Sunday, December 18, 2016

100 climbs to nowhere

Hello Fattyfans!  and everyone else.

Fat cyclist every year holds the 100MoN fundraiser for Camp Kelsem, a camp for kids whose families are directly affected by cancer.  The idea is to do 100 miles in the smallest possible circle on a bike.  But Fatty's a good guy and he lets us do this in our way and in our own time, which is fabulous.  One year I walked it with Chuck, this year, climbs.  We're supposed to do it in November, so I'm a little late, but what the heck.

This is my rather late version of 100MoN, in a category I am sure to win.  Middle-aged woman in Catalunya climbing alone in a gym!  Weee!!!!

Chuck the dog, who accompanied me on my only other 100MoN, back in 2012, did not join me on this trip.  He hates the gym, it's unheated, so pretty damned chilly in Dec, and technically he's not allowed in.


The Preparation
I did start off the day with a solid breakfast, it was better than it looks in the photo,  oatmeal with an apple cooked in, milk, sugar, peanut butter and a good scoop of homemade marmalade!



The supplies for the attempt, till my kids arrived with further succor....climbing shoes, race number, water, a speaker for the phone so I can listen to podcasts while I grind through the climbs, and wait for the pump to subside, and fruitcake, cause it's Christmas and I love it and my eldest child brought it for me from the UK!!!



Climbing shoes need to be small for your feet.  These ones are actually remarkably comfy and quite spacious, by climbing shoe standards.  Amazingly climbing shoes are called 'peus de gats' in Catalan, cat's feet.  Love the name.


Couldn't pin the number on, so I pumped up my pipes to show the number for the post!


My wedding ring really doesn't come off, and as I didn't want to leave almost all of it behind on the holds, it had to be firmly tapped up.


The system
It seems that I cannot exert myself at all, and count.  Indeed this summer when I was doing swim training, the coach would ask me how many lengths I had done of a particular drill and I NEVER knew, I just stopped whenever everyone else did.  Too much else to think about.  He gave me a stack of flutter boards, and I had to move one over with every return to that end of the pool.  Wait, this is relevant.

With the climbing, I decided that I wasn't going to stick to the same route 100 times, I basically haven't climbed in a year, so doing the same route over and over and over again was sure to lead to injury unless I shook things up.  At first I was climbing relatively randomly but I realised, as I forgot how many I had done after the third route, that I needed a better system.  (see above!) So, I designated 5 different areas of the gym, well spaced out.  I would do a circuit, climbing each of the areas once, and at the end I would have 5 done!  Then immediately to the phone to note down the completed 5.  A quick break, and out again.  (sometimes a longer break.....my arms got pumped and my feet got really sore!!!)

Fruitcake breaks were key....this one even had TWO types of icing!  Normally I don't like icing on my fruitcake, but this was pretty delish.


After the kids came by we got a couple of action shots...



 To show you what it was like.....

and gradually it all got done.

My feet at the end?  Not so happy, indeed, they still kinda hurt now...






To end, the screenshot of my record keeping on the phone.

Good fun, though I am going to be some stiff tomorrow!!!!  Thanks again Fatty....great to get back at the climbing, and great to help out Camp Kesem.


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Looks masochistic but worth while. hope your feet are better. Seadog

oreneta said...

It was honestly good fun, I have to get into the habit of going more, I really do enjoy it.

My feet did recover eventually and I was barely stiff at all, rather to my amazement.

elPadawan said...

Nice job! Heal those feet now...

oreneta said...

Thanks Padwan....they're all good now. Must climb more though! That was fun.