Climbing pregnant: Mind Trip

The past few weeks have been a mental transition more than a physical one. As my physical ability changes, so does the style of climbing I am attracted to. The vast majority of my friends are boulderers. Now that I can't top anything out without turning into a whale and flopping my way atop the boulder, climbing with my friends has become a new hurdle. They have all been so nice, spending extra time on the warm-ups, only making fun of me a little and in return accepting my sideways sarcasm with little rebuttle. I've now reached the point where I don't really WANT to go bouldering. I want to do routes! I am faced with the challenge of getting my boulder thirsty friends to put on a harness and lead (cause I can't).

I can't climb on the sharp end because that would put the baby in jeopardy. I'll allow my child to make that decision for himself someday. For now, I have borrowed a petzl body harness and I'm going to try it out tonight. I'll report back!

It makes perfect sense to me that I'm attracted to routes and the gym seems a very fitting place. I can climb more and longer than I could if I were outside. There seem to always be jugs around the hard holds so if I get too tired I don't have to back off the route, I can merely switch gears from 5.11 to 5.9 in a single move. It's brilliant. Here is my workout and I try to do it twice a week:

Warm-up on 5.8 and a 5.9.
Follow with 8 routes between the grades of 5.10 and 5.11.
Cool down on 5.8 slab

This is a goal right now more than a standard. It seems that my belly gets really tired on the 6th of the harder routes. I've thought to break it up a bit and do 4 hard routes then one really easy one, then 3 or 4 more hard ones. I'm hesitant to break it up like that because part of me believes that with the added blood volume, my endurance isn't quite what it used to be. So sticking with slowly increasing the amount of routes I do would hypothetically increase my endurance.
Through all this I have to remember that I am not training in the traditional sense of the word. So...Even though I have a goal, I'm not going to break myself trying to accomplish it. That would be counter productive.

I'll keep you updated with the status of workouts and stretches and whatnot...
Please feel free to post comments, questions, and suggestions straight to the blog so everyone can benefit. Thanks!!