The Happening

Its been a while since my last post. I've recently come back from a right arm injury that took me out of climbing for a solid 2 weeks out of February. With the comp coming up at The Ultimate Climbing Gym I was a bit worried about taking so much time off, but now I am fully healed and stronger than ever. This weekend I went to Rumbling Bald twice and got a chance to revisit some of my past projects and try some new ones out for the first time. I came really close to sending Lewis' Lunge and Kung Fu Grip, two notoriously hard v5 problems at the Bald. I also got further on Sleeping in the Devil's Bed than I had previously, found a doable v5 problem called Rasta Drop that needs cleaning and cooler temps, and I started working on a more long term project called The French Maid v7. The French Maid has the reputation of being the best problem at rumbling bald and although I have not visited each problem, it is definitely the coolest line I have been on at the Bald so far. It starts out hands matched on a sloping "jug" and starts with a powerful throw to a good sloping rail with your left. Right hand comes up to a pinch on the same rail and then left hand bumps up and over to a good hold on the other side of the prow. Then it is just heel hooking and slopers to the top. Definitely a doable problem and I think it is my style (tensiony heel hooks and kind of powerful moves off of good holds) so I think I'll be able to do it this fall when the temps drop back down for good friction.

So now it is time to train. The comp is coming up in just over 2 weeks and I want to win the intermediate category. More importantly, it is almost summer so the rumbling bald bouldering season will be coming to a close in a month or so. Right now the goal is to get a bit stronger and get my endurance up for sport climbing over the summer and hard bouldering in Boone when fall comes around. I think it'll be pretty hard to hit my goal of v7 by my birthday but I think my year goal of v9 is still doable if the fall season is injury free and I really buckle down and start training smart.

REST!+

After climbing the last 4 days and being on the road to multiple injuries that building up in my right arm, its time to take a well deserved week off of climbing. Updates: went to pilot on saturday, did the bottom of Blind Prophet with little trouble, very cool moves, doable. Led Devil in the White House with 2 hangs because I didn't feel like pushing for an onsight. Went back to the Corridor today with Luke and things were kind of grim. After 4 days of climbing I found that much of my strength was absent today as I struggled on the v4 that I essentially flashed with almost no effort last week. That was a low point. Things turned around when I started working on a prow feature at the far end of the corridor. I dont know what it is a called, but it is pretty groovy and will be a nice challenge to overcome when I am at full strength and injury free soon. I am definitely ready to start training for sport climbing and to dial back my bouldering. It'll be a nice change of pace and hopefully my current right arm weaknesses will vanish never to return again. So, the plan is a week off of climbing and then a week of light climbing and rehab exercises with a lot of icing and heat on my right arm. If the next two weeks go well, I'll be ready to start my power endurance training for a few weeks and be on my way to gaining some level of fitness required for my year end goal of 5.13 sport climbing.

Moores Bouldering Reloaded

I went back today to the Corridor Area at Moores with Dan and it turned out to be a pretty awesome day for climbing. We met up with some chill climbers and got the beta and locations of many of the problems in the corridor area. Dan and I worked on Stickman v5, Dan sent and I made some pretty good progress on it. We both worked on The Nick v6, and got to the same high point from the ground. We went back and worked the Pit v5, and starting from what I guess is the second move, we both sent at around v4ish difficulty. It looks like even better temps tomorrow for climbing, and we're heading back out there for another go, hopefully with a few more boulderers and another crashpad. Look for an update tomorrow, might be a few v4s and a v5 going down.

Moores Bouldering

I went out to the Corridor at Moore's Wall today at did some bouldering by myself. My trusty climbing partner was out sick, so rather than let the day go by, I decided to go out and try some safe/moderate problems and maybe put in some work on the harder projects I intend to send there too. The trip started out poorly, it rained /sleeted on the way there, which worried me, luckily though the boulders were dry when I got to the corridor. It was probably about 40 degrees there all day long, so that was pretty nice. Cold , but not too cold. I met a few guys out there and managed to put in some work on the Pit v5 and v3p0 while they were around. When they left the area, I sent v3p0 with 1 pad and no spotters on about my 8th attempt at the problem.

First of all, I will say that v3p0 is probably about a v3 or so, even though it is a pretty hard v3, but that difficulty is mostly due to the beta intensive nature of the problem. So here is my beta: Start double pinch with a left heel hook. Go out right to jug, go left to jug, work right foot up and maintain body tension to keep from swinging when you release the heel hook to reposition your left foot. Right hand up to the good edge on the lip of the problem. Right heel hook around the right side of the boulder, left hand up to the sideways hold next to your right hand. Work feet up, grab fin and top out. Very beta intensive, hard to onsight probably. The holds are too good to really be a v4, but it is the trickiest v3 I've been on thus far. Pulling the top of v3p0 without a spotter was a mindscrew to be sure. Going bouldering by yourself is a great way to really get you focused on not falling off and on doing the right moves...of course if you blow it you can get really hurt really quickly. v3p0 was pretty safe but topping out still gave me a huge rush and for a few minutes after my send I just sat on top of the boulder and just enjoyed the great sensation of having overcome a challenge that I really had to mentally work for.

I also did another problem, which I cannot identify but I will grade roughly v3 as well, which is the farthest right problem on the masterlock wall next to v3p0. Here is my beta: Start on good sidepull rail with a good left foot, right foot flagging. Go up left to jug rail, match right hand. Good foot out left and make a big move to a crimp jug with right hand, cross left hand up to jug and topout.

I made some good progress on the top section of Lost Boys v5 and I think with the right beta for the start I will be able to send it my next few tries. Very stout problem, much like most of North Carolina's boulderin that I have encountered. I also tried the Pit v5 but I had poor beta and couldnt figure out the sequence. There is a left exit that looks easier, that might be what it is.

Bouldering at Moore's is incredibly frustrating without good beta. If you want to just boulder around and not bother with problems then I guess it would be fine, but for someone trying to do established problems with specific sequences it is a nightmare.

In other news, I think I am going to start my anaerobic training phase soon and switch over to doing sport routes as my emphasis for a while.

Goodbye 2008

Well its been a while since I updated this blog, but really nothing climbing related has happened since the last post. I was sick for a while and the weather has been pretty off so I haven't gotten out to boulder much this winter. Luke and I made a trip out to the corridor at Moore's Wall and we found a few projects there to keep us busy...and we've been setting in the gym like its going out of style. I recently went back to Rumbling bald and had a great day of ALMOST sending cool shit. I did one v3/4 (who knows) in 2 tries which was nice, and I got really close to sending a v6 called the Uplifter. I went back to Lewis' Lunge at the end of the day and felt surprisingly strong on it, but still not quite ready to commit to the final big move. Luke and I went up to the metroid boulder and cleaned and worked his projects: Morph Ball - a v6 sloper/mantle problem, Space Pirate - a v5 using some nasty slopers and a start we didnt figure out and a v7 called mother brain that links the two of them. The next time we go back in a month or 2 I think we'll do all three. So thats generally the theme that I've come to expect from outside bouldering, a list of projects that expands each time I go out and almost nothing ticked off the list each time...

So I failed to meet my 2008 goal of v6, although I did meet my goal of climbing 5.12a in a year (easily). I'm pretty psyched for 2009, and I've set even steeper goals for this year in keeping with my MEGA GOAL of sending Dreamcatcher at some point in my life. In 2009 I'd like to get my sport climbing up into the 5.13 range, ideally around 5.13b/c. I'd also like to get my bouldering grade up to v9. I realize that v9 is going to be hard to achieve...really hard in NC for sure given stiff grading here. That generally means that I need to go up 4 sport climbing letter grades in a year and 4-5 V grades in the upcoming climbing year...ouch. As a smaller goal I'd like to either set for the next tumblebees comp OR win the intermediate category, and do not horribly at Hound Ears this coming fall. As a smaller goal, I'd like to have climbed 1 or more v7 problems by May.

How am I going to achieve all of this? 5.13 shouldnt be too challenging, considering that my bouldering grade is already high enough to climb at the 5.12+ level, so much of what I need to focus on in order to raise this level is endurance and increasing my exposure to climbing outside and different rock types.

To increase my bouldering level from v4+ to v9 I am going to really focus on effectively isolating and working all of the key grips with weighted deadhangs (fingerboard repeaters) and really work my one arm lockoff ability. Lockoffs are one of the areas that I really need to focus since they are really hard and they are a requisite for advancing into hard bouldering. Once my next strength building cycle comes up I am going to start doing campus board double dynos...or at least try them, they do make me nervous due to the risk of injury.

If this year goes well and I meet my goals of v9 / 5.13c, I should be able to start work on dreamcatcher sometime in 2011.

Climbing Withdrawl

Its been 6 days since I last climbed, the longest I have gone without climbing since I got somewhat serious about it in February. I'd been meaning to take a week off as per advice from climbing trainers like Eric Horst so I would be able to heal up and recover from any unknown injuries I might be slowly building up, but I just never got around to it. On Wednesday I got pretty sick and I've been slowly recovering ever since, and its been a rough few days.
Without climbing I've been playing a lot of World of Warcraft's new expansion, the Wrath of the Lich King, and I have to say that its a poor substitute for climbing. It is addictive I will give it that and I have logged more hours playing that game this last week than I would really like to admit. The prospect of continuing to play that game for sustained amounts of time does not appeal to me at the moment. I will say that the storyline and the quests I've done in the game have been pretty compelling and I have had a good amount of fun and a few cool moments.
In other news, I think its safe to say that winter is officially here in North Carolina so the winter season for bouldering has officially started. As mentioned previously I have a lot of goals that I want to achieve this season and the prospect of getting out there and attempting them is both exciting and a bit daunting. Mostly its daunting because I just took 6 days off of climbing and I am unsure how much gains I have lost and how long it will take me to get it all back and then get strong enough to send some of my tough projects. I am optimistic and I dont really think that I have lost a measurable amount of strength. With the proper focus and training I think I can easily be climbing stronger than ever in about a week's time.

So, now that I have had a week of rest, today will be a light climbing day to gauge how ready to climb I am, and then next week I will start a training block of finger strength training, focusing on training max contact strength and really working on grip strength in my weak areas - pinches and slopers.
Here's what I'll be doing:
- Fingerboard Repeaters
- Campus Laddering
- Hard Bouldering
- One Armed Lockoffs

I am going to be focusing almost exclusively on these exercises for the next 3 weeks and then I am going to do a 3 week block of anaerobic power conditioning where I will focus on doing:
- 4x4 Bouldering or Medium Intensity Boulder Intervals
- Frenchies
- Getting retarded-pumped and maintaining that for as long as possible during my climbing sessions.

Right now I am planning on doing a 3 day a week climbing program with a 2 day break at the end of the week. I love climbing after 2 days off because I am so well rested and I climb so much harder. Before this break I was contemplating doing some heavy weight training + climbing and doing that with 2 day breaks between each session, but I think I will wait a bit before doing that again since I feel like I might have been on the road to injury.

Currently I have a very subtle injury around my left bicep, it feels like my brachialis or something because its on the medial side. Because of this, I am going to try to refrain from doing crazy shit that will probably result in more injury until I feel like it is completely healed.
So its about 50-55 degrees out right now, so perfect for bouldering.....I really cant wait to get strong and get some free time/money to go and try some of my projects.

Go for it

Because I am about to come up being a climber for 10 months and I've got time on my hands, I've decided to create this blog to catalog my epic rise to climbing greatness...or at the very worst to explain how everything went horribly wrong. I've got some big plans which mostly include repeating lines that Chris Sharma established: Dreamcatcher 5.14d, Es Pontas, Three Degrees of Separation 5.14d, and Realization 5.15a.
Most people in the climbing community would (wisely) bet against my achievement of any measurable success on a send wishlist this burly and that is fine, although I believe these are not unreasonable goals if they are given the proper respect, determination and preparation they deserve.

So with the end in mind, I've been climbing for almost 10 months, and, having just completed my first 5.12a (Black Rain Direct, Pilot Mt, NC) I am looking forward to getting into hard climbing this coming year. Right now my goal for my 1 year climbing anniversary is to climb a 5.12c sport route called Blind Prophet (also at Pilot Mountain) and to do Novacaine V6 and Six-Pack for Sure V6 at the Grandmother Boulders in Western NC.

I'll probably be going out to Pilot again before the month is out to attempt to flash an 5.11d called Any Major Dude and get another 5.11d called When Shrimp Learn to Whistle my second go on the route. I will probably also get on Blind Prophet and try to work through the moves and get a sense of the crux section to see what needs to be done to send this thing 2 months from now.