The Need for Squeeze

in blog •  6 years ago 

It's been an absoloutely hectic couple of months over here for me:

  • Work just keeps getting busier and busier with little reprieve;
  • I've signed up for a half-marathon which is eating up a lot of my spare time;
  • I've taken on a project of camperizing my new AstroVan;
  • I've started working on a new steem project -- dubbed with the Codename @RunBurgundy;
  • Various charity and social events have caused me to be busy / hungover on a frequent basis;
  • My climbing partner @somebuttstuff has moved away from town, and is now officially dead to me;
  • I let my membership to the gym lapse;

All of the above has led me to letting my climbing practice slide for a little while -- BUT NO MORE!

mountaineer-2100050_640.jpg

Similar to striking while the iron is hot -- I have always found that I need to ride waves of motivation and energy while they are... cresting... that sounds like a surfing reference -- which doesn't work well for climbing. Maybe something along the lines of "ride the pump" would be better, but that sounds SUPER sexual.

REGARDLESS, I'm making a promise to myself in a few respects here:

Get back into climbing on the regular:

  • I've got 9-visits left on my punch pass for the gym -- I'm gonna eat that up with 3x bouldering sessions over the next 3 weeks:

Set up a home gym again:

  • I've got rock rings and a hangboard at home that have just been laying around. Gonna hang those up, or spruce them up in a way such that I can hang them when / where they're needed:

    rock rings ~~ 5016247-NOC02.jpg

I'm feeling antsy, frustrated, and eager. I need to squeeze and try hard. I've got a couple people that I work with that are excited to do a bit of climbing, so hopefully I can rope someone into a steady belaytionship (ba dum tsssss).

This should coincide pretty nicely with my new Steem project as well, as I'd like it to be a new place for climbings to meet and share info / sends, while also hopefully contributing to access / bolt / maintenance funding for their local crags.

But at the very least, I'm starting to miss the various crags and mountainscapes that fired me up enough to decide to build my own 'home away from home'. So here's to remembering ones passion, and getting back on the paths to success. Gotta get back into a regular fitness routine, and get ready for THE CRUSHENING to resume!

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The good stuff

So what kind of stuff have YOU been putting on the backburner in your life? Do you think you have the time to get back into it now? Or do you just hope that if you wait long enough, it'll come back.

Join me on the wave... or the pump... whatever works for you.

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Motivation comes and goes for sure. Life has a way of getting in the way of our goals so often so it is good that you are getting back to the source. This year has been my resurgence back into climbing after far too long away. It helps that I have my bouldering area that I am developing only 3 miles from my house.

You could always look at getting into rope soloing. I have been doing a fair amount of it since my climbing partner is over an hour away. Helps keep the stoke going for sure.

I didn't want to spend money on rings or a board so I roamed around the farm and found a bunch of rocks that I drilled holes in and mounted over my barn door. It works quite well and is real rock so I get a good grind on my pads to help keep SOME kind of callus.

Hahaha too cool. I don't think I've heard of anyone that had drilled real rocks onto their wall -- that's awesome. Being able to train on some real grit would be great.

I've heard of rope-soloing, but I don't think I know enough about it to be comfortable doing it. I remember seeing a setup before, and there were ascenders and an additional GriGri involved or something like that...

Any quick links you could fire over for some details on how to not die? hahaha.

Rope soloing is pretty easy. The most basic setup is to run a toprope or 2 then use an ascender, kroll, basic, or some other such camming ascender for your belay. Petzl has a good bit on self belaying that goes into a lot of proper technique. Check right side of page for the page links.
https://www.petzl.com/US/en/Sport/General-principles-for-solo-climbing-with-a-fixed-belay-rope?ActivityName=Multi-pitch-climbing

Seriously, this is one of the best options for being able to "just go climb" and I use the single rope method most often. If you check Mountain Gear's site you can see the various ascenders. I personally use the kroll, the petzl rescuescender (because I have it), and my ATC for a full backup if I am super gripped. I really want the Wildcountry Ropeman since it is so much lighter weight than all the others.

Lead rope soloing is a bit of a different beast and is generally more left to big walls or longer routes, and then there is big wall soloing which is the ultimate endeavour.

Thanks for your hard work, very useful information appreciated!