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!