Madison ABS Competition and Team Training

The past week have been pretty exciting between a climbing comp and team training. Training on Wednesday, we did a few rounds of boulder problems then went to sport climbing. The boulder Problems we were working on were short routes with power moves in them. For sport climbing I was working on route that I have  yet to finish since the competition. I only have to finish one qualifier route and the final. In between each route that I attempted I would do a set of lead falls just to practice them and keep up with it. Thursday I was training but it was a light training. Friday I helped work with the Rockwall and it wasn't very busy so I started helping a buddy figure out the moves to a route and showing them different way to do them.  Saturday was the day of the ABS Competition held at Boulders Climbing Gym in Madison. When I was looking at the routes that we were on our score card. I was thinking that I was going to be able to to the 400 or 500 point routes. During the comp I ended up working on a lot of 300 point routes. I had a really good day of climbing Saturday because I was able to climb really hard route but my forearms never really pumped out. I was very happy with how I climbed for the day. I took 8th place out of 13 competitors for the day. I was really happy with that because the route were harder than they looked. Sunday the team headed up to adventure rock for another day of training. I was very surprised because my forearms were not sore. They were tight but that did not effect my climbing ability for the day. I was working on a bouldering problem that I have not finish yet but am getting closer and closer each time I try it. I tried a new boulder problem Sunday that got my the first time I tried it but then after taking a closer look at it I realized that I was missing a foot chip off to my right. After looking at it a little longer, I tried it again and stuck every move on the route and finished with a nice smooth finish. I was surprised that my forearms were even a little pumped out from the day before. Sunday two friends to their lead belay test at Adventure Rock so know I have both Lead and Top Rope belayers for when I go up there. For the day I was bouldering about V3 to low V5s and lead/top rope climbing I was around 5.10-5.12. There is a 5.11+ that is a ton of fun because there is a move were you have both hands pinching a sloper and then you are moving up to crimp. I really like the move and the route. The next few moves right after the two slopers are long because you run out of foot holds. All in all the day was really good. All the videos and pictures from both Saturday and Sunday are up on Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube. Check them out there are a ton of really neat photos of the routes I was doing. Now I'm just training to get ready for Regionals and beyond!

First Bouldering Competition

This past Saturday I competed in my first ABS Competition held at Vertical Endeavors in Warrenville. I have been working on bouldering for about a month. When I started bouldering more I was climbing a V3, I am now climbing V5's on a regular basis and working on most V6's. For bouldering I felt pretty good because I have a hard time with power moves and that's what a lot of bouldering is. During the competition I warmed up on the Intermediate problems and then tried the Advanced problems. The intermediate route ranged from V3 to V5 and Advance was V5 to V7. I completed one advance route and five intermediate routes. I felt really good with how I was climbing the routes there. Some of them were pretty stretchy were made it hard to complete the route. Even though it seemed like the day was going by slow it was earlier to figure out where I was standing by the way my body was feeling. There was one route is the corner of the gym wall that I really liked. The finishing move was a technical move because I had to turn my hip over while lunge to the finish. After I finished climbing we did a raffle prize to give time for the judges to add up and put score cards in the correct order. We waited about an hour to get results but in the end it was worth the wait. I took 5th place out of 15 people in my division. I am very happy with that because I am not big on bouldering. I am looking forward to the rest of the ABS Season because I feel I will do very well. This new training program that I am doing is a lot of fun and can be very hard on some days. Some days I will be doing long routes that are V6 or harder. Other days I may have to do short routes with a pyramid of pull ups. School I have three classes a day so I get out at 12:30 pm. I have a lot of time between school and the start of training to finish my homework so I do not have to worry to much about finishing things after training. My sponsorship with So ILL Climbing has helped a lot with my bouldering. So ILL gave me a pro deal on gear that i got myself a nice crashpad. I am also waiting on a helmet that is coming in from KASK Helmets. KASK Helmets is giving a product sponsorship. All pictures and videos for the competition and gear are/will be posted to Facebook, YouTube and Flickr. Check them out a lot of really cool photos from the competition.