that Thing I've been doing: done, but only begun

Since January 3, I've been doing a Thing, and I haven't talked about it with anyone, not even my closest friends. What Thing is that? you ask.

You know that trendy "thirty-day project" fad? Go without sugar for thirty days! Do fifty pushups every day for thirty days! Try not to be an asshole for thirty days! For the past month, I did my own thirty-day project: Walk up my apartment's staircase from B1 to 26 (26 floors) for thirty days. This is obviously an activity I've done before, but never at this frequency. At my best, some years back (probably before I turned 50), I could go from B1 to 26—without stopping—three times in a row, and at most, it'd be three times a week. I'm trying to get back up to that 3X up, 3X/week level, but I'm starting from Square Negative One, i.e., in worse condition than ever before. In 2021, after my stroke and before my east-coast walk, I was able to do the staircase twice in a row, and that got my lungs fit enough to handle all of those surprise coastal hills. How far did I get this time?

First off, I had to commit to going back on something like my long-walk schedule, but instead of waking up at 5 a.m., I would set my alarm for 5:30 or 5:45 a.m., depending on my mood. Very often, I'd have to poop upon waking, which meant starting my ascent at sometime after 6 a.m. On Day 1, I discovered just how out of shape I was, getting winded every few floors and stopping I-don't-know-how-many times (six or seven, I think). It was embarrassing. My head was pounding; my lungs were loud bellows; my gasps echoed up and down the entire staircase. It must have sounded horrific to anyone else in there at the time. Luckily, that early in the morning, almost no one entered the stairwell that I know of, and that has been true since I moved into my building in 2015 almost ten years ago(!!), I've only ever seen someone walking upward once or twice, and usually just for a floor or two. Any other time I've seen someone in the stairwell, that person has been either walking downward or just sitting next to one of the large windows facing east, illegally smoking (or, in one nerdy case, studying). So normally, the staircase is utterly empty, and at 6-something-a.m. in January, the sky is still dark, so all you have is spotty interior lighting or the light pollution from outside. The sky doesn't lighten until a bit after 7 a.m. 

Committing to this effort turned out to be surprisingly easy, and with several days under my belt, I could feel that a certain momentum had built, and it would be difficult to stop. Stopping would involve feelings of shame, laziness, guilt, and inadequacy. Had I ever stopped or merely skipped a day, I would have mentally flogged myself bloody, cursing my inner weakness and lack of character. Lucky for me, that didn't happen—giving up, I mean. Skipping a day, I mean. Certain improvements occurred right away, too: as my strength and cardiopulmonary fitness returned, my innumerable stops reduced themselves within the first week to just three: once at the sixth floor (where I used to live), once at the 14th floor (where I live now), and once at the 22nd floor, just shy of the top. This became a ritual for weeks, and a new danger arose: what if I got used to stopping? Was I creating a new habit, setting up a new obstacle to overcome? I did this three-stop ritual well past the halfway point (i.e., Day 15).

I did finally wrestle my number of stops down from three to two, then from two to one, stopping at the 14th floor (the floor where I live). Three days ago, on Day 28, I walked up to the 15th floor before stopping, and two days ago, on Day 29, I got up to the 16th floor. And yesterday? On the final day, Day 30, I got down to zero stops! I didn't think I could do it, but somehow, I did it. I'll be celebrating this weekend. And now that I've at last reached that landmark, I have to start doing more than one staircase. The goal is three times up, with my only breaks being the descents in the elevator back to B1. I'll start with 1.25 staircases, then 1.5, then 2 whole staircases... I want to get to 3 whole staircases by the summer (specifically, by July 1). I'd originally thought I could get to 3 whole staircases in a single month, but that quickly turned out to be a laughable goal. Fail, then readjust priorities. Just keep going.

Here are some photos to give you an idea of what my building's much-talked-about staircase looks like. Keep in mind that it's cold these days, and I'm in sweatpants and a tee, but by the third floor, I'm starting to breathe hard and to warm up. Back when I was stopping frequently, I didn't sweat at all, but by the end, as my number of rest stops decreased, I became a hot, sweaty mess by the 26th floor. You athletic types can sneer; I'm sure my heaving, herculean effort is little more than a mere warmup for you, but for me, going from B1 to 26 is like making it up a long, steep hill. God curse gravity.

Those pics:

The view from the 6th floor, looking downward.
Two flights per floor, 9 steps per flight.

I took the above photo (and the one below) during the period when I was still stopping for a breather at the 6th, 14th, and 22nd floors.

6th floor. Trying and failing to peer way down.

14th floor, same morning. Gaepo Street below.

22nd floor. Only four more floors to go. The park by my building is below.

26th floor. The beginnings of sunrise off to the east. The purpling/reddening of the sky is familiar from my long walks. Dawn is here, and as you see from the smokestacks, there's no wind.

Looks almost like a green screen, doesn't it? I'd be sweatier if this weren't winter.

The helipad isn't actually on this floor. There are two more floors up, but they aren't residential.

26th floor, with the tennis courts looking a bit smaller. Park grass is brown and dead. Tiny Xmas tree way to the left.

In the vestibule where the freight elevator is. 26th floor. Look at that old-fashioned "26" on the wall.

More evidence that this is indeed the 26th floor. I'm waiting for the freight elevator. The white sign at the bottom says, "26th Floor: Special Evacuation Stairs." They always tell you to take the stairs in case of fire.

Ding! Just arrived. The sign in blue lettering says "Elevator #3." This is the freight elevator.

Back in my place. My daily expression of relief.

And the last three shots taken yesterday morning: I finally did the thing without stopping!

26. As you see by the smoke, the wind blows roughly south. Different day, different winds.

Different angle. Our building's park in the foreground, Lotte World Tower à distance.

A last look at the helico sign. In marker: "Currently on the 26th floor."

In a long-ago essay about Zen meditation, I used several analogies to describe what goes on when one meditates—a cork on the ocean, muddy water in a glass jar, a mirror. But the one I wanted to focus on was wind chimes:

And when meditation is done at the beginning of the day, right as you're waking up, it's a bit like picking up a set of wind chimes that had lain jumbled on the floor: once suspended, the chimes sort themselves out into their proper, organized shape, performing their function well. The benefits of meditation work in a top-down way, orienting your day in the same way that the hand suspends the wind chimes. You end up more poised, less grouchy, more perceptive of others' needs and of the cosmos around you. Nothing magical, of course; life just becomes more... well, proper, I guess.

Something like that orientational property comes from waking up at the same time every day and tromping up a staircase. Such exercise has the ability to organize your day, and you almost begin to look forward to doing it. A day without staircases would feel weird. (Not that I'd know: I've faithfully done staircase work every single day for the past 30 days.) And the logic of doing the morning exercise helps to organize your day to some extent, both forwards and even backwards through time: if you're waking up at 5:30 a.m., you're forced to go to sleep at 5:30-minus-six hours, or about 11:30 p.m. the previous day. This, in turn, means you have to wrap up your activities by 11:30 p.m. And so on backwards in time, factoring in your work hours, etc. Even mealtimes fall into a logical schedule as a result of this one activity.

This weekend, I plan to take a break, but on Monday, I'll start the grind again. The thirty-day project isn't a bad way to tackle tasks and see improvement; in a way, it's kind of what I've been doing with my long walks across the country even though those aren't exactly thirty days long. It's February now, so I'll be adding long walks to this next set of 30 days—Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, with stairs on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Rest on Sunday. This every-other-day approach is how I got up to 3 staircases before, so I ought to be able to do that again. And waking up early to do my exercises will keep me on an early-to-bed-early-to-rise schedule, which ought to lead to my becoming healthy, wealthy, and wise.

I didn't do much with my diet over the past month, so my blood sugar and weight won't have gotten better, but my resting heart rate and blood pressure ought to have shown some improvement—signs of a stronger heart thanks to all that gasping while levering myself up the stairs. Let's check those numbers now, shall we?

January 5, 2024 (Day 3 of this project)
• Weight: 123 kg (gag)
• BP: 158/102 (awk)
• Blood sugar: 303 (yikes—must've been after a soda binge)
• Pulse: 79 (could be worse)

The above is pretty horrific. But—

Today, February 1, 2024 (Day 30)
• Weight: 120 kg
• BP: 140/94
• Blood sugar: 238
• Pulse: 68

Those aren't satisfactory* numbers, but they're trending down, so there's been some improvement after a month's effort. As I said above, the logic of my situation forced other changes to occur, e.g., my sleep habits, my eating habits (to a limited extent since I wasn't actively dieting), etc. Over the coming months, I'll be introducing an exercise program that will approach health over several angles, and I might even talk about what I've been learning about things like kettlebells, primary/animal flow, heavy clubs, elastic bands, and bodyweight calisthenics. A lot to do and a lot to talk about.

By the time I do my long walk** later this year, I ought to be more than ready for the hills in my way. Am looking forward to that.

__________

*Satisfactory would be: Wt. 110 kg, BP 120/80, BS 85, and Pls. 60.

**I've decided to do the backwards walk from Busan this year, but I won't be going to Incheon: as I'd written earlier, I'll be hitting Sangju City, then walking straight east to the Andong Dam, and that will be where I stop. Hard to think of a better stopping point. So this year's walk will be about a week shorter than usual.