Ready to Rock and Roll!

It seems like I just turned 33 and finished my first birthday challenge. Yet in reality, here I am, about to turn 36! In case anyone was wondering, I did do 34^th and 35^th birthday challenges.

When I turned 34, I went to Disneyland. My goal was to ride 34 rides and do 34 repetitions of 34 different body-weight exercises (squats, lunges, etc.) while I waited in line for rides. I made it halfway there (17 rides, 17 different exercises). My birthday fell two days before Thanksgiving. Let me just say that that is NOT a good time to visit Disneyland. It was unbelievably crowded. And it turns out that you can’t really ask six-year olds if it’s OK to cut in line in front of them for your birthday challenge. It was a miserable challenge in a lot of ways, but it was still fun to hang out at Disneyland.

For my 35^th birthday, I really wanted to do a climbing-based challenge. But it just wasn’t in the cards for me. I had torn my labrum in June and was unable to climb much while waiting for surgery. So I decided to do a 35-day-long workout challenge leading up to my birthday. Every day, for 35 days straight, I either ran (3.5 or 5.3 miles), worked out at the gym (doing 3 rounds of 5 repetitions of bench press, front squats, pull-downs, etc.), or did a hangboard workout (climbing training). It was brutal. And not because any one workout was that hard. But really. 35. Days. Straight. I’ve never been so happy for my birthday to arrive because when I woke up on my birthday I didn’t have to workout! I was also happy because my challenge was successful.

So here’s the challenge this year. Since my shoulder has recovered (mostly) from surgery, I decided that I should finally do an all-climbing challenge. I’ll be climbing at three different Touchstone gyms (Berkeley Ironworks, Great Western Power Company in Oakland, and Dogpatch in San Francisco). At each of the gyms, I will be bouldering a total of 36 points. The easiest climbs (V0) will be given 1 point. V1s will be given 2 points and so on. So I could achieve my goal at one gym by climbing 3 V0s (3 points), 4 V1s (8 points) 4 V2s (12 points), 2 V3s (8 points), and a V4 (5 points).

I’d be lying if I said that I had trained really well for this challenge. In that last few weeks I’ve finally been able to start climbing three days a week again. Prior to this I was only getting in one day a week if I was lucky. I’ve ascertained that I can climb 36 points in one session (I was able to do it in one hour by climbing problems I’m familiar with). My last day of training I climbed a total of 66 points. And boy was I exhausted. So I think I’m going to need all the luck I can get this Thursday!

For info about what a Birthday Challenge is: http://www.birthdaychallenge.com/