Early Season

"Your muscles are coming back," said Romney last night. And, sure enough, after less than a week of my first real training since my birthday challenge I'm starting to feel normal again. This week I took advantage of the upcoming end of the world and biked and climbed in absurdly warm Feb weather. The first two rides I suffered like a dog. Yesterday I'd already come up a notch and could easily turn a bigger gear. Climbing-wise, last weekend I was falling off of 5.11s that I normally warm up on. Yesterday, I one-hanged the last hard route I did in the fall (okay, not hard by any sort of standard except my current one but, ya know, 12c). It feels good to be training again. Injuries could be a problem, but that's another story.

We also dieted this week. It was an easy diet, relatively, but no diet is truly easy. Otherwise it wouldn't be a diet. The rules were simple: no sugars or grains or junky fats. So all fruits, veggies, meat, and good oil (olive, basically) was on. No other junk. With 5 (aghast!) pounds to lose it was Romney's first diet ever. On day three I received this rather-poetic text:

Our diet has brought me to a near death experience and I'm pretty sure the light at the end of the tunnel is reflecting off of a loaf of warm golden brown bread. You can't stop me. I'm walking towards it.

Goodbye cruel, grainless world. Goodbye.

I was excited that she'd given up because it meant that I could, too. But, alas, it was all a rouse a we met a bit later for some salad. After Romney nearly passed out at her uber-Gym Jones-ian workout Thursday we did say good-bye to the grainless world for the weekend. Next week will be round two.

With no goals of my own this year, Ben has roped me into a climbing pyramid. If we complete it I'll redpoint my hardest route in a decade this year. While that seems light years away at the moment, I'm keen to have a go since we can do this all without having to drive more than an hour. Living in Utah rocks.