How Did I Get Here?

Quote of the Day: “Silly is you in a natural state, and serious is something you have to do until you can get silly again.”

For Alex’s birthday, we took him rock-climbing in an indoor gym.

This wasn’t the first time we have done this and I don’t know how smart it was to do the day before a half marathon.

But I threw caution to the wind and herded up the family for some climbing-the-walls fun.

This is one sport that is pretty much on the other side of where I would consider “Jason’s Strong Points” live.

Why?

- I have tiny little weak arms compared to the rest of my body.
- I don’t particularly enjoy heights
- Having my privates hoisted up like something out of Circ de Soliel is not good times

But I knew the rest of the family loves this so I made it a birthday excursion for my 16-year-old son.

He’s 16. Good Lord Almighty.

Focus, Jason….

OK, everyone wanted to climb except Carrie so she just concentrated on belaying duties. We made it up the first easy wall with no problems and I felt a rush of accomplishment completely disproportionate to the degree of difficulty.

The second wall I tried, I climbed right up. Hey, maybe I’m better at this than I thought…

Third wall, complete failure.

I guess part of the challenge of these things is that it really depends on your body size and balance. I might have an easier time on a wall because I have longer limbs or my daughter might have it easier because the distance between holds is more ideal for shorter limbs.

Plus, you could get yourself in a position where you are literally stuck. You’ve balanced yourself so no viable holds are within reach and the next person could hit the same spot but with a different balance distribution and easily grab on to the next hold. That’s the challenge, I guess.

Well, I got about ten feet up and somehow got in a position where I just could not find another way to continue. I tried until my upper body strength depleted and had to come down in defeat.

I was not happy about this, as you can imagine.

Then my son hooked up and scaled the wall like Spiderman.

WTF?

OK, I had to try this again and sure enough, I was able to power past the point I had been stuck at earlier and make it all the way up.

After a few more climbs, I discovered something else about rock-climbing. When you are done, there is little doubt you are done. I had an inkling after my last climb but after sitting down next to my daughter, my hair matted with sweat, I realized that I DEFINED done.

Alex had a couple of more climbs left in him so I kept myself busy looking at the different posters in the gym and the INSANITY of the holds these people had on a minuscule outcropping while certain death sprawled out behind them because they were, like, you know, hundreds of feet up in some desert.

I mean, I’M nuts, people, but these people take criminal insanity to a new level.

This all took less than a couple of hours of course and I didn’t feel like I could pick up a bottle of water after I was done.

After a stop at Baskin & Robbins where I successfully fought off the urge to down a Snicker’s double scoop on top of a sugar cone, we went home and I prepped for tomorrow’s race.

San Dieguito, here I come.

Free Advice for Today: “Use a camcorder to videotape the contents of your home for insurance purposes. Don’t forget closets and drawers. Keep the tape in your bank safe-deposit box.”

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 9th, 2008 at 5:11 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.