11/whatevertodayis/09

I climbed on Saturday. Or, rather, I was in a climbing gym on Saturday and did something that sort of looked like climbing, but I'm not sure I could call it that. Sad. It was sad.

Brendan and I went to check out Philadelphia Rock Gym in Oaks, since it's closer to his house, and it can be fun to check out other climbing gyms. However, fun is NOT 200 Girl Scouts who are hogging all of the top rope routes. Fun is NOT spending the first hour floundering on the bouldering routes that went like twenty feet high. (Okay, so maybe it wasn't twenty feet, but we all know Heather is much happier when clipped into a rope.)

By the end of two hours, skin was falling off all of my fingers and palms (and this is *not* an exaggeration. I'm molting or something.), and I was struggling to get up a 5.5.

It's so sad how quickly you can "lose it."

Stay in school, kids.

Or keep up with the rock climbing. Something along those lines.

11/3

So on Tuesday when you weren't there we worked on our projects. I got the first half done twice i think but i kept getting stuck on that one rock right under the over hang. I also tried to climb just the top half like we did that first week but it didn't go very well. After we were tired of that, we climbed a route one step lower than our project and then did some of the 4 x 4 bouldering routes.

Ok so... Heather, we can't make it this weekend. I think saturday Maddie has something to do (not sure what though) and then sunday we have to go into school and get vaccinated for swine flu or something. But apparently volleyball is starting wednesday instead of monday so we can go this tuesday. But how many more weeks are we supposed to do, because we wouldn't be able to the tuesday after. So when could/should we do that? :)

11/3

So today we warmed up and worked on our projects. I made some progress on my project but not much. I got a few moves farther than I did last time and I figured out how to do a move that was giving me trouble before. Then Kathleen told us you said to do a climb that was one level below our project so I did the route that is Maddie's project. I didn't have too much trouble with it but I did take a few breaks. but then at the very end, I didn't really know what to do. The holds were too hard to hold on to and get up. I was also tired so that didn't help much.

10/27

On tuesday we worked on our projects. We tried going from the bottom up but I got to a certain point and then couldn't really make this one move. When I tried, I fell of the wall and couldn't go any farther. Then after we gave up on our projects we climbed some sorta easy top rope routes. But a certain route on the overhang was not so easy :P

10/20 and 10/25

On Tuesday after warming up, we played some bouldering/traversing games. First we tried follow the leader in the cave which was too confusing because (I'll take the blame for that) I subtracted a lot of steps to go in a different direction than you two were planning on. After that failed we started to traverse and played tag. The chaser started on the wall about six moves behing the other person who was trying to out-climb them. One of the stategies was to start somewhere so that the person chasing you would have to do a really hard part right at the beginning that you wouldn't have to do.

On Sunday we started with a warm up and then we each climbed up some different top rope routes. I also attempted to climb the corner no hands again. Afterwards, we tried some new bouldering routes and traversed for a while.

10/20 and 10/25

On tuesday we played some fun bouldering games. One was tag with traversing and that was a lot of fun. I think I was pretty good at traversing fast and catching people :) The other game was follow the leader, which we kind of failed at. We tried to go up and over and chose the weirdest route so we eventually gave up.

Then on sunday we had a pretty relaxed day. We did a few top rope climbs that weren't too hard and then traversed and bouldered some. I tried to traverse almost all the way around the gym. With a few breaks I made it most of the way... kinda. Then we tried some bouldering problems we hadn't done before. Some were a bit harder but they were pretty good. I finished a few of them even though my shoulder was hurting a little.

10/13 and 10/17

So, I'd like to start off by apologizing to you, Heather, for not blogging asap. Please don't kill us again. On Tuesday, we began with a warm up which was easy but obsurdly difficult to down climb in the middle for me for no real reason. Then we spent a longgg time working on how to balance on a flat wall with no hands... and a little boy and his dad had a lot of fun watching the punishment... I didn't really get how to stay on the wall but I learned it's all about core muscles holding you close to the wall. When we moved over to the double corner it got easier and I climbed halfway up. The trick was to have your feet far apart and then to move one foot up, you had to turn your foot and shift your weight to your on stationery foot and your hands on the opposite wall. After this we spent a little while boudlering but we were pretty dead. On Saturday Liz and I did pyramids to build endurance. We picked a 5.5 and then took turns each climbing up once, then twice, three times, four times, and then three times, twice, and once again. I was really tired after all that. Also I couldn't really walk cuz of this cut on the back of my heel and I got a second pinky blister that has been killing me since.
:)

Recap!

I'm sorry for not posting last week! We definitely deserved our suffering today :)

So last tuesday we worked mostly on bouldering. I tried doing my project but for some reason my arms were way too tense and I just couldn't really get much done. So instead we worked on our problems for the 4 by 4 and played a game. The game was that one person tells the other person where to go and it makes you think about it more. It was pretty hard to lead the other person because you always felt bad about some of the moves and if they were in one place for too long it got really tiring.

Then today, we were punished for not blogging and had to climb with no hands. At first we spent like 20 minutes trying to do a flat wall and that didn't work. We always ended up coming off the wall. Then we tried one of the corners and that worked much better. The point of it was to think about what our body was doing with every move. I also did some bouldering to work on this. Then we worked on the 4 by 4. Three of the problems aren't that hard but the one in the cave is very tiring. It hurts my hands a lot and by the end I am pumped.

9/27

On sunday we climbed the same route up and down until we couldn't anymore. This was to build endurance. The wall we picked was a 5.4 and I climbed it 14 times I think. It was really difficult for me because I was already sore, but it felt pretty good for building endurance. Half way through the climb I started feeling pretty tired but when I kept going it felt good afterward.

By the way, I'm sorry but I won't be able to go climbing tomorrow.

9/22 and 9/27

Sorry last week's post is this late, my Internet wasn't working.

On Tuesday we picked our projects. Splitting them into sections with good resting spots helped me picture what the climb would be like. We started by climbing the top third (above the over hang (which i almost just called a hangover...)). Mine was quite difficult and I didn't really get through it. We talked about what to work on and came up with endurance and strength i guess? Then we went to boulder. Another thing we'll be working on this season is a 4-4. I think this will be a lot of fun once we master the routes.

On Sunday we did some endurance climbing. After some stretching, we spent practically the whole 2 hours on the same wall. It was a 5.4 with a ton of positive hand holds. I climbed first, up and down 15 or 16 times. I ended up stopping because of a huge blister on my pinkie that popped open. Also, I was really tired so I kept hitting my elbows on rocks...

Even though I felt really gross and sweaty while I was doing that, the extra exercise felt really good afterwards.

-maddie-

Project climbs

On tuesday, we picked our project climbs. My project climb was a 5.9- with a little bit of an overhang. We worked on them a little differently by finding some break points in the climb. Then instead of climbing the whole thing, we started with the top third. This will help a lot because when we climb the whole thing, the top will seem familiar and be easier.

The top of my climb was pretty hard to do. It had some weird moves that I had to work through. There was one rock that was very hard to hole but I had to use it as a bump to get to a higher one. And one the last move it was difficult to reach the top because of how short I am, so I needed to find some way to reach that.

GOALSSSS

I think one of my goals this season would be to boulder a v1 or higher. I really like bouldering but I can hardly do any of them so I want to be able to do some harder ones.

And maybe another goal could be to finish a project that's a 5.10. I just want to be able to do harder climbs. I think that would be fun.

And by the way I like the title for the blog. It's cute :)

Season 2 GOALS

Hey! This blog is so cute! (i actually like the title too)

So I was thinking that one of my goals for this season would be to traverse around the whole gym because I really enjoy traversing but I've never done the whole thing at once before.

Would our project count in this list of goals too? Because that might be my only other one. But at the moment I can't think of any other good ones.

Ta DA!

So, welcome to our blog! If you don't like the title, we can easily change it... I just wasn't feeling especially creative last night when I was getting things set up.

Like I told you yesterday, for this week, I'd like you to write a goal (or goals - just no more than three) for your climbing this time around. Make sure that your goal is measurable; we should be able to see your progress on it. Also, please think (and write) about why you picked that goal/those goals.

When you write after the weekend, you should feel free to write anything about that experience: narrating a climb, listing what you did, reflecting on how your climbing is going, recording a moment where you figured something out, etc.

Also, be sure to check your posts for comments. I'll often be leaving you comments, and it's not unlikely that you'll both want to comment on each other's posts.

See you next week!