Time to step up to the challenge...Want an awesome workout? Try rock climbing!

All kinds of new adventures! Also, help us fund raise totally free!

So lets start today with our general updates:

£1.84 has been raised so far through Google Ad-Sense. Thanks to everyone who has been investigating the advert links - please keep doing it!! It's completely free for you (unless ofc you buy something) but we generate revenue from it which ALL goes to Oxfam.

We have several eBay auctions up at the moment and we have lots of products in our store - so please check these out here (for our store) and here (for eBay).

I'm just in the process of painting Eddie the candle-holder and I'll get some pictures up of my other clay projects!

To take part in our challenges you can sign up here on our Facebook event page - I'm even going to push the boat out and say for EVERY NEW COMBATANT WHO TAKES THE CHALLENGE FOR THE WEEK, WE WILL DONATE £1 TO OXFAM.

What did we try today?
Today we decided that rock climbing was going to be our goal as something new. I feel it's about time to confess that I'm actually a little jittery around heights. I don't think that's an irrational fear - it's adaptive, cmon, surely some caution around high things is common sense...

As it turns out, so is Tash. I got a call this morning saying that she'd lost the money she was going to use to pay for the session....ooops, I paid on booking sis - no backing out now *laugh*

Amber has done rock climbing before, so when she left Crawley earlier she was still brain storming what she could do for her challenge...we'll have to see what she came up with ;)

So, anyway, rock climbing. I've wanted to go rock climbing for quite a while now but have never had the guts to book a session. This challenge gave me a perfect excuse to do so!

After doing some research I can see that there are some great health benefits to rock climbing! Check out this site, or this one and definitely this one if you need more information on what rock climbing can do for your workout routine!!

So we booked through High Sports at K2 Crawley yesterday and turned up at around 12:30pm and prepped for our session - the harnesses were a little alarming, but James (our instructor for the session) patiently explained how they fitted on and where to put everything (there are so many holes.....!!).

After a few minutes and doing the signature of certain death (you know the one - when they hand you the piece of paper it was time to become acquainted with the walls....

James took us through the safety (don't walk under other people's lines - see I remember!) and then explained that we were attached to him and he'd help us down. At this point I looked him up and down and wondered whether I'd actually lift him off of the floor when I was coming down....he didn't look like he weighed more than me! I could just picture the see-saw motion of me and James stuck in an eternal struggle to reach the floor....

Turns out he was fine. Apparently though he does have to plug himself into the floor when slightly heavier people come climbing - is it bad that at that point I was just glad he hadn't attached himself to the floor?!!

Getting to the middle of the walls was terrifying and exhilarating all at the same time. The last wall I even touched the top xD That's progress for you. Although, at the top I made the mistake of looking down. Ooops. That's the moment when the "oh crap, what am I doing? I'M GOING TO DIE" kicks in - how am I going to get down? That's so far. Um. Drop and roll? NO NO DROP AND ROLL. Never. Look. Down.

We tackled 4 walls in total and O...M...G, my forearms (and my butt muscle that was pulled in the multiple handstand incidences). What a workout. If you're looking for a workout that combines endurance and resistance and fun you NEED to try rock climbing!! I am officially hooked and planning on going again next week!

Our instructor James was upbeat and really, really supportive of both me and Tash when it came to declaring that we were scared of heights. He even complimented us a lot on progressing and made a big deal of the steps we took - spot on!! As you can see in the video he allowed us to try out going up and abseiling down and made no comment on what must have looked really silly!

I'm so glad I finally found the courage to book this - it's something everyone should try at least once in my opinion.

After the rock climbing we went for a short walk around the gorgeous Tilgate Lake, which was beautifully sunny (the weather, not the lake...) and then into town for some shopping and a coffee courtesy of Amber. Great training session. We definitely need more coffee though... xD

After all the excitement I came home and logged into WoW. Yes, I play World of Warcraft. Yes, I raid. Yes, I know. A few weeks ago I cancelled raiding to go and see the new Captain America movie. That is when I realised (and one of my lovely friends pointed out) that I had hit ultimate geek status.

In fact, it was when I'd got to fat to bend down and face-tank that I decided it was time to lose weight....thanks WoW ;) Sweating profusely when you're playing should be reserved for those tricky "YES WE'RE GOING TO DOWN THE BOSS" moments and not just when you're walking about the nearest town....

Anyway, I was talking to one of my friends (who dropped a couple of comments about my hand-standing abilities....git) when I got the comment "well, handstands can't be that hard can they". Well. I've told him to go away and film himself trying. I'll post up the footage if I get any ;)

So, look forward to that moment peoples!

That's me done for tonight. Over and out!