The Stairs

A friend of mine goes up and down (about 4 - 5 times) these stairs (over 200 steps) once a week.  She got the bright idea of inviting me to join her.  I accepted thinking to myself it can't be that hard.  We arrive at the bottom of the stairs and I thought "Oh how pretty."  (Looks are very deceiving.)  The cement stairs zig zags up to the right and then to the left, there is a nice terrace with concrete benches to rest your tired ass if you so desire, before heading up the last set of stairs.  I was optimistic on my way up...I made it up the first set of steps no problem...the second set...I started breathing heavier...and the last set I grabbed the handrail and was physically using my arms to pull me up the remaining ten steps, my breathing had become increasingly ragged.  I felt such relief and happiness when I finally reached the top step.  I leaned on the banister at the top, sweat pouring down my forehead.  I am so out of shape.  I looked down at the scene and thought how beautiful it all looked from here and mentioned to Minnette that I should have brought a camera and taken a picture and she says well let's go down and get your camera and come back up...I looked at her and said "Huh?".  Needless to say, we went back down, I didn't have my camera but I had my iPad and brought that with me back up the second time I climbed those stairs and below are the pictures I took.  After the second round I decided to rest and wait for Minnette while she she climbed those stairs about 3 more times.  I'll do it again with her next week and hopefully I'll have improved a little. :)  I think maybe I need to practice in between and do some step ups at home.