If I were playing Similes back in the days of Charles Dickens, I would know that the title of this blog should be "racing like the wind." But Dickens wasn't trying to exercise on a hot day in an air-conditioned building. So I will leave the title as is.

My daughter is going to teach in Vacation Bible School, and her group had a planning meeting today. I arrived 30 minutes early to pick her up so that I could climb stairs in the delightfully cool church building.

Climbing stairs is wonderful Type O exercise. It works my leg muscles, challenges me aerobically, and is very intense. In the past when I have climbed stairs, I have been aware of an uncomfortable feeling in my right knee. It's not so much pain as a sensation that my right knee is weaker than my left knee. That same sensation doesn't keep me from running, but it does make me limit myself to running only once a week.

I blogged several months ago that I had borrowed some T-Tapp tapes. That program stresses over and over that walking like a duck (with your toes pointed out) will cause knee and hip damage. It also stress the advantage of what they call KLT (pushing your Knee toward your Little Toe).

As I started climbing this afternoon, I felt my weak knee reminding me that it was there. At the same time, I realized that my toes were out. Some instinct for balance had me climbing like a duck. I pointed my toes straight forward, and for good measure pushed my knees out over my little toes. This was not particularly graceful. I looked like a cowboy after a long day on a horse. But as soon as I started, the weak feeling in my knee went away.

I climbed 60 flights of stairs feeling discomfort only when my toes would sneak back out or my knees would go in.

There were lots of people working at the church today. A few took the stairs, but most opted for the elevator. I began to race the elevator, and found that I could easily beat it every time.

Before I close this blog, there was a thread on the Forum - I think it was the one about massaging fat - where someone asked if there was a way to get rid of fat knees. Teresa Tapp calls that "knee knocker fat." She says that walking like a duck builds it up, and that KLT will gradually make it go away. I never got around to posting that on the thread, but perhaps whoever wrote it will read it here.