Fitness Solution

Since I moved back to the bay, I've been struggling to find a fitness solution that works for me. When I was living up north, going to Crossfit every day was no problem because I didn't teach during the week and had a VERY set schedule with work because I couldn't work from home. Also I lived at the barn, so riding was easy in the mornings before work. Everything was predictable. My Crossfit friends were all around my age or a little younger, many of them PhD students at the local university or recent graduates.

Miss this place

We formed a group and would all attend the same classes, a lot of the time staying late after class to hang out. It was a huge bummer moving away from them, although I think a lot of people split in the following months. We still have a group chat, but it's mostly quiet.

When I moved back, I tried several crossfits (three in total, plus a powerlifting gym) and none of them stuck. Either the times weren't great, the programming wasn't my fave, or I didn't like the coaching. Then I got mono and was forced to stop anyway. And when I recovered from mono, I doubled my business load and then basically stopped going to the gym.

Since then I've struggled to figure this out. I love the group classes and weightlifting that Crossfit offers, but I can't make specific times. I don't have a set schedule because of teaching, I need flexibility in when I can hit the gym. Most of the gyms in this area don't have enough classes at random times to help me out there.

Ugh I should have gotten lifters
much sooner, my OHS and general
squat form is way better now

Then my brother and I went bouldering together in September kind of randomly, I went a couple more times with him and once with my boyfriend after that and then it kind of petered out, but I did like it. Boyfriend and I started looking around in the area where we are and couldn't find a single gym that wasn't just completely packed after work (which is the easiest time for us to go together, although he has a gym at work he can go to and he's also a cyclist).

But I went bouldering again recently with my brother (before he had a kid) and was reminded how much I love bouldering and how sparse the gym is in comparison to other gyms. So I decided to join!

They have group classes in the after work hours (TRX, yoga, a core class) and if I can't make one of those, the weight room is always scarce because most people are there to climb. The climbing is great! I can boulder by myself or with my brother (when he is back to normal life... eventually) and when my hands get tired, I can go squat or row or deadlift or something. It's also way less expensive than crossfit, which is good. And I get a free guest pass every month! My brother goes 1-2x per week and I plan on trying to go with him (again, eventually, can you tell I wrote this post before my niece decided to come into the world two weeks early?), plus once or twice more to do some weights. If I can't figure out what to do, I can look back at my old workouts (I have a huge amount of workouts just sitting in a saved folder from doing Crossfit all of 2018) and do those.

We don't have tons of hobbies in common, paddle boarding is
one of them (which we don't do enough, this summer for sure!)

Also hiking! This is from Lassen in 2018

Fingers crossed it will work out! I just want to go a few hours a week and keep myself active beyond just riding. And being able to share something with my brother is great. Yes he now has a kid, but he says that he and my SIL want to keep doing their physical activities (she does barre), so hopefully he can come with me once a week once they settle in with the kiddo.

Bouldering

This weekend was the first one I spent at home in a long time! No teaching, no traveling except to ride TC with my trainer and to see my brother, both are under an hour's drive from my house.

On Sunday, I rode TC bareback around the ranch and then chatted with an old friend who I hadn't seen since leaving this barn a year and a half ago. It was great to see her and so fun to wander around the ranch bareback on TC! Plus, we upgraded our bridle finally. It's an Eponia Frost and it is replacing my 16 year old Vespucci bridle that started to look rather unsafe. I'm super stoked to have it! It needs tons of conditioner but other than that, is really soft and fits TC's weird head really well.

New bridle!

From the barn, I drove straight up to visit my brother and SIL. I had texted them to see if they wanted to go do something that weekend. Brother was free but SIL had to work, so the two of us headed out to try bouldering (rock climbing with no ropes) for the first time ever.

I've been wanting to try rock climbing or bouldering (just want to climb some shit) for a long time now but have zero experience with it whatsoever. My brother has done it once so it was great to have someone there to help me understand. Now, once does not make him an expert, so we were roughly at the same level: terrible.


The levels went from V0 to V8 at the gym we went to. Most of the V0s were very doable, easy to hold on to, relatively straight forward, and not many of them had you climbing up and over like... terrain, or whatever you want to call it. The V1s got trickier and we managed to do one V2 and I only cheated once on that route.

It's freaking HARD. At first I was nervous about the height (you honestly aren't more than 6 feet off the ground, I had to remind myself that I was just as high up when I am on TC and that I had a soft padded landing), then I couldn't figure out how to climb over anything that wasn't just straight up and down. Once I was confident and semi-okay at climbing very straightforward routes, my hands hurt a TON. So that ended up being the limiting factor unfortunately.

We took a short break for my brother to spot me on bench (there were weights too!), I need to do more heavy bench work but it's hard to do by myself. And I also did a few back squats to work on form because that's been a tricky thing for me coming back from mono for some stupid reason.

My brother climbing one of the easier routes

We went back to climbing for a bit and went after the more challenging V1s. There was one that we couldn't figure out for quite some time, we kept taking turns sitting and yelling at each other where to put our feet, until I finally did it! It felt awesome to accomplish such a tricky... beginner route lol, but it made me realize that it was similar to riding - an athletic endeavor that requires problem solving skills. I love lifting and crossfit, but the more technical movements are the ones that hurt my wrist, so I don't do a lot of problem solving + physical activity except when riding.

Once our hands were too beat up to continue, I convinced my brother to get froyo with me (it wasn't difficult) and then we headed back to the house to play some video games. Climbing and video games, makes me sound like a bro, even though they were both my idea (my brother hasn't played co-op Portal 2, what a travesty). After that, we spent the evening at the ranch going through our old childhood stuff. I will spare you a picture of a quilt my brother's high school girlfriend made him with pictures of them. My SIL thought it was HILARIOUS.

We found the breyers and beanie babies of my
childhood in boxes. Keeping both for my
future niece!

But climbing was SO much fun though and I can't wait to go again. If the climbing gym near my work didn't have such a weird membership contract, I'd be signing up immediately. I'm still considering going a few times there to see if it's something I'm cool with signing a weird contract for. It's a really good upper body workout, for me at least, and for how I'm doing it, which is something I'm lacking in my current programming. I really don't need any more hobbies, but I do really like this one!

And it's always fun to spend time with my brother, we're both super busy so don't spend tons of time together anymore, but we're already talking about going bouldering again!