Exercising to Maximize Donations

The challenges and races you choose will have different impacts on the energy you add and the donations you earn.  Suppose you get to the base of a hill and you decide you want to climb up and down it a few times.  If it's a 300-stair (equivalent stairs) hill, you would maximize energy gain by choosing the Tower stair race on the way up and the Downtown step race on the way down.  Depending on your speed, you would get anywhere from 68,000 to 90,000 energy.  But you wouldn't have earned even one water or rain forest donation.
Why?  Because only the first 4,000 of a bonus (or 6,000 for polio) are used to apply to donations.  (Remember to keep your eye on the lightning bolt and click Apply Bonus, otherwise you won't even get that much.)

To maximize donations, you need to do the smaller races.  If I am at the base of that same 300-stair hill, I might do the following steps:
1.  Start a challenge, so that I'm doubling up (see my previous post).
2.  Choose the Apartment Race (40 stairs).
3.  Climb the hill until I've won the race.
4.  TURN BACK DOWN the hill, and walk down while I go over to the donations page and Apply Bonus.
5.  Go back to the Race page and choose the Apartment Race.  This may take you 10 steps/stairs going down, so you've made the hill longer.
6.  Turn back up and start climbing again.

Repeat these steps until you get to the top of the hill, and then do the Downtown step race down to the bottom.  Depending on your speed, you would get anywhere from 75,000 to 100,000 energy.  (You did more work because you walked partway down the hill 9 times and had to retrace those steps.)  BUT, you would earn more than 2 days of water, or 2 lots of rainforest, or 2 polio vaccines at the same time.

Hopefully that's clear.... have fun Striiving!