I actually miss those dry, scaly roughed up calloused hands of mine. I want to have my muscular climber back, back. I guess you don’t realize how in shape you were, doing something so amazingly fun, is so great for  your body, until you actually stop doing that one thing. Climbing had definitely kept me in shape from when I started in 1994, all the way up until I moved out of Newfoundland in 2006. That’s twelve years folks. I had built up some good muscle (mostly secondary muscles because my biceps were seriously, super peuniey). I mean, it wasn’t an exercise, or something that I felt I had to do — it was for pure enjoyment. I literally lived at the gym, when I had nothing else to do. That being, I was there 5 days a week.

I have yet to find something that excites me as much as climbing does. Soccer is all in great fun and keeps me active, but it does not keep me in shape if I’m only going to 2 games per week. That’s all I do right now, and it’s not enough. Running is also something I enjoy, but it’s a love/hate relationship.

Being from The Rock (Newfoundland’s nickname), “giving up” on climbing was hard. I wish there was something relatively close to where I am. Inconveniently the city had closed down one of the local indoor bouldering caves I had scoped out with the boyfriend a while prior to my move. Now there’s a bunch of outlet shopping stores there. I refuse to go inside.

While boyfriend was shopping around at MEC for gym bags to use a few weeks ago, as his was literally falling apart at the seams, I decided to browse the climbing section and look at the shoes. I’m currently rockin’ the lime green (they look yellow  but they aren’t!) La Sportiva Miura’s who has yet to do me wrong, and it has seriously been the best shoe to fit my small heel. I’ve never had troubles slipping out of them while doing heel hooks. I’m not really looking for a new shoe, because my 5 year old Miura’s are still going strong, without a resole, but what the heck. No harm in looking, so why not stay in the same family because obviously La Sportiva is my new BFF. I picked up a nice blue pair of Women’s Katanas, I’m pretty sure I was just sold on the color itself. Immediately I wanted to purchase them, without even trying them on, and without having a regular gym to go to.

After I was done, I went to look at their biners (I’m a sucker for different colored biners, JUST to use for my house key. I saw something on the table, so I scooped up one of many business cards that were laying down on the counter  in that same climbing section.

Obviously I’m itching to get back into the groove of things and pick up climbing again.

It was a Climbers Rock business card, and they just so happen to be a little bit out of my way. Burlington is unfortunately 80km away from me, and regardless of how awesome this gym is — it’s unlikely that I would become a regular. I think for now, I will have to stick it out and suck it up. I’ll be climbing at the University’s itty bitty pitiful wall.

Climbing is an amazing sport. No matter what gym you step into, the clientèle is  pretty much the same. Every single person that I’ve met, and who has climbed regularly is naturally easy to talk to, very laid back and quite friendly. Climbers never make fun of those who are “newbies” at climbing. They actually LOVE that you picked it up in the first place and help you with your routes/boulder problems by giving beta, or even spotting a person whom they’ve never met.

I think I feel lost without it.

(Photos yanked from Climber’s Rock, taken by Jeremy Nathan.)