"You can't always send what you want, but if you try sometimes you just might find you send what ya need"

There were a lot of things to be gleaned from the comp at Stone Gardens last weekend. The first and most important is that the old man division is not a bunch of blue hair old timers on their last leg. The top geezer would have place 11th in the Open division and was almost 700 points ahead of second, Statistically speaking I achieved 2 of 3 of my goals coming up with a top 10 finish.

The comp went something like this... Arrive early and hear the rules blah blah blah and then the comp gets started. Never having climbed in one of these 3 ring circus's I was pretty keen to sit back and watch. I had some help from Liam who was the only other person I knew and was climbing in the advanced division. (Congrats on finishing in the $)

I came out slow doing a few 200 point problems and looking at a lot of 5 and 6 hundo problems. I honed in on  400 and 500 pointers on the wave wall that didn't look bad. Most everyone was eager to jump on stuff but losing a point for every attempt led me to what I would think was a bit wiser approach. I watched. And there you have the basis of my whole strategy. Go slow climb hard and be smarter. After pulling beta on the 2 pretty straight forward problems I flashed them both. Bingo I'm off and running and things look pretty good. (Side note Ben could not flash these on Monday night which can only mean that I am stronger than him)

I went up to the front wall next pulling a second go of a 495 problem after foot dabbing onto another route like a bouldering idiot. No worries though I spied a very granite-esque crimper route in the high 5s that several old geezers had fallen off. I burned 3 goes on it falling off the top move each time. I decided to "save it for later" and moved into the cave room by the ropes. I found the easiest 600 pointer that started with a short dyno and got it on the "jumping Jack flash" attempt. (Big props to coach Sam for the encouragement on this problem. Unfortunately Coach Ben was at a Barbara Streisand concert in Canada and couldn't attend or maybe I would have done better. Glad you finally got to see Babs though buddy)

Basically from here things fell apart. I couldn't send the 600 pointer that should have gone on the 45 degree up front and after 3 burns on it didn't have the juice to finish the 400 either. The highlight of the last hour was watching this guy blow the last hold of the 600 pointer and go flying over Liam and I spotting. Only a highlight because the guy was fine albeit a little shakin.  I ran out of juice in the the last hour and got stuck with one of my earlier 290 scores. Later looking at it I would have needed to replace it with a 600 and added something big or at least all 600s. Apparently the sweet spot for old man climbing is V6ish.

Who knew there were a whole slew of Blues's out there. A comp climber I am not but, I did have fun and get a moderately cool design printed on a shitty tee shirt(seriously the neck is a size bigger than the shirt SG, next year no cutting corners) oh and this beautiful sticker...

Gratuitous promo(Mammut feel free to send me one of those sweet chalk purses for review at a later date)

Some silliness from the finals below in the video. I was going to watch them but drank beer instead because that's how old men roll.

“I'd tried to straighten him out, but there's only so much you can do for a person who thinks Auschwitz is a brand of beer.”

Three weeks ago I decided to throw my hat into a new ring and officially become a competition climber . At the ripe old age of none of your f’ing business I qualify for the “Masters” division in this weekend’s “Battle of Champions” at Stone Gardens Ballard(home court advantage plus old geezer status, you don’t get a more winning combo than that outside of the Taco Bell #5 w/ a Mt Dew, do you?). The masters division conjures up visions of old timers in plaid trousers playing golf at a snail’s pace, but unfortunately for me I think the crowd I’ll be lumped in will likely be a bit more spry.

Like every great athlete in the prime of their game I strategically surrounded myself with the best only coaching team possible  available. Sam and Ben agreed to come on board immediately. They crafted a  training regime that would not only cater to my strengths(post climbing frosties) but also eliminate my weaknesses(slopers, pinches, anything hung over overhung, smearing, problems with bad feet, not breathing and anything reachy)  to the point we all thought it was completely reasonable for me to dominate finish the top 25 of the old man division.

Sam and Ben devised a 2 tier approach to training that centered around 3 Tank Top Techno Training Tuesday workouts (aka Ben Moon’s campus board routine) along with losing 4 kgs. We also snuck in a trip to Gold Bar that I posted some pics from earlier where I climb real hard all day but never topped out. Mentally you don’t want to go outside and be topping out a bunch of v6 and v7s right before a comp where you won’t have to top out a single problem. As it stands I made it to 2 out of 3 TTTT workouts and have lost 2.5 kgs. TTTTT’ng has become a way of life and probably the best part of the whole experience. Another post at a later date of the benefits of  water campus boarding.

So with only 3 days until comp time the stars are lining up well. The last tick on the list is securing that ever important sponsorship deal because what am I if not a caricature billboard of myself walking around in hippy sandalshoes spraying about how rad my radass sponsor is. Don’t worry if you haven’t heard from me yet you may still have a chance. Likely the aforementioned purveyor of fine Mexican will fill my major donor spot aka “Nacho BellgranDonor” but I’m also hopeful in helping another burgeoning local company make it to the spotlight on Saturday at the “Poco Gordito” level.

See all you blue hairs on Saturday!

Vzerominus does Water

A short video from Vzerominus (aka the geezer Truc from the camera phone of Leavenworth last week) of several goes on "Water" from last weekend at Gold Bar. Look for the great spot Choi has later in the video. Again still a project for me but very doable. Nice commitment Tiffany for getting back on the horse after "the fall". It's a bit hard to tell on the video but you do not want to go off to the left of this problem where the logs have been stack as pro.

"If you aren't cute you may as well be clever" aka Gold Bar in November

Nothing beats a 40 degree day with some sun on high quality granite, except maybe sending something in those exact same conditions. A great day of climbing , although sendless on my end. I went 0-fer on "Danny Devito"(telling yourself you need the friction only works on frictionless days...get stronger), "Water"(unprogressing is the theme for aqua. should I ever actually remember my sequence I might climb this problem... at this point it's mental), "Obesity"(good progress making it all the way to what will likely be the cruxy throw). Just being out in November without rain is pretty amazing but consider the company an this was a 5 star day. I'll chalk this one up to good training for my first ever comp in 2 weeks. More later in the week on that soon to be hot mess of old man style in the Master division...

Ben doing Obesity again because there was either a chance he forgot the moves or a chance that he thought that we forgot that we had seen him climb it before

If you see this guy ask him about his brushes. He's sponsored advocated pro bono-ly by Black Diamond Brushes

 Chris doing "Water"... Took the new Olympus Pen out for a test drive and was goofing with the tilt shift in camera special defect

Ben topping up on h2O with the faux tilt shift after the fact (side note Ben is kind of a dick for going 2 for 3 today)

The MCPOD Mascot relaxing. This guy is not sponsored yet but is looking.

 Ben using excellent spotting form as Tony capatilizes on his thin legs on "Obesity"

Tomorrow I'll Be Gone (Full Length)

The guys at Outcrop released the 45 min version of the Brits crushing in Rocklands...