calves were stiff but not too bad.  In the afternoon I walked a mile to the store and a mile back and had no problems.  By the afternoon it was a bit worse, and by nightfall, my calves were positively screamy! Perhaps I shouldn't have tried to do the whole building in one go but I don't have a ton of time here.  

Each flight has 18 stairs so the 32 flights equal 576 stairs each way for a total of 1,152.  If I can manage to do this twice for 64 flights up and 64 down I will be at 2,304.  I would need to go all the way up and all the way down twice plus 15 more floors to get to 2,582.  Good times!!

Anyway, it is now 5 days later and I am still feeling my calves but not a big deal. Afterwards, I took two days off and then went running again on the third day with no problems.  I will probably try again mid week.  Wish me luck, because I am going to need it!