Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Rock Climbing - Day 18

Today was an ouch-y day. My right leg tendon was sore again, I banged my knee while climbing on the big boulder (which always seems to happen), and I also scraped my arm up a little bit. Oh well, I said "no pain, no gain" right?

Other than that, climbing wasn't too bad, most of the routes I got easily, but others are still a little scary. There was a girl about my size trying to get up the V1 that I just finished yesterday, so I got the opportunity to share my insights with her. She hadn't been able to get it either, so I hope my tip about forgetting the left foot and just reaching helped her.

Oh, one other note that I forgot to include the other day in my discussion about calluses. And yes, it is called a callus, not a callous, I had to check out the difference (callus is a noun (or verb), callous is an adjective (or sometimes a verb)). Anyways, for my geeky science friends, the Wikipedia article on calluses (Wikipedia "Callus") informs me that callouses are formed when keratinocytes (the most common type of cell in the epidermis, or outer layer of human skin) build up due to repetitive friction or pressure. These build ups of dead cells are resistant to further damage due to their "networks of cross-linked proteins and hydrophobic keratin intermediate filaments containing many disulfide bonds". Interesting huh?

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