Indoor climbing has been a great way to externalize my anger and frustration of late, but it’s really more of a strength-building exercise … and while my biceps have thanked me several times for this, my heart has been asking me for more cardiovascular exercises.

I bought a rowing machine a few weeks ago, and did my first 5,000 metre row last night. This involved 25 minutes of continuous, vigorous rowing.

Rowing is deceptively easy. It works the entire body, so there doesn’t seem to be one spot that gets particularly sore. And when I’m rowing, I don’t find that I get fatigued until I stop; that’s when my otherwise-healthy body turns into a quivering mess of exhaustion.

Shortly after I rolled out of bed this morning, my heart whispered “thank you”. Between the rowing and the climbing, I think I’ve finally found an exercise regimen that I enjoy.

I have officially been in Canada for a week now.  Oddly, the thing I’ve enjoyed the most has been sleeping.  The average night consists of going to bed around 10, sleeping like a log until about 7 or so, waking up, eating breakfast, and then napping for another three hours.  I must have needed it, too, because I have consistently done that for at least five of the seven days I have been here.

I went to a local climbing gym last night.  It was just so-so; the routes weren’t clearly marked at all, and I found their routes ranked very inconsistently.  Still - it was great to get out and do some climbing, and perhaps shake off some of the body mass built up over several days of eating copiously.

A few of my friends from high school organized a very informal get-together a few nights ago; so informal, in fact, that only four or five of us showed up.  It was still a lot of fun, though, and I enjoyed the rapidfire “what happened to so-and-so” questions that always pepper events like this.  To my amazement, I learned about one schoolmate who is doing hard time for his involvement in Canada’s largest cocaine bust around 2000 or so.  Some high schools have the notoriety of a famous politician or actor; we are bestowed with farmers and druggies. 

I’m still on track for my tourist day in Toronto, where I will do all sorts of silly things requested by my faithful blog audience some posts ago.  Look forward to more ridiculous hijinks to waste your bandwidth and precious time with.

A few scattered thoughts as we plod our way through the middle of the week.

• In the early 1970’s Omega made a wristwatch called the Ploprof (this stands for Plongeur Professionnel - better brush up on your French!).  There’s one for sale on eBay here.   Now don’t get me wrong - $5400 (the current bid amount) is a bucketload of money, and I’m not even thinking about bidding on this … but I still think it’s some cool looking stuff.  And it’s waterproof to 2000 feet, so I’d be OK wearing it in the shower.
  • This brings us to my first question of the day: do you wear your watch in the shower, and/or to bed?  I did for many, many years, but have stopped in the past few years for reasons I can’t explain.
• I spent four hours at the gym last night, and I’m paying for it this morning.  I also ate a donut this morning, which probably obviated any health benefits from my workout.  The bright side is that I finally managed to do two “laps” on one of my favorite overhang routes (a lap is where you climb the route and immediately “downclimb” the route, and start climbing it again without a rest …).  By the end of it my arms and legs were quivering furiously, and I’m going to give myself a few days to recover.  But it’s a good muscle burn - that’s what I keep telling myself.
• I’m terribly excited about my trip to Toronto in a week and a half.  My car is going into the shop next Monday for a round of service, so it’ll be in tiptop shape for the 800 mile drive.  Sydney the wonderpooch is going to be my traveling companion, and we’re going to have a great time taking photos, home movies and other such nonsense.  Look forward to lots of blogging when the absent.canadian becomes the non-absent.canadian.
• More later - I need to get ready for a lunch meeting now.

• I have a burned out “parking light” on my car. That’s the useless little bulb in the high beam lamp that dimly illuminates when the high beam isn’t actually on.
• I’m doing a taste test of energy bars at a local university today, and I’m going to get a $20 gift certificate at the local grocery store for my time. Yay for me!
• Tonight is my second-last Toastmasters meeting for the year.
• I really burned myself out at the climbing gym on Friday night. I went last night and only climbed a few times, and could still feel sore muscles. I think I’ll take a few more days off to recover.
• Winter has arrived, sort-of. Temperatures in the morning are down to the mid 30’s. It’s invigorating to walk outside first thing in the morning and take a breath of that cool, crisp air.
• eBay sellers who don’t post feedback suck.  My feedback is chronically stuck at 498, and if the two people I bought from recently would get off their lazy duffs and post the positive feedback I deserve, I could graduate from a turquoise star to a purple star … because that’s really important, you know.

Pardon me while I have a little ego trip.

I’ve been working out at the climbing gym for about a month and a half now. I wore a short-sleeved shirt to work this morning, and when I put my arms down on the glass-top on my desk, I could feel my brachioradialis muscles - and they’re developing nicely, thankyouverymuch.

Just thought I should share this bit of love with my blogging friends.