How to do a stair running workout

My advice on a stair running workout is Don't.  Ever.  See if you can not do it on a day when it's 95* and humid.  Through a cruel twist of fate, that's how all my stair workouts have been.  I'm not sure if I'd hate them less if I did them in better weather.  I am sure that these workouts were helpful in climbing mountains and sand dunes in Colorado and being able to run that extra leg and super big hill at Ragnar this year, so I grudgingly keep doing the work.

Stair workouts:
Step 1 - find a big stair case.  Big.
Step 2 - welcome to hell.

No, seriously, our trainer has us do a few different things, and works the exercises into a few different workouts. 

• Box Jumps - the goal is to land in the middle of the step, and to just keep jumping all the way up the stair case.  When I first tried it, I'd do 10 or 15 steps in a row but be absolutely dying by the top of the stairs.  Tonight I'd do about 7 in a row, take a breath or two and keep going and had much better luck with my endurance.  Jumps go up the stairs only, run back down them.
• One legged hops - five on one foot and then five on the other, all the way up.  I am a freak of nature because my left leg is much stronger and more balanced than my right side, the opposite of everyone else.  I am also left eye dominant and play tennis left handed.
• Sprint up and down - run up and down the steps, pretend someone is chasing you if it helps.  This is the only one that can be done up and down the staircase.

Tonight our workout was sprint up and down the staircase then a full minute of jumping jacks, then recover and do it 3 times.  I was the only person who made all three times.  One runner has asthma and her heart rate got too high, and the other two had run to the park from 3 miles away and were super hot already so they get a pass.

Above: The view from the top - Sears Building on the left and downtown Minneapolis on the right.  This on the "high side" of the park.  Below: the pond at Powderhorn Park.  This is one of the few bodies of water in the city that is never referred to as a lake.  It's too small.  The staircase is in between these two sites.