I practice the concept of “make the warm-up a workout”. It is excellent time to practice perfect climbing. It takes me about 20 minutes to warm-up. Multiplying that by 3-4 times a week, it adds up to hours of technique work in a year. In addition, it makes the warm-up more engaging. It is not merely something to endure but requires my complete presence. Lately I have been using it as opportunity for fall practice (Dave McLeod’s suggestion). I don’t mind falling, but I’m still a little freaked out taking intention falls.
While my fear of falling is manageable, I have debilitating fearing of “blowing a clip.” About 5 years ago, I decked after I blew a clip (my belayer was an idiot). I wasn’t seriously hurt but shaken to my core. I was pushing myself hard during today’s training and blew a clip. It wasn’t that not bad, all that happened is I took a medium size fall. I got back on the route and still cranked hard. I don’t want to practice “blowing a clip” but I’m glad I got a chance to recondition myself.
I hate sucking. I’m sucking hard at Sessions. Most of the training is Medium Length Power Endurance, PE. I’m training Short Length PE at a maintenance level and not training the other time domains. There are tangible mental improvements for pursuing this training, but none of my current goals have a significant PE component. My ego wants to include a PE to my training so I’m better prepared for Session, training for training. Overall, it feeling a lot like Oly training. For every 3 steps forward, there is 1 step backward. I’m getting better at the certain aspects but not 100% consistent.
I can’t rave enough about Movement routesetting. I have been a route setter for 5 years (mildly obsessed with sequences), and they still fool me. Even if I onsight a route successfully, I want to come back to a route because there is more to learn. That might one of the best compliments I can give to a routesetter’s route.
There are downsides. Midweek evenings are a zoo, making optimal training not possible. There was a queue for most climbs. There was idle speculation that Boulder couldn’t support 4 gyms. That is not true. It is hard to describe the omnipresent climbing culture in the Front Range. For my lifestyle, there is no better place in America.
