Thursday, August 1, 2013

Rest Day (sort of)

It's been a very active few days for me.

I've spent 3 days in a row training at VE after on-and-off rain forced me to stay inside.  It was great- each session was around 3 hours, and I left with shaking and destroyed hands.  My climbing partner kept throwing me on harder and harder climbs, until I was working out my sequence on a very technical 5.12c.  Once I pieced together how to do the route, I just have to wait for the stars to align, my fingertips to not be purple from multiple tries, and have a really good go at it before I can (hopefully!) send.
I finished my sessions with laps on the bouldering wall, climbing until I couldn't hang on anymore.
After yesterday's climbing session, I headed up to Pike Lake to finish the last two dives of my Open Water Dive Certification!

I had a little bit of trouble when doing my full mask removal and clearing while underwater.  My instructor and I were about 15 feet underwater when I had to completely take my mask off, put it back on, and clear it.  The cold water rushing on my face mildly freaked me out, and I inhaled a good chunk of Pike Lake up my nose, causing me to race for the surface.  Super yuck.  Took a couple minutes to sputter and cough it all out.  I calmed down, went down again, and did a couple more skills before trying the mask clear again and (thankfully) succeeding.  I know learning how to stay calm and clear my mask is super important, especially if I start doing deeper dives where I can't race for the surface, but that was definitely my least favorite part of doing my skills.
Today is more of a rest day for me- only biking down this afternoon to a Yoga Sculpt class at Evolve, which kicked my butt on Monday.  Aaaaah, it feels good to push myself again... :)

1 comment:

Mark said...

the mask test is everybody's least favorite. if you go on to do advanced, the glow sticks for the night dive will either freak you out even more, or be fun. But the mask thing can only be NOT fun.