Jay Mathes

Author: jaymathes

  • P90X and Climbing

    A very good friend of mine recently recommended that I try working out with the P90X home fitness video series. He was so serious about having me give it a shot that, for my birthday, he bought me a pull-up bar. Why I all that interested? Nope. Do I like home fitness videos? Definitely not? But do I want to improve my climbing ability? Absolutely.

    Some of you may remember that my first post of the new year (2011) was a set of new year resolutions. You can read ’em HERE. One of those resolutions was to climb 5.11a. Basically, it’s a difficulty rating system used by climbers and anything rated 5.11x is right in the middle of it – not too easy, not too hard. So all in all, I set a humble, moderate goal of being able to climb about 1/2 of all routes.

    I’ve only done two sessions/days of P90X and, so far, it has spanked my pants off – hard. On the third day, yesterday, I went climbing at Devil’s Lake. I was sore, but was able to pull off a couple of good routes fairly cleanly – a couple 5.8’s and a 5.9. (Devil’s Lake ratings are stiffer than anywhere else I’ve climbed, so a Devil’s 5.8 is really at least a “real” 5.9 and a Devil’s 5.9 is at least a “real” 5.10a.

    A few months ago – back in May, when I was climbing more regularly (READ: before our second child was born), I was easily climbing 5.10b and was close to climbing 5.10c. (The steps from 5.10a and 5.11a are: 5.10a, 5.10b, 5.10c, 5.10d, and 5.11a.) I feel like I’ve taken a small step backwards, but still hope to be able to accomplish my goal by year-end.

    So the hope is that P90X helps to round out my training, so that I’m not *just* climbing, which has pretty much been the case for a while now. I’ve been feeling like a slug, and, with the exception of a handful of runs between today and this past May, it’s been all I’ve done.

    I’ll fill you in on how I’m doing in the coming weeks…

  • “THAT Neighbor”

    Until recently, I had never heard of someone described as “THAT neighbor” before. I had no idea what the phrase meant. I have since figured it out.

    Ironically, the one who first introduced me to the term has turned out to be the purest embodiment of the word’s definition that I have ever encountered. Now knowing the definition, I can say that over the course of my lifetime, I have had several “THAT neighbors”: growing up, the pot smoker next door; the drug dealer upstairs; the video game-playing insomniac raver; and now… well, I’d rather not give a description yet.

    Here’s my working, evolving definition of “THAT neighbor”:

    Someone who lives next door to you (or above or below you) who habitually, carelessly breaks the spoken or unspoken rules of your neighborhood.

    A shorter definition might be much simpler:

    “THAT neighbor” = the neighbor that nobody ever wants

    Or:

    “THAT neighbor” = a bad neighbor

    So here’s the real issue at hand: now that we have identified who these people are and what they do, we have to decide how we’re going to deal with, and interact with, them.

    The bottom line is this: I’m convinced that God demands of us all that we treat all others with infinite respect, as we would wish to be treated – even when we screw up – because all people are inherently valuable to him. But more than that, I believe that I am personally expected to act with an impossible amount of grace and patience – to demonstrate a level of love that I am incapable of showing to anyone in my own strength.

    With great difficulty, I say here: “I love my neighbor.” Now comes the hard part: showing it. By how I act, what I say – both to her and to others about her, and how often I go out of my way to show her that I care.