Facing My Fears

Back in July of last year, I bought Chris a pass for Albany’s Indoor Rock Gym for his birthday. Almost one year later we finally got around to going!

The rock gym consists of climbing walls and indoor caves for exploring. I had never gone rock climbing in my life, so I had no idea what to expect. Literally, no idea. I had a basic understanding I would be trying to climb up something, but didn’t know how hard it was going to be.

My fear of falling, which has been dormant since my last ride on an extreme roller coaster, (it was in full force Summer of 2009 when I was coaxed onto Bizzaro at Six Flags New England, NEVER AGAIN) reared its ugly head.

First, I got a lesson about how to put on the harness and how to use the belay device. The belay device is the piece of climbing equipment that controls the rope during belaying. Its kind of hard to describe without being confusing, but but the person controlling the rope while the other person climbs is the belayer. I had to tighten the rope as Chris climbed up, and then it it down slowly with the device so I could lower him down to the floor.

After putting on my special climbing shoes and getting into the harness I was ready to climb!

Well, I thought I was ready… scaling a wall with only a rope supporting you from falling many feet to the floor was very scary. With Chris belaying I knew I was safe since if I lost my grip I would fall but the rope would stay tight and catch me. Eventually I made half way up the wall, but lost my grip and ended up “falling”. The scariest part was once I got to the top, letting go of the wall with my hands and repelling down. Eventually I got the hang of it and climbed to the top of one wall that had pretty good hand holds. It was fun to accomplish and face one of my biggest fears! I thought my lack of upper body strength was going to interfere with my climbing, but it turns out your legs are really doing most of the work!

Chris is pretty experienced with climbing so he did a great job! It was fun to watch him! 🙂

I definitely want to go back to AIR and try it again!

By the time we left the Rock Gym, we were both starving! Thankfully I had some pizza dough prepared so when we got home I threw together a quick pizza topped with onions, garlic and yellow peppers.

And of course some wine!

I had two slices since I wanted to save some leftover for lunch today! There’s nothing better than home made pizza, in my opinion.  I used Jenna’s whole wheat pizza dough recipe and it comes out perfect every time.

Mmm. Perfect dinner after facing your fears, I must say! 🙂 We ate pizza while watching Jim Gaffigan on Netflix and this hysterical clip about cake had me laughing!

Have you ever faced one of your biggest fears? If so, what was it and how did you overcome it?

I want to overcome my fear of falling out of roller coasters, but I don’t think that will happen any time soon! But maybe last night was a step in the right direction!