Climbing the Walls

I have decided it’s time to quit blowing smoke and complaining to my scale at get my body moving.  I managed to exercise at least 20 minutes every day for the last week.  Besides pure laziness, my biggest obstacle to a regular exercise program is boredom.

So, today I decided to do something different.  I found an indoor rock climbing wall.  I can count on one hand the number of times I’d done anything like it before, but I was confident. 

I had hoped for a little instruction, though.  Instead, I was given a release to sign and asked for my shoe size (and a ten dollar bill).  After changing into climbing shoes, I surveyed the giant room, covered from floor to ceiling with plywood walls, leaning at various angles and dotted with odd-shaped grips.

Although I’m not completely out of shape, it was hard work trying to mentally and physically figure out how to get myself from bottom to top, especially when in many spots the larger grips were at my knees and I couldn’t get started.  I also found out I can’t do anything besides a 90 degree angle. 

Thankfully, the staff was busy cleaning up from a lock-in the night before and I was on my own to huff and puff, bang my knees, and jump down before I fell several times. 

I was starting to tire, so I checked the clock.  Surely it had been about 45 minutes, maybe an hour.  It had been about 20.  So I forced myself back out.  I actually did better the second time around.  Of course, I had an audience consisting of two older, obviously more experienced men who spent more time stretching than I did climbing.  Then there were the young children who came in and were racing up the wall like little monkeys.  I left before they got their harnesses on and really started showing me up.

If you don’t hear from me tomorrow, my arms have turned to lead and I’m unable to type.  Hey, that’s what fun’s about at my age!