You've heard the expression "No pain, no gain".  Well, we came up with a new one:  "No owie no maui."  This is a good analogy, seeing as doing the stairs is painful.  Today Dad and I accomplished 5000 steps in under 2 hours.  That's half of the planned Step-a-thon.  It didn't hurt as much as we thought and we almost did more than that.  My Granny Ruth and Grandad (my Dad's parents) were visiting for the day too, and having them there was a great encouragement.  I only hope that as we keep going that I can go farther in order to make the 26th less painful.