Lizzy’s 2011

I have a tendency to forget how awesome a year I’ve had by the time December comes around. I’ve always been one to shoot for the stars with my goals, which often means I fall a little short. I also live with Luke, who, as you may have been reading, has been doing a lot of awesome climbing this year, which may make me feel a little lacking in comparison. But let’s get serious. It has been a really incredible year, I’m more psyched than ever on various parts of my crazy life, and here are some of the highlights:

I trained semi-seriously, pretty much the first time ever, for our Spring Break trip to Indian Creek. I had an extreme lesson in humility when I attempted my dream project, Tricks are for Kids, but made up for it majorly with an onsight of the spectacular Sacred Cow.

Success on Sacred Cow

I had expected April and May to bring a climbing lull, as I prepared for quals and getting married (yeah, good planning, right?), but my advisor and I agreed to push my exam back to the fall quarter and so I suddenly had some weekends free to go back to Yosemite. We hosted the first annual (hopefully) Yosemite Tweetup and it was super fun, despite the exceedingly wet weather. I also managed to redpoint Tales of Power, which was a huge mental victory for me. Plus, two 5.12s in a year is a good year for me! Finally, we attempted to climb Lurking Fear in a push, but bailed in the midst of a crazy hailstorm.

Lizzy free climbing on Lurking Fear

After Tales of Power, my gym motivation was waning and I decided to focus my energy on my upcoming long course triathlon (and getting married, which was a week after the race). It was a great learning experience, where I got the full realization of how much more cycling you have to do, relative to swimming and running, for half or full Ironman triathlons, and how much more I like swimming and running, relative to cycling. So maybe Olympic distance will end up being my favorite…

And then, we got married! All the preparation and planning was crazy and more stressful than I would have liked, but the wedding was beautiful and perfect and it was wonderful to share our day with so many friends and family.

Canada bound on our Honeymoon

After getting home from our honeymoon, I had a week to get ready to go back to South Africa for my second field season. I was not particularly happy about the timing of the trip, so soon after our wedding, but had a much more fun trip than before because of the company (other students to hang out and work with!), the insulated skirt my mother-in-law gave me for my birthday (it’s winter down there), and a cell phone so I could talk to Luke every morning. It’s the small things that make all the difference.

Beautiful views on the Bishop Pass Trail

By late summer, I was both out of shape and low on motivation for climbing, so I rolled with it and got psyched on running. Particularly running on awesome alpine trails in the Sierra. My previous longest run had been ~14 miles at sea level, but over 2 months, I went on 4 amazing runs: 13 miles out-and-back to the ~12,000ft Bishop Pass, 17 miles from Tenaya Lake to Yosemite Valley via Cloud’s Rest (~10,000ft) , 14 miles in Yosemite via 4 Mile, Panorama, and John Muir Trails, and an 18 mile trip along the south Valley “rim” via the Pohono Trail. This all by the girl who really thought I hated running a few years ago. Major thanks and love to awesome running buddies SK and Julie

Amazing views from Clouds Rest

Finally, the last couple months have been singularly focused on one of the biggest hurdles of my graduate career: my qualifying exam. I’m happy to report that I passed and am now a PhD candidate! I’m definitely exhausted, but also full of motivation for my research, as well as some major extra-curricular goals for next year, including:

1. Trip to the Red River Gorge for Spring Break! I don’t want to chase the numbers too much, but it would be great to finally climb 5.12 on bolts
2. Be able to spend more time in the Sierra this summer, both to climb and for goal #3:
3. Running to Bishop Pass planted the seed of running the ~56 mile loop through Evolution Basin. It would probably be ~9000ft elevation gain, over three 12,000ft passes, with some ridiculously incredible scenery. I know this is a big jump from what I’ve done so far, so it will require some major training, but I’m super psyched on it.
4. I ran the TNF EC half marathon in the Marin Headlands again this year, and thought, maybe I should just do the Gore-Tex 50 Mile next year… if all goes as planned, I’ll have already run 50+ miles for the Evolution Loop and there’s so much more singletrack on the 50 Mile than the half!

So there you’ve got it. I think this year has taught me a lot about balancing work and play, following my psych, and becoming a more well-rounded athlete. I think these skills will really be beneficial for me next year and I should have a little more free time (and energy) to blog about it all, now that I’m post quals!

Lizzy