Oi Vay!

I’m going to try to write this quick and without getting worked up.

Again, another break from climbing. Wasn’t the holiday craziness supposed to end and leave me with an abundance of time and energy to pursue my passions?

I’m still working 3 jobs; Best Buy, the climbing gym and coaching. Also I’ve hit the ground running, working to get at least one paid gig a month for photography of videography (that’s what I went to school for.).

So, it’s a struggle to get to the gym with any enthusiasm. I am working out with the Pole Vaulters I coach. But that’s not climbing. In fact, it’s not the kind of training I should be doing at all. Same muscles (even my hands to some degree) but wrong style of training.

Plus, I tweaked my hand. I have an ever present addiction to caffeine and continue to deprive myself of sleep. Please don’t think I’m complaining, I love what I do. That has to be the reason I’ve made it this long.

So I drag myself to the gym. Not “Hopped in the car, played loud music, got jacked, and tore the place to pieces.” No, it was a quiet ride. Mentally drained before even setting my stuff down to boot up, I say to myself, “Get your headphones on, drift away. Do some laps. You’ll wake up.” But I didn’t. I was frequently stopped by friends, all wanting to know where I had been the past few weeks. I just hope they took the look on my face for exhaustion and not exasperation.

I warm up. There is no pain in my hand, it’s just weak. It never did hurt. I swear nothing ever “hurts.” It just stops working. It takes a lot of effort not to get frustrated. Not to see the numbers clearly labeling the problems. I’m getting shut down by THAT?! I keep lowering the difficulty until finally I can fumble through it.

My feet are sloppy, heavy, uncoordinated. My mind is foggy, distant, and scattered. I begin to traverse, be productive… “I’m pumped?! I… I don’t understand.” I drop my boots and lay my back on the cold concrete. I was ready to call it a day. Pack up and retreat.

A friend, someone who has shown incredible improvement in such a short time climbing, drags me over to a new unlabeled wall and pesters me into playing on these routes until the old me starts to surface.

But just like that, the nights over. The lights are turning off and it’s time to go. “But I’m here now. Finally, I’m awake! My body and I are working together again.”

I spent the ride home thinking of fire analogies. “The embers were dimming and blah blah blah…” Fortunately, I didn’t write them. They were terrible.

I can’t fix my hand overnight. The only thing to do is be smart and get healthy. Pushing it too hard, too soon only risks making it worse and at best, staves off healing.

The next month will be a good chance to play, reacquaint myself with the wall. Hell, improve footwork (Lord knows I need it.)

Anyways, thank you for listening. I’ll keep you posted. And also, Thank you for the great comments on my last post. The response to the video was really positive and I’ve already talked to a few climbers that are looking to do a video once the weather is a bit nicer.

James Race Carr

One year of climbing

It’s been a year. Well… not quite. Still have a couple days before I’m officially able to measure my time in more than just months. I’ve learned so much, but yet I’m still a little kid. I have a double tomorrow… so I really should be sleeping. I’ll make this brief.

I shot these clips to get my friend Kyle amped for next week. I head up to Seattle to hang out (and climb, of course.) and I wanted to share these with him. I’m excited. He should be too. The end. Haha

But as I watched these and prepped to put them online, I thought back to my goals for last year. It’s not often I fail when I set goals. They may be aggressive, but they’re generally realistic. My average for success was high. …Until climbing.

I wanted a v7 by the end of September, 2011. It didn’t happen. I got my first v7 on October 3^rd. I won’t rehash it, but you can find it on this page. Sorry the link’s on that page might be broken. I made a hasty decision and pulled my climbing videos.

I had planned to have my first v8 by the end of my first year. But in the last couple months I really had to take an honest look at my climbing. My sloppy footwork. My inability to read a route. My reliance on beta and finding something that was exactly “my style.” And that wasn’t the climber I wanted to be.

I took a good long look at that goal and asked myself if I could handle postponing it with the hope that I would build a better foundation for my climbing. The answer was eventually yes. I stepped back. Looked at my flaws and really tried to tackle them head on.

Over the next few months I really noticed a change. My breathing was more controlled, my balance was getting better. There was power in each foot placement. My onsight ability jumped from v5 to v6. V7’s we’re looking much less devastating. Granted… this is all relative.

So as I checked out these videos, I was proud of the progress I’ve made. The 2 v7’s I climbed tonight weren’t my style. Both extremely balance-y and much more technical than most would consider my preference… they just felt smooth and controlled.

So I’ve been climbing a year. I didn’t achieve every goal. But I’m satisfied in knowing this was a good decision. And I’ll benefit from it in the rest of my climbing life.

Thanks for sticking it out with me. :)

James

The stats:

2011- January

195 lbs (~88kg)

2012- January

168 lbs (~76kg)

Nearing the Years End

I keep jotting down notes on things I’m going to blog about. The things that have happened. That I’ve learned. That I think you’ll find interesting. But I’ve spent so little time at home these past few weeks that I really am here to sit, sleep and shower. But I’ll try to do a quick post and maybe come back and go more in depth.

I competed in the Portland Boulder Rally at the Circuit climbing gym. If you remember, I competed in a black light competition during Halloween. And I did awful. Be it rest, being over zealous, or possibly just not enough forethought going into a route… I did really bad. However, this time I came in rested. Freezing cold (lost feeling in my feet and fell off the early problems because I couldn’t tell how I was on the holds), but completely calm.

I went nuts. After that initial folly on a couple fours I was finally warm. I slowed my pace way down (about 6 or 7 minutes between attempts, and 10-12 minutes between each problem). I flashed the next five problems ranging between 510 and 630 points (supposedly that's v5-v6). I realized I should have climbed stuff a little bit harder. I do think some of my success was intentionally watching a route, which gave me beta, but also allowed me to pick problems well suited to my style of climbing. …which means all of them were dynamic and overhang. I was in heaven. No crimps in sight.

I definitely should have set my sites a little higher though. I had a blast. Won a couple hats and quick draws. The end. It took me a while to recover from that. To which then I got ill. Again. More vitamin C!

I don’t remember if I talked about setting my first routes. They weren’t mind blowing by any means. But they were fun. I had a good time doing it and really felt like I was playing with Lego’s. but for adults. I’m really excited to get back in and work on some more, but I know I won’t have any time, probably until after new years.

Umm… my boss from the Source found this blog. There was this split second of panic somewhere between “hey, so I saw your blog…” and “we should talk.” That I was like “aww crap… I didn’t say anything that’s gonna get me in trouble did i?” I didn’t. in fact, Michael was really cool, as he always seems to be. Still. I’ll probably be a little hesitant when posting. Haha

But in all seriousness (and not in any way related to the fact that my bosses might see this.): it’s awesome to go in and pick their brains. Michael and Hans. They’ve humbled me a few times and constantly remind me that I’ve got so much to learn. And I’m down with getting reminded I’m new…ish. I’m always ready to be humbled and remember I’ve got a long road ahead of me before I’ll meet my goal of a v10. And this all helps lay the foundation that will not just get me there, but beyond.

I’ve decided atleast through the rest of the holidays that I’m going to focus more on just getting time in on the wall. “training” is nearly impossible right now. And I think just getting my hands torn up and pushing through the exhaustion will be training enough. I’ve been to one of the gyms 5 times in the last 4 days. My hands are raw, and my body’s tired. But I can really feel myself getting mentally strong. Even though my body is trying to fail, feeling myself push through and strive for good footwork and still breathing, while not panicking is such a powerful feeling.

I believe the body follows the brain. Therefore I need to train my brain to stay calm and focused. I’m going to end this pretty quick and so I’ll leave you with this, one of my favorite quotes.

"Beyond the very extreme fatigue and distress, we may find amounts of ease and power we never dreamed ourselves to own; sources of strength never taxed at all because we never pushed through the obstruction." -William James