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.