Today was the most beautiful spring day yet. To celebrate, Lindsay and I went running. Seven miles around the waterfront. That’s a new personal record since I started running again recently. I guess hanging around all these Olympic athletes is inspiring me!

And I think an Olympic athlete also inspired the city planner. If Pittsburgh is the City of Bridges, Vancouver is the City of Stairs. Tomorrow, I am going to count how many stairs I climb in the course of an average day. There are easily 80 to and from the Skyway and around 200 to get to the halfpipe at Cypress (and I do that several times a day). It is impossible to walk more than a few blocks without being confronted by at least a small set of stairs. This place forces you to exercise like no city I’ve visited.

AN ESPIN SANDWICH! (THAT’S LINDSAY ON THE LEFT, AND MY SI FRIEND AUSTIN MURPHY IN THE MIDDLE.)

After showering and changing at the Steve Nash Sports Center, which you enter and exit by walking up four flights of stairs, Linz and I hopped on the media bus to Cypress Mountain for the men’s snowboard halfpipe competition. There wasn’t too much going on today in Hockey World, so Lindsay came with me to the mountain to watch finals. Good call on her part: It was an exciting one. Our entire team did so well, and it was fun to get to tell the world yet another story about Shaun White. I’m starting to feel like his personal historian.

THE OLYMPIC HALFPIPE — AND A SWARM OF NAVI (OLYMPIC VOLUNTEERS) …

Back in Vancouver around 11 p.m., Lindsay and I stumbled upon an awesome steak house called Gotham, which is just around the corner from the Sports Club. We sat at the bar, made friends with the head bartender and had a wonderful dinner. Lindsay doesn’t drink; I don’t eat red meat. How the hell did we end up at a steak house and brewery? Doesn’t matter. Everything was fantastic.

In fact, don’t think a bad meal has ever been served in this city. (Outside of the food-like offerings being served in the media centers and event venues, that is.) The coffee is great, the sushi is amazing, and now we know the steak houses kick ass, too. (Did I mention the desserts?)

Thank god for all the stairs!