train bad 1 day and feel bad for 1 week

Few things get me more down than a bad training session. And I'm actually pretty fair about it. I won't chastise myself for not achieving some arbitrary, daily training goal. Bad days happen - that's to be expected. I understand I can't crank out personal bests every day. What really sends me over the edge is knowing I sacrificed good form in an attempt at inane success. Take for instance yesterday: I kicked around like a damn monkey on the campus board, flailing at the night's objective. Not only did I not get 1-2-6 or 1-4-7 on my left, but I spent what little training capacity I had on horrible technique. So, I don't get to be content knowing I stimulated a modicum of growth despite a near miss at an interim goal. In the marathon that is this season's training schedule, I just sprinted for 40 yards between miles 12 and 13. And my 40 time really wasn't that good. A day wasted - now I have to heal the damage from a training session spent engraining poor form; the kind of form that left unchecked will eliminate the potential for future performance gains. How ever many times it takes, I guess, is how many times it takes for me to learn there is no shortcut. Just wanting strength is not enough. A person has to train smarter than I did last night to realize impressive power. And that's the thought I get to keep in my head while I wait the self-imposed, mandatory one week between sessions on the campus board. As much as I would like to get in to the Shed for a shot at redemption before the weekend, I know that is too much campusing for a person who would like not to injury himself.

 

Another thing that sucks: The Banff Mountain Film Festival. And I'm sorry to criticize a person's work like this. It's just, no one should get to produce something this sucky and not be called out for it.

Film #1: I walked in a few minutes late to the screening of this short film about a pseudo-tribal family (Andes, maybe) dealing with a sick father. The Dad wants the daughter to go get musicians to play this song while he dies... It was totally stupid. Anyone on the edge of their seat for this thing would friggin' explode in front of The National Geographic Channel.

Film #2: Committed 2: Grit Kids - Somehow, the creators of this film have devised a method for producing a documentary about a sport I love, featuring athletes I admire, and make it suck. I kid you not, I would rather watch three hours of YouTube. Obviously, it would receive the Alpine Club of Canada Award for Best Film on Climbing. Next year they should choose someone not in a coma to award a winner or at least hire ferrets to pick the one with best smell.

Film #3: Journey to the Center - It's about base jumping.

Film #4: Papiroflexia - This cartoon guy makes origami planes out of planes and stuff... Needless to say, it blew my mind.

Film #5: Seasons - I was surprised to see this film featured at the Banff Festival because it didn't suck. The sound, cinematography, athletes, etc. - all rad. Unfortunately, it's about mountain biking.

Film #6: Under the Influence - Growing up, I skied a bunch, so I appreciate the athletes who push this sport. This film was put together super well and it was entertaining.

And what kills me is they introduce the films like, "Next, we have a short film from the esteemed director of... winner of 2006's... ", like it's going to blow your mind. And you think something's wrong with you because you don't understand who wouldn't gouge their eyes out to make it stop. I want my $12 and three hours of life back.

even the Mona Lisa's falling apart

By back feels like somebody hit it with a truck. It's not even really an injury though - I've always gotten these excruciating cramps through the meaty part of my back, right in the belly of my lattisimus dorsi. It feels like an exaggerated version of a cramp that could appear in some other muscle, only this one is spawned from Hell and typically posts up for half a week. So I climbed through it Saturday and paid the price Sunday... and Monday... now it's just annoying. But there's a second problem with my back. There's this sharp pain that shoots down my left leg when I move in to certain positions (like sleeping, conveniently). It feels like a nerve thing because I'm not able to stretch or massage it away, or even point to a specific location that is affected. My swimming schedule is suspect. All the butterfly kick, I'm theorizing, could be to blame. My evidence is occasional, quick bursts of pain during laps in the pool, always when I'm in the middle of a flutter or butterfly kick. Had these sporadic moments of pain not presented themselves while swimming, I would have blamed bouldering - all the jumping off problems I've been doing this winter. Whatever the cause, the combination of these two ailments prompted me to skip swimming and climbing Sunday. Saturday, however, was epic. Justin and I got up at 7:00 to begin the day; started bouldering at Painted Cave by 8:30; I hit the pool from 1:00 to 2:00; then got together with Justin, Marcela, and Bridget for boudering at Lizard's Mouth from 3:30 to 6:30. That's like seven hours of boudering. It was great but my body was not psyched the next day. The decision before me now is wether to take some time off, from everything, and see if things normalize - or are these acceptable aches and pains one should expect from an increase in training volume or intensity? I haven't decided yet.

Saturday, I did Gangster Hippie (V6) at Lizard's Mouth, toward the end of the day, after working it for about an hour. This is pretty good for me, considering I'm not much of a boulderer lately. That problem is rad. It even looks rad.

By the way, I've determined the two best shows on television are Extreme Loggers and Ax Men. I'm sure a logger will punch me in the face for saying this, but I used to do timber work. Yeah, I said that: timber work. I was super psyched when I put Ax Men on at my Dad's place last March and he walked in the room to say, "You remember doing that work?" Yes, Dad, yes I do. I hated it. But I'm proud to say now, I used to be a timber professional. Maybe all that is irrelevant today, especially in the mind of a true logger, because I work in front of a computator. Well, whatever - it's a free country and I'll reminisce with delirious fondness on my timber days all I want. Do yourself a favor and tune in to see what a real mustache looks like. Think your back hurts? Did your back break 37 times when a beaver attacked you with your own ax yesterday? Before you schedule your sex change, maybe you should CC someone who cares and get the fuck back to work. Those guys... they do men's work. They are men. And they are rad.

send me on my way

I'm deep in a winter training routine. The weather has me confined to indoor locales like the Shed and occasionally the climbing gym in Ventura. I love it. Holing up in the basement to grow lobster arms while the crags soak is definitely my thing. I've taken this opportunity to campus a bunch and I'm reminded again how stupid it was I ever quit. Over the past two Saturdays I've focused on the Metolius medium sized rungs, spaced 22cm (obviously) on a 15-degree board, and have managed to repeat some of the more enjoyable classics, such as 1-4-7 and 1-5-7. I'm going after weaknesses pretty hard this season. For instance, 1-4-7 and 1-5-7 on my right arm were the moves of note from last weekend, and though I would like to have progressed even more on my stronger side this Saturday, I chose instead to bring up my weaker half, opting to invest my time on 1-4-7 with my left. By no large margin I finished it, and I'm thinking for future moves this is a good practice. Asymmetry is for pitchers. The real campus goal is 1-5-9. That's a good place to be for someone aspiring to climb Big Boy things. That's the kind of move that could give me confidence in my power, confident enough maybe to hit the spring redpoint season with some momentum. Or it could tear my arm from my shoulder, Fist of the Northstar syle. We could be making omelettes here. In any event, there seems to be a lack of strength in a specific area: campus moves where my low arm is especially low, like in moves of considerable distance, like 1-5-9. In order to train in this range, I'm thinking this kind of move could be valuable:

I'm making a list and I'm checking it twice.

I'm making a list of rad things. There'll be a couple things on there I've personally wanted to do for quite some time, like climb a 5.14 and do a one-arm/one-finger pull-up, but mostly this is designed to be a compilation of rad things I think any self-respecting, inbred group of angry climbers would want on their cumulative résumé. And please, this is open to suggestion - suggest a feat of radness and I will try to convince someone to do it. This is going to expand to eating challenges, I know it.

 

The stuff:

1. climb a 5.14
2. boulder V12
3. one-arm/one-finger pull-up
4. one-arm front lever
5. mono-campus
6. one-arm campus
7. campus 1-5-9
8. campus 6-1 doubles
9. one-arm handstand
10. dry-hump a badger

 

* The fine print:

• Video and/or photographic documentation is pretty important here, because:
• The performer of said feat should not have had prior success. (There's nothing interesting about watching someone who's really good at pinky-pullups doing pinky-pullups. We're making people better here, not handing out cookies for doing what you're supposed to. There should be a struggle, an ascension to impressiveness. And there will be no cookies.)
• I don't care what the feat, puking disqualifies you. (This does not rule out the possibility of a puking compilation video at the end of the year.)
• There is not "extra credit". Other than mention in a brief side note, there is no special value attributed to feats which incorporate extraneous events, such as a hospital visit or milk.

an immutable tenet

You will never be powerful enough. It's hard to develop a tenet, let alone an immutable one. I mean, how do you know something you propose as infallible will never be challenged? Easy: think like a sociopath. Stick to your conviction with the ferocity of a religious fundamentalist - no one's going to tell you Americans aren't infidels, that you can't have 37 wives, pornography isn't evil, or that a comet won't take you to heaven. You're crazy. Enjoy it. At least you know the truth.

I know the truth: I will never be powerful enough. And I feel I lost site of this recently. Climbing routes is great; I enjoy the commitment in training for and finally performing on climbs of scale, as opposed to bouldering for shorter sequences. That's not to say I don't love bouldering. I do. It's just that sport routes appeal to me slightly more. But in my effort to build some semblance of endurance for sport routes I neglected to train raw power. And I've had enough of that. So, instead of heading to Ventura for routes at Vertical Heaven, I'll be at the Shed this weekend, campusing. I'm going to campus, train for the one-finger Birthday Challenge pull-up, then swim. Whatever you're doing this weekend, it can't be better than training power.

Oh yeah, and I meant to write about last weekend's climbing - I was at Vertical Heaven with Justin for about 5 hours. It was rad. Then I did a hangboard workout at the Shed on Sunday. Also rad. My body's able to absorb a larger volume of training now, and I'm going to give it to it - just not this Saturday. That's the day I'm saving for power training. I'm pissed I couldn't do 1-4-7 or really two-finger campus much at all on Tuesday. I need more power. Obviously.

get psyched on Bishop

In an effort to get some people to go to Bishop with me, I want to direct your attention to this:

Mirando from Jon McCartie on Vimeo.

Which reminds me, this dude's blog is rad: http://www.fractionfilm.com/2009/02/mirando/

if rad routes were a minute, the Tor would be an hour

Today's post title is courtesy of Brian Spiering. Inspired by The Temptations' The Way You Do the Things You Do, Brian's instinct to connect a powerfully emotional song with a collection of routes typifies the Owl Tor pathology - which I'm positive will lend it self to a rad conjunction (ex. path-Owl-ogy). I've not had a relationship last as long as my infatuation with the Tor. And infatuation is a horribly inaccurate word for it - more like conciliation. So yes, I fell on Atreyu this weekend, two more times. I was so pissed I got on Better Than Life and one-falled it from the long two-finger pocket. That eased the pain a little of what would otherwise have been a thoroughly disappointing day. Then I did some work on Rubble, ate a delicious ribeye, and hiked in to Pine Mountain. Not the most pleasant 2 hours of my life but worth the experience, Pine Mountain's 6.5 mile approach left me fairly knackered Saturday night. Bosco was not knackered. In fact, I don't believe Bridget's dog has ever been knackered or ran at a speed less than full-throttle insane. Fed a strict diet of Kibbles and crystal meth, Bosco's energy level is frightening, and his effortless skill at connecting paw to scrotum is astonishing. Micah and Bridget also enjoyed the bouldering Pine Mountain offers - just not as much as Bosco. And I frickin' loved it. All the exercise and altitude kinda wore on me but the time I spent on a couple classics in Pine's near-alpine setting made the whole deal more than worthwhile. But I'm not going there next weekend. Unless they open the road.