Climbing the walls

Yesterday, I joined the climbing gym near my office. Yes, I already belong to other gyms and yoga studios and dance studios and running clubs. BUT, climbing is a great upper body work out, which means that this gym, unlike the other activities, has SO many hot guys.

It’s not even that I want to meet them, I just like watching them.

If I did go up and talk to them, I’d probably end up saying something stupid like, “Ya know, it’s easier to reach that hold if your shirt’s off.” Or “So, how long is your member? Ship. How long is your membership for?” or “Can’t reach that hold with your arm? Try using your penis.” (I spent yesterday afternoon at the climbing gym sitting around with my friends coming up with silly climbing gym pick-up lines. It’s much less work than actually trying to climb the walls.)

Those walls. They are challenging. I am struggling with the very beginner level bolder routes, or “problems,” as they’re called.

Yesterday, I was hanging on at the bottom of a particularly daunting BEGINNER problem. And by hanging out, I mean I was sitting. The route starts with your butt on the ground. From there, you’re expected to launch yourself up three feet to grab the next hold with your right hand.

I tried. I couldn’t do it.

As I sat there, wondering how anyone could, I was overtaken by a girl who couldn’t have been more than 8 or 9. Okay, so it’s not hard to be overtaken when your butt is still on the ground. But still, she was speedy. She was fearless. And, I kid you not, she only had one arm.

This little, one-armed girl decided that her sport of choice would be climbing. And she was pretty damn good at it. It was humbling. It was inspiring. I decided then that perhaps I would spend more time trying to climb walls and less time looking at manly biceps. Or at least split my time 50/50.