First, I'd like to point out, since this blog seems to be reaching beyond my weird group of friends, that you should watch the Eiger Sanction in order to fully appreciate the banter you'll be forced to endure. It's a 70's action film starring, as you can probably guess, Clint Eastwood. It's filled with all the late 60s/early 70s iconography that one could hope for, including fabulous fashion, politically incorrect humor, a major anti-hero, absurd over-the-top dialog, and plenty of rock climbing. It's a cinematic experience that's not to be missed. In the above pic, Dr. Hemlock is weilding the "belay knife", standard equipment in all climbing movies. At this point I should add that I've been climbing well over 20 years and never had a knife with me. I must be doing something wrong because, in the movies, it's the first piece of gear to come out whenever things start going south. Somehow, cutting the rope between my partner and I just never seems like a good thing to do.
Had a little challenge run through this weekend. Did an easy run and ride Friday evening, then went out drinking, didn't sleep much, and then climbing 21 routes at American Fork the next day without eating anything. Then I ate, had a good night's sleep, and the next day rode, ran, and did another high volume climbing session at the gym.
The idea on Sat was to purposefully put myself into an adverse situation to see how I'd respond. It went okay. The 21 routes took my friend Megan and I about 9 hours. This would give me little hope for the challenge but we weren't hurrying, we both climbed every route, and the routes were probably a lot longer and more involved than those slated for the challenge. Almost all of them were 5.10 and 11. Neither of us fell off. Ditto for the next day's session. So this is promising. Still, linking all this climbing with the biking and running is a long way off, and I don't have a long time to train. I've got three weeks until the actual event, I've really only got two weeks of hard training before I'll need to taper. Good thing I've got George to give me a good workout. She's a climbin' fool.
3 comments:
In atlanta drinking and hanging out alone, after accepting an award for OR and serving on a 'web event mktg' panel.
Tomorrow I'm off to Panama City.... Florida, that is.
Saw pro football in a stadium, and the aquarium here has whale sharks.
Worth getting back methinks, even though a Tony Robbins conference is in town
Mojitos, g&t, what else could be the drink of the South?
I need this advice rather urgently.
Kenji
Hi Steve-
Looks like you're B-day Challenge will be fun.
Mine will be the same old boring thing December 21-22, I will be another year older 43 to be exact so yep gotta run for 43 hours...
I wish I could be normal like all my friends and just run the milege for my age...Nahhhh that would be to easy. LOL....
Catra
Fun is so relative, isn't it?
YOU wish you could be normal. I don't believe you. Though I will concur that as we age these little challenges seems to be going in the wrong direction. How do they just keep getting harder?
Yours may be "boring" but--oooohhh--that certainly doesn't mean easy. Reading your report last year I'm thinking "I'm glad I do a lot of sports". One of these days I'll get out and run with you, I promise, at least for a little while.
Post a Comment