I’m having a staredown with déjà vu here. Didn’t I blog about this already? If so, I haven’t found it. Anyway, here goes.

I can’t speak for all cyclists; but I, for one, find climbing a flight of stares — I mean, stairs — harder than riding miles on a bicycle! Climbing stairs was harder even than riding my tricycle for miles. That’s puzzling, don’t you think?

After all, putting in all those miles should be making our legs strong. Shouldn’t we be able to climb stairs with ease?

Apparently we cyclists aren’t alone in having difficulty with stairs. It happens to marathoners, too. What’s going on?

Blame it on the muscle fibers that come into play while walking up the stairs. This activity requires us to propel ourselves upwards, and the effort sets off our fast-tiring fast-twitch muscle fibers. Add to this the fact that stair-climbing is an anaerobic activity. And we’re also fighting gravity!

Besides all that, walking up stairs uses different muscles than bicycling or running. I guess I’ll have to give those stairs a good staredown, and tell them not to bother me.