Up and down the stairs better then running?

[fraidycat]

I posted this in another thread, but I'm blessed to have a monster flight of stairs all the way up the hill where I live, 237 steps in 5 flights covering a couple of blocks. F--king murderous. It's my morning run, an hour on the steps. I can run it 4 times now, and then have to walk them the rest of the hour. When I started, about 3 months ago, I had to walk it the whole time -- I couldn't even run up the first flight. It must be great conditioning, since a lot of people run it in the morning and even more seem to in the afternoon.