and so it begins

today, after fighting all my lazy-bratty-mood to stay in bed, miel and i headed to TS to get a dose of exercise. i spent the entire drive to the gym contemplating on my state of mind, doing all possible mind tricks to psyche myself up for a productive climbing session. i was telling myself, "this is just your typical laziness, just a barrier to crawl over. once you get to the gym, once your blood circulates a little faster, once some sweat breaks out of your pores, you'll start feeling better, lighter, and get into the workout mode." what a session of self-talk that was.

so we get to the gym. i robotically put on my shoes ("i. want. to. sleep."), feel extra bad that my shorts and chalk bag strap are too tight around my waist ("i'm fat!"), and drudgingly lifted my arms and legs to the wall to traverse ("nakaka-pump!") 

after our (very very precisely counted) ten-minute traverse, miel asked, "what do you want to do?" i really couldn't care less because i still felt as unmotivated as when the workout started, so when he suggested we give the campus board a try, i simply followed.

first set was like carrying a 200-pound version of myself. despite the positive voice in my head saying i could do it, deep inside i also knew that i haven't completely drowned out the devil. and so i pulled on at the rungs with two hands at a time, not even laddering, and just went as far as four rungs upward. booooooooo.

as i sat down on the bench, i watched as miel did his set of ladders. then out of the corner of my eye, i saw some of stan's friends watching miel as well. and as narcissistic as it may be, that image pretty much gave me the mental punch i needed to get going. i got envious of the look they gave to miel, and thought to myself, "i can do that too!!!" 

ahhhh. a benefit of being competitive. :-P

and so on my second set, the real positive state arrived. i approached the campus board with confidence, remembered to pay attention to my breathing, to strengthen my core, and to deliberately pull with my back rather than with my arms. i campused up to six rungs up, and went down again, in a real ladder sequence. i did it!!! 

when i sat back down on the bench, checking the clock for the next interval, deeply breathing, fingers smeared with chalk-white and throbbing in tightness, and psyching myself again for the next set, a promising thought crossed my mind: "I missed this."

***

now it's evening and i'm doing my research: self-assessments, aerobic vs anaerobic conditioning, finger exercises, training cycles. it's all so familiar and exciting.

actually, the training plan was all i i really wanted to blog about, but i ended up writing about the climbing day. i guess the misadventures and lessons will become naturally integrated in this "project", and today, is actually a fitting prelude to this new beginning. 

[gleek, i am]