Guest Blog #4! Up and up and up!

I've been on a bit of a hiatus from running.  That's partially due to being busy with work/school (dissertation deadline is looming) and partially due to having an incredibly incompetent immune system (yet another thing Briana and I have in common!).  But despite the lack of running, I have at least been keeping up with my favorite form of strength training: rock climbing!

I've been climbing at an indoor rock gym for on and off for about 2.5 years, usually 3x a week during the "on" phases.  Most of the time I go with a friend, which makes it a lot harder to be lazy and skip a day.  Having a partner also keeps me accountable to try new and harder things, which has really been paying off lately.  I think part of the difficulty to exercising regularly is that you make slow progress but it's easy to forget where you started... so I will celebrate the fact that I can do 5 pull-ups in a row now! 

My climbing partners talked me into competing in a recent bouldering competition hosted by a local climbing gym that is designed with both elite and amateur climbers in mind.  Bouldering is where you climb a wall without ropes, up to about 10-12 feet off the ground.  Routes are marked with different color tape and assigned point values based on how difficult they are (5 points for something like a ladder, up to 1200 points for something completely insane). I find bouldering a bit more challenging than climbing a tall wall on a rope, mostly because the well-padded ground is the only thing to catch you if you fall :-)  The mental aspect of climbing is hugely important... I've been working hard to drown my inner pessimist and just try my best.

For the competition you had 3 hours to climb as many routes as you wanted, then you tallied up the points from the hardest 5 climbs you completed to make up your final score.  My friends and I had a blast trying a bunch of routes, and I ended up placing squarely in the middle of the 20-something females bracket, which I was super proud of.

The coolest thing though was how cooperative and friendly all of the other climbers were.  I was working on some easier climbs right next to some really ridiculously hard routes, and the elite climbers took time out to cheer me on.  When I got stuck, lots of people would offer advice or show me how they got past a tricky spot.  Everyone clapped for the kids who were competing (and in many cases climbing way better than the adults).  It was really fun to be part of an event where everyone was competing against themselves more so than each other.  I think that happens pretty frequently in running too, and I'm excited to experience that in the coming year!

I did finally get out for a run this week (right before we had our first 100+ degree day!) and did way better than anticipated.  My husband went with me, which no doubt encouraged me to go faster than I would have otherwise, but we managed 2 miles at an average pace just under 10 min/mile (with a nice leisurely walk between the miles so I could catch my wind).  There is no way I could have done that all those months ago when I first got started with this crazy adventure.

So, 2 miles down, only 11.1 to go.  Easy peasy.  Well, at least if it wasn't

101 degrees outside right now...