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.

Read more →

Fall is on its way, the trees are starting to change color. This morning was the first morning I had to ride into work with tights, full finger gloves and a light hat to stay warm, so what does this mean…SENDING TEMPS!!! When the rock is nice and cool/cold you get much more friction with your hands and feet pressed/pulling against it. Many of the hardest routes require these types of conditions just to keep from falling off, a very delicate balance.
Read more →

I thought it might be a fun idea to write a journal of our activity level for one week. This is not a new thing for us, as we’ve kept training journals in the past, but we always slack off on maintaining them for more than a few days.

Why is this a good idea? Because we can look back and see what we’ve done, to amp it up for the next round. We will also be able to see trends on how diet/sleep/stress-levels effect energy and performance. Ultimately this will help to keep us operating at a very high level. (note: there are always those crap days where you just can’t perform to your optimum level no matter what, and that is okay…its just how it goes sometimes)

Read more →