I was at a dinner party last weekend and the conversation turned to climbing. Three of the people present were really into it as a sport and our host pulled out all his climbing gear. This really got my partner interested as he had always wanted to try it but had never gotten around to it. I had the opportunity to climb with some of my friends at University who were in the climbing club but I always declined as I thought I’d be terrible at it - being short and overweight and lacking in upper body strength.

However, since I have promised myself that I will try as many outdoor pursuits as possible I have decided to try it out. We are going to be attending an Intro Course at an indoor climbing centre nearby in a couple of weeks, and we get a week’s free climbing after that. The worst that can happen is that I absolutely hate it. The best that can happen is that I find it is the sport for me after all and we can look for groups to join so that we can try some outside climbing. I’m hoping that at the very least I’ll be able to add indoor climbing to my list of after-work fitness activities - after all I’m never going to build up upper body strengh if I don’t do something challenging.