Hey everyone! I hope you all had a good weekend and are ready to get back to it today! I’m… well, not so much. Haha, I feel like I’m jumping straight back into “real life” today after a great spring break! My flight was a little delayed yesterday due to set backs at the Denver airport, and I waited in a lot of veeerrrry long lines due to the biggest crowds I’ve ever seen (50 minutes to check my bag…).
If you missed out on any of my spring break re-cap posts, here they are again:
And I have one last post for you from Colorado!
On Saturday we woke up to very cold temps, wind and snow!
Can you see a mountain? I can’t…
It was not a day for heading outdoors, so I decided it was the perfect opportunity to do something I’ve been wanting to do for years: Indoor ROCK CLIMBING!!!
I did an online search and found a great looking location not too far away, so I enlisted my dad to come along and we headed to City Rock right when they opened to beat any crowds! Luckily we were the only ones there for a little bit! The staff was very helpful and welcoming – they made sure I knew what I was doing but then let me do my own thing! I loved that I felt a lot of freedom to do whatever, but knew there was always someone around if I had a question!
After a 10 minute safety video (their accident reenactments were hilarious and kept my attention), I put on my shoes and harness (both rented) and got ready to climb! I thanked the good Lord that I wore all black and my harness was black… makes pictures more flattering.
I started out on a shorter, slightly sloped wall and surprised myself with how easy it came it me. One man working there even complimented me on my foot placement! Well, after he helped me get over my fear of letting go of the wall.
At City Rock you can do a regular belay with a partner, or climb by yourself using an auto-belay. The best way I can describe it is like a seat belt, how it will pull back as you move it up. When I reached the top of the wall I had to just let go and fall back, there’s an initial couple feet where I just drop, and then the belay catches and slowly lowers me to the ground (I may have fallen over the first time I landed…).
So happy I made it!
I did a bunch of different walls, some I thought were easy and I flew to the top of, others that were really hard and I just couldn’t make it. The wall I tried that was slanted towards me was really hard! It took a lot of upper body strength and being a runner I relied a lot on my legs for this. Let’s just say my harms were SO sore when I finished!
City rock has a ton of different walls and you can buy a day pass (or annual pass). At first I thought a day pass seemed excessive, but after being there for almost 2 hours (my poor dad…) I could totally see how you could spend a lot of time there!
After a while I was tired, and the gym started getting crowded so we headed out! The last thing I did (no picture) was climb the boulder. It’s much shorter with padding below and you don’t use a harness, you just climb. I was a bit intimidated so I chose to follow a group of girls who looked about 10-12 years old. Thankfully I didn’t embarrass myself and managed to get up the same path they did. The best part? Once you get to the top you take a slide down! Haha it was pretty fun.
I really enjoyed getting to rock climb, and for any of you Chicagoans out there let me know if you have suggestions of somewhere to go! So far I’ve only found a few gyms that have walls, but nothing like City Rock… whomp whomp.
p.s. if you’re super bored and want to watch videos of me rock climbing, check out my you tube channel… Warning: You might fall asleep…
Have you ever been rock climbing?
What’s your favorite indoor sport?