Great Western Power Company (GWPC)

WOO HOO! (now)

Today started badly. It did not go at all as planned. The original plan was to have a sleep-in sort of morning, go to CF class @ 11, and then Daniel would work and I would spend the afternoon running a few errands.

Well yesterday, Daniel pulled something in his foot when he caught his tow in the cuff of his pants while we were playing frisbee, so it looked like i was heading to CF on my own.

Then, when Daniel got up to use the bathroom (but neither one of us was really ready to fully get up yet), he discovered that one of our cats - Felix - wouldn't put any weight on his rear right paw. He was very pathetically hoping around on three paws.

Out of bed, into shower, rush through breakfast, off we went to the vet. I don't know why, but it's always felix who has the injuries, and the worst injuries always happen just before we go on a trip, and ALWAYS when it's emergency hours at the vet so everything is about twice as expensive.

The vet was having a very busy day, so it took TWO HOURS and $400 (!!!) to get in and get out. It was like going to the emergency room. :-| And apparently X-Rays are exceedingly expensive. Fortunately, nothing was broken. Their guess was that somebody - dog or cat - bit him. Needless to say, by the time we got out of there, CF class was out for me, too.

So - change of plans - I would run my errands fist, and Daniel would work while I was out, and then if I got done in time, we'd head over to GWPC to help Max put sand bags together for the new roof space. And since one of today's WOD options was 'run 5 k' i though i might go up to the UC berkeley track and give it a shot in the late afternoon.

The errands went mostly well - except when Kaiser told me that it was too soon to pick up my BC prescription, and that if I had to have it now, I'd have to pay full price - which was $178 instead of $25. AHHH. turns out i was like 4 days early, or something stupid like that, and that's what i get for trying to plan ahead for my trip :-| They finally agreed to give it to me at my insurance plan rate.

By the time I was done, it was 3pm and Daniel and I weren't sure whether they'd still any help @ GWPC, but Daniel wanted to get out of the house, so we headed over. They were mostly done by the time we got there, but there was one sand bag left to be constructed, so we helped put that one together, and helped clean stuff up.

Max suggested that i should try working on one legged squats on my right side to make it figure out how to squat correctly. I'll give it a shot.

Max and Evelyn and their friend Christine were going to climb afterwards, and Max caught us looking wistfully at the walls (since we hadn't thought to bring our gear with us), and offered to snag loaner harnesses & shoes for us. Sweet!

I love the naming conventions they use at GWPC - just about every route is named after a cartoon, or a cartoon character. it's awesome. I also love the walls there - they have really great features, and they're TALL. And what I love most of all is that the routes are quite technical, but generally, not super strengthy.

So I started out warming up on a 5.8 called Lady Jayne (after the GI Joe character :-D). It was a fun, exterior corner climb, so you spend most of the climb sort of wrapped around the corner.

My second climb was a 10a called Destro (also from GI Joe). I had watched Daniel just breeze his way up it as his warmup, so I decided to give it a shot. I got it clean! It had a little bit of an overhang towards the beginning that I struggled with, but didn't ever fall.

My second climb was a 10a called Ian - dunno why. It was another fun technical climb that I got totally clean. (!!) Evelyn, who was my belay partner, said that I was doing a good job of really using my hips, and plotting my route.

I didn't note the name of my 3rd climb - a 10a marked with green tape in the block of climbs named after GI joe characters. This was the hardest because i was getting tired, and because there was some negative incline that the others lacked. There were a couple points where I was just sure that my arms were going to give out on me - this climb had a lot of moves that required you to bring your feet up quit high and stand up on them in order to reach the next handhold - but I manged to power through and get to more secure footing, and while my feet slipped a couple times, I never fell off the wall, and made the climb clean.

SO this is definitely a PR - 3 clean 10a climbs in a single climbing session - that's just totally awesome. If this gym didn't use the same route setters that all the gyms use I'd be saying that they must just set the routes easier here, but - they do - so that can't be it. I guess I'm just improving :-D

The things I was focusing on were: Assessing where the next hand hold was before I moved my feet up. Moving my feet up before reaching for the next handhold. and making sure that the correct hip was closer to the wall in order to reach the next hold.

It was SUPER fun - I am sad that I likely will not get to climbing there (or anywhere else! :( ) for the next 2-3 weeks. Since we'll be driving up to Portland for labor day weekend, maybe we can take our gear and locate a climbing gym up there, oo - and take Ilana to go try it.