Boulder On

T.S. Elliot called April the cruelest month. So far I have to agree. I have been incredibly busy these past couple of days. The main reason is I’ve been editing the final draft of my book, trying to polish it before submitting to agents in May. This has kept me busy along with my actual paying job. It’s been tough to find time to climb. But I’ve managed to find a way, and I’ve developed some workout I like. So for the rest of April I’m going to give descriptions of the various workouts I go through. This will be a break from otherwise in depth and thoughtful (haha) commentary. BRYAN’S CLIMBING WORKOUT: Pre- Workout : I cycle to my gym. I.                Warm-up A.      5 minutes of cardio, usually cycling on a stationary bike. B.      Stretching. i.                 Piriformis s...

My body aches as I extend from the wall, trying to hold as much weight as I can with my skeleton instead of my biceps. I take a deep breath and slowly place my foot on the next hold.             “Nice move,” says Joe. “Remember to keep those feet quiet.”             What he means is that I shouldn’t stomp my foot on a hold, like I often do when I’m desperate to prevent myself from falling. Joe is the instructor of the class I’m taking at my gym: “Movement for Beginners.” If you want to know what Joe looks like, picture the first image that pops into your head when you read, “Arizona hippy,” and you’re probably right. The purpose of the class, amazingly enough, is to teach beginners how to climb properly. Since I’ve only been climbing since January, I’m still a beginner. A rock climbing training book I’m reading says you can’t really call yourself ...

Resting is a difficult concept; at least for me. I’m taking this Friday off from climbing even though I normally like to workout at my gym three times a week. It’s tough to do this because I have to actively force myself to rest. I’m sequestering myself for two reasons. The first is my manager took a vacation, so I had to cover for them during the week. The second is I was summoned and selected for jury duty. Let me just say jury duty is important, but it’s important in the way taking out the garbage or doing the dishes is important. It needs to be done, but unless you’re of a very small percentage of people, you don’t want to do it. Every assumption you have about jury duty is true. It’s a Kafkaesque nightmare of tedium, where the jury pool’s emotions range from apathetic annoyance to irate indignation. Statistically if you are selected for a jury, you won’t hear something exciting or interesting. You’ll listen to a grubby little case for a grubby little ...

I stare up at the pine tree in disbelief, unable to comprehend how it came to this. Up above I see a flash of orange in the evergreen, and I hear the plaintive cries of my cat Alastair who, stereotypically, is stuck in a tree.             It’s Monday, and we finally have a nice day of weather. Alastair has been constantly demanding to be let outside, but the cold weather has thwarted him. Now, mainly to shut him up, I’ve taken him for a walk on his leash. I keep him on the leash because weirdly enough, I’m afraid he’ll get stuck up a tree. Of our two cats he’s the dumb and precocious one, and if a squirrel leapt off a bridge, I’m certain he wouldn’t think twice about jump after it.             After the walk is over, I take him back to our apartment and take off his harness. Yet fool that I am I forget to close the back door, and he bolts out of the...

I need to start doing cardio again. Last year I made an effort to exercise everyday. Tuesday and Thursdays I’d swim at least a kilometer, and the rest of the week I’d run or bike. Yet since the beginning of this year my cardio workout has been nonexistent.              I could come with a lot of excuses for why I’ve been sitting on my butt. Like that I’ve been focusing on just getting stronger in my gym, or that I’ve started a new position at work. I could say I’ve been busy focusing on my novel, or that it’s been cold outside. Yet the truth is, it’s mostly laziness. I’ve found that when I really want something, I find time to do it.             It’s at the point now where my lack of cardio is affecting my climbing. Tuesday wasn’t a great day because after I sent two projects, my heart was ready to pound out of my chest. Also my forearms were s...

The worst thing about a climbing gym is the children. Whenever I get done with a climb, whenever I have struggled and willed myself to the top of the wall and am grabbing a drink of water and feeling good about myself, I always look back and see some little child doing the same climb I've just done. My sense of accomplishment fades as I see these little bastards, who just outgrew larva stage, nimbly move from hold to hold without any difficulty and reach the top in half the time it took me. Then they descend and look at me with bored disdain. If I wouldn't immediately go to jail, I'd grab one of these little urchins and scream, "YOU THINK YOU'RE BETTER THAN ME? JUST WAIT UNTIL YOU'RE IN YOUR LATE TWENTIES AND WEIGH 215 POUNDS!" The second worst thing about a climbing gym is all the beautiful people. I've been going to my gym for over a month, and I have yet to see a single ugly person. It's as though I've walked into an Abercrombie and Fi...