Yeah…yeah…yeah…we did a lot of shizzle this weekend!
Right after we finished building the new bed for the van, the plan was to go climbing in Boulder Canyon. Though that would have been fun, some clouds rolled in and we were feeling kind of tired (and lazy). So Jill said, “lets go climbing tomorrow and make donuts today instead”. As I thought about it for like 2 seconds, I thought that was a brilliant plan; because the end-result is me eating donuts.
Month 8 on the quest for 5.13a (yeah…moving though these hard grades takes time) feels like forever now. I have heard that one benefit of taking time off from climbing *from an injury* is renewed motivation. After nearly a month off of climbing (for me, Jake) I have just that. Generally speaking, I’m always pretty motivated when working out; 8/10 workouts I’m rip-roaring and ready to go! Note – Jilly has not taken off from climbing and has been crushing it the last 2 months – climbing harder than she ever has before and better than 90% of the men in our gym.
So I was at work today….as I am everyday…working diligently and I realized that this weekend is my boss’s 60th birthday. Now most people wouldn’t care a scrap about this sort of thing, but my boss is actually really awesome and so I asked the office manager / his personal assistant if there were any plans in the works for the big day, to which he replied that he was going to get a card…
LAME.
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8 months in…whew..we no longer know what a life without training is like. Unfortunately for me (Jake), I injured my ring finger a few weeks ago so I am no longer on the climbing roster for the entire month of February. It’s a little (more like A LOT) depressing! Climbing is a huge physical release for me, and while I am doing other things to train hard, climbing took huge amount of effort and I am finding it hard to feel like I’ve worked hard enough.
So how did I get hurt, you ask? From climbing harder than my body could handle at the time. This is not a new problem or issue for me. Pretty much all climbers suffer small, mild injuries to one body part or another; it could even be argued that every climber out there is climbing with injuries of some kind.
The Christmas season (for us) started in early November. It began with the lights and decor. We decided to gradually add lights EVERYWHERE we could (both inside and out) and put up our tree / ornaments. We did this because we figured that if we waited until around Thanksgiving, when normal people start to put up lights, it would be too cold or we would not be motivated to do it. Plus we wanted to enjoy them for more than a few short weeks so we hit the ground running. We did have to wait a few weeks before we could turn on the outside lights because we have a super lame HOA (aka Horrible, Over-paid, A-holes) but there was no hesitation with any inside lights or the tree…we had that bad boy blazing since November 5th and didn’t look back!
We are roughly 6 months into this “challenge” and if I am being honest with myself, it will be at least another 6 months of continued hard work to reach my goal of climbing a 5.13a route. One reason for the long-term timeline is that it is now December, so climbing on actual rocks will probably not happen until May 2014. Another (more pressing) reason is that I truly had no clue how hard this goal would be and how long it would take to prepare my body for. My original thought was around 4-6 months; but regardless of the crappy fall weather and flooding in Colorado this year, I wasn’t ready.
Thank you Sandy! You should check out our new blog www....August 22, 2014 - 2:39 pm by Jacob Challis
Love reading about your adventures. From: Sandy (friends...August 22, 2014 - 2:39 pm by Sandy TerrellLets do a big family trip next year (end'ish of summer ...October 2, 2014 - 2:33 pm by Jacob Challis
Looks amazing!!! We would love to visit with you!!!October 2, 2014 - 2:33 pm by Julieand so easy to make! we've made a couple batches just this...August 15, 2014 - 7:37 pm by Jacob Challis
