Back to the Grind

I've come around a little bit...I'm exhausted but at least I feel all of my muscles whining and I've done something besides be a slob.

Monday, I bailed on yoga and decided to sit around and do nothing. I needed to do nothing, but I didn't end up sleeping a lot so it didn't really do anything. Tuesday, I went out for my friend's birthday and we had a pretty ridiculously good time.

Finally, Wednesday came around and I hit up the gym. One of my climbing buddies was able to make it, so we top roped for a good portion of the evening. On Wednesday, I still thought I might make it out to Seneca to camp and climb, so I had the notion that I ought to up my endurance a little with two days of climbing in a row. I didn't climb a lot on Wednesday, but I climbed pretty hard stuff. There is this one burly 5.9 that I fought with a lot last time, and this time I was so close to sending it clean. I had to take once and that happened because I just wasn't paying enough attention - the hold that I needed most was sort of hidden from me and it took me all of 30 seconds to realize it. Had I been paying more attention, it would have gone quite nicely. Plus, there is this sweet move on the route where I've got a lot of my weight on my left leg, and I'm holding the arete and I end up heel/ankle hooking on this gross sloper with my right leg...and that leg has to pull me up into a stand to reach this shitty top right hand hold. It's pretty much my favorite sequence ever. Very cool stuff. I also tried the 10 right next to it (again) and I made a fair amount of progress on it. The top of the route juts out at a good angle and by the time I get there I am so pumped out, but I figure in a few weeks I should be able to kick it. 2 of my 3 climber boy crushes were at the gym that night, and I'm steadily more interested in one of them. I shared the information with my buddy and she cautioned me against "shitting where I eat." I love that line. Of course, she's totally right.

Thursday, I took advantage of Spa Week and got a 60 minute deep tissue massage and only paid $50 (half the price). I was so psyched on the massage, but it was basically the worst one I've ever had. Not that I'm a massage snob, but it was just crap. I've always had dudes massaging me, which for a while was weird but I have grown to prefer them. They're stronger and they're better at working out the kinks. The woman who worked on me yesterday didn't do anything with her hands: she just rolled her arm up and down my back like a rolling pin. When it came to working on my knots, she just poked at them repeatedly with her index finger. It hurt. I know deep tissue massages are a little bit painful - it's what I always get. But this was just downright painful and not relaxing. Disappointing. I went to the gym for my day 2 of climbing after the massage and I had to briefly debate between climbing and yoga. I wasn't sure if my climbing buddy was going to show up, but in the end he did and so I bouldered for a little while and then went to yoga. The bouldering was frustrating since they changed up all the routes (like all of them, which is usually cool, but they took down all my projects!). It was a smart thing to stop climbing when I did because my elbows are a little annoyed, to say the least. I hadn't bouldered in a good while, and V2s I could have normally sent were a bit more challenging than usual. None of my boy crushes was there last night, which was a little disappointing but, oh well.

Yoga was absurd...I didn't get Chuck, since he teaches on Tuesdays. Thursday is Liz. She did sun salutations over and over and over and it was just exhausting. She taught a good class and she was really helpful in making the poses the best possible, but it was a total killer. I'm a big fan of pigeon pose...it is pretty much the best hip opener ever. She also did this modified pigeon pose where you point your back foot up, you hook it in your elbow and then you connect both hands overhead. Very cool stuff. It wasn't my favorite class ever, but I can definitely give credit to Liz for one really awesome thing: during savasana she walked around and gave out neck/shoulder massages. How awesome is that? The brief massage was better than what Maria, the Brazilian masseur, had done just a few hours earlier.

Last night after the gym, I went home to pick up some stuff for the weekend, since I'm still out in Alexandria dog sitting. Given the pleasant coolness of the weather, I picked up my running shoes. I'm going to go for a short little jog after work. It's silly to think that I might only run 10 or 20 minutes, but that's what I'm going to need to do. Supposedly, I'm not to be running until I get the food checked again by cute boy doctor on the 20th. (Don't tell anyone I'm breaking the rules; my mother will get mad). I should probably figure out if the foot still hurts anyway, and it hasn't hurt at all in weeks. I felt so happy picking up my running shoes...I just hope shit cooperates. Hope hope hope.