Climbing is a lot of fun... but what's with the shoes?

I'm starting something new as part of my ongoing effort to discover sports that I enjoy doing and will hopefully keep up for a while. Yesterday after work, I made my way to the gym at Cliffhanger on West 1st. I signed up for an Intro to Climbing course with a friend of a colleague. For three hours, we learned about equipment, security, knots, belaying (that's what the person on the ground is doing while the other person is climbing), bouldering (practicing grabs by climbing sideways, basically moving across the wall only a few feet above ground), falling (yes, you learn to not be afraid to fall), and calls (how you exchange instructions between the belayer and the climber). The entire course was a lot of fun, we were a small group of five so the instructor gave everyone a lot of attention.

Lots of fun, except for the damn shoes. Apparently, the shoes have to be really tight if you want to get a good toe grab, but ouch! I think three hours in the shoes was a bit much.

When I returned home, as I was browsing through the MEC catalog before going to bed, it was great to look at the climbing gear and recognize what I had been using. Both Sarah (my colleague's friend) and I have a pass for one week of free climbing and we're planning to make use of it. Then, we'll probably look into investing in a two-month pass, to see if we really get into it. You don't have to buy any equipment early on, the gym rents you everything.

Today, although I was a bit sore (forearms and shoulders), I felt energized and even managed to visit the regular gym for a 30-minute run after work.

:-)