It all started with a request for a parking sticker.
With one jaunt up to the 18th floor of Van Hise Hall to pick up a garage pass for a faculty member in January 2010, Joan Leffler began a stair climbing routine that she's stuck with for the past four years.
Leffler (Photo by Sarah Morton, College of Letters & Science)
Leffler, the department coordinator for the Department of German, is part of a small band of faculty and staff members at UW-Madison who regularly use the towering building's 20-floor stairwell to stay fit, even in the doldrums of winter.
"It's an excellent cardio workout," says Leffler, who is retiring this month after 42 years on campus. "You don't need any equipment."
Leffler had tried to make stair climbs part of her daily schedule several times before 2010, but was discouraged by the prospect of fitting multiple climbs into the noon hour without getting uncomfortably sweaty, particularly on sticky summer days. But she had a realization during that trip up to the 18th floor, then down to Van Hise's parking garage and back up to her eighth-floor office four years ago: "I could do this," she remembers thinking.
She began walking Van Hise's west stairwell once a day — down to the first floor, then up to the 20th floor, then back down to eight — and was climbing four times a day by the end of 2010. That's been her routine for the last three-plus years — once in the morning, again at noon, another in the mid-afternoon and one final trek after 4:30, before she heads home for the day. She says each trip takes her a little less than 10 minutes — an ideal break from her computer screen, and a chance to think about work in a different setting. Within six months, the already-slim Leffler had lost seven to eight pounds.
Bruno Browning, the director of Learning Support Services for the College of Letters & Science on the second floor of Van Hise, began climbing to floor 20 twice a day about a year and a half ago. Those ascensions are one part of an exercise regimen that's helped him drop about 20 percent of his body weight.
Browning
"I was sitting in my office one day, grousing about how I was always so busy that I could never find time to exercise, and it just kind of struck me that I worked in this enormous jungle gym and I might as well take advantage of it," Browning says. "It gets the blood flowing. When I find myself tired and my attention's flagging, that’s a good way to get me back on the rails."
Leffler and Browning occasionally pass each other on the stairs, and both see a few other climbers, including professor emerita of Slavic languages and literature Judith Kornblatt, from time to time.
For any campus personnel interested in following their lead — perhaps as part of a New Year’s resolution — Leffler has a few tips: wear loose, comfortable clothes (or bring a change), don't concentrate on what floor you're on, and stick with it, even if you need to slow down.
Leffler says she'll miss her routine when she retires Jan. 17, after more than 20 years with the Department of German. She's hoping to sneak in a fifth climb on one of her final days in the office.
"It's much easier than what people think it would be," she says. "My only regret is it took me so many years to realize."