Workout August 8, 2010 - Bike, Climb, Trampoline Day

Yesterday morning I started off the day with 15 minutes on the exercise bike, random hill program, 15:15 interval.

Next I met up with Mike Castrogiovanni. We headed to Castlerock State Park in Santa Cruz for a few hours of bouldering. The hike out to the boulders was a nice little mini workout in and of itself. My glutes, hammies, and quads got a nice little burn, as well as the arches of my feet. Hiking in the Vibram Five Fingers is proving to be a lot of fun. I'm also noticing that since my feet can feel more of the terrain below them, I am a lot more aware of where and how each foot is placed with every step.

Once at the boulders, Mike easily scaled a V0 he had been working on since the last time we climbed. We then moved to one of my favorite V2s, the Spoon. This is a piece of rock where the front of it looks like it has been shallowly scooped out. To climb it involves getting a good handhold in the middle, stemming (bracing the feet on either side by pushing out with the legs), walking the feet up as high as possible and then reaching up and over the concave part to a little lip on the top of the rock. Both Mike and I were able to get the hold on the top, but kept losing our feet once we did, and weren't able to top this problem out this time. Well, one of the many good things about climbing outdoors, is that the problem's not going anywhere. We'll have plenty of time to work on this one.

As we were hiking back to the parking lot, Mike got a call from Jeremy Layport inviting us out to the Sky High trampoline gym in Santa Clara. This place has trampolines on the floor and the walls.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3DrxrtZAbA

Pretty soon we started laying out challenges for each other - jumping around as many times as possible in a four-square pattern, jumping back and forth between two panels sideways, then forwards and backwards, two people traveling around 6 panels and jumping off the walls.... Pretty much it was just endless possibilities for fun. The cost was $12 for an hour. By the end of the hour both Mike and I felt like we had a really good workout. Between the amount of exercise and fun we were able to pack in, I'm seriously considering getting a trampoline for the backyard.