It was cold and cloudy this morning, making the steps from bed to pool long and involved.
- 100m easy free
- 400m free
- came in at ~7:05
- 100m pull w/ paddles
- 200m fly/back drill
- 300m fly kick
total distance: 1100m
Legacy Crankenstein
It was cold and cloudy this morning, making the steps from bed to pool long and involved.
total distance: 1100m
Swam a little bit more this morning. I got out of bed early-ish, amazingly. Still not totally back from my most recent repiratory infection but better than last week.
da numbers:
total distance: 1100m
I have got to start waking up earlier.
da numbers:
total distance: 900m
There. I said it. Hard Boiled is not the worst route in the world. But don’t get me wrong; it’s no ‘walk in the park’ to redpoint. More than anything, this new perspective of mine is probably a symptom of my revised redpoint mentality in general. Redpointing is more fun for me this season. I’ve slid in to a groove of sorts that has made pushing myself on routes more bearable. I’ve justified the increased intensity this way: Think about whatever you need to think about to keep moving. If you execute everything right; move fast, stay tight in the cruxes, loose in the easy sections, milk rests if you can, and if you can find that sweet spot in rest time where your breathing comes down but your arms don’t tire too much; accurately hit every hold, hands and feet; and basically do everything you visualize in that mental video where you send the thing… then you might have a chance. Everything comes together in a redpoint. You rehearse it, visualize it, get nervous, and send it. To get on hard sport routes, to push your own limit in this genre of climbing, is kinda stressful. Same as any performance, I suppose. There’s tons to remember and I suspect the folks I look up to, the elite sport climbers of my generation, are especially skilled at finding that perfect mental space that allows them to execute near their physical limit, unencumbered by the psychological impedances most of us struggle to break through.
Anywayz, I got on Hard Boiled four times on Saturday. Ideally, I would have redpointed the damn thing but a productive day nevertheless. The redpoint is imminent. I’m almost having a touch of fun with it.
da numbers:
I set my alarm for 6:30, planned on being out the door at 7:15 and in the pool by 7:30. Right. So, I hit snooze until 8:15, got out the door at 8:20 and in the water at 8:35. This gave me 25 minutes to swim whatever I could in 25 minutes. I was so mad at myself I just swam two 400m’s, the first freestyle, the second with paddles. Note to self: get out of be earlier. Dick.
da numbers:
total distance: 900m
On the plus side, 400m is a good length to make 100m feel not that far. In general, it’s probably good I swim some longer distances – good for my stroke and walls.
Day two after a two week pause for illness. Things in the pool continue to suck. It’s got to get better. I mean, it can’t get any worse, right? I know. It can.
total distance: 1100m
Bridget was supposed to meet me and motivate me to not suck. But she didn’t show up, so she sucks. Oddly, my stroke feels OK. I didn’t even want to look at the clock for today’s sets. I’ll save that for when things start feeling a little less sucky.
It’s been almost 3 weeks since I last got in the pool. And I gotta say, being sick does not make one a better swimmer.
da numbers:
total distance: 800m
Not my best day ever. I’m taking things pretty easy as far as swimming goes until I feel totally healthy – for example, no more coughing up stuff. The 400m free was hard, the pull was hard and the kick drill was hard. Everything just felt bad, like I’ve been sick.
Back on Hard Boiled. That’s right, after 10 months, 1 attempt on my life, 3 pairs of climbing shoes and several dozen training days I am back projecting the most miserable piece of rock I have ever known. Once again, I am bidding for chains on Phil’s Santa Maria abomination, for whose creator I’m sure a special spot in Hell is reserved. Redpoint burns on Hard Boiled are so painful I have to trick myself to keep throwing at holds. Sometimes I imagine I’m on another route. Whatever, I threw myself at it on Saturday to walk away surprisingly not disappointed.
da numbers:
I like Joshua Tree. Who knew? Gritty, crumbling granite slabs in the high desert of inland California… sounds like hell, right? In some ways it is. There’s just something about the bold leads, perpetually good weather, infinite rock and gnarled old-school locals that make the park characteristically classic. My formative climbing years were spent in Seattle gyms, sport redpointing at Smith Rock, bouldering at Squamish, and now, Owl Tor. Though classic in their own right, and destination worthy no doubt, neither Squamish nor Smith are representative of traditional American climbing like Joshua Tree. And I’m ordinarily not one to romanticize climbing’s history in the States. In fact, it’s really only the new generation of steep, powerful, pocketed lines that interest me, the exact opposite of Joshua Tree’s low-angle style. But I think it’s been good for me to work out a new technique, the kind of friction intensive skill requisite on J-Tree’s runout slabs. These runouts really are changing my climbing. Having to stick to the rock as if your health depends on it, because in fact it does, is common here – not something I’m used to, so it has to be good.
The weather was sunny and cold – maybe 60s during the day and 40s at night. Cold is good. If I had not been nursing a cold I like to think I would have climbed hard. I did not. Puss ‘n Boots (5.11c) was the most significant thing I got on. About 10 degrees off vertical, thin and a little spicy up top, she got too heady for me at the end. I’d like to finish what I started here, maybe in a couple weeks.