I am totally proud of myself: tonight when Chris and I went climbing, I cleared a 5.9-rated route without falling or taking a break. Chris said that I'm certainly no longer a beginning climber (do victory dance here). I will likely plateau after I develop my 5.9 abilities and will have to learn a lot of technical skills to move into the 5.10s. Exciting!
Tonight I also worked more on the crack climb and ended up cutting up my hands a little bit in the process. Totally worth it though because I almost finished it. All in all it was a pretty good night of climbing. Another trickier route has become my project. There are some tricky feet holds that I have to work on.
After climbing, I had to start studying for a midterm that I have tomorrow. I'm still wishing that the U will declare a snow day (one of my professors already sent an email saying that we're not going to be having class tomorrow due to the weather). Oh please Snow God: make the roads impassable! Careful driving if you have to!
28 February 2007
27 February 2007
Can you stomach it?
A team of researchers conducting a gene study on the bones of Stone Age adults have discovered the absence of the gene necessary to digest milk, supporting the theory that that gene became prevalent throughout Europe after dairy farming was established. The gene mutation rarely exists in persons of Asian and Native American descent, but is very common in people of European descent. Interesting stuff.
25 February 2007
Official member!!!!
WOOHOO!!!!!
We went to get our year memberships at Vertical Endeavors tonight since they were having their hour-long sale. There were quite a few people there, although there were apparently more previous years. The whole process took only about 15 minutes though which was awesome.
On the form, there was a question asking why we were purchasing a membership, and I wrote "I love climbing" - the woman taking the forms thought that was funny. So now it's official: I'm a member of Vertical Endeavors, and all of you will have to continue reading about all of my "adventures" climbing..........unless of course you decide that you're sick of hearing about how much I love climbing and stop reading..........but then you would miss out on all of the cool stories that I post............I really don't want to see that happen!.............I just wanted to see how long you would continue reading........but wait, how can I tell that you read the whole thing? shoot...............hahaha (I'm just giddy that I got the membership and my goofy side always tends to shine through when I'm giddy; giddy = goofy....ok, I'm done for real this time :D)
We went to get our year memberships at Vertical Endeavors tonight since they were having their hour-long sale. There were quite a few people there, although there were apparently more previous years. The whole process took only about 15 minutes though which was awesome.
On the form, there was a question asking why we were purchasing a membership, and I wrote "I love climbing" - the woman taking the forms thought that was funny. So now it's official: I'm a member of Vertical Endeavors, and all of you will have to continue reading about all of my "adventures" climbing..........unless of course you decide that you're sick of hearing about how much I love climbing and stop reading..........but then you would miss out on all of the cool stories that I post............I really don't want to see that happen!.............I just wanted to see how long you would continue reading........but wait, how can I tell that you read the whole thing? shoot...............hahaha (I'm just giddy that I got the membership and my goofy side always tends to shine through when I'm giddy; giddy = goofy....ok, I'm done for real this time :D)
23 February 2007
Neat look at the Great Lakes
NASA's Earth Observatory took this picture on February 5 of Lake Superior and Lake Michigan. Weather is an amazing phenomenon.
Talk about a sacrifice
This story from the Discovery Channel just screams painful:
An Australian lizard endures what may be the world's worst pregnancy — due to anatomical restrictions, pregnant Australian stumpies must hold a gut-busting infant weighing more than a third as much as an adult, without any swelling or extra body space.I can only think of one thing to say: abstinence.The feat is equivalent to a woman giving birth to a seven-year-old child.
21 February 2007
The ups and downs
Another night at the climbing gym. Chris and I spent between two and two-and-a-half hours working our way through routes tonight. I have gotten into the bad habit lately of getting really mad at myself for not being able to finish routes that I should be able to finish quite easily. I got really pissed when Chris was attempting to get me to relax and have fun by being funny. I was less than thrilled. But it is very true that I need to chill out. Instead of enjoying the moment and just having fun with it, I have been taking certain routes way too seriously, which causes me to mentally psych myself out.
What started everything was that in order to get me to slow down and make more controlled moves, whenever I hit my knee, Chris would have been do a route below my skill level. It is a really good way to get me to concentrate on good feet placement, give me the benefit of being able to take my time and not stress out about it, but I managed to frustrate myself to the point of getting pissed that I didn't finish an easy route. I really have been setting too high of expectations for myself. Nothing new there.
On the bright side, I have been trying to work on more difficult routes as well, trying to improve my skills, and I've been working some more on the natural wall. I have been making some real progress I feel, like being able to hang onto the wall when my feet unexpectedly give out, being able to better problem solve by finding holds or using different techniques, etc. So I just need to focus on having fun and stop taking everything so seriously! I got into climbing because the first time I did it, I instantly loved it. I need to bring myself back to that point.
What started everything was that in order to get me to slow down and make more controlled moves, whenever I hit my knee, Chris would have been do a route below my skill level. It is a really good way to get me to concentrate on good feet placement, give me the benefit of being able to take my time and not stress out about it, but I managed to frustrate myself to the point of getting pissed that I didn't finish an easy route. I really have been setting too high of expectations for myself. Nothing new there.
On the bright side, I have been trying to work on more difficult routes as well, trying to improve my skills, and I've been working some more on the natural wall. I have been making some real progress I feel, like being able to hang onto the wall when my feet unexpectedly give out, being able to better problem solve by finding holds or using different techniques, etc. So I just need to focus on having fun and stop taking everything so seriously! I got into climbing because the first time I did it, I instantly loved it. I need to bring myself back to that point.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
