Welcome to Asheboro...

One of the best climbing areas in North Carolina is open again, great problems, lots of things to try, barely an hour drive, and plenty of areas to explore, there's only one problem....the rock is sharp! Finger tips like that are not far from the norm, the pic is of a friend's hands. The crazy thing is he did the problem that did that to him the next go, bloody tips and and all....sometimes i wonder about the sport I've chosen...but then I see another boulder and the previous thoughts disappear. All in all I had one of the best days, if not the best day I've ever had climbing outside, I sent a bunch of problems and no pain...aside from my tips and some residual DOMS from playing on a 100ft slip and slide for an hour the other day in the rain. It seems that I've recovered just in time for an incredible season of climbing, I can't wait.

Some older climbing pics

Thats me spotting at the bottom in the top pic. I know I'm not climbing but it's still a good pic.

Stupid human tricks and bracing...

I can't help it, I have an affinity for stupid human tricks, if i see someone do something, there's that little voice in my head that goes, "huh, that looks cool, I wonder if I can do it?" Whether its, a muscle up, rip a license plate, forward spinal wave, doesn't really matter, anything is fair game. It's a great way to see what one's capability is but there is the potential for danger. Usually I try to keep things in the RPE range of 7-9, and I'll admit that I may be a little more subjective with it than I should sometimes but that's the impulsive ADHD nature. So for the longest time while i was injured all i could do was mobility and grip work, but I avoided bracing so as not to mess up the healing process, let me tell you ripping a deck with no abdominal tension is much harder but it is possible. So one of the idea from Zhealth is to use appropriate tension for the activity, So if I don't need to add it in i try to stay away from it. So recently when I went through the timber ties I really didn't use any bracing, it didn't require it, I only used enough tension in my hands to take care of it. Now I do brace if I need to but I find I have to do a lot of relaxation work to counter the excessive use of tension. Plus I figure if I can do this well without bracing once I start working it back in my strength should reflect the additive nature of it.

One last little workout...

I finished up my one piece of scroll work and started on the other. Hands are feeling a little beat up. But later when I was reading another guy's blog, Adam Glass, he listed a bending workout of his so I thought I'd give it a go since I still have a bunch of timber ties, granted these are timber ties not 'real' 60D nails but regardless I went through 80 of them in 22 minutes, i used four different styles, double over hands high, double over hands low, double under, and reverse. I didn't really bother to wrap them, I just folded a small section of suede over them and kept going. Over all it was about an 75% effort. today hands feel pretty good and it hasn't made my neural tension any worse. I'm psyched.

keeping busy

Picked up some more metal today to work on my scroll work. It's been a while since I've been able to do much I so I figured I'd do some and picked up some 1"x1/8"x6', it makes for some nice ribbon effects but it sure is a pain to twist. So far I've got about an hour in and I'm nowhere near done with it. but it's turning out pretty well, I tend to start with an idea and see where the metal takes me. I'll post once I'm done.

Got in some more climbing, just about 45 minutes, focused on endurance. Forearms are still pretty sore but everything else is doing pretty well, walking feels normal, so I don't think I've screwed anything up....Bonus. I imagine I'll be getting some more in as it gets colder, especially since from mid Nov to after New years, I won't have any class to take. Plus Asheboro has opened up legitimately, it's a super sweet bouldering area not much more than an hour away. So day trips are totally doable, I'm psyched. There's a few things I'd love to do there, plus lots more to explore.

Next goal is to start getting my act together to lay out some serious training. I've learned if I plan ahead, I make great progress, it's just that sometimes after you spend most of your day doing it for others,working on yourself isn't always high on the list. But I plan to crank this season, so it's time to get down to it.

stuff, things, and minutiae

Went climbing yesterday for about two hours, Jole hasn't climbed in about 7 months and the scrawny bastard still cranks, oh well. I was good to climb but it may not have been so good for the body, I think we spent about 5 minutes warming up and the rest of the time spazzing like semi lobotomized monkeys...but i mean that in a good way. today i hurt some, i'm not sure if its from that or if its my stomach just feeling messed up from poor food and stress, time will tell.

I started another blog just to keep myself occupied. Nothing training related but it helps.

Clients have started bringing phonebooks again for me, which helps since I've gone through about 30 in the last week and I was down to about 4 or 5, and no Katie I haven't gotten around to the atlanta one yet, but I did leave some of the other torn books by it...it serves as a warning to it that it's time is coming...

I going to pick up some metal to start doing some more scroll work today, so if all goes well I'll have some new pieces soon.

Datsit...rambling done...

Killing time...

I haven't been writing for a while but I really need something to do, i mean really need to, so this will have to work for now. I finally got started climbing again and it felt great, actually better than great, I hardly lost much of anything, I'd expected to show up and suck, it's the way layoffs usually go, this time it was like I took 4 days off not 4 months. The only thing different this time besides being lighter was doing lots of Z. I climbed over a week ago and haven't made it back in yet, hopefully tomorrow, I have my good friend coming down to visit and he's always done for some plastic pullin. You know someone's good when they drop everything(he's in med school right now) to come help out a friend....I've never really considered him a friend, he's always been more of a brother, so that's something to look forward to.

I just finished ripping about 12 phone books and still feel pretty good, no hand or body pain...yet, but all in all pretty good. I'm trying to get ready for doing a potential fund raiser, not sure if I'll be doing decks of cards or phonebooks but either way it's good to be doing something, I'll probably start doing some more scrollwork, might as well turn what ever all these feelings are into something productive, sure I could work on some articles or future plans, but my head really isn't there right now, and as Brett says there's nothing cooler than making metal succumb to flesh and bone, I think he said it but he may not have, but I associate it with him, so there you have it.

I'd like to write more but my head really isn't in it for now, I'm sure I'll have something to say later but everything is a little overwhelming now.