Tradin' in Soill:

This last Sunday was a sunny day. I met up with Jeff and Andy at Drapers Bluff around 10Am for some climbing. These guys both frequent Drapers so they were so kind enough to let me lead everything first :)
"Dental Bill" was the first climb. There are a number of different ways to get up this section of rock. I chose the 5.9 way which contains a very "lovely" off-width crack. (An off-width crack is a crack that is too big to "hand jam" and to small to get your whole body into stem.) My arms and back (which I only found out about later that evening) got cut up something fierce. There were a few groups of people out just hiking around that day so every now and then we'd get a "Hi, how are you". Pausing only to stop and look up at these people climbing up the bluff and wonder just how sane they where.
Up next was "Dust Doctors" The roof it the hardest part of this climb. (See photo to left) The rest of the climb fun with great protection. I think I was able to place a piece every 5 or 6 feet., after getting to the top and running the rope though my own lockers. I cleaned when I be being lowered.

Up next was "C" crack (see photo at right), I have been wanting to do C Crack since March 07 if even it was just to second it. However, I was gonna lead it. The climb is broken down in to two sections, the first a lovely 5.8 crack with great pro all the way up. The second is a 5.8 10-15 foot traverse with two horizonal cracks, one two shallow to use for protection, the other crack was at an awkward height to place anything and only 1 foot hold (a small pocket about the size of a half dollar). Guess which part was really humbling. Judging by the amount of old gear left right before the traverse...I knew I was in for a treat. I placed a cam, as well as used a cam that was over cammed and the trigger wires cut (this thing was not going anywhere...) as my anchors. I started off across the traverse...."TAKE" Took a whipper right there. That was my first fall on gear. The sounds were something else. All the gear held.

I decided to lengthen one of the runners to give the rope some more play. When I went for a second go across the traverse, I made it to the end....Oh....SHIT Z-CLIP! (I believe those were my exact words) When I had gone to adjust the runner length from one of the cams I had re-clipped the carabiner to the wrong side of the rope. "TAKE!" my second whipper. This time however, due to the Z-clip, two of the nuts I had placed about 5 and 10 feet below my last cam "zippered" out. (Note: there was a sold #2 C4 below the nuts) While I was falling I remember just watching the stems of the nuts go 180 and then made an awful sound as they where ripped from the rock. The two cams I had above me were still solid. I fixed the Z-clip and climbed the traverse and belayed Jeff and then Andy up. I for sure learned a lot from this one climb.

Why I started this blog.....

The last few months I have really pushed myself to get in shape. Putting exercise a head of just about everything else, changing my diet, and focusing on portion control.

Why? I have realized that this will be the only way that I will ever get in shape. For as long as I have remembered I have always been....well....fat about 290-320+ lbs if I had to guess (44-46 waist). Never felt really good (physically), got made fun of a lot (and I mean a lot), and couldn't do the things that I wanted to do. finding cloths was a pain in the ass and so on and so forth.

In June, I was exposed to the sport of Rock Climbing. Granted my first time out, I couldn't climb up a 5.6 to save my life, my arms where so dead after 45 minutes that I couldn't open my own beer while at my 26th Birthday party later that evening. At that point I had started to see climbing as a fun hobby. I have enjoyed only a few other sports. Skiing and Snowboarding (I never cared for team sports even though I played Lacrosse for about 6 years though Jr. High and High School) With climbing...it's You vs. the Wall vs. Sir Issac Newton.

After climbing a few more times with in the following weeks I started to realizet that Sir Issac Newton was right about gravity. While skiing and snowboarding can be a workout, you have one allie, gravity. However, you learn very quickly when climbing that Gravity is clearly working against you. So I started to climb more and more. I joined a gym with a wall and have been climbing 4 to 5 times a week. Giving a day or so to rest my fingers.

About 4 weeks back, I had attempted my first 5.9/5.10 mix route. When I got to the 2nd fixed draw (20 feet up). I could not move, I was out of gas drained, not even resting while my belay held me could have help. It was after that climb that I decided to start running. Been running daily at least once (twice on non-climbing days).

That's my back story over the last 6 months.

Currently I weight about 230 lbs if I had to guess (38-40 inch waist). My mile time is around 8 minutes.

While my goal is to be a better climber, it is still second to my goal of being healthy.