Climbing in the Rain

Last weekend I went hiking and recorded the best activity I have yet on my Fitbit! I spent 3 hours pushing my way through thorns and strange plants and got covered in mud and scrapes. I even bled a bit! Also, at one point my legs felt like they were on fire so I freaked out, thinking I’d brushed against some poison ivy, and dumped the rest of the my water over them. In addition, this entire time it had been lightly sprinkling on and off and ominous thunder kept rumbling. The sky was dark and dangerous looking, like it could start pouring at any minute.

Anyway, this entire time I was actually trying to find my friends who were climbing somewhere in the area. I finally did find them and although they were tired from climbing all day, they got me all suited up to do a climb. We chose a nice 5.9 for me and right as I tied the rope to my harness, the sky broke and rain started falling. I immediately hopped up on the rock, but it only got worse as I climbed. Climbing in the rain is extremely dangerous and most professional climbers have never done it. I didn’t realize how quickly the rock would get wet and how slick it would become. I slipped twice, but luckily my belayer had my back. I finally conquered it and my friends took a picture of me at the top. I was soaking wet. But I had a blast!

I was slightly worried about my drenched Fitbit, but it still works fine! So that proves its claim to be water resistant. Lately I have also been running a three mile loop around my neighborhood. It has been very humid lately with all this rain so I’ve been sweating like crazy. My Fitbit also gets wet from my sweat but so far is still in perfect condition. It makes me so happy. I’ve grown to love this little piece of rubber/plastic. So I’d definitely recommend it!

Here’s my beautiful first all green Fitbit log!

 

 

Fitbit Love

So my Fitbit FINALLY came in the mail last week! I didn’t wear it the first two days because I’d just gotten back from a trip where I’d partied way too hard and slept way too little and I ended up coming home sick as a dog. It was a pity because I exercised a lot the second day (the first was spent entirely in bed, sleeping). Nevertheless, I started wearing it eventually and fell in love. It’s safe to say I’m obsessed now.

I haven’t yet worn it climbing because I was afraid to get it all chalky, but the past three days I’ve been playing some hardcore sand volleyball (complete with cuts and bruises, haha), and it’s gotten pretty sandy and beaten up. Yet it still looks new. So I’ll probably wear it this afternoon when I climb.

So what does a Fitbit do? I kind of didn’t really know, but still wanted one because they look cool and all the fit, active people I know have them. So when a guy I work with started wearing one, he became my Fitbit guru and I asked him all these questions about it. Also, I started using it as an icebreaker when I met new people. I went on a bar crawl and most of the guys there were wearing them, so I’d ask them how they liked it and it gave us a good conversation topic for a bit. The one consensus was that everyone enjoyed their Fitbit. So I decided to break down and buy one. Once it came, I brought it to work and had my friend at work help me get it all set up.

I got the Fitbit Flex because it was the cheapest and I like its design the best out of the other possible Fitbits you can choose from. It’s the slimmest and it doesn’t attach with a bulky buckle like the others. The two main functions of the Fitbit Flex are to count your steps and track your sleep. In addition to step counting, it shows how many miles you’ve walked and calories you’ve burned. I haven’t used it to track exercise yet, I keep forgetting. >.< But that is a feature I want to try out. I wish it would track sleep and exercise automatically. That’s what I initially thought, so the first night I just went to sleep and was so sad the next morning when I awoke to no log of my sleep. It turns out you need to specifically press a “Log Sleep” button. Same for logging any exercise.

The one downside is that Fitbits can’t track swimming or bike riding. I took a long bike ride last weekend, but had no record of the calories burned… Swimming could be a possibility as Fitbits are water resistant. But they’re not water proof, so I’m too nervous to wear them in a pool.

But the feature I really like is that Fitbits can function as alarm clocks! I used to use my phone as my alarm clock, but for the first time this morning, I turned my phone alarm off and only relied on my Fitbit. It vibrated nicely on my wrist to wake me up. 🙂 Unfortunately, because it was such a soothing wake up and I didn’t have to physically turn it off, I promptly fell right back asleep. Luckily it vibrates again ten minutes later just to be sure you feel the alarm so I woke back up and still made it in to work! This silent alarm feature is also good if you set alarms for pills or things that will go off when you’re out with friends. Then it’s nice and discreet and no one else notices but you. And, even better, it’s independent of your phone so it will still go off if your Bluetooth is turned off or your phone died.

So yeah, kind of obsessed. I totally recommend getting a Fitbit if you were debating it! And then you’ll join the Fitbit love team as well. 😀

Acai and Climbing

Today was the first time (that I can recall) that I tried acai! I’ve been hearing about it forever and always think of it as that fruit that super-healthy and super-fit people eat all the time. Especially acai bowls. And that is just what I got to try!

Luckily, thanks to my obsession with Facebook, I found out about an awesome event near me. A local recently-opened juice and yogurt cafe was giving out free acai bowls! I clicked the “Going” button. Minutes later, I saw my best friend post that she was “Interested” in it, so I messaged her asking if she wanted to go together and she agreed. Yay, acai bowls!

Ever eager, I decided we would get there thirty minutes early in case there was a long line. But we ended up being the first ones in line. People slowly trickled in after us, though, and we commented on how it was all groups of girls and everyone appeared super fit. The stereotype is real! We were given two flavors to choose from, and both ended up deciding on the same one. I wanted to try the other one as well, but it had coconut as a topping and I’m not fond of coconut…

By the time we had gotten our bowls, the line had grown like crazy and stretched across three of the neighboring shops. We sat outside and happily munched our bowls. They were delicious!! This is definitely a food I want to eat more. I already love smoothies and this was exactly like a smoothie, just in a bowl and topped with even more fruit and some granola. It was Heaven. 🙂 Next I’ll try to make one at home. Apparently you can buy frozen acai at Whole Foods, so I’m definitely making a trip there in the near future.

To make this day even better and even more perfect for an active person like me, a new climbing gym was celebrating its grand opening! I was beyond excited and right after I finished my bowl, I said goodbye to my friend and sped off to the gym.

After purchasing a day pass and going through the orientation, I was free to climb to my heart’s content. I tried everything,even the kiddy area. There were bouldering walls, a top-rope section with both manual and auto-belays, lead climbing, and a cave with some ceiling bouldering! I ran into a friend of mine who I’d met at the gym I frequent, and he belayed me so I could test the manual belays. The best part was, on the bouldering wall, you could top out onto a second-story lounge and fitness area. So cool!

My friends joined me later and we had fun monkeying around. There was also a famous climber there signing posters, so I had her sign one for me and she told me I looked really familiar to her and asked if we’d met before. Whoa.

The gym was amazing. It even has a rock wall that’s angle can be changed. So not only do you get whole new routes, you get a different incline of the wall! I would love to come back and climb again sometime. The only downside is that a membership or day pass is a little pricey for me (today’s event was a super discounted rate). So I’m not too sure how often I’ll come… But man, all that ceiling bouldering and the huge rope wall made it so worth it.