December 13, 2013

We are roughly 6 months into this “challenge” and if I am being honest with myself, it will be at least another 6 months of continued hard work to reach my goal of climbing a 5.13a route. One reason for the long-term timeline is that it is now December, so climbing on actual rocks will probably not happen until May 2014. Another (more pressing) reason is that I truly had no clue how hard this goal would be and how long it would take to prepare my body for. My original thought was around 4-6 months; but regardless of the crappy fall weather and flooding in Colorado this year, I wasn’t ready.

There are a lot of challenges in climbing (or anything that pushes your physical or mental barriers). I’ve realized several of these things over the past few weeks.

REPETITION: This is a new frontier of my habitual nature in climbing…the discipline to climb a route over and over and over is not something I am accustomed to. On these hard routes, every move has to be perfectly executed and you have to link maybe 50-to-60 moves together; all of which have to be so well-rehearsed that your body knows instinctually what to do. This way you can turn off your brain and just focus on the climbing.

When a route is painful to climb, I really need to psych myself up. I recently did a hard route in the gym and it took 10-12 tries over a few weeks (note that I try to only spend 1 day per week on these maximum-effort routes) before I was able to link every move from bottom-to-top with no falls. Assuming that my future hardest route takes me 30 tries and I have the endurance to try it 3 times a session; that is 10 full climbing days. If you add in rest days and begging the wife to belay me, this could easily take a month or two of effort; where the rest of life will be put on hold.

REST: When and how much rest that I need is still a big question mark. I have to keep myself from being overworked and avoid injury while continuing to work hard and build strength; but there is no manual for this. It is completely dependent on me. I struggle with knowing when I’m unmotivated VS truly tired and in need of more rest. Yesterday was a “rest day” and I got a massage. However, today I am sore/tired and not sure if I need more rest, or if I need to suck it up. I managed to follow through with the workout plan; an endurance day (leading about 10 routes between the grades 5.10b & 5.11b) which is not a heavy workload on the body; but at the price of potentially risking injury because my body still may be in recovery mode.

EATING: What is the challenge in eating? One funny and maybe unique thing about Jill and I is that we eat a lot…and by that I mean A LOT. No matter how much we eat we can never seem to replace what we burn; we are not currently doing protein/recovery drinks like we have in the past, but even with those we notice that about every 4 weeks we need a feast of calories. This translates into hot wings, burgers and brew from a local spot in Boulder called “Southern Sun”. Generally one feast of calories followed by 10 hours of sleep is a nice and fast acting cure-all.

MOTIVATION: 6 months of hard work, week after week is draining. I don’t just mean physically draining, but mentally draining. I would give myself a ratio of 8 out of every 10 workouts as low-motivation days. Today is a low motivation day, which is what GAVE me the motivation to write this post.

My training goals have to be grander then just ‘looking good to the opposite sex.’ That type of motivation doesn’t last. What does last is the discovery of what my body can do, how hard I can push it and the amazing places that climbing takes me. At the end of the day, I know that I’ve pushed myself hard, and that is my motivation in general. The other 10% of the time I need a little extra nudge.

KEEP IT FUN. If you’re not having a good time you won’t last very long. Look at all those New Years Resolutioner’s who decide, “this is the year of change.” “This is the year I’m going to workout and lose weight”…bla bla bla. Then after 2 months, their motivation dwindles and its all over…”maybe next year?”

I say pick something that you enjoy; that keeps you coming back for more whether its a team sport, solo sport, or specific activity that requires active motion or training. There are different ‘types’ of fun and sometimes you don’t realize it until its over. For Jill this is mountain biking. While she struggles with climbing hills on her bike, the reward is being outside in amazing beautiful places (which she loves doing solo because it is peaceful and there is no pressure or stress of keeping up with other people), getting excercise (obviously), and going down hill fast!

The climbing gym is like a big adult playground/fun-zone. I have NO IDEA how people can workout in traditional gyms and stay motivated to keep doing it. I suppose if the larger goal was to attempt something (triathalon or competition of some sort), then perhaps that would do.

Some Ideas:

• Train with friends or people you like and want to spend time with
• Listen to your favorite tunes on an ipod
• Take joy in the small accomplishments
• Watch others train hard / peer pressure
• Reward yourself for achieving goals / milestones

Jilly and I train exclusively together, and it really ends up being a huge amount of quality time together. We’re also in a better mood because the endorphins from working out melts away stress. Sometimes just making it through a workout class, climbing a problem that takes many tries or tons of effort, or just making it though the week and hitting all your ‘basic’ goals can feel great. You should relish in these moments.

It’s also nice to give yourself rewards for hitting milestones. Jilly and I will often give ourselves rewards for big accomplishments – for example, Jilly has been trying her hardest route ever (5.12B+) in the gym. This particular route is catered to her exact strengths, so she had been working and reworking the problem about 3 dozen times. To add further motivation I promised her that if she could do it, she would win a sushi dinner, which she finally earned yesterday after accomplishing her milestone. I once did 32 days of yoga in a row and my reward was a new pair of shoes. Obviously we can go to a restaurant or buy shoes any old time, but sometimes these little things are nice treat and definitely add to the fun factor.

We have it easy in Boulder and in particular our climbing gym, because so many professional athletes train there and its amazing to see how hard most of them work (there are the few who don’t have to work very hard..I hate those people!) It makes me want to work harder if I’m slacking off…sometimes peer pressure is a good thing.

Our goals this winter are to continue to build our skills and technique, strength and especially for us, that “never quit” sprite that keeps you holding on when your whole body wants to give up. I believe that this will help to set the stage for the next chapter in the coming new year and achieving my 5.13a.