ABS Midwest Regional Championships

About a week before Regional Championships I spent about 6 hours at Adventure Rock training and working on things that I needed to continue working on. I spent about 2 hours bouldering working on problems that started around V4 up to a V7. I warmed up on a couple V3s then started working more on V5s or higher. I was able to complete a few V6s which I am very happy with. I felt pretty good about bouldering so I decided to take a break from bouldering for the day and go lead climbing. Top rope climbing  I did pretty good but my hands were tired and didn't have a lot of strength left. By the time I wanted to project a route that I have already been projecting my hands were really tired and that made the route harder. Lead climbing I was doing laps on a 5.9- which helped a lot for Regionals because I built up my endurance and was ready for some of the long power routes that might be there. There is one route in the over hang that was giving me some difficultly because there are a few spots that are long power moves. I took about 10 falls on the route and then moved on because I was not progressing any further. I then started working on routes that really made me work on feet placement. Saturday, December 8, was the big event that I had been waiting for. I got up around 6 am to start to wake up and eat and have time to get the the gym before isolation started. This is my first time doing the Bouldering Season and wasn't sure what to expect. During isolation I had about 2.5 hours in there so I started stretching and warming up with an hour left before I had to leave. For my routes I felt pretty good because I onsighted my first route then got about half way doing the next two routes. My second route was pretty cool because you have to go up and over. then convert in to a bat man move than touch the finishing holds with two hands while being in the batman. My third route was kinda hard for me because it was a lot of power moves that were really long and on an over hang. I did pretty good with this route making it to the seventh hold. I was really happy with how I did for it being my first big bouldering comp. I was hoping to make finals, but at the same time it wouldn't upset me if I didn't. I did the best I could and that's all that matter to me. When results came out I saw that I took 10th place and I was excited because I was making finals. I had about two hours to sit around and relax and get ready for finals. I got all my stuff together and headed back to the gym to check in for finals. In isolation I was second in the running order so I had to warm up and be ready to climb in an hour. I was all ready and then my name was called. I packed up my stuff and headed out to my first chair. I had a 4 minute rest period where I had more time to get ready. My first route looked pretty good during my preview. When I did the route I realized I was tired from the routes I did during qualifiers. My second route looked really easy because the holds were jugs and big. My route was also in the over hang part of the cave which made the holds not so great. I made it about half up the route which made me really happy because each time I tried it I would made it to the same spot. My third route was all slopers and I'm not to great with slopers and made it to about the fourth move. I was happy with how I did for the day because bouldering is not my strong suit. Over all I took 10th place and I was fine with that because it was first bouldering competition. I start training for sport season once I get back in to town. I have been doing a little bit of training before regionals but I can really kick sport climbing training in to high gear. I set a goal for my self in November to be at the grades for Open Nationals lead. Right now I am climbing 5.10s lead and 5.11s top rope. I'm pretty happy with that considering I have done a lot of bouldering training. My SCS season start in March but a competition that helps me know where I am before my season is Quick on the Draw. As of right now I will be competing in Advanced but if I keep training and increasing grades like I am I might move to Open.  All the photos and videos of ABS Regionals are loaded to Facebook, Flickr and YouTube