New hobbies

2012 expanded my horizons.  I tried more new things in the last year than I've tried in a long time, and my life was richer for it.  I thought I'd do a post about some of the new hobbies I picked up in the last year.

Rock climbing

Some of my coworkers are really into rock climbing: indoor, outdoor, alpine, etc.  They've been going as a group to a rock climbing gym on Thursdays at noon since forever (as well as Tuesday nights and weekends).  I always thought of them as this elite group of climbers who climbed with other elite climbers, but one day one of them invited me along.  I was surprised they would include a beginner, but they were really supportive and helpful.  And it was different from anything I'd done before, but I liked it enough that I went the next Thursday...and the next...and the next.  And eventually I bought my own equipment and became a regular.  I climb with a bunch of men who rely on their strength.  I don't have much strength so for me figuring out the routes is a mental game, like solving a puzzle.



Swimming

Yeah, that's NOT me, but it's a cool picture.  I wanted to learn to scuba dive, but in order to take a course I had to be able to swim 200 metres.  But I never really learned to swim.  I could stay afloat and play around in the pool and all that, but I never actually learned how to do a stroke (and I couldn't put my face in the water without holding my nose).  I could just see myself trying to dog-paddle for 200 metres--um, no.

So I signed up for adult swimming lessons, thinking I would just learn enough to be able to pass the test and start scuba diving.  But to my great surprise, I really liked swimming.  I got promoted through the ranks from Goldfish to Stingray to Whale in two terms.  And I've been spending Saturday mornings at the pool doing laps.

Sadly, I almost didn't sign up for another term of lessons--the women in my new class are more interested in chatting than in swimming and I get annoyed that I'm paying money to sit around and listen to them talk.  But we're learning breaststroke this term and I really want to learn it!  So I'll give it one more try.  Classes start again next week.


Running

And that's also not me (in case you were fooled) but I like the picture.  My sister-in-law's sister (Nikki, I'm sure there's a better way to phrase that but I can't think of it) did this running challenge thing a few years ago, and although I signed up, I never did it.  A year later I decided to give it a try.  She recommended a program called Couch-to-5k (Google it if you're interested) which is supposed to get you from doing no running at all to running a 5k (in 30 minutes) in 9 weeks.  It took me a lot more than 9 weeks to complete the program but along the way I discovered that I like running.  Well, I don't necessarily like it while I'm doing it, but I feel great all day after going for a run.  (Heh, "going for a run"--I never thought I'd hear myself say that.)  And I can't do 5 km's in 30 minutes.  I'm pretty slow.  But at least I'm doing it.

I'd love to learn more new things in 2013, but I don't want to give up any of my other activities and I'm running out of free time!