the tips of my toes and fingers tingle with a slightly painful and numb sensation - much like having them rub against sandpaper continuously for an hour. my toes are red - one with 2 blisters and another with scraped skin. my legs are numb and my shoulders hurt. the muscles on my forearms are stiff enough to be used as palo-palo. I LOVE THE FEELING! only because it came from an hour and a half of wall climbing. i was finally able to find the time and to convince my climbing buddy - cresta - to go back to the sport again after 2 years for her and a year for me.
when we were climbing regularly - thrice to four times a week - we would do 10 laps on the flat wall and climb the overhangs with ease. and have enough energy left to do other things. back then, my size 4 rock shoes felt loose for my size 6, 6 1/2 feet. i felt that i had to buy a new pair, a smaller one - maybe a size 3 1/2 which was what beau the instructor told me to do in the first place. now, we're back to novice level. not that we were expert climbers already before. i guess wall climbing is like biking - once you get the hang of it, you never forget the skills. but trying it again after a very loooong time of having no physical activities was like trying to conquer one of your biggest fears. the wall - not the flat ones - intimidated me. so i ventured to climb only one of the difficult walls and do at least 5 laps on the flat wall. i wanted to do my usual 10, except that my feet felt so cramped in my rock shoes.
after the climb, cresta and i drove to UP for our post-climb ritual - eating bbq sold from a cariton outside ilang-ilang residence hall. yum! so much for all the calories we burned wall climbing...
