"We were panting and gasping and she said: What have you two been doing?"
Later, bureaucrats blocked access to those stairs at ground level. Grimsdell wrote to Tizard, asking if the mayor could use her influence to reopen the stairwell.
"She said she couldn't, but she might've told the Herald," Grimsdell says. And in October 1987, a photographer met Grimsdell in her replacement training building, Auckland Hospital. By then Grimsdell had taken to reading books when climbing.
They were a distraction from monotony — but not too big a distraction.
"You sort of look out the corner of your eye, hold on to the hand-rail at times. I don't recall ever missing a step."
Grimsdell climbed about 2,000 steps in half an hour.
She usually visited the hospital four times a week, often taking her daughter Alison along for the climb.
Grimsdell hasn't done so much stair-walking since she had a heart attack climbing stairs in a 16-storey apartment block eight years ago.
"In the middle of doing that my heart gave out.
"So you tell me, is it any good, or is it bad for you?"
Now in her early 70s, she is still fit and active, often walking, tramping and visiting the gym.
One thing has changed though.
"You can't read a book when you're doing the gym," she says. "And when I go for a walk now I always go with friends."
Grimsdell is too modest to call herself a trendsetter, even though her style of exercise has since caught on. Yesterday, 700 firefighters took part in the SkyTower Stair Challenge, racing up 1,103 steps in the Southern Hemisphere's tallest building to raise money for Leukaemia & Blood Cancer New Zealand.
