A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of That

Fact is, today was not my best in climbing. I mean it was, and it wasn't. I sent my first 5.9 clean and that was a pretty cool accomplishment. I also did the start of a route that involved some lateral dynamic movement, which I'd never done before. I was pretty impressed that I could actually make that start move. I ended up doing it like 5 times (just the start) and used a lot of my energy trying to make it stick. Next time I climb, I'm going to try that route again when I'm a little fresher and I can actually move forward after the start.

I got to the gym at 6 and ended up being there (actually climbing and not just hanging out) until 8:30. I have no idea how many routes I climbed, but I'm exhausted. I started the evening feeling downright shitty: I think I was starting to have a tension headache coming up from my shoulders and into neck/head. My sensibility to go home and sleep was ignored, and instead I took out my psychotic work week stress on climbs. It was a good decision indeed. My shoulders and neck are still really achy, but I have let go of all the frustration that came from my office. My abs and hip flexors are out of wack. Yesterday's yoga practice was just absurd to the point that my abdominals and hip flexors don't want to work right now.

I lost a fair amount of skin on a sand papery jug...it was such a solid hold and I couldn't get my feet where I wanted them...ultimately it came down to me staying on route by the skin on my right ring finger. I should have stopped climbing then, but I persisted and actually got my flapper to bleed. I found that impressive. Deeelicious.

While I had some awesome successes, the rest of the night was sorta messy: I pumped my arms out rather quickly, my feet were sloppy and my fingers were just whiny. Thankfully, I had a patient belayer, and he had a patient grigri.

All of my climbing boy crushes were at the gym tonight (all three of them). What a great pile of man candy. I love climbing.


It's just skin: