Oh, hi blog. It's been a while since I wrote, but mainly because things right now are kind of routine in my fitness life. Just pulling myself out of my post-Thanksgiving turkey hangover, and trying to maintain throughout the month of December amongst all the Christmas parties. Other than my normal weekly schedule of group fitness classes, I've been maintaining my weight lifting and also running 1-2 times per week. I haven't done anything over 6 miles since the marathon.
I did try the thing I've always been saying I wanted to experience...indoor rock climbing. Chad and I both randomly had a Tuesday afternoon off work last week, so we dug out our Groupons to Climb Time that we purchased back in the summer. I've always heard what a good workout that climbing is, and after having done it myself, I concur!! I was in the middle of my first venture up the wall, probably about 4 feet from the top, and even though I was so close, my arms were shaking, my shoulders were burning, and I had to ask Chad to lower me down. I think part of it must have been nerves from getting used to the height and the feel of how to stay steady on the rocks. There's a big trust factor involved when someone is holding your rope and you are standing on a rock so small it's more like a pebble. Each climb after that was a fairly easy trip to the top, and I was much better at it than I thought I would be. I will admit that we purposely only did the "beginner" routes. There were rock paths marked in black tape that designated the easier climbs where you had a rock for right hand, right foot, left hand, left foot all the way up. I completed all of the black routes, so my goal for the next trip is all of the white routes, which is the next step up in difficulty level. While upper body strength is definitely a huge factor, as much as you can use your legs the better. My trick was to find the highest rock that I could grab onto with my hand, then use my legs to push up to that point.
I had done a pretty in-depth upper body workout the day before, so it's hard to tell entirely what was due to the rock climbing, but when the muscles in your forearms are sore for the next two days, you can bet it wasn't from the shoulder presses you did in the gym. Talk about functional fitness of pulling your own body weight! We tried some of the inverted walls where you literally are hanging on my sheer upper body strength--I didn't make it too far up those. You might think that it can't be that great of a workout when you're constantly switching off with your partner, but I found I needed those minutes to let my arms and heart rate recover.
I laughed at myself on one climb where the last rock that was available to pull yourself to the top had an impossible grip. I reached for it, but there was no way to hang on, so as soon as I lifted my other hand off the wall, I instantly slipped (well, more like slipped and then the rope flung me backwards into the wall. THAT left a mark.) I was complaining about how there was no way to grip that last rock because the ledge on it was facing sideways...then the thought hit me, wait, in real rock climbing it's not like they give you these irregular shaped knobs to hold onto every couple feet!
I can't wait for our next trip!
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