Injuries, Cycles and Productivity

My intention was to focus on rock climbing this fall. However, the week after climbing Dragontail I randomly threw in a hard 13 mile run. I had only been bouldering and running a little bit all summer and, especially after a long day the week before, this was probably too much. That night Caitlin and I went to a concert and I noticed my foot was swollen and hurting. The next day I tried to climb at Smith despite my throbbing foot. I ended up limping to the base of a wall and climbing a few pitches before hobbling back to the car.

I monitored the injury the next week and realized that it was probably a stress fracture in my fifth metatarsal. I tried to baby it in supportive footwear and limited my exercise to biking and steep climbing. It seemed to be doing okay for a couple of weeks but then I jammed it in a hand crack and, no surprise here, it swelled up and hurt. So I put it in a walking boot and tried to figure out what to do with myself. Luckily I had a few projects.

My car has good clearance and four-wheel drive so I checked out some cliffs that I had not been to before but could drive to. One day I managed to knock my water bottle off a 200 footer into a tangle of bushes. I rapped down the cliff to look for it, which took a while and kind of also felt like climbing while simultaneously making me wish I could actually climb all of the awesome cracks two inches from my face. I never did find that bottle either.

I also installed a hangboard at my house (about time) and began to do some stuff on that. It was hard to find motivation at first but after a while of hobbling around and sitting on my butt all day it started looking pretty appealing. I definitely gained some finger strength and increased my pullup volume. Today I cranked out 102 pullups in between doing homework and eating snacks.

Finally, I created an extensive spreadsheet of climbing areas and ranked them by drive time from Bend. I created a separate page on this site to house it called... climbing areas by drive time page so check it out!

I think my foot is finally ready to start use again after 6+ weeks in a walking boot. Hopefully I will be able to get out and start doing fun stuff soon!

Marriage, Grad School, and Bouldering on Plastic

If you read the title of this post and thought that it sounded like the most boring thing ever, well, you'd probably be correct. I'm writing this more as an update, filling in the blanks if you will.

Now, I'm not saying that July was a boring month for me or that I'm not satisfied with my life choices, far from it. But this is a place to write about mountain adventures and neither marriage, grad school nor bouldering at the gym are close to or even really contributing to that. I suppose an outside observer might think that my Sierra solo kick was a last hurrah. Now I'll just settle down and make babies I guess, nothing else to do.

While that may sound reasonable to my parents and in-laws, that's not really the direction I envisage. This next year may be slower than I want it to be in terms of big mountain adventures, but it is a chance to get some other things in line. Marriage really won't be changing much, Caitlin and I have been together for five and a half years at this point and getting married was a formal declaration of our relationship and a great excuse to get everyone together and throw a good party. Grad school is only a year-long program and will ideally allow me to make a little more consistent money while still having enough time off to get gnarly. July was really the first month of classes, along with getting married and attending two other weddings. As a result we were pretty busy.

On top of that it's been very hot in Central Oregon and outdoor cragging has been less-than ideal. So, I took to the gym. I've pretty much decided that this is the year to really work on my technical climbing. I have limited time but a good gym a mile from my house. On weekends Smith, Trout and I-rock are going to be a lower time commitment than a real alpine objective. After taking a week pretty much all off, to recover from those big days in the Sierra, I started pulling on plastic. Let me tell you, V0 feels really strenuous after having climbed nothing harder than 5.7 for the last 100 pitches/3 weeks of your life.

My training program is as follows: Two gym sessions a week, both start with core. The first session I focus on hard bouldering, starting with V0 and working up through the bouldering grades. Once I reach my max (V3-4 because I'm weak) I do 4-6 problems with 3-5 minute rests in between. I then finish by doing as many pullups as I can with a weight belt. Once I can do ten I increase the weight. My second session I go to the hangboard and do 4-6 sets of 5 pullups, alternating between pockets and crimps. Then I go to the bouldering area and do a 4x4 on jug hauls. For the rest of my days I either go running or cragging with whatever time I have. My goal is to continue to average around 300 minutes of aerobic work per week which based on past experience should maintain that fitness fairly well with minimal stress. I'm four weeks in and am already seeing my grip strength and upper body strength improve. Hopefully I can do some multi-pitch rock routes on August weekends and see big dividends from all this training at the crag come fall.

In the meantime here is some stoke... Mt. Hood Climber's Guide just came out and is AWESOME!

My new copy of Mt. Hood Climber's Guide and a set of ice tool leashes I made while I should have been reading my text book. Get stoked for winter!

And, the last wedding we went to was in Leavenworth! Caitlin and I did some hiking up to Colchuck Lake, but only did a short pitch of climbing on the fun Classic Crack (5.8+, FA by Beckey).

Dragontail Peak and Colchuck Lake make for a nice cool/shaded hike with a great view and swimming hole at the end. Get out and climb in the mountains while the weather is good!

Training for my New... Whatever-I-Want

Before I started climbing I had spent over a decade of my life training for distance running, races ranging anywhere from 2 to more than 30 minutes. During that period I also studied human physiology at university. As a result, the method and science of how you train is more than just a passing interest for me.

When Steve House and Scott Johnston came out with their book, Training for the New Alpinism, I immediately got a copy and read it cover to cover. At this point if you're interested in such things you've probably already flicked through it yourself. There have been plenty of positive reviews so I'm not going to review it here (though it is the best book I've read on the subject, and I've read every single text that they reference and then some). Instead I'm going to briefly discuss how I used their expertise to create my own training, which is essentially why they wrote the volume. So, here after I will assume that you are familiar with Training for the New Alpinism or are at least familiar with endurance and strength training concepts.

Since starting climbing my training has definitely been a little ad hoc, though somewhat consistent. I had a list of workouts that I felt I should be doing and I tried to do each one once a week. The list included endurance laps at the gym, climbing outside, hill running, general strength maintenance exercises, etc. I would then try to get out in the mountains to tick off objectives whenever the conditions were good and I had time. I kept a training log during this time, mainly because it helped me stay consistent, but I rarely reviewed it. After reading Training I went through my log and tallied my weekly volume, something I haven't done in a few years. I immediately noticed that my random mountain adventures were making my volume very inconsistent. A weekend climb tagged on the end of a week of training would double or triple my volume. I would then be so run down the next week that I would be forced to miss a lot of training. As a result I started to plan ahead so that things evened out and my body didn't get over-stressed.

The next thing I did was to go through all the exercises in the book, I took a week to teach myself some new tricks and assess my over-all strength. I then assumed that my regular regimen was a more than sufficient Transition Period and started the Max Strength Base Period recommended in the book. I selected to use hill sprints and pullups once per week, and squat hops and pullups for my second workout. I also decided to forgo any Zone 3 (threshold) workouts and crag an extra day instead. This is against the advice of the authors but they were writing for an experienced climbing audience. I've only been climbing for two years but I've probably averaged at least one threshold workout a week for the last 13 years. Do the math, I can benefit way more from working my way through new movements on another 5.10 than I can from doing the 763rd 60 min threshold run of my life.

I did this base period for eight weeks, slowly building my volume. That just finished and now I am doing three weeks of Muscular Endurance Base (gym laps with weighted pack and boots, and ski touring with a weighted pack). My goal is a week of productive moderate alpine solo climbing in mid-late June. I will rest one week after my shortened Muscular Endurance Period before starting the trip. 

My last week of Max Strength finished with a squat/pullup workout Friday, a 20 mile run Saturday, and then Sunday I exceeded my weekly volume by hiking up to the Trout Creek cliffs and climbing Goldrush. This is a sustained 5.10- hand crack, capped with an overhang that I struggled to climb six months ago, but now feels quite easy. I guess that's progress for you.

This past week I climbed for 41 min in the gym without coming off the wall while wearing a 30+ pound pack and some Nepal Evo leather mountaineering boots. Saturday I was hoping to get in an easy two hour workout skiing up Mt. Bachelor with a pack weighted with extra water bottles. Instead I got to the summit (~2,500 ft of gain) in 68 minutes and it felt like the easiest thing I'd done all week. So instead of taking Sunday off, as planned, I went multi-pitch climbing. This week is my last week of hard training, but honestly I'm so excited for a week in the mountains that it's hard to not start packing the car already... at least I know that my patience is paying off.

Sisters and Broken Top from the summit of Bachelor.

Tumalo and Bend from the summit of Bachelor.

Myself, confused by how I got here so quickly. Obviously cotton t-shirts count as high performance apparel.

Stuck in the Snow

We finally started getting the winter everyone wanted here in Bend. It started by dumping beautiful dry powder in the mountains and I responded by heading up between work shifts and running several laps on the Tumalo bowl. I did seven laps, plus skiing to and from the car in roughly 4.5 hours. Which I think is pretty good. I remember hearing that 45 minutes is a good time for a lap on the Tumalo bowl, I was averaging around 27 minutes a lap and surprisingly didn't feel too tired afterwards.

Tumalo Bowl pow slayin'

Then the snow storms pushed down into Bend and things got a little crazy in town. The roads have been pretty terrible and I could force my way to the mountain but honestly I feel pretty unmotivated to bounce along in 4WD behind a bunch of other cars as we crawl up to the mountains. Instead I took advantage of the rare two plus feet in town and skinned from my apartment to Pilot Butte (a state park in town that involves a road and trail to the top of a 500 ft butte with nice views). I met another skier, Nick, en route and by the time we got to the summit it was obvious we weren't the only ones with this idea. It seemed like everyone with a back country setup had the same thought. I counted at least seven different groups skiing or boarding off the summit, several with GoPros... go figure. The ride was short and a little rocky but enjoyable, honestly it needs a proper base and a steeper slope with this much powder.

Pilot Butte summit

Skinning home after Pilot Butte

The next day I went to the Bend Rock Gym, which just opened a big expansion. I had tweaked my wrist earlier in the week trying to climb a surprisingly good thin hands and ratchets crack they have installed in the gym. It seemed like easy climbing didn't bug it though so I just started running auto-belay laps. I ended up climbing 1,540 ft, climbing up and back down 26 routes, in under two hours. I did most of it in two 45 minute blocks where I never got off the wall and simply traversed between auto-belays, tagging the ground and the top of the wall on each lap. I then started thinking how Honnold and Florine climbed 3,000 ft on the Nose in 2.5 hours with much of it run out simul/solo 5.10. That makes me really appreciate big wall speed climbing!

http://bendrockgym.com/

Anyway, in short I'm stuck at home between weather and other obligations for a couple weeks at least. I'm psyched for the opportunity to climb High Noon on Broken Top now that there will be less rock exposed. I also can't wait to get back on Hood and climb Reid Glacier Headwall and the North Face. But in the meantime, I'll be running, lifting, climbing and ski touring because I'm obviously still weak and pathetic.

Running Based Training for the Alpine part 2 (some specifics)

In my last training post I talked about some of the basic concepts of training, like stress and recovery. I also talked about timing and patterns in training, like how long it takes to adapt to certain stresses. In this post I'm going to talk about how you can decide what to do on a day-to-day basis, i.e. what to focus on in each workout. I get pretty specific and while you are welcome to follow this word for word, I think it will be most useful to people as guidelines and ideas to add to what they already do. The important thing is consistency and specificity (doing stuff that specifically corresponds to your goal activity). While deciding what to take and leave from this post, remember: the best training program does the most with the least.

The Basic Idea:
1. Figure out what physiological systems you need to stress, then figure out the best workouts to create that stress.
2. Make a list of all these workouts and sort them so that similar workouts are not next to each other.
3. Every time you  have a non-mountain training day, and have some excess energy, do the next workout on the list.
4. If you feel too tired to provide a concentrated effort then do a short and easy run (or other aerobic exercise) and focus on stretching, eating well and going to sleep early.
5. Keep repeating the list as your body and other activities allow. Go a little faster or do a little more each time you repeat a workout.
6. Stay relaxed and flexible. Before and after a big trip/expedition/weekend/etc. just go easy. Take a day or two off if you need it.
7. Remember that consistency creates the most improvement. You will gain much much more from repeating the easy version of a workout five times than from doing a longer or more intense workout once or twice.

Ideas for your workout list (I like to think of these as "fast AND relaxed" but never hard):
1. Strength workouts: uphill bounds/sprints/stairs during your run, or alternate quick running with strength exercises (example: 400m in 80-90 seconds (10km race pace), 20 lunges, 10 burpies, 20 sit-ups, 10 hops each foot, repeat 4-6 times, no rests)
2. Speed workouts: run as fast as possible for 10 sec once every 3 minutes during your run, repeat 10 times (this will help your muscle efficiency and power, and is helpful even on a glacier walk-up).
2. VO2 max (maximum oxygen usage) workout: run fast for 1min (3km to 5km race pace), run easy for 1min, repeat until you have ran fast for at least 6 minutes, ideally 10-20 minutes of fast running. You can do 2min/2min, 3/3 or 4/4. I recommend starting with short intervals and building up.
3. Lactic acid processing workouts (super critical for recovering from hard work at altitude): 30 sec fast (relaxed sprint), followed by 3 min easy, repeat 4-8 times.
4. Lactic threshold workouts: run at a steady but fast pace, depending on what I'm doing this could be 10 miles at 6 minute mile pace or faster, or it could be running easy for 15 min and then turning around and coming home in 12-13 min. You can also just find a long sustained uphill 2-5 miles long and run this (better workout for the alpine).
*Easy run/workout: if you are feeling low energy and/or sore run at a relaxed pace for at least 20 min (if I'm doing ~60 min fast runs then I'll do ~40 min easy runs). Afterwards stretch for 15 min, holding each stretch for at least 30 sec (static stretch).

Warm-ups and cool-downs:
1. Always run for at least 10 min at an easy pace before doing anything on the workout list. In winter I like to do 20 min of easy running to make sure I'm really warmed up.
2. Do dynamic stretching and light strength work before the list workout but after easy running. Examples of dynamic stretching: leg swings, high knees, butt kicks, etc. Examples of warm-up strength work (body weight only) 10 push-ups, 5 pull-ups, 20 step-ups, 20 lunges.
3. Do some fast running (4x 10sec fast and relaxed) before your list workout or just ease into the first interval or fast section.
4. After your workout do any strength maintenance activities you want: core strength, balance and lower leg exercises, hip strength, single leg squats with a 50 lbs. pack, whatever, just make sure you balance opposing muscle groups and remember not to overdo it after your run.
5. Static stretch: after all activity is finished is the only time I hold a stretch. I'm not trying to improve flexibility per se, mainly I'm holding muscle fibers in an elongated position which forces them to relax, allowing increased blood flow and faster recovery. After stretching, massage and ice bathing can also relax muscles and increase blood flow (elevated feet is the lazy man's ice bath and helped me get through 4-race days during major track meets).

Approaching Matterhorn Peak in the Sierra Nevada less than one week before climbing Mt. Shasta.

Looking South from Matterhorn Peak into Yosemite National Park. I used lots of short easy runs to recover for Shasta.

On top of Matterhorn Peak. Car to car in less than 8 hours.

In my last post I talked briefly about training or activity logs. It took a long time for me to become convinced of their usefulness. Many running stores sell pathetic little mileage log books that encourage you to log how many miles you run each day. I'm not a fan because for me mileage doesn't equal preparedness. I think that your running log should show what is important to you and this may change. For the sake of giving ideas on log keeping, but also to show how I apply my own ideas, I'm going to include some excerpts from my 2012 log...

In May I was in Indiana building a rock climbing wall, doing hard physical work 60-70 hrs/week:

Mon-Sun, May 7-13

7 work 7am-7pm, 12 hour day, lower leg strength, core, stretching

8 work 7am-7pm, 12 hour day, 10 min boulder traverse, pullups, pushups

9 work 7am-7pm, 12 hour day, 20 min run 3x 1min fast/1min easy, leg strength, stretch

10 work 7am-7pm, 12 hour day, lower leg strength, core, pushups, stretching

11 work 7am-6:30 pm, 11.5 hour day, 10 min boulder traverse, pullups, stretching

12 work 8am-6:30pm 10.5 hour day, bouldering, 31 min run w/ speed and tempo, lower legs, core, stretch

13 off work, 73 min run at Eagle Creek, skipping drills, stretch

In September I went from my cousin's wedding in Santa Fe, to trail running in Oregon, to alpine rock climbing in the Tetons in one week. I took easy days where possible and tried to relax and enjoy everything:

Sept 1-10

1 forearm strength and some stationary biking, core, stretching, Alexa's wedding! Lots of dancing!

2 fly back to Bend, throwing up and diarrhea (lack of sleep, alcohol, bumpy plane ride, stomach bug?)

3 walk to top of Overturf Butte with Caitlin, chill out and eat plain food and drink water

4 39 min run up river trail with Ghelfi, lower legs, core, pullups, stretch

5 drop off Ryan and Joe at Pole Creek at 4:45am for the Sister's Traverse, then ran South Sister (2:15 to summit and 3:30 round trip) to meet them

6 22 min walk, stretch, prep for Tetons

7 wake up at 3:30am, pick up Ian and drive to the Tetons

8 Grand Teton! wake up at 2:15 am, leave Lupine Meadows TH at 3:15am, reach start of Lower Exum at 10:30ish, lead p1 and 3-6, combine p3&4 and p5&6, reach Wall Street at 3ish, solo all of Upper Exum in approach shoes, Grand Teton summit at 5:30ish, two rappels to Upper Saddle, Lower Saddle at 8ish, hike back to car, arrive around 12:30am (21+ hrs round trip), sleep by 1:30am

9 off, big breakfast in Jackson at the Virginian, drive to Yellowstone, swim in Lewis River, walk around

10 off, drive back to Bend

In October I had a lot of time off and really got into training but had some nagging running injuries so did a lot of biking:
Oct 19-29

19 65 min bike out Cascade Lakes (change flat), 4 circuits at Harmon Park (crawl, lunges, hops, burpies, high knees), pullups, stretch

20 70 min bike w/ Mike and Chris, 20 min run w/ 4 sprints, leg strength, core, stretch, climbing at Meadow Camp w/ Chris and Caitlin (7 routes)

21 off

22 31 min run, leg strength, core, 20 min boulder traverse, 5 ea climbing drills, stretch

23 bike to rock gym, climb w/ Chris and Caitlin (TR, lead, boulder), pullups, bike home, L hip tight

24 47 min run w/ 4x 10sec sprint, strength repetitions (only 31 pullups), stretch+ (L hip still tight)

25 38 min bike, cfeet, core, stretch, 32 min bike to Metolius, bike to rock gym, 20 min laps, TR w/ Mike and Caitlin, bike home via supermarket

26 30 min tempo run, stretch, climb at Smith w/ Tess and Chris (Lower Gorge 3x 5.10s, try Pure Palm)

27 climb at Smith w/ Ian in mountaineering boots (2x 5.7, 2x 5.8, all knobby slabs)

28 climb at Smith w/ Mike/Caitlin/Chris, lead Cinnamon Slab (2ps), follow Karate Crack, started raining

29 60 min run, leg strength, core, stretch 

Approaching the Lower Exum on the Grand Teton.

Ian enjoying life on top of the Grand after 15+ hours on the move.

So that's it for now. I hope this is helpful to whoever reads it. Please feel free to post any questions or feedback below. Have fun running!

Running Based Training for the Alpine part 1 (some thoughts)

So let me start this by saying that although I am not very experienced or accomplished as a climber yet, I do move pretty fast in the mountains. I've spent plenty of time in the mountains, so that counts for something, but I think it mostly stems from 10+ years spent as a competitive distance runner. It's not that I'm in amazing shape, I'm actually not relative to five years ago, but I have lots of experience preparing my body to do something specific. I've read a lot on the subject of running training, I have an educational background in human biology and physiology, and I've experimented on myself for several years so I feel like I have some ideas worth sharing.

Despite the fact that all human powered alpine sports are primarily limited by how fast and far you can go, especially uphill, it seems like few participants take time to get fit for this. I hear a lot of climbers, mountaineers and backcountry skiers talking about running for this purpose, but I see few of them following through. It makes sense that if you want to ________(insert sport here) you spend all your free time doing that sport and not running, but unless you are a total dirtbag you can't get out in the mountains every day. In this post I'm not going to give you some generic 10 week program that you have to do everyday. Instead I'm going to try and give you a basic framework, rules of thumb if you will. This way, on those days when you are too busy to go somewhere cool, you can still do something that prepares you to do more on your next day (or week) out in the mountains.

 Some Myth Busters:
1. Your workout doesn't need to be painful or even hard (in fact, it probably shouldn't be) to have a big benefit. A good athletic performance is when the muscles you need work maximally, while the ones you don't stay totally relaxed... in other words, grimacing and straining just waste energy.
2. Your workout doesn't need to be long to help you (even a 30 minute run can be effective training stimulus). If you are spending a full day or two out in the mountains every week then you are getting plenty of endurance. Trying to do long runs (90+ min) too is just going to make you tired and train you to move slowly.

Celebrating after crushing the round trip time on the Mirador Las Torres in Torres del Paine National Park, Patagonia. This was fairly easy for me after a 6 month season of collegiate cross-country training.

Some Key Concepts:
1. Recovery is the most important part of training. If you don't recover then everything you did only took away from your ability to perform. This doesn't just mean sleeping and eating, an easy aerobic workout followed by stretching is one of the most important things you can do to recover.
2. Everyone is different. Besides having different strengths and weaknesses, you will respond differently to different workouts and recover at different rates than other people. Listen to your body!
3. Everyone knows that they need to practice and train to get better. The hard part is figuring out what your weaknesses are and figuring out how to fix them.
4. Conversely, know your strengths and exploit them. This will help you optimize your performance, whether its deciding how to break up lead blocks or where to take rests.

Setting out to run to the Mirador Las Torres beneath the Torres del Paine in Patagonia.

Mirador Las Torres, 12+ miles round trip and 4,000+ ft net elevation gain in 1:38.

In our sport we don't always know when we are going and what we are going to do. It could dump powder tomorrow and you could be trying to ski as many lines as possible Saturday morning, or the weather could suddenly clear and you could be cragging all weekend. You need to be flexible: always fit but never too tired. This is a hard balance to strike and luckily the seasons provide a little predictability. If you know you aren't going to be doing a big trip or trying major objectives on the weekend then you can push a little harder on your non-mountain training days. Ideally you have a good fitness base so that when your season arrives or that big trip comes up you can back off on the day-to-day training and have a big energy reserve.

Facts and Figures:
1. It takes 10-14 days for your body to generate improvements from an intense workout, so don't hammer your workout 5 days before you try the hardest route of your life. As you approach a big trip don't be afraid to keep going down the list but keep the overall stress level low and leave plenty of easy days.
2. It takes 3-4 weeks for your body to adapt to a constant stress. If you have ran a lot previously you will notice it gets easier after week 1 as your brain rediscovers neurological pathways and you become more efficient. Avoid the temptation to step it up. By the end of week 2 you will feel tired, even if you were doing other training before starting a new program. If you listen to your body and keep running then by the end of week 4 you should feel good (if you don't you over trained). Now its time to kick it up a notch.
3. It takes 6 weeks to create actual muscle changes. If you are doing a strength program, or mixing strength and running, keep the strength stress consistent for 6 weeks before upping the ante or moving on to a different focus. I like to mix strength with running as part of my warm-up or cool-down but it is hard to do both at a high level. You need to pick a focus.

Eating cheese baguets while traversing a dry glacier during a 47km/8hr off trail hike outside of Chalten, Patagonia. I had 2 days in Chalten followed by 2 days on a bus so I pushed myself hard while I could.

Remember you are a unique organism, not a machine! Don't force your body to perform until you know how it will respond. Start an activity log and write a brief summary of what you did and how you felt each day. You will start to see patterns and this will help you to understand how your body responds to training. Personally, I can hammer myself 2-3 days in a row before needing at least 2 easy days, anymore and my body is too trashed to keep up consistent training. Other people will see different patterns.

I wanted to do one post on running and training but it turned into a freaking text book, so I'm breaking it up into two parts. In my next post I'll provide some more specifics on what you can focus on during each running based workout.

Kitchen Bouldering

When I first moved into my apartment I had a stress fracture and was really out of shape. It was winter and I was basically stuck inside most of the day. I was thinking a lot about climbing and wanted to do what I could while my fracture healed in a walking boot.

It started with finger tip pullups on the door jambs and evolved from there. I now have a route that starts at the fridge and traverses down the hallway to the bathroom. I climb laps on this whenever I can't make it to the gym or Smith or some other climbing area. Its been especially helpful with the cold weather and snow for keeping my forearms in shape.

I created this video to showcase how awesome this route is and how seriously I take training... which as you might guess is super-super-duper, hardcore, all-out serious! Enjoy and Happy Holidays...