Climb harder, that’s it!

Of course, that’s not it.

You want to be a better climber? Well, so do I. I hear all the time that to improve, one must simply climb harder. If you want to excel at something, you should do that one thing a lot. But, that’s not all it takes.

I was recently watching a good friend of mine compete at the Pan-Am Games this past Thursday. She is a Karate MACHINE, and I don’t use that term lightly. She trains sometimes 6 hours a day while keeping up with a social life and a full time job. She’s won numerous championships and has travelled to more places than I think most people will visit in their lifetime all before the age of 24. Her training regimen is ridiculous and I’ve never met anyone with such persistence and dedication to their sport.

This one time, we hit up the gym together as a fun girls get-together. The treadmills were calling our name and at the time, I was a decent runner who could crank out a 5k no problem. This girl could run forever. 20 minutes in, I look over and she’s drenched with sweat but continuing at the gazelle pace she began with. She looks over at me with this puzzled expression and says, “Krista, I’m drenched… I don’t know why!” I looked back at her and her unwavering pace and said, “your incline is at, like, 45 degrees.” I remember this moment so clearly because not only did she outrun me at a faster pace AND while running up a freaking hill, her don’t-give-up-no-matter-what attitude was crazy impressive. She turned down the incline to zero and continued for another 40 minutes. I’m pretty sure that’s why she just won a silver medal at the Pan-Ams.

My goal is get to this level of almost effortless or innate athleticism. Fitness is only one part of the picture. Sure, I could just climb hard stuff everyday and that would be awesome, but I want to train every possible part of my mind, body and (cliche alert) soul. I want to have a new challenge thrown at me and I don’t want to give up until my body AND my mind fail. This journey will be enlightening, difficult, frustrating, exhilarating but most of all rewarding.

Watch me be the best possible climber I can be. Let’s do this together.

Climb on xx