Ramping Up

Hello again, a lot has happened since my last post! Between TDB Regionals, Route Provincials, and my trip to Red Rocks, I have a lot to talk about. Ill split up my posts about competitions and Red Rocks, I have so much to talk about that I don’t want to make this post half an hour long.

The TDB was at my home gym Rock Jungle Fitness, and I was super stoked for it. Heading in to it, I felt that if I gave it my all and had an awesome day, there was a chance that I could make finals. I was confident that I'd be able to perform well, as I almost always manage to compete well in my home gym. I felt really strong throughout my warm-up, although I was slightly intimidated by the sheer number of incredibly strong guys that I was up against. I managed to flash/send quite a few of the top problems quickly, and halfway through the comp I only needed two more problems to have a really solid top six. After talking to a few of the more experienced men, I had a pretty good idea of what problems it would take to make finals. Or so I thought. The problem I was working for the last forty minutes of the comp or so (which I managed to send with two minutes left) was right next to a problem that we had thought only a couple guys would send. As I watched guy after guy send it, I had to kiss my hopes for finals goodbye knowing that I was too tired to get anywhere on it. When all was said and done, I finished thirteenth overall, and was happy to be at the top of my age category. Although the result wasn't quite what I hoped, I took satisfaction in the fact that I had absolutely nothing left at the end of the scramble, and that I felt as though I had one of the best bouldering comps yet. Watching (and brushing) finals was inspiring as well, seeing my coach Dan blow off the dust and place third in finals was definitely impressive. Also, I loved watching the female youth competitors destroy in finals, not only sweeping the podium but also taking fourth as well! All in all, it was a really successful comp for almost everyone involved, and it was a great experience.

Then came route provincials. I knew it was going to be a really long day, because we were scheduled to have two qualifiers and finals. I started my day after some slightly stressful events in the morning (climbing early on a seemingly beta intensive route when the video preview was down), and so I felt a little uncharacteristically stressed stepping onto the wall, despite having watched someone top right before me. The route was essentially climbing up a bowling alley due to all of the black tape up either side, and all of the holds were turned oddly. I knew that that would make me more inclined to flag out of the tape, and so I made sure to stay very mentally engaged throughout the route so that I didn’t flag out. Fortunately, the climbing wasn’t too difficult, and I topped it despite not warming up quite well enough, and went into Q2 in a four-way tie for first.

My second qualifier looked very cruxy and technical on some very small holds, so once again I started to feel nervous as I am generally weaker at that style. I then proceeded to watch one of the top competitors in my category struggle up the route, only to fall what I thought was quite low. He said the holds were terrible, and that the movement between the usable ones was incredibly difficult. Fortunately, I was quite late in the running order, and so I was able to watch most of the other major competitors climb it. Only one person made it past an apparent crux halfway up. I stepped onto the wall quite confident. I knew exactly what I had to do to succeed on the climb, I just had to execute it. I managed to get through that midway crux thanks to a foothold that was better than the hands, and reached what I thought was going to be a decent rest. However, when I got there, I was really tired and unable to get anything back, so I pressed on. I peeled off a couple holds further, generally happy with my climb, and placed second heading in to finals.

The low crux section of second qualifier. Photo: Pam Eveleigh

 After a good meal, I started my warm up in isolation for finals. I felt fairly sluggish and tired, but just brushed it off and kept going. During observation, there was a lot on the route that I was unsure about. The start was all jugs on roof, but a lot of moves and I knew I’d need to climb it fast in order to stay fresh for the hard upper section that seemed fairly cryptic. While back in ISO, I just tried to relax and stay warm. I felt confident in my ability to do well on the route; I just needed to perform as I knew I could. I stepped onto the wall relaxed, and climbed through the bottom incredibly fast. I made it through the roof to a good rest, and decided I felt good so decided to press on. From here the combing got much harder and more technical; every move I pulled felt harder than the last, and I felt close to coming off on a few of them. I reached a position with no feet straddling an arête, and was just completely exhausted. I had nothing left. I made a fairly pathetic attempt for the next hold before basically flopping off the wall. 

Finals Route, Provincials. Photo: Pam Eveleigh

After I came down and untied, I was happy to hear that I was ranked ahead of everyone else in my category, guaranteeing myself at least second place. I was fairly confident that Scott would get further, and he looked super solid as he passed my highpoint and into first place. For a while I was a bummed that I wasn’t able to climb as well as I had hoped, and that I didn’t show my best. After a while though, I realized that I just hadn’t been training for routes much leading up to this event, and that I’d really just been getting a solid base to peak for nationals. Once I’d accepted the reality that I just wasn’t in shape for the comp, I got pretty stoked on the fact that I was able to pull second at provincials even on a bit of an off day.

The Youth A Boys Podium doing what we do best; modeling with our chalk. Photo: Pam Eveleigh

These two competitions really gave me a lot of motivation to improve upon some weaknesses, and just get into shape for routes and the major competitions coming up. There’s nothing more satisfying than showing up to an event unsure of exactly where your competition is on that day and outclimbing them, and that satisfaction was not achieved. Far from it. So for the proceeding provincials, I have been working incredibly hard to balance training as hard as I possibly can with suppressing the injuries that I feel coming on to leave me in the best condition possible for Regionals in two weeks. And I think that that is starting to pay off, I just got back from six days of sport climbing in Red Rocks paradise where pretty much everything went my way. But more about that to come, hopefully before the week is up. This post is already getting pretty long and rambly, so on that note I’ll end things here. Happy training!

Andrew Funk

Motivation.

Hey Everyone,
Its been a while! A lot has gone on since my last post, including making my first open bouldering finals alongside two fellow Youth A competitors, the end of the bouldering season and the start of lead. But that's not really what I want to talk about, as I've had a lot on my mind involving climbing. And thanks to the help of someone a lot smarter than me (you know who you are), I now know how to say it.

Climbing has changed in almost every dimension since I started competing nationally 6 years ago, especially in the past year or so. It started out where I just wanted to compete, and win. I also knew that if I climbed as I know how, I could win and that was pretty exciting. But back then there were pretty much only three or four others that were around equal to me. As the years go by and the sport gains popularity, the amount of incredibly strong competitors has skyrocketed, and now there's around 15 people in my category that could conceivably win on any given day. I only see about 5 of them at the local comps, and so I've gotten myself into the mentality that it doesn't really matter if I win a local comp, because there's so many people I didn't beat. I also realized that if I want to win at a national level, I'd need to climb better than I ever have before. That mentality keeps me training as hard as I can, and so on that level I think it's positive. I just take how I climbed and how I felt, and then move on. I've just used these comps as a way to track my progress against my competitors and friends that I've been climbing with for 6 years.


But then I sorta realized that that is a major change for me. I used to care a little too much about what the results from the comps were, and now they carry little effect. The other thing that has been a major change is that I no longer exclusively climb to train. I find myself getting sucked into the gym and just seshing, because that's what I want to do. The excitement that used to come from doing well at comps is slowly being drained away, but in its place comes this overwhelming desire to just climb, and improve my weaknesses and just see what I'm capable of on any given day. My previous motivating factors feel almost superficial, because they come and go. This new desire and motivation feels almost more real, and that's got me excited.

I also feel that as the level of motivation I get from succeeding at comps declines, so does my motivation to compete. I feel myself drifting away from the goals that have been cut out for me, and moving on to pursue passions that are purely mine to discover, that are completely unique to me. On the other hand, however, I feel that I can't abandon competing on any level, or else I might get lazy and stagnant with my training, and that once the people breathing down my neck are gone that I'll just plateau, and that'll be that. Don't get me wrong though- I will compete as hard as I possibly can, and will have absolutely nothing left once I'm off the wall.

There's also another side of climbing that I'm starting to appreciate more, and that's the whole giving back aspect. If I'm not competing, I'm wanting to volunteer. If I'm not busy at any moment at training, I'll see if there's some piece of advice or help I can give to one of the younger members of my team that would be helpful. This sport and community has taught me so many things about sport, competing, climbing and in life itself. It's shaped me into who I am. If I'm not doing anything to contribute back to that, then I'm doing something wrong. It's not me being charitable, or even kind. It's just me doing what I think any decent human being would.

So I really just don't know where my life in climbing will lead, and at this point I don't really care. It may be in the gym just having fun, it might be training to compete, and it might be traveling to find beautiful personal test pieces out on rock. Really the only thing that's certain at this point is that I will be pushing myself as hard as I can, and that I'll be loving every minute on it.

Tribal Wallfare Finals. Photo: Eduardo Lopez

RJF Lead. Photo: Pam Eveleigh © 2014

A Strong Start

Hello Again!
Sorry I was too lazy to get this written sooner. Two weeks ago was the first sanctioned competition of the 2013-2014 year. Being at my home gym (Rock Jungle Fitness), I was really excited for the event, and also had set expectations relatively high. The total turnout was spectacular, with over 40 people competing in the Open Male category. This was fairly intimidating, but I had established a plan I believed would yield the best results. Although there was a relatively small number of athletes in my category, they were very strong and I new i would need to perform at my best. Additionally, I knew that it would be costly to fall on any hard problems, as I had fairly poor endurance and the lines to get on the wall were about 10-15 minutes long. Fortunately, things were going very well, and I flashed a solid top 6 problems. One of these was very crimpy, but I was ecstatic to get no grief from my previously injured fingers during or after the climb. One other guy in my category was very close to me, and I knew I needed to do a hard slab problem that I had previously not gotten very far on. This was a bit of a worry, because slab is not my forte to say the least, but I managed to get the send with only a small fraction of the comp left. I knew that that send secured first place in the 16-17 boys category, and given the incredibly strong open competitors I had dismissed any hope of making finals at the start of the comp. I glanced over at the results while waiting around after the scramble round (45 problems, 3 hours to climb, top 6 count), and was shocked to see myself sitting in 9th place! Although only eight climbers go through to finals, I was super psyched and motivated to see that, perhaps on the right day, that I could climb my way into finals so to speak :P. Rock Jungle and all the finalists put on a terrific show, and I was glad to be a small part of it. A lot of people in other categories climbed amazingly, and it was super inspiring to see youth athletes push through fatigue and fight to earn two spots on the female open podium! Youth Competitors of all ages and genders through down, and its got me really excited to see whats gonna go down in three weeks time in Calgary. But until then, Goodbye!

A Little About Me

Hi All,
Just a little background information about me and what you'll find on this blog. I decided to start writing it so that I'd have something a little more detailed to look back on my experiences, because I want to be able to have this archive to go through in the years to come. I'm a 16 year old climber based out of Edmonton, AB. I train out of Rock Jungle Fitness, and my coaches and team there really inspire me to keep pushing my personal limits, and they all help keep my motivation high through the long winter months. I have been climbing for about seven years, but have been taking things a little more seriously for the past five. I compete year round, in the youth competition circuit which keeps me strong and motivated through the fall, winter and spring. In the summer, however, I really love to pursue outdoor climbing more than pumping out drills in the gym. Unfortunately I do live a little far from the mountains, so that certainly makes it a little harder to get out. For the past three years, I have had the honor of being a part of the Youth National Team, which is a position I strive to earn back every year. Youth Worlds is at the end of summer, and whether I will actually compete in it or not has not been a factor that affects my training in the past. I find that the constant struggle of injuries and failure that comes with competition climbing is a rather formidable adversary, but one that has made me who I am today. That battle is not close to over, however, and so the training continues, harder than ever as the field of competitors deepens further than the year before. The first real competition comes up in a couple of weeks, and hopefully things go well! I should post about it after, but until then, adios!