Another 24 hours of horseshoe hell completed! I will post a full update when I can feel my finger tips again.

Horseshoe hell completed! 73 routes in 24 hours!

A change of strategy?

Due to the injury prone summer that Dave and I have been enduring, we agreed on Monday to a change of strategy. Instead of trying to do big numbers and lots of routes, we are just going to go climb and have fun! We are still training, within reason, but not doing too much, or trying too hard. Completing 24 hours of climbing isn't a real challenge for us, since I've made it the last 3 years and Dave the last 2. But we agreed to a little challenge of sorts for ourselves this year. I don't want to give it away, because if you are at the competition, or see photos of it later, I want you to be stunned, stopped in your tracks, mouth wide open with shock & awe, when you see what we will attempt to accomplish. Peaked your interest? I hope so! Stay tuned for more!

The Competition

Another trail run this morning. Up and over Pinnacle Mountain, and then back. I was working really hard to beat the one hour mark for what I call the "Grand Traverse." But I came in at 1:01:41. I shaved a little bit off of last weeks time, but still came up short. As I was blasting down the mountain I gave some thought to "the competition." Not really thinking about the Horseshoe Hell competition, or even the other people that are entered in it. It seems to me that when I think about the competition I am most concerned with how I do, in comparison to how I have done before. I don't intend to try and win the whole thing, as there are far better and stronger climbers. I am mainly concerned with completing the challenge of climbing for 24 hours straight, and then with doing better than I have done before. Although this year, the challenge may just be completing the competition. My shoulder is still not 100% and Dave's back is far from that. We will be there, and we will be climbing. But we may not be competing against our scores from last year. This year we may just be competing against injuries and old age to see if we can keep up.

I will be heading up to the ranch on Friday to help with the Arkansas Climbers Coalition Crag Clean-up. There are many areas of the ranch that don't see as much traffic as the North 40 over the summer and they get pretty overgrown with weeds and briars.We will meet at the Trading Post at 10 a.m. and then branch out from there to attack the trails. Bring weed-eaters and any other gear you've got and we can get the place looking sharp in the morning and then spend the afternoon climbing! See you at the Ranch!

Cross training and injuries!

Well I saw Dr. Tilley again on Monday. This time we did a cortisone injection into my shoulder. Looks like I will be suffering with a little bicep tendonitis for a while, maybe forever. So I can't climb for a few days. I took yesterday off as a rest day, and today I hit Pinnacle Mountain. I set a personal best for my Pinnacle traverse today. I start off on the East side, the "hard trail." I was 20 minutes to the summit and then 10 minutes down the west side to that trailhead. Then I turned right around and made the summit again in another 20 minutes. With no rest for the weary I headed back down the east trail to the car. I was hoping to make it down that side in 10 minutes as well, but picking your way through the boulder field on tired legs is a little slower. Once I got back to good trail I was able to pick-up the pace and a run the last portion for a final time of 1:05.

Now you may ask how is running up and down Pinnacle Mountain going to help with 24 Hours of Horseshoe Hell? It's just a matter of time and strategy. Imagine that you are at the Confederate Cracks and at 10 p.m. and you need to hit the check in point and cross the valley to the Roman Wall. This can be quite a hike with all of year gear and it requires a fair amount of elevation loss and gain. You certainly don't want to be waiting 10 minutes to catch your breath when you reach your climb, do you?

If you haven't been checking up on things with the 24HHH website there's a few interesting things going on. Andy sent out the competitor list this year already. Looks like the crazy cannuck Sonny Trotter and his globe trotting partner Jonathan Thesenga got their fill of Hell last year. But in there place is a nine fingered man from Colorado, who will be climbing with semi-local Jeremy Collins. Pro-climber Brittany Griffith will be back for another year, as will the hard climbing dou of Leather and Lace, Dick Dower & Natalie Neal. Watching Dick pull Crimpy Scampi at 9 a.m. on Sunday morning was serios motivation for me to get moving! If you don't know Dick (pun intended) you got to met him. He's older than the rocks, and climbs harder than most of you! Also absent from this years roster is last year's winning team of Stark Ligon and Cole Fennel. What gives guys???

Monday morning... I spent some more time on the treadwall this morning, but my shoulder has been bothering me again. I've got a call into dr. Tilley, maybe he can make everything feel alright!

More time on the treadwall.... Can't wait until i have a healthy partner!

Sunday morning ride on the river trail, 24 miles of beautiful weather!

Friday morning. 150 ft on the treadwall. More later....

100 feet of treadwall this morning, more later.

Back to the Grind!

We have returned safely from our little training trip to Colorado. It's amazing how hard a 5.7 can feel at 13,000 ft after 1500 ft of climbing. But we got it done! Now it's time to turn our attention to some serious HCR training. But wait!! Another injury plagues us.... This time it's not me! Dave did a little damage to his back while we were climbing in Colorado. So, the climbing training get's pushed back again. But I am still working on the endurance with hiking and biking. I will also be spending a few hours on the treadwall whenever I can. Hopefully you got signed up for the competition already, because the field is full and the registration closed! We've got 200 people signed up and ready to go. Dave and I are registered this year as "The Climbing Elvii" Anyone got a sequined jumpsuit I can borrow??

High Altitude Training

I would like to say I've been too busy training to blog, but the truth is that I've just not been doing it. But today, my climbing partner Dave is going to jump in for a "guest blog."
Here's the word from Dave...

Dave here, Logan's climbing partner. We haven't been doing a lot of training together lately, mainly because of the busy summer schedule here at the gym. We have been training on our own whenever we can however. Biking, hiking Pinnacle and the occasional climbing session at the gym. That's all about to change though.

Logan and I are about to set off for Colorado to knock off a couple 14'ers. (mountain peaks that top out over 14,000 ft). We will be attempting Crestone Needle via the Ellingwood Arete route and if all is going well we might try and link up Crestone Peak as well. The Ellingwood route is a beautiful arete that offers about 2000 feet of climbing up a prominent arete that tops out at 14,197 ft. A lot of the climbing is 4th class scrambling with a number of 5th class technical pitches thrown in along the way. We plan on getting in as many actual climbing pitches as we can by doing the direct start and avoiding some of the ledges that this route is known for. Even the 4th class stuff is serious though due the massive exposure and altitude.

Once we get to the summit we'll make the decision whether to attempt the link up or not. Our decision will be based on a number of factors including weather, time of day and how we're feeling. The ridge line between the two peaks looks pretty intimidating, almost more so than the route up. A lot of down climbing and rappelling only to climb back up some pretty gnarly knife edge ridges. It's only about half of a mile between the two summits but this will dramatically increase the length of our day. I'm hoping we can do the whole link up in under 12 hours of climbing and hiking. Sounds like a long day until you realize that's not even half of what we're planning on climbing at Horseshoe Hell.

Speaking of Horseshoe Hell, We are officially registered. Our team name this year is "The Climbing Elvii." Andy Chasteen, the organizer of Hell, sent out a message about 1 hour after registration opened and said it was well over half full already. Proving once again that this comp is one of the favorites among climbers all over the country.

Reconnaissance

Last week Dave and I conducted a little recon mission to HCR. The goal was to get a little climbng in a familiarize ourselves with some routes that were new to us, and we also discovered some routes that were new to the ranch! We concentrated on the North 40 on this trip for a couple of reasons. One, to celebrate my 40th birthday. Two, because the North 40 offers a variety of shaded climbs even in the heat of the day. We were fairly lucky because the temps were tolerable and the climbs were shady for the most part. I did manage to get Dave stuck in the beating sun as he worked "Mo' Better" 5.10b. But he didn't sweat away completely and we were able to try out a few new routes on the east end of the 40. The first route wasn't really new to us, as it was a trad line the I had put up in January called "15 degrees" (5.7) in honor of the high temp that day. But this spring the line was bolted, so we had to give it a try without gear. In my opinion it's a good line, and a little more appealing placing gear, but it will certainly see more traffic with the bolts in place. Either way, it was fun. Then we headed down to the Kindergarten Boulder to try out 3 new lines there. The first was a 5.7 trad line called "The Poison Ivy Route" that was put up last year. It was a decent line, but nothing spectacular. One more easy one to run for the comp. Next to that line were two bolted lines that both went around 5.7 or 5.8. I don't know any names for those two routes, but I bet they will be in the new guidebook Cole Fennel has written. It is set to be released around the 24HHH comp and is sure to be a hit! Cole and Stark Ligon won the team competition last year. You can check out the book at Fixed Pin Publishing.

Strategy

Well the training continues as I keep battling injuries and trying to stay strong. I am still doing the rock-fit cross training, running, biking, and hiking even though my shoulder is not 100% and my back is hurting now. Perhaps I am over training? But on to 24HHH strategies.

This will be my fourth year climbing in 24HHH. Each year I've modified my strategy from the previous year and shown great improvement in the results. So the big question this year is what can we do to improve? Well Dave and I are heading to HCR on Wednesday to try out a few routes that we don't have dialed in yet. We are going to try and push our upper end routes a little higher early in the day and save some of the easier stuff for the next morning. There are also several new routes at the ranch that we haven't been on yet. We want to give those a shot so we don't have to onsite them in the middle of the night. I've also got a couple of "secret weapons" that I want to try out before the comp. More on that later!

Rehab Continues

Not much news to report on the rehab of my shoulder. I've already done to weeks on a prescription non-steroidal anti-inflamatory. I can definitely tell that it's helping, but I can also still feel plenty of pain after a workout. If it's not showing improvement in 30 days, then we may try a cortisone injection. But until then, it's wait and see.

So Dave and I are continuing to work on our strength and cardio by doing workouts in the gym, running, cycling, and climbing. I believe the combination of this cross training will help get us fit to go as hard as possible for the full twenty-four hours. In previous years we've always had a little bit of a lull in the early morning hours before dawn. Sometimes it's just sitting for a few minutes while we wait for a route to open up. But this year the plan is to hit it hard and don't stop until the final shotgun blast!

I talked to Jason from HCR last week and he mentioned a few new routes that have gone up. So I think a little reconnaissance mission may be in order soon!

Climbing Again!

Well yesterday I got back on the ropes! I took it fairly easy climbing mostly 5.7-5.9. I did onsight a new 5.10a but that's as hard as I went. For the climbing training we will focus mainly on climbing lots of routes at lower difficulty. One method Dave and I use to train for 24HHH is to climb up and down each route. (although we didn't do that yesterday on our first day back)
When possible we also like to link a couple of routes in a row. That extends the time on the wall and helps with the endurance required for 24HHH. So now that we are climbing again this is what my training schedule looks like....

Monday - Rock-fit workout #1 (core, shoulders, legs)
Tuesday - run & Climb!
Wednesday - Rock-fit workout #2 (core, shoulders, arms)
Thursday - run & CLIMB!!
Friday - Rock-fit workout #3 (core, shoulders, back & arms)
Saturday - REST
Sunday - Bike 20+ miles

Diagnosis

Well good news on the shoulder. I went to see Doc Tilley on Friday. Dr. Stephen Tilley is well known around town, a great family practitioner, and climber! So I knew he would take time and have a better understanding of climbers injuries. Doc Tilley was pretty certain that it wasn't a serious rotator cuff injury. Looks like it could be a strain, pull, or tear of the tendon which attaches the bicep to the shoulder. So we are going to start with a round of non-steroidal anti-inflamatories. If that does the job great. If not, we will try a cortosoine injection, and move on from there. Doc Tilley says I should be fine to do a little light climbing, nothing too strenuous. "If it hurts don't do it." Good news!!

So Saturday I took a rest day with only a little bit of swimming at a pool party. Today I put in 25 miles on the bike along the river trail. It's way too hot to do much else outside.

We have our 24HHH training group again on Wednesday night at 7 p.m. Be there!!

Going Solo!

Well my partner had other obligations this morning so I did my best to stay self motivated. I pushed myself through another "hour of power" work-out. It went a little something like this....

1. Stretches- Legs, arms, shoulders, everything


2. 10 knee lifts


3. 5 minutes on the treadwall to warm-up using a crossover drill


4. 5 minutes of stair runs


5. Half moons with 15 lbs


6. 20 calf raises with a 20lb pack


7. 20 rock stacks with a 36 lb tape ball


8. Get-ups with a 42 lb bag


9. 5 minutes of step-ups with a 20 lb pack


10. Slasher to Halo exercise with 8 lb weight


11. 1 set of mini leg blasters.


12. 2 sets of suicide sprints.

I was hoping to get in 3 sets of suicides, but after the leg blasters, I didn't have anything left! I got many of these exerciese from a gym in Jackson, Wyoming called Mountain Athlete. They train climbers, skiers, mountaineers, etc. Check it out @ http://www.mtnathlete.com/index.php.

Back to Work

OK, enough time off. I was on vacation last week so I took a bit of a vacation from training. I ran a mile or two every other day while on vacation. Outside of carrying my 30 lb daughter on my shoulders around the zoo, and climbing trees with my son, I didn't get much training or exercise. But today, Dave and I hit it hard.

We've started a new workout here at the gym. Let's call it the "Warehouse workout." Basically it's an hour of hardcore exercises here in the the climbing gym using heavy bags and packs along with some of the climbing equipment and facilites we have. Dave and I are still fine tuning the elements that we will include, but so far we've got a really good set of exercises that are working the whole body! Stay tuned, more to come on that.

As far as the old shoulder injury.... it's been 7 weeks and it's not showing much improvement. I tried as few push-ups today and that didn't go to well. So tomorrow I've scheduled an appointment with Dr. Tilley. He's a climber and a good guy, so I hope he can steer me in the right direction! We will see how that goes.

Hike Climb Bike

Today we cross train! Start at the Pinnacle Mountain State Park visitors center. Hike the beginning of the Ouachita Trail to the Pinnacle Mountain east trailhead parking. Follow the east trail until we come to the first climable rock face. Rope up and climb anything we can taking the hardest routes to the summit. Descend and hike back to the visitors center. Change clothes and bike 6.5 miles out to 2 Rivers Park. Then ride back, uphill.... Anyone up for doing it again tomorrow???

24HHH Training Group Forming

Well the same old story going on here. My shoulder is still hurting, so I am not really climbing right now. I've been sticking with the running and biking as cross training right now. I got a mile in Friday morning before work, and "ran" the 1k Dino Dash with my daughter on Saturday. Those two didn't feel like much of a workout, so I managed to get 20 miles in biking on the River Trail this morning. I've got one more week before I take vacation, and then it's down to serious training!

On that note, starting June 17th @ 7 p.m. I will be holding a 24HHH Training Group at the gym. We will work on getting you in shape for this years competition. We will talk strategy and equipment, route selection, training schedules, cross training, and anything that relates. We will hold a couple of "headlamp climbing" nights at the gym, and maybe even have a trip planned! Plus we are hopping to have some guest speakers. Maybe Cole Fennel and Stark Ligon, the 2008 winning team. If you want to join in thr training group just drop me a note.

Short but sweet

Todays training: 1 mile jog around the neighborhood pulling a dog. 1 hour pushing lawnmover. 15 reps each of shoulder exercises....

The Hard Way

So today's workout was taking the hardway up Pinnacle Mountain. Not the difficult trail on the east side. I mean the hardest way possible. I am talking parking at the visitors center, and registering to climb. In itself a painful procedure. Then hiking over to the east trail and taking that until we get to the first rock buttress. Roping up and climbing that 5.0 choss pile until we run out of choss. Then we contour around to the South face and rope up for a decent pitch of 5.6 trad climbing. Then the scramble to the top, and the hike back to the car. Dave and I have been doing this since the winter. We call it "Alpine Training." In addition to 24HHH we are planning a trip to Colorado in August to climb the Elingwood Arete on Crestone Needle. It's about 2000 feet of climbing up an exposed arete that tops out over 14,000 feet. The hardest pitch is only 5.7, but it looks like good fun. So we are using Pinnacle Mountain to train on our multi-pitch-light-and-fast-hip-belay-simul-climbing techniques. And besides its a great way to pick up ticks! After the climb and hike I decided to go for a short bike ride for a little cross training. An hour on the river trail got me good and warmed up. The plan then, power mowing! Nothing breaks a sweat like mowing the lawn in the Arkansas sunshine. But alas, it clouded up and rained a little. Perhaps the lawn will have to wait...

Rain Training?

Our training this weekend consisted finding the best overhangs on which to stay dry in the rain at Horseshoe Canyon. Dave and I led our youth climbing team on a trip to HCR this weekend. We had 8 kids and two parents with us, and plenty of rain. It wasn't raining when we arrived so we set up camp and headed to the North 40 to get the team started on some easy warm-up routes. We got the lead climbers on "Uncle Grandfather" & "Perfect Hair Forever." Both routes in the 5.6 -5.7 range, pretty short and juggy, but real good routes to get some of the new lead climbers a little confidence climbing outdoors.

Dave and I both climbed one of the routes each to clean the anchors; something we won't have to do much during the comp because the leave two oval carabiners at the start of each climb before the comp starts. The first climber to go up hangs the ovals on the anchors, and then all of the other teams get to use those during the competition. They can clip straight through and don't have to worry about using their own quickdraws. It saves a lot of time and effort, plus it makes things safer.

After warming up we moved into the corridor to step it up a notch. I strung a rope up "Kurbcheck" (5.8+) just in time for it to start raining. I cleaned the anchors in the rain, pulled the draws on the way down and then lowered and got soaked. We had to take a break and sit out a couple of showers, but there are good overhangs to keep you dry. The climbs got a little wet, but they dried out fairly quick.

Once we got another little break in the weather we headed to "Summer Rain" (5.7) and "Lion Tammer" (5.9) One of the kids led "Lion Tammer" as I belayed. Once she got up high, she said it was looking pretty dark across the canyon. We could see the clouds moving in quick, so I raced up it to clean as Dave belayed. I was doing my best to climb fast without pulling on my right shoulder, as the rotator cuff is still not feeling too good. I got to the anchors and looked across the wall to see a wall of rain moving our way. The lodge was visible below, but the far side of the canyon was completely obscured, so I cleaned really quick and lowered off in a hurry. We managed to take shelter in the corridor again and the rains poured. Our climbing was done for the day.

On Sunday we woke to clouds but no rain so we decided to head to Magoo Rock on the other side of the canyon. Magoo rock has one 5.9 and several 5.10's so the team was excited to get on a few harder routes. They did great leading them in the shelter of this overhanging boulder while the rain fell behind us. But after a couple of hours the rain wasn't letting up and the tops of the routes were beginning to get wet. Dave cleaned the 5.9+ "Man Servant" in a total down pour and got soaked at the anchors. I managed not to climb at all on Sunday. But I figure just hiking up to the climbs has got to be some kind of a workout, right?

Motivation

Some days it's just hard to get moving, to get motivated, to do it. Today was one of those. Even though the weather is beautiful, I had a hard time getting myself motivated. My shoulder is still not feeling good. Yesterday, I set one route at the gym and climbed it once. Even though it was only a 5.7, I could still feel the pain in my shoulder. So I definitely need a little more time for rehab. I had originally planned to do some biking this morning, but a few seconds of leaning against the bathroom counter convinced me that it might be better to try an activity that didn't involve supporting part of my body weight on my shoulders. So I headed out to Pinnacle Mountain again for another hump over the lump. Once I got their and got myself moving, I began to feel a little more motivated and quickly kicked it into high gear. I didn't have a lot of time to hike this morning, so I got to the top as quickly as possible. A little bit of running and some hard hiking up the east trail got me to the summit in about 20 minutes. I didn't stop but just continued down the slabs on the west side. Once I hit the trail again I ran most of the way down. This kind of hard hiking and running is good cardio training for mountaineering and endurance climbing. I made it back around the base trail and hit the car in just under and hour after starting. Not bad for an old guy. Now if I can just get my shoulder working, I will be ready to climb!

Canoeing versus Climbing?

This weekend I accompanied my 7 year old son on his first cubscout campout. It's not his first camping trip by any means, but it's the first with the cub scouts. So training took a back seat for the weekend. I was able to get a little training done in the form of canoeing around the lake a t Woolly Hollow with the cub scouts. I can't say yet if it was beneficial to the shoulder rehab program, but it was a good change of routine that definitely worked somesholder and back muscles that I haven't been targeting. The pain in my rotator cuff is still persistent, but doesn't seem to be as severe as it was originally. I think I will take the rest of the week off from climbing, as we have a trip schedule with the climbing teamthis weekend to Sam's Throne and Horseshoe Canyon Ranch. I would like to be feeling good for that one!

Rain rain go away

Todays workout, another tour of Pinnacle mountain. The shoulder is still hurting, so climbing is out of the question. We thought the best bet for the day would be to keep working the quads and the lungs with another hike around Pinnacle Mountain and another trip to the summit. We varied things up a bit today by going around the east side and hiking up the west face. Then we hiked on down and completed the loop around the base. It was a good 5 mile hike total, about half of it in the rain. If it doesn't stop raining here soon, we are all going to have to move to the top of Pinnacle!

On the shoulder I am going to keep doing a little light stretching with it, and start using an exercise band to get it back in shape. I still think I might be able to climb on it next week. The key to recovery is not to push top fast and reinjure it. So one step at a time....

The Pinnacle

Today's workout was a simple one. Hike up the steep side of Pinnacle Mountain, down the main trail and around the base. The keys is to wear a pack with a little weight in it, and to try and do the whole thing as quicly as possible. If felt good to get the heart beating that hard. My shoulder is still not feeling very good. I got my free medical advice from some of the med-students at the gym, and they agree with my diagnosis of an injured rotator cuff. So I am taking a week or two off from climbing and doing what I can to rehabilitate it. In the mean time, we will hike and do as much cardio as possible. During the 24 HHH comp it is important to be able to hike up to the climbs with out getting winded, or to make a quick run across the canyon when you need to switch areas. Anytime that your team is not climbing, is time wasted!

Rotator Cuff?

Well my shoulder is still hurting from last Thursday's workout. I am pretty sure, after consulting the best online physicians, that I have stressed or injured something in my rotator cuff. I climbed 3 routes at Horseshoe Canyon this weekend. It didn't hurt too bad at the time, but I can definitely feel that something is not right with the inner working of my right shoulder. So it looks like I will be resting the shoulder for at least a week, and then we will see what happens. In the meantime, I will start working on some more cardio. I got a fair amount of cardio this weekend with my daugher Sarah's help. She's 3 years old and weighs a little over 30 lbs. She has a hard time walking on rough trails, so I carried her on my shoulders up to the North 40. If you add in my climbing pack, trad rack, and other gear, I had a pretty good load to hump. I will work on some other cardio this week, either running, hiking, or biking. We'll see what the weather permits!

Time to get serious!

Well my climbing partner Dave and I have officially launched our training for this year's 24 Hours of Horseshoe Hell competition. 24HHH is only the world's coolest climbing competition. It's held at the end of September at Horseshoe Canyon Ranch near Jasper, Arkansas. 100 pairs of climbers start at 10 a.m. on Saturday morning and climb until 10 a.m. the next morning. Climbers get points for each route completed. The harder the route, the more points it's worth. Climbers get bonus points for completing at least one route every hour. This is the fourth year for the competition, and it looks to be bigger and better than ever. I've competed in the previous 3 competitions, partnering with Stewart for the first, and Dave for the last two. We've done well every year, and always improving from the last year. Together, Dave and I completed 132 routes in 2008. This year we are shooting for 150. So follow us this summer as we train and get ready for the greatest show in climbing!

We started training really this past Tuesday. We climbed in the gym and worked several routes that we know, plus a few new routes. We didn't push to hard to start with but worked on quantity. Once we were done climbing all of the routes that we wanted to, we finished the workout by climbing all of the walls that we hadn't been on yet. I didn't do a total route count, but I would say it was about 20 each for the day.

Today we pushed it a little harder yet. After doing four easy warm-up routes, we jumped on to our lead projects in the cave. I sent my project, "5 words for pumped" 5.10 b, on my first try today. I had tried it once the day before and didn't expect to send it today. But I made it to the roof and was still holding strong so I just kept going. Dave sent his project as well on his first go. It's a 5.10a called "Ghosts of Gotham", keepng with the Batman theme we've got in the cave right now. After those routes we ran more of the lead routes. I took a nice fall off of the roof and racked my right shoulder just a bit. I kept climbing, but it's hurting tonight. We pushed on through and ran 5 or 10 more routes until we were just about dead, and then finished off with the 6 minute ab workout. Then we celebrated the workout with a visit to Burger King and tried their new Steakhouse Burger. Damn good stuff.

The workout plan for the weekend is to get some cardio in at the least. I am heading to Horseshoe Canyon with the family, but the chances of rain are really good, so we will see if any climbing happens. Stay tuned!