Probably my biggest accomplishment in the last month has been setting my own route on our recently dubbed "Wall-Of-Awesome". I got a little over-zealous a few times as I set the route and quickly found that on a single pitch route, the amount of "official" technical moves, at least those that I'm familiar with, are limited. Not only that, but my eyes were a little bigger than several other people's reach, and I found that being about 5'10" or so was the shortest you could really be to accomplish my route. Not that the route is that hard, it just takes some serious stretching out if one is too short. I ended up naming the route "Game, Set, "Match"", due to my vision of it taking a lot of hand and feet matching throughout. Depending on your ability, the amount of matching ended up being up to the individual climber. In the end, I gave it a V0+ to V1 rating. Hoping it proves a challenge to future climbers passing through. Below are a few shots of myself and our wall mastermind, DOK, rocking it out. On a side note, we were all a little saddened last night as DOK just finished up his final flight out here, so we had one final climbing party to commemorate the good times. We reminisced about the good fortune we had of being able to build our wall, from mine and DOK's first flight together where we figured out we both dig climbing, to remembering that Ace also was an out-doorsy guy and ended up being quite the aficionado and sweet-talker toward bringing our wall to fruition, and lastly to DOK's guess that Brah might be a climber too and inviting him along on our trek to find the legendary wall on the other side of base. It all worked out pretty sweet. And lastly, regarding the wall, I want to give a huge thank you to Rocknasium climbing gym in Davis, CA for their awesome support and 2 large boxes of donated shoes for the newbie climbers, as well as to Rock & Ice magazine for their large shoe donation and efforts at getting us crash pads out here. That's just American.
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| The Originals |
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| DOK making the leap |
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| The French Flag start to "Game, Set, "Match"" |
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| Ace with the chalk for the win |
Since I've been out here, I've also had a fair amount of free time to catch up and get some good reading done. My biggest literary accomplishment was probably finally finishing Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. I'm a little ashamed to admit how long it took me to get through it (so I won't), but mostly, I was just happy to finish it. Great book, classic read, tough to follow for myself mainly because of all of the russian named characters, but a worthwhile reading endeavor. If you haven't read it yet and you've got some time to think, I highly recommend it. My most recent finished book that, without a doubt, resulted in the most reflection and thought was a collection of writings by G.K. Chesterton, specifically, Heretics, Orthodoxy, and The Blatchford Controversies. As it was recommended to me, I would also recommend reading those in the above order. Oftentimes over my head, philosophically challenging, theologically stirring, but never failing to always bring the topic back to a sound and succinct conclusion, every chapter unfolded some of the most profound thoughts and ideas related to the Christian faith that I've had the pleasure of reading. I'd put Heretics now in the top with my all-time favorites. It was money. And lastly, my latest read has been Eiger Dreams by Jon Krakauer, famed author of Into The Wild and Into Thin Air. The best thing to say about my current read is that its just straight fun. Awesome stories of some amazing alpinists and some gnarly people pushing themselves to their limits. I'm gonna be a little bummed now when its over.
Finally, to finish out, just wanted to give a quick update on the marathon training. I had my final really long "long run" day yesterday. It ended up being my best long run yet. I felt fantastic and cranked out 20 miles on the old treadmill in 2:34, so I've got my fingers crossed now to be able to hold that pace for 6 more miles come marathon time. The big goal is a sub-3:20 marathon. Right now, I'm gonna start slowly throttling back as an old mentor from college, Mike Sanders, helps me out with a good taper plan for the next month. Mike is a fantastic coach, an amazing man of God, a recent finisher of a coast-to-coast bike ride, and an awesomely storied cancer survivor. I'm looking forward to working with him to get under my marathon goal and blessed by his friendship and mentorship. Huge thanks Mike!
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