Friday, March 6, 2009

Rock Climbing

So on Thrusday of this week I made the Junior Varsity Baseball team for OHS. This means two things. One is that get the opportunity to participate in the sport I have loved since pre-school. The other thing is that this will take up most of my time which means my climbing will be limited. I hopefully, will hit the gym 3 times a week and will work out at home when I have time. I want to be able to pull hard this season so my life will be very busy trying to balance school, baseball, and climbing. Today I learned that even if I take one week off I can still send hard the first day back. For instance, I sent my current project today after taking a week off due to baseball tryouts (it was the purple and pink route that starts just left of the prowl and finishes after some pumpy moves finishes off to the right). Jimmy-Its not a V8 by the way.

Hopefully, I will still be able to attend practice on Weds, and Mondays but I will defintatly being seeing you guys on the weekends.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

ABS Regional Climbing Comp

Yesterday my family and I drove down to Portland to attend the Regional Citizens Boulder comp at The Circuit. Once we arrived there, we were informed that this comp was canceled and so we had to do the Onsight comp like everyone else. This was a blessing in disguise. This was at say 10:30 or so and they took my brother and put him in Iso right away. I had about an hour or so until it was my age group's session to climb.

As my parents were watching my brother climb, I went to Subway to get some food since I could not watch him climb. I go into Subway and wait in line for 5 minutes or so until I realize why the line was going so slow. The reason was because there was one guy working because his co worker did not know his shift for that day. I felt real bad for the guy working because it was one of their biggest days for business because of the comp and he going as fast as he could trying to get every one their food.

After I finally get my food I head into Iso with Jimmy at around 12:15 or so. Once in there we meet up with Megan and hang out for about an hour. From there we streched and warmed up before it was my turn to go out and climb. I was really nervous when it was my turn to climb since it was my first time doing one of these. It was nice because I got to sit next to Jimmy during the stations who gave me advice during the comp.

The first problem we did was a slopy route on quite positive holds. The crux was reaching around the top to grab a hold you could not see. This is where I fell. I was really close to flashing it and should have easily except I was nervous I guess and could not see . This fall cost me about 7 points and some skin. The second problem was bigger moves on slopy jugs. I felt I should have done this route but could not get past the third hold or something bad like that. The third route was ridiculous. There was a jump start and then a big move to a crimpy little thing to which you had to campus to. I failed at this point multiple times and just stopped since it kept costing me points for every failed attempt. The fourth and final route was probably like V9ish. There were two jugs on an underhang then a huge move to this nasty sloper which continued on another nasty sloper and finished on some crips before gabbing the final jug. I did the first part easily then was dumbfounded on how to get to the sloper so I stopped.

These routes were really hard for the Male Youth A's. The same routes were use for the Male Juniors and 2 of them for the Female open category. No one did the fourth route while only one person managed to finish problem number 3. Althought these routes were out of my range it was great experience trying to flash difficult routes and I will definatly be doing onsight next year!

I don't expect anyone to read this and if you actually are still reading up to this point you are probably just as bored as I am while writing this.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

2009 Goals

I am really bored right now so I said what the heck I will begin a blog. My Goals for this new year are really just to climb outside more. It was great pulling on granite that one day last September and I have been dreaming of going back ever since. I also would like to sport climb more in the gym as well as outdoors (since I have never done that outside).

Grades wise I would like to send V6/V7 by my last trip outside. I have been pulling really hard at the WRG and I believe I can send some harder stuff outdoors then what I managed to send during my last trip to Leavenworth.

Another goal climbing wise is to possibly get out to Squamish. I have heard nothing but great things about it and I would like to experiece this world class climbing for myself.

Apart from climbing, I want to finish my Eagle Scout rank by the end of the summer. By doing this during my break I would not have to worry about finishing it during school.