more bumming (negative!)

Hey all. gonna try to make this post kind of short… not in the blogging mood so much right now. Just a quick up-date and I’ll be on my way.

Random Pics:

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Trade show was pretty much how it normally is, except slower. With the current state of the economy, and considering the winter show isn’t as lively anyway… it was kind of dead. It was actually nice because it wasn’t quite as hectic and overwhelming. I checked in and said hello to the sponsors, and to some friends that I hadn’t seen in a while. Some friends were there and I totally missed them somehow… sad.

I was pretty psyched to compete in the nationals, after climbing in the gym the week before and feeling surprisingly strong. After the quallies on Saturday eve I was tied with Carlo and John Siegrist who also topped out both the qualifying routes. They were fun, well-set routes and the setters did a very good job with them, and with the finals route BTW. I felt OK in the quallies, climbed smart, but got really pumped on the second route which was more overhung and sustained. Like, more pumped than usual. The next day warming up for the finals I felt like I was getting pumped faster and more instantly than I should have been getting. Of course I got put last because they thought I had the best chance of finishing the finals route and have it be all dramatic, so I didn’t even get to watch anyone climb. I made it past the funky face move on the begging of the route and past the mandatory all-points off dyno at the begging of the overhang, but as soon as I started to move past that part it was like insta-pump. No bueno. I was about two thirds the way up the overhung section and my left hand just gave up on me. People asked me after I came down if I had slipped off or spun a hold of something but the fact was that I just got pumped silly and couldn’t continue. I sucked. I know third place ain’t bad, and I shouldn’t really care because it’s just just an indoor route anyway, but I really wanted to win this year because I’ve come so close to winning a route nationals so many years… I guess there is always next year though, if my shoulders haven’t exploded by then.

Congrats to Carlo Traversi and Dave Graham. Very impressive. Carlo is always really strong and impressive to watch climb, but right now is in such good shape and most certainly deserved to win this one. I stuck around after the comp and tried the finals route two more times because it was a spectacular route and I wanted to see if I could do it. I managed to top Carlo’s highpoint, which was the second to last move, on my second go after the comp, and still then didn’t even send the route. And Dave finally didn’t punt in a comp! Good on ya mates.

I got in a good day at snowbird on Monday. There was lots of powder to smash through and it snowed all day so it just kept piling up, but it was also pretty hard because of the decreased visibility and lack of grooming on the easier terrain. You were always on point because where there wasn’t power, there were choppy moguls, and my fogged up lenses made it even harder to see the bumps in the road, but I frothed around in the pow with some friends and had a grand old time anyway. I used to snowboard a lot when I was a kid, years before I started climbing (maybe I should have stuck with it…) and all throughout HS, but went cold turkey about four years ago. Every season when I hear of my friends having a good time on the slopes I get all jealous and remember when I used to cruise. So this season I vowed to get back on the slopes and dug my boots and board out of the garage, knocked the dust off ‘em and got my board tuned up, good as new. Hopefully I get a few more days in this season!

Welp, back in the city now. Gotta say, I’m tired! I have trouble sleeping sometimes, especially when I travel a lot. It wears on you little by little until you hit the wall and crash, which is happened to me on Tuesday. I awoke in slc at 5:45, which I realize isn’t super early for most people with like… jobs, but for me it’s damn early, and having not been able to get to sleep until about 2am the night before… I was worked. I flew back to Oakland and felt really awake when I got home, so decided to forgo the nap I planned on taking. Daniel and I drove over to the east bay in the late afternoon to have a short session at mortar rock, to climb on some real stone (if you can even call it that) and prepare our skin for the ultra-abrasive granite of the buttermilks where we’re headed later today. After we got there and started to move around, the lack of sleep caught up to me and hit me like the 14 bus barrelling down mission street. I should have just not climbed and spotted Daniel, but watching him climb, my psyche got the better of me and I decided to try “Don’t Worry, Be Snappy”. I had a terrible headache and after I dry-fired of the second move and fell to the ground sideways, almost facep-lanting into a rock, I called it quits. As JoeK might say, it was gutter. Of course Daniel beasted “Chinese Connection” for what was probably the fourth ascent. It took him about an hour and it was damn impressive, like pretty much everything else I watch Daniel on. That problem is so crimpy and sharp and hard, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do it. It amazes me a guy as big as Greg Loh was able to pull through. Props. Anyway, I digress. We went to Berkeley Iron Works afterward and I got sucked in to bouldering there. I had that feeling that I had just gotten out of the water, like I’d ust been swimming or surfing… I just had that extremely tired feeling that I was bound to hurt myself and sure enough after like an hour, my left shoulder, an injury that I thought had passed by now, started to hurt again… F-word. I’m getting old! I remember when I could just climb and surf as much as I wanted without any pain… those days are over now.

I’m gonna go to bishop anyway and see how I feel. If I can warm up enough and climb without my shoulder hurting, then I’ll mess around on easy stuff. If I feel any pain at all, I’m gonna refrain from climbing and just hang out and enjoy being outside in a beautiful place… I wanna climb again!!!

Random hilarious youtube vid: