Rock-Climbing

If at any point you start to feel like, "Hey, I'm looking pretty good!" the ultimate way to keep your pride in check is to realize that it's time to do laundry, all your normal gym clothes are rank-smelling, sweat stained, and unfit to wear so you have to wear spandex (death!) over your compression shorts and under your climbing harness.

First of all, compression shorts are amazing pieces of clothing. They're amazing if you have a problem with continuously pulling your hamstrings or other muscles in that general region. As the name suggests, they compress. I'm 5'11" and have weighed everything from 135 to 168, and there has never been a time when they have not generated a fat roll above the waistband or cut into the back of my thighs. Normally, I just think "Oh..." pull on thin warmups/baggy shorts and get on with it because this is a workout, not a fashion show.

But I was going climbing with the bf, and I needed to wear something. My legs weren't in a bare-able state, so spandex it was. I pulled the black spandex leggings on over my uber-strength Champion compression shorts (that almost come up to the bottom of my sports bra), topped the whole thing off with a wife beater, and I was pleasantly surprised enough to think, "Ok! Not bad! I'm hot!" We're not talking Doutzen Kroes hot, but it was still pretty good. And we drove off to the climbing gym.

After tossing our things in a locker, I tightened my harness, picked out my not-so-badass route on the wall, and up I went. The harness has a tendency to enhance the male - shall I quote Anchorman? - crotchal region, cut into thighs 75839 million times worse than compression shorts, and make your girl parts go numb if you're not careful. And I didn't much care, until (a) things down south were getting numb, and (b) the best climbers tend to be petite waify ladies with uber arms and shoulders, sans giant fencing butt muscles.

You know that feeling of "oh holy crap, what on earth am I doing here?" It flashed through my mind. First of all, I'm like 8 feet tall compared to every other lady in the place. Second, there's a certain rock climbing chic that I can't do mainly because I am 8 feet tall and all those tank tops would barely cover my chest, never mind make it all the way down to the waist band of my pants. Third, I am the opposite build for this sport. Rock climbing is good for upper body strength, which is why I do it at all (that, along with making Danny happy, and belaying him), and if I could somehow climb with my buttocks or thighs, I would be awesome. But given that my opposable thumbs are on my hands, I have to use my arms to do this so I suck. I had one moment of glory when I did a pullup on the wall, walking my feet up the vertical surface as I attempted to heave my bulk 2 feet closer to the ceiling. Danny told me it looked cool. It felt idiotic, but whatever. I have a sneaking suspicion that this is the closest I will ever get to doing a real pullup.

But I just felt ludicrous, mostly. It was a what am I doing here, all spandexy and pear-shaped, with this stupid harness outlining my already noticeabley large butt and cutting off crotch circulation kind of day. But I climbed until my fingers were red and sore, and beyond feeling idiotic it was a fine few hours. I ran and ellipticalled afterwards, throwing in some weighted step-ups so my lower half wouldn't feel neglected or hated on too much.

And don't even get me started on the barefooted (ewww!!) shirtless (and many have physiques that should definitely be contained in a tshirt) climbers who literally CLIP THEIR TOENAILS WHILE SITTING ON THE FLOOR IN FRONT OF EVERYONE. Gross. So gross. Oh lord, and the climbing jargon. They don't even have the brain cells to steal the word "gnarly" from surfers in full. In context, the phrase would be, "Dude, that move was gnarly!" In brain-dead climber speak, it would be, "Dude, that move was totally gnar-gnar!" Gnar-gnar. I will soon no longer be able to stifle the urge to choke someone who says that in my presence.

I really hate climbing culture. Everyone bills it as noncompetitive, but that's a huge lie. It's passive agressively competitive. I much prefer the lecherous, bacchanalian, hyper-competitive, in-your-face fighting culture of fencing. It's honest.