A group of people running the stairs of the San Diego Convention Center. One gentleman apparently puking.
Running stairs beats a treadmill any day of the week. You can sprint and create intervals without any real thought. The shorter stride makes it a better way for beginners to start sprinting than flat out on a track. And as I pointed out in my earlier post there are plenty of great reasons to take your exercise outdoors. Here are four great places to run stair sprints in San Diego.
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San Diego Convention Center Steps
Probably some of the most heavily trafficked steps for interval junkies in the city, these steps offer a view and an ocean breeze while you sweat. The steps and the convention center are big and easy find downtown. The only time they aren't really a good option is typically during Comic Con. The picture above doesn't even show all of the steps. They are enormous.
La Mesa Secret Stairs
The La Mesa Secret Stairs are a seriously awesome find that not enough people know about. There are 484 steps in total if you run all 3 sections of the steps which span across several streets. The City of La Mesa website hosts a great map to help you find them. They are after all "Secret Stairs." Just keep in mind that these steps do pass right through a residential neighborhood and next to people's homes, so be respectful with your volume level.
Aztec Recreation Center
Bottom of the stairs behing Aztec Recreation Center
The campus at SDSU has quite a few good sets of stairs. The easiest to access probably being those behind the ARC and the Parking Structure 4. There are just under 100 steps total and they are wide enough for you and a friend to run together even when there is other foot traffic. Try sprinting up and walking down an begin a sprint every 2 minutes. This should give you 90 seconds or more rest for each run. Many people hit a wall around 6 or 7, push on and see how you do.
For a longer run you can head to the steps originating in the business services parking lot. They are a bit longer but they are much more narrow and have more turns.
UCSD Track
The UCSD Tritons’ track is pretty much wide open to any and all that would like to use it. Alongside it are great stadium steps both large and small so its really easy to mix up your workout with different jumps, skips, and sprints. The only downside is paying for parking unless you make the trek from the glider port to get started.
Stay tuned for more stairs to run in San Diego.
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