Welcome back....

Austin Cheung to the Bridges Route Setters. 

Time

My time has been spent indoors as of late. The rain has has come and stayed like an unwanted guest over staying their welcome. Since the Bay Area is in a constant state of being wet (and not the good kind either if you know what I mean), I had to do something before I went crazy. So I dug up my old training book from the days on a youth team, refined the pages of conditioning and hang board work outs, and committed myself to ACTUALLY training. Projecting, points, the whole she-bang.

So far, I have only completed two days but I feel motivated. I give my self time limits and it puts the pressure on to do it in the allotted time before I must move on to the next phase of the day. Friday was my first time using a hang board seriously since September 2007. After I was done I can see why I swore off the workout. I already knew I was going to be sore the next day. But I'm a sucker for pain (not shitty pain, but good pain. There's a difference). Conditioning is now push exercises (i.e. dips, push ups, shoulder presses). It seems to be working as the next time I go in, I feel motivated to continue training and get fit for some of them there outdoor rock climbs.

The Moon Board is the best

What happens when hold meets extreme heat in dishwasher.

Lazy Sunday!

No, not exactly. I woke before noon.

8am on the dot to be real.

It feels like a normal thing to wake up early now. Wake up, catch a train, go climbing, come home, eat dinner, watch Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune (two shows I never get sick of), go to bed. Home routine is good. Climbing in the morning is a little better for me. I forget about time and there's not a ton of kids running around (something I don't miss).

Somewhere in the City

However, I do miss Taco Truck Friday Nights after Bridges (something I'm willing to sacrifice for sleep), climbing with friends (other than my regular climbing partners), and I miss the bickering of boulder problems from people who think they know all about setting, but haven't put in the time, effort, or thought to setting a route or a boulder problem. Wait a minute, that's something I don't miss. Ah well, maybe a little bit...


This break from work has given me insight to my own personal training: try not to close crimp. Fortunately this seems to be working in terms of getting pumped quicker and feeling like I'm trying a lot more. I discovered that too much closed crimping hurts my first joint on my fingers and makes my sessions significantly shorter. Coming to the conclusion that if I want to climb longer and feel like I have improved a quality that used to be non-existent (open handed crimp strength), I would have to develop some sort of "training". I put that word in quotations because I have no formal regiment (as of yet). I just climb a lot of boulder problems till I get pumped and stopping when I fall to a crumpled heap on pads. It's a good way to get my confidence built back up from being lower than Atlantis.


Hopefully all the climbing while forgetting the time works out. Open handed crimps are a weakness of mine. I am fortunate to be able to work this weakness easily (since us setters at Bridge don't have many slopers). I will set an open hand trainer for myself and the public to climb on. The kids comp provided me with excellent motivation (as well as public feedback about the reaches) to try and set for the people with short reaches. I'm excited to see if what I have thought in my head will work out. Update on that to follow this week.

Enough rambling, time to get on with my rest day and get going. Have a good one today.

Thanks for reading!

Marching on

This month has been holed up inside climbing. Confidence feels at a low for now. Motivation to go outside isn't the highest it has been but it is there. Mostly in part to the weather. It rains then is sunny and right when the outside areas are starting to become dry, it dumps again. Case in point at Castle Rock yesterday with Sue and Will. Wet rock simulates humid summer conditions. You touch the wall and it feels dry. As soon as you put pressure on holds they seep.

We were careful not to pull out as so not to break any fragile holds (sandstone you pull down, not out). Some thing were saturated with water. Parking Lot rock for one. It's weird seeing no chalk up high on it. Probably what it looked liked years ago. Minus all the breakage that has come with time and traffic.

But it was a reminder that climbing is climbing, even with repeats. Even if you don't do anything new that day but still got up stuff after being indoors for a couple weeks, I call that a success. So if you're in that cycle of being indoors because of weather and it's got you feeling down, you'll be out of that hole soon enough. Don't get down on your self for feeling weak or like a punter (PUNTER: (n.)(v.)(adj.) to fall off things repeatedly you could do easily before. Similar to CHUFFER).

Hopefully this period of rains stops for three more weeks bring dry conditions back to the Bay Area. It's probably also a good thing the members of Bridges will have some new problems for four weeks starting next week in the North Corridor. New sets going up every Tuesday for the next four weeks (as far as I can see in the schedule). Hopefully Mortar Rock dries off enough to be able to climb on it.

Here's hoping!

Thanks for reading!

High and dry on Deforestation (V10) in Febraury

It's so wet

Gonna get it together

These past few days have been spent climbing at Bridges with a couple hours at Mortar Rock on Tuesday.  Don't have much to say but let's look at some pictures!

NEVER get a storage unit 

Demon Lover chicken and waffle @ 900 Grayson.
On the corner of Seventh & Grayson in Berkeley, CA

Project lists

87 projects

Not sure what to say about this...

For the ladies 

Raised Acura. They see me rolling, they hating...

I know there aren't climbing pictures (it's been raining!) and I'll try and get some when I go outside next time.

Thanks for reading!