(no subject)

Went climbing last night for the first time in a bit. I've sometimes wondered if part of the reason that climbing is so exhausting is that I often climb in the evening after doing a personal training session in the morning. But I postponed this week's personal training session to Friday, and I was still pretty wrecked by the time I was done last night.

Last night's biggest take home lesson: My instinct when climbing is to reach for my next handhold, pull myself up, and then look for the next place to move my foot up to. However, it frequently makes more sense to move a foot up to the next foothold, push up, and then reach for the next handhold.

Second lesson: I could use more endurance. Not so much in the basic just-keep-plodding-at-a-steady-pace sense, more in the sense of recovering more quickly after I've just done something requiring significant power. I should probably add more interval training into my workouts. (I think the next phase of the New Rules of Lifting for Women workout, which I'm due to start in a few weeks, includes some intervals.)

My left foot hurts quite a bit today, which means that I should probably postpone the run I'd planned to do today.

Conversations We Didn't Have In Skyrim, Part 4

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

Wanna know why people really join the Stormcloaks?

----
Galmar Stone-Fist eyes me with the thinly-veiled contempt that I've come to expect as the default Nord attitude towards a non-native of Skyrim. "Why does a Breton want to join the Stormcloaks?"

To be perfectly honest, I'm wondering a bit myself. The average Stormcloak stinks of ale and poorly-tanned bear hide, and half of them are so racist they make my teeth hurt. I've learned three new ethnic slurs that apparently describe me, and I've only been here an hour.

"When I was captured with Ulfric and his men near Helgen, it was an accident. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. And the Imperials knew this, and were ready to execute me anyway, just because to do anything else would be inconvenient. Any Empire that has so little regard for the basic rights of its citizens is clearly a corrupt institution that must be brought down."

Galmar's eyes narrow. I can't tell if he distrusts my ideological fervor, or if I've just confused him by using three-syllable words. He shakes his head. "Not good enough, Breton."

"Well..." I look around to make sure the Jarl isn't within earshot. "If you must know, it's also that Ulfric's voice is really, um, sexy."

Galmar goes starry-eyed. "Isn't it, though?" he sighs.

One of the Stormcloaks guarding the door nods. "He can Shout at me any time, for sure."

"I would happily sit and listen to him read all 56 volumes of Songs of the Return," his partner adds.

Galmar claps me on the shoulder. "You're one of us, sister. I'll get you a bear hide."