Running the San Francisco Marathon

Notes 5 Responses »
Aug 202010

It all started with an injury. When my body breaks down, I have to adapt. I need to push myself; I am always trying to figure out what I can achieve. Back in March, I dislocated my shoulder at the beginning of a week-long road trip. Getting hurt on the third climb of the trip was devastating.  I felt like dead weight and needed to figure out how to stay psyched and happy for the rest of the trip, to keep my sanity and that of those around me.

The year before, after a finger injury, I had spent a few months running. I enjoyed exploring the roads around my house and competed in a handful of trail races.  I like the simplicity of running and the measurable progress. You run a mile, you have a time, you have a feeling of how hard you tried. You run eight miles and that’s going to take you longer than running six miles on the same type of terrain. Best of all, for a novice like me, the more I ran the faster I got.

Running!

Since this was the second time dislocating my shoulder, I  knew it would take four to six months before I would be climbing well again. I needed a non-climbing goal for 2010. Running would allow me to stay fit and even tick something off my life list. Two of my friends from college, Rebecca and Adam, had both run two marathons and we had talked about doing a marathon together. Perhaps I could even convince some other Bucknellians, like Julie and Becki to come. For some reason the obvious choice is to run the Boston Marathon together.  Thus I set about training to run a marathon to qualify for the Boston Marathon in 2011.

The trail runs and races I ran in 2008 and 2009 had maxed out around 17 miles. I previously considered running a marathon but never put in the enough time to build up the necessary mileage. I  started slow and eventually built up to longer and longer runs. My first runs over 12 miles took me a week to really recover. Eventually these became common fare and I stuck with a training schedule and upped the mileage.

The second week of June came around and the plan was for my first 40+ mile week. I had been running between 22 and 38 miles a week (averaging about 28) for the prior six weeks. I had been alternating my long runs between pavement and trails to give my body a break. However come Friday I had already run 22 miles on roads. I ran the first 18 miles were at marathon pace (7 minute miles) before my right knee started hurting. I had to change my stride and I was in a decent amount of pain the final two miles home. Pain had not been a factor in my running so far and I was worried that I had injured something.

Were the last two plus months of training totally useless? I had finally committed to running the San Francisco Marathon and was now unsure that I would finish with a Boston-qualifying time. The pain went away but I was certain that the weekly pounding had been too much for my knees. I took a week off, focused more on climbing and started putting in the majority of my training on trails. The trails that I ran, in Rancho San Antonio, Foothills, Skyline and other parks, really kicked my ass. I enjoy trying to push the pace and couldn’t run quickly up the big hills. I stuck with it and I’m sure this training helped on the hills of San Francisco.

July quickly ticked by and I was able to return to a regular running schedule without much knee pain. I got in a solid final three weeks plus  taper before the marathon and picked up a pair of the lightweight Saucony Kinvara shoes. I wanted every advantage I could get and a 15 mile road run had me sold on the lightweight kicks.

Checking the pace.

In order to qualify for the Boston Marathon, I would have to finish under three hours and ten minutes. This translates to 7 minute 15 second splits for each mile. I wanted to be comfortable finishing under 3:10 so my goal pace became 7:00 which would be around a 3:03 marathon. A few extra minutes would allow me to take a bathroom break if necessary. I had been using handheld water bottle on my training runs and knew it would also take additional time to get water from the aid stations. During my training I had run most of my mileage between 6:20 and 6:50 pace and was confident that I could run 7 minute miles. The number in my mind on race day was 3:05.

On race day morning it was dark and cold at the start line and there were a crazy number of people. I hope it would warm up from the chilly 50 degrees since I was only wearing a T-shirt and shorts. A hand warmer in each hand really helped me for the first ten miles. For nutrition I had 3 GU’s, two packs of Shot Blocks and 5- hour energy bottle.  I drank an FRS energy when I got up, in addition to 10 oz or so of Gatorade. I barely made it out of the bathrooms at 5:28 which gave me enough time to jog over to the start line for Wave Two, which started ahead of schedule (5:30 instead of 5:32). My warm-up was the mile or so down hill from our hotel to the start line. Despite the crazy atmosphere of my first race with thousands of people, I felt totally ready when the gun went off.

The start was pretty surreal and I worked my way through the throngs of people running down the closed street along the San Francisco Bay. My plan was to make sure to warm-up slowly and run about 7:05 pace for the first many miles. This worked out well and the toughest part of the day was the long climb up to the Golden Gate bridge. I charged and was pretty tired by the time I had finished the hill and was running across the bridge. Once I hit the aid station at the end of the bridge I started feeling pretty good and kicked up the pace. I happily enjoyed the down hill and was at the aid station at mile 11 in no time.

I had a guy running on my heels for the most of the last 11 miles and he had followed my every stride, pass and so on. It was cool to be running with someone for that distance and it was reassuring to see him when I would glance back. I had been using the same technique and was chasing a runner ahead of me trying to match his pace. We chatted a little before the guy behind me broke off for the half marathon finish. I was on my own for a while going downhill through Golden Gate Park before running with a guy from Illinois (I think). He told me he had run 3:06 in Chicago and I said I was hoping to be on pace for 3:05. It was good to have some company, but I felt strong and lost him on the big hill section from mile 12 through 17. At this point there were not that many people ahead of me so I was pretty much on my own.

Chatting with a half marathon runner.

I was still feeling good and took my 5-hour energy at mile 18 below the deYoung museum. It was really fun to be running on familiar road from my Mom’s visit earlier in the year.  It was a big relief to be done with all of the hills and I just had to keep it together for the last 8+ miles. My legs were getting tired but I was right on pace having run 1:31:44 at the halfway mark and 2:20:09 at Mile 20. My core was also starting to tire and the steep hill at mile 20 was pretty rough. I think I started hitting the wall around mile 22, which had a short hill, and was running as hard as I could until mile 24.

The city seemed pretty empty on the Sunday morning with all of the streets blocked off and I felt lonely. The guy I had been trying to follow/catch had disappeared and I couldn’t match pace with the three or four guys that passed me. The occasional band or cheering group made me smile as I suffered through the last few miles. My pace for the last 10k had dropped by over 17 seconds per mile compared to the rest of the race. As I passed by AT&T Stadium, a guy passed me and gave some encouraging words which helped my final “kick”. I could see the Bay Bridge getting closer and I knew I would be done soon enough!

I was overcome with happiness and relief as I came across the finish line in 3:05:29. I had made it under 3:10 and had only been 29 seconds slower than my goal time. The continuous exertion had really taken it out of me and I happily accepted food and a space blanket to combat the chilly morning. I was in a daze and don’t even remember getting my photo taken after the finish line. I sat down, drank some water, and tried to eat some food. I was so sweaty that I instantly got a chill and my teeth were chattering.

Luke is so dazed from finishing that he doesn't even remember this photo being taken.

I waited around for the two friends who I had shared a hotel with and we all went out for lunch at the very trendy Brenda’s in San Francisco. We waited over two hours to eat with our group of 8, but the beignets were amazing and just being inside and warm was a big plus, making the wait well worthwhile.

Back in the South Bay, I iced and drank fluids for the rest of the day. I tried to climb about a week later, but my system was not ready for any kind of exertion.  All of my clothing worked well during the race and the only chafing I got was on the back side of my armpits. I had laughed when my friend had applied body glide like deodorant… oops.

I think the best thing about running this Marathon was the amount of planning, training, and hard work that went into a single performance. I’ve worked hard for climbs before but I’ve never spent four months pursuing a single goal. It was stressful and sometimes I didn’t want to go out and run. My body was sore, I was climbing poorly, and I wasn’t always getting faster. Having a routine really helped me get out and run. I usually ran two or three days a week and never ran more than 20 miles. I think in the future I can prepare better and plan on sticking to the trails for any runs over 18 miles.

I’m committed to running Boston Marathon next spring and hopefully a few friends will be joining me there. I’ll be doing another cycle of training in the winter since I think I can run under three hours on a faster course. For right now I am happy to be climbing and my next running project is to gain some speed.

Thanks for reading along!

- Luke

Posted by lstefurak at 10:10 am Tagged with: , , ,

Lizzy Goes to Africa

Notes No Responses »
Jul 182010

Over the past few years Lizzy has been lucky enough to travel and examine old interesting rocks in different places around the world.  She’s spent time in Death Valley, Bishop, Hawaii, Western Australia and now South Africa. Despite all the time spent looking at rocks these trips usually don’t include any climbing. So no side trip to Rocklands for Lizzy this year.

hawaii-march-09-351

A fresh lava flow in Hawaii

These field sessions are a necessary part of Lizzy’s, and most geologists, academic work since you need to have a solid understanding of how the rocks were formed and their surrounding environment. Her interest in old, were talking Billions of years, rocks requires finding a suitable area and taking samples in a location where those rocks are exposed. This years trip is a short one and her first to this field area so Lizzy will be back in early August.

You can check out some of her older trips under the geology tag or read over this report on being a  geologist:

My Life as a Geologist

In the mean time Lizzy has written up some content to tide everyone over while she is away. The most recent is a guest blog over at The Clymb. Lizzy and I are all about getting sweet gear at good prices and this site offers just that. The Clymb rotates through different brands and offers sale prices during a certain number of days. Lizzy was able to nab a sweet 2XU triathlon suit on the Clymb and has been using it in her recent multi-sport races (post coming next week!).

You can read her guest blog here:
http://theclymb.com/blog/2010/07/why-i-climb-cracks/

If you want acess to the Clymb you need an invite since it’s Members Only.
http://www.theclymb.com/invite-from/LukeStefurak

(If you click above you get $10 for signing up and I get $10 if you buy something)

Enjoy!

- Luke

Posted by Lizzy at 8:00 am Tagged with: , , ,

Physical and Mental Training

Notes, Tips 5 Responses »
May 142010

DISCLAIMER! I’m not an expert and most of this information has been compiled from various online sources. It is very important to listen to your body when pushing one’s limits. Make sure to check out the list of resources at the bottom of this post for more detailed information.

Hangboarding:

At the start of 2010 I got interested in doing cycles of formalized training. The idea was to train in 4-6 week intervals with various focuses and peak around the end of April or early May for an attempt on Freerider. My friend Stein had worked through this process in the Fall by following the advice of the “Rockprodigy” training program on RockClimbing.com written by Mike Anderson. Starting in a new gym back in January (Planet Granite Sunnyvale), I had no partners which made choosing training over climbing easier. For two and half weeks I did hangboard workouts during my on days and core workouts on my off days. There was an occasional weekend climbing trip or weekday climbing session but the vast majority of my time was spent hanging.

Hangboarding at Planet Granite

After meeting a few people at Planet Granite, I started getting bored and experimented with doing a bit of climbing and a bit of hangboarding during the week. To maximize my fun I would climb one day, hangboard the next day, take a day or two off, and repeat. This worked well enough – I was able to enjoy some climbing while making my fingers stronger on the hangboard – and I saw improvement. I attempted to hangboard the same day as climbing but was too tired to complete a full workout. At the end of this cycle, I took advantage of a mini peak during Presidents’ Day weekend at Bishop. I felt much stronger on small holds and, despite feeling tired from all the work in the gym, I sent many old projects.

Using a pulley and counterweight to reduce the stress on my fingers.

A training session on the hang board would go as follows: Start by traversing for 10 – 15 min and then do another 10-15 minutes of light bouldering to fully warm up my fingers. It was essential to avoid a lasting pump during the warm-up since it would ruin my training session. During my first hangboard sessions I would hang for 10 seconds, rest for 10 seconds totalling 1 minute 30 seconds and then I would rest for a minute and a half and repeat. In order to hang that long I was using a pulley system to reduce the weight on my fingers. The first few weeks I had the equivalent of 50 pounds pulling up on my harness. After some more reading, I changed my workout to 10 seconds on/off but only for 1 minute 10 seconds with a 2 minute rest. This seemed to work better and I needed to remove less weight. I would start with a large open hand edge and work through seven grip positions: 4 finger open, 4 finger full crimp, 3 finger open, 3 finger full crimp, 4 finger half crimp, 3 finger open (sloping edge), and then a set of pinches. I was concerned about injury, so I avoided all 2 finger grip positions.

Campus board at Bucknell.

Campusing:

The point of periodized training is to work through specific styles of training that build over a longer period to produce a large peak. After 5 or 6 weeks of hangboarding, I was supposed to transition to campusing. Bad weather, a crappy outdoor campus board at Planet Granite and new motivated partners made me lose focus. I had some lingering finger pain since Bishop and I did not want campusing to result in major injury. I had been reading Lee Cujes and Dave MacLeod’s blogs and they suggested that most climbers need to focus more on technical climbing skills and less on campusing. I decided to follow this well timed advice since it came from solid sources.  Dave and Lee are quite knowledgeable, work as climbing coaches and have climbed 5.14. They discussed that technical skills are often where people fail to improve after many years of climbing. Focusing on power does not always help one become a better climber, just a stronger one. The point was further driven home a few weeks later when I was fooling around at the gym and noticed one of the better climbers campusing. I went over to the board and was shocked that he could not do the standard 1-4-7 that I could do. This helped remind me that there is more to being a “strong” climber than campusing.

Power Endurance Training:

I decided to keep with my cycles and spend the next month or so doing “power endurance” training. Since this is one of my main weaknesses, I knew that I would benefit from targeted training. When I boulder I may struggle to complete a hard move, but I usually suffer on routes due to a lack of endurance. I can frequently do the crux of a route from a hang but run out of energy on redpoint attempts.

My training for this cycle consisted of large volumes of back to back climbing. This has meant numerous 4×4′s or larger bouldering sets as well as climbing up to four routes in a row without rest. When setting up a 4×4, I chose four challenging boulder problems that I could do first or second try. Problems in a concentrated area are best since you want to finish a problem, jump down, and start the next problem as soon as possible. I would typically climb the four problems in 2-3 minutes of concentrated effort, rest for 3-5 minutes and then do another set. If you gauge the difficulty right you will fall on the last couple of moves of the 3rd and 4th problem on the last of your four sets.

Campus training in at Wind Gap in PA

Mental Training

A big part of doing lots of problems or routes back-to-back is learning how to deal with pump and to keep climbing when I don’t feel 100%. When I am fresh, I feel in control and am willing to try harder, but fear often makes me unwilling to try harder moves when I’m tired. Learning my limits and working at the edge of my ability allows me to make more informed decisions while route climbing. I am working towards having the mental fitness to try difficult moves on lead even if I don’t feel totally solid. I am trying to learn to relax when the fall is safe and focus on my breathing and movement, holding on with the minimum amount of energy instead of wasting energy being “gripped”.

I think that learning to deal with fear and being able to redpoint routes at one’s limit is something every climber could benefit from. While climbing is obviously both a mental and physical challenge, I think many people often forget that they can benefit from mental training. I know personally that I will see the largest gains by becoming stronger and smarter mentally and being more relaxed. I believe it is important to find the ideal balance between wanting to send a climb and adding extra pressure by “needing” to send the climb. I have already tried to step back from needing success and this has been productive. Although it can be a challenge, I think that finding a relaxed mental state while maintaining excitement for my project is key.

Various pull-up bars in my old house in Maryland.

Mental training can be just as cyclic as physical training. For me, some of this comes naturally based on the seasons of the year. Cold weather is better for skiing or ice climbing than suffering on the rock, while the long hours of the summer make me enthusiastic for long alpine climbs. Doing what I’m psyched on is important for me to help prevent burnout. I am trying to be smarter by working on the things I struggle with, which will hopefully help me become a more confident and cool-headed climber.

Since training and mind games are applicable to all types of climbing – trad, sport, and bouldering – I’d love to hear some stories or tips from our readers.

I’ll hopefully be doing a follow up with a more of a physiological look at the different types of fitness.

- Luke

Links:

http://usa.moonclimbing.com/school-room-c-334.html – Ben Moon, Richard Simpson, Malcom Smith and others from the UK

http://climbstrong.wordpress.com/ – Steve Bechtel

http://steve-edwards.blogspot.com/ – Steve Edwards

http://onlineclimbingcoach.blogspot.com/ – Dave MacLeod

http://upskillclimbing.blogspot.com/ – Lee Cujes

http://gravsports.blogspot.com/ – Will Gadd

http://mattmccormickclimbing.blogspot.com/2010/03/tolerance.html – Matt McCormick

http://www.increasingthecalibre.com/2010/03/how-to-ruin-training-facility.html – Nizza Grandpouce

http://kellycordes.wordpress.com/2010/03/18/training-%E2%80%93-adaptation-motivation/ – Kelly Cordes

t the start of 2010 I got interested in doing cycles of formalized training. The idea was to train in 4-6 week intervals with various focuses and peak around the end of April or early May for an attempt on Freerider. My friend Stein had worked through this process in the fall by following the advice of the “Rockprodigy” training program on RockClimbing.com written by Mike Anderson. Starting in a new gym back in January (Planet Granite Sunnyvale), I had no partners which made choosing training over climbing easier. For two and half weeks I did hangboard workouts during my on days and core workouts on my off days. There was an occasional weekend climbing trip or weekday climbing session but the vast majority of my time was spent hanging.

After meeting a few people at Planet Granite, I started getting bored and experimented with doing a bit of climbing and a bit of hangboarding during the week. To maximize my fun I would climb one day, hangboard the next day, take a day or two off, and repeat. This worked well enough – I was able to enjoy some climbing while making my fingers stronger on the hangboard – and I saw improvement. I attempted to hangboard the same day as climbing but was too tired to complete a full hangboard workout. At the end of this cycle, I took advantage of a mini peak during Presidents’ Day weekend at Bishop. I felt much stronger on small holds and, despite feeling tired from all the work in the gym, I sent many old projects.

A training session on the hang board would go as follows: Warm-up up by traversing for 10 – 15 min and then do another 10-15 minutes of light bouldering to warm up my fingers. It was essential to avoid a lasting pump during the warm-up since it would ruin my training session. During my first hangboard sessions I would hang for 10 seconds, rest for 10 seconds totalling 1 minute 30 seconds and then I would rest for a minute and a half and repeat. In order to hang that long I was using a pulley system to reduce the weight on my fingers. The first few weeks I had the equivalent of 50 pounds pulling up on my harness. After some more reading, I changed my workout to 10 seconds on/off but only for 1 minute 10 seconds with a 2 minute rest. This seemed to work better and I needed to remove less weight. I would start with a large open hand edge and work through seven grip positions: 4 finger open, 4 finger full crimp, 3 finger open, 3 finger full crimp, 4 finger half crimp, 3 finger open (sloping edge), and then a set of pinches. I was concerned about injury, so I avoided 2 finger grip positions.

Campusing:

The point of periodized training is to work through specific styles of training that build over a longer period to produce a large peak. After 5 or 6 weeks of hangboarding I was supposed to transition to campusing. Bad weather, a crappy outdoor campus board and new motivated partners made me lose focus. I had some lingering finger pain since Bishop and I did not want campusing to result in major injury. I had been reading Lee Cujes and Dave MacLeod’s blogs and they suggested climbers need to focus more on technical climbing skills and less on campusing. This advice was well timed and came from solid sources.  Dave and Lee are climbing coaches and have climbed 5.14. They discussed that technical skills are often where people fail to improve after many years of climbing. Focusing on power does not always help one become a better climber, just a stronger one. The point was further driven home a few weeks later when I was fooling around at the gym and noticed one of the better climbers campusing. I went over to the board and was shocked that he could not do the standard 1-4-7 that I could do. This helped remind me that there is more to being “strong” than campusing.

Posted by lstefurak at 11:19 am Tagged with: , , , , ,

Climbing Blog Photography

Notes, Tips 5 Responses »
May 042010

Luke and I read a lot of climbing blogs. Well, Luke reads a lot of blogs, and I skim blogs until I find one that I actually want to read. Quite often, this will involve awesome photos of climbing that make me want to read the words that go with them. I probably miss a lot of well-written, awesome blogs because I skip over them (what can I say, I only have so much time). As a result, we make an effort to have cool, exciting photos in our blogs. And this is pretty much impossible unless we think about taking good photos while we’re at the crag. So this blog is about some techniques we use to take good climbing photos.

First, a disclaimer: we are by no means expert climbing photographers, and not all our climbing photos are awesome. But the idea of this post was suggested by a friend and I figured it couldn’t hurt to share the tips and tricks we use to improve on butt shot climbing photography.

Work with your angles

In order to take good photos, you have to put in some effort. Don’t just stand next to the belayer and point your camera up at the climber. Take advantage of the topography – if you can gain a little elevation by walking along the cliffline, do so to try to get a side-on view of the climber. Scramble onto ledges (be safe) or boulders. If you’re bouldering, photos looking down on the climber from the top of the boulder can turn out really great. Whatever you do, don’t be static: move around and try out a lot of different angles. After a while, you will start to develop more intuition about which angles work, but sometimes the best way to start is just experiment.

Another great trick is to take pictures from another routes. This often requires extra effort, but it can really pay off in the long end. If you have a toprope on a route and a friend is climbing a route next to it (especially if he/she is leading), being up on the rock can really give you the angles you need.

This is an awesome route, but the angle isn't doing much for the photo.

Getting some height by TRing an adjacent route allowed Luke to get a great angle of Maddy.

Think about the light

I think a major problem with a lot of amateur climbing photos (including ours) is overexposed or blown-out pictures. Let’s face it, we like climbing in beautiful, warm, sunny weather and this often means very bright, harsh light that’s not too nice on our photos. Take advantage of cloudy or shady conditions when the light is less harsh. If you’re climbing in the shade on a bright, sunny day, try frame your photo so all the frame is shade so you don’t have the harsh contrast.

Here the cloudy sky in the upper left corner is way too bright.

This different angle eliminates the brightness of the sky.

The face can tell a story

Part of the reason butt shots are so unfulfilling is that you often miss the most expressive part of your climber – the face. Sometimes the expression on a person’s face can really tell a story – terrified, elated, in the zone – all these things make a climbing photo way more interesting in my opinion. So snap lots of photos and pay attention to where the climber’s face is. If you can get a different angle on the climber so you see his/her face more often, then try. For example, it can be hard to catch someone’s face when he/she is climbing in a dihedral, but, depending on the orientation of the dihedral, he/she may be way more likely to look in one direction.

Check out that face! (This photo could be even more awesome if Konstantin was wearing a nice green shirt, though)

Use the rule of thirds

This is a pretty basic rule of photography, but it’s amazing how much it can improve your photos. I think a lot of people (including myself) often automatically center the subject (usually the climber) in the frame and click. This is a no-no. If you imagine dividing your frame into thirds vertically and horizontally, try placing your subject on one of these lines. It might feel weird, but it often makes your photo a lot more visually interesting. This also works for landscapes – instead of putting the horizon or the cliffline in the middle of the frame, line it up 1/3 of the way through. If you don’t actually manage to do this in your original photos, you can always crop your photo afterwards.

This photo does not follow the rule of thirds...

This photo follows the rule of thirds.

Eliminate clutter

There’s often a lot going on in a climbing scene that can be really distracting in a photo. When bouldering, get your friends to move their stuff (bags, shoes, water bottles) out of the background so you can just have climber, boulder, pads, and spotters. When shooting routes, try to use an angle that will eliminate clutter at the base of the cliff. Try to keep other climbers’ ropes out of the frame.

Wear colors

A little color on the climber can go a long way to improving a photo. Stay away from black, white, grey, or tan and choose brilliant colors like blue, green, or red. As nice as it is to climb shirtless, make the climber wear a shirt. Skin colors often blend in to the rock, or the ground, while color cause the climber to pop. Red can be great when you’re climbing somewhere with a lot of green, like the Pacific Northwest (think trees), and blue often works well when you’re climbing on orange-y rock (like the sandstone of Indian Creek).

This photo would be better if Luke was wearing a nice bright shirt instead of this grey one.

The blue sleeves of Lizzy's shirt contrast nicely with the rock.

Get a bigger memory card

Part of getting good shots means taking A LOT of photos. The more you take, the more likely you’ll find some real winners, or at least something you can work with. Use different orientations, different compositions, different angles. It’s often hard to tell what’s working on the little screen on your camera (I’m often surprised at how things turn out when I get them on the computer). You don’t want to be limited by your memory card. This also allows you to shoot in better quality (or shoot in RAW), which often means you’ll have a lot more to work with when you get back home (i.e. the next category). Memory is getting pretty cheap these days and if you ever want to try to shoot video with your camera, then you’ll almost definitely be glad to have the extra space.

Don’t be afraid to edit your photos

Before you post just any photo on your blog, look at it with a critical eye. You can improve its composition by cropping it, or deal with too dark or too blown out issues by adjusting brightness and contrast. You can get your colors to pop a little more – make the lichen more yellow, the climber’s shirt more brilliant, the trees more green, or the sunset more saturated. Don’t go over the top, but a few minor tweaks can go a long way to make your photos more eye-catching. One thing that doesn’t work particularly well (in my experience) is trying to use “sharpen” tools to make up for poor focus, so choose images that are already well-focused.

This is a decent photo, but it doesn't really draw your eye to the climber.

Cropping this photo (rule of thirds!)and playing with the colors helps focus on the climber (again, Lizzy should have worn a colored shirt).

Don’t be afraid to break the rules, sometimes

Climbing photography is a learning process. We’re constantly pouring over our photos from the weekend, trying to learn what worked and what didn’t. As you learn more, you’ll find lots of situations when the rules should be broken. So, keep the guidelines in mind, but don’t be afraid to experiment!

That’s about it for now. If you have any other good tips to share with other amateur climbing photographers like us, feel free to leave them in a comment below.

Lizzy

Posted by Lizzy at 11:07 am Tagged with: , ,

Crag Safety – What Would You Do?

Notes 30 Responses »
Apr 122010

We had an interesting situation our last day at Smith Rock that I thought it might be interesting and informative to share and get people’s opinions on. Before I jump into my little narrative, the basic question is this:

If you are cragging and you see people doing something that is pretty clearly unsafe, what do you do? How do you tell them that you think they are being unsafe, especially you suspect they’ll be unreceptive to any sort of admonition? If you have any sort of professional (e.g. AMGA) training in climbing, should it be your responsibility to tell them, even if it probably won’t make them change anything they’re doing?

Alrighty, so, keeping those questions in mind, here was the situation:

We arrived at the Cinnamon Slab area to meet John and Emily, with the idea of SK teaching Emily some climbing basics (TR and lead belaying, etc.). It was a weekend, and it was pretty crowded, although we were easily able to climb when we wanted to. There was a group of people at the crag – a couple adults, some older teens (I think), and some younger teens. I think some of them may have been associated with some sort of community organization (e.g. along the lines of Campfire, Boy Scouts, etc.).

They had decided to climb Ginger Snap, a bolted 5.8 next to Cinnamon Slab that can be tricky if you don’t realize that you can step to the left or right of the bolt line. While we were setting up, I think the adults (two men in around their 40s, I think) were trying to lead the climb, but couldn’t get past the third bolt. Then one of the younger guys (older teens, or maybe early 20s) went up to try to get further. I later learned that this was his first time trying to lead (ever). He couldn’t get further, either, and was hanging a lot, and the two older men were having trouble holding him, since he was a pretty big dude. A non-ideal situation, but nothing non-safe has happened yet. Just your typical newbie climber epic.

I guess at some point they gave up on trying to get to the top of the route and decided that the rest of their group could just toprope the first section. It’s at this point when sketchiness begins, because they proceed to REMOVE the first two (of three) quickdraws so that their TR set up involves ONE quickdraw on ONE bolt as their anchor. Now, I know quickdraws and bolts usually don’t fail, especially while toproping, but I would still consider this to be an unnecessarily unsafe situation.

They proceeded to toprope in this manner, sending their (even more) beginner climbers up, and telling them, that they could keep going if they could get past the 3rd bolt (although these climbers obviously had no leading experience, and they didn’t send them with QDs to clip the additional bolts). This goes on until another party rapping off Cinnamon Slab offers to clean their (single quickdraw) “anchor” since they are pretty obviously incapable of doing it themselves.

Now comes the tricky part – what do we do about it? I did nothing, for several (maybe not so good) reasons:

  1. I am female, and only 22 (and I’m sure I look younger to most people) and despite the fact that I’ve been climbing for 8+ years and have worked (a little) as a guide, I don’t think the leader dudes (the men in their 40s) would have paid attention to anything I had to say about safety.
  2. All the dudes in the group were acting very confident and self-assured, instructing the girls on the correct belay communication (so obviously they have been TR-belay certified in a gym, although not necessarily any further training than that), such that they seemed like they would be particularly unreceptive.
  3. I’m pretty non-confrontational and telling them that they were being unsafe, in this situation, seemed like it would escalate into a confrontation.

No one else at the crag said anything to the group, either, which I assume is a combination of:

  1. Not noticing.
  2. Noticing but not realizing there was an issue (it’s a beginner crag, after all).
  3. Noticing, but doing anything about it, because other climbers’ safety is not anyone else’s responsibility.

And now I ask: Is it anyone else’s responsibility? What would you have done? What do you think is the best way to deal with situations like these?

Lizzy

Posted by Lizzy at 10:29 am Tagged with: ,

Rainy Weekend Activities

News, Notes 1 Response »
Mar 032010

As we’ve said before, it’s been an unusually rainy winter here in the Bay Area, which is not so good for climbing. However, believe it or not, there are other things to do besides climbing when the weather is not cooperating. This past weekend was another one of those non-ideal weather weekends.

Since we weren’t headed somewhere far away to climb on Friday night, we decided to check out the Planet Granite Friction Series comp at PG Sunnyvale. While the idea of a route climbing comp is awesome (because I think I’m proportionally much better at routes than boulder problems), it seems like the massive crowds are an issue that makes route comps not translate as well from elite level to the citizen level as bouldering comps do. In fact, since I got started a little late, I only had time get on 3 routes in the ~2.5 hours I had (it was 3 hours long, but I got there a little late and did a few warmups first). I did manage to tie with 4 other ladies for 2nd place in womens’ advanced, which I was a little bummed about (if I had more time to get back on either of the routes I didn’t flash, I’m pretty sure I could have improved my score). Oh well. Next time I know to get there and warmup way before the official comp starts so I can maximize my time to wait in lines…

Luke did pretty well in the comp, too, because mens open had a ton of strong dudes, taking huge whippers.

Anyways, it was interesting experience and I’m interested to get back to the gym and see what they ended up grading the comp routes I tried (I, of course, have some strong opinions about what they should be graded).

Given the forecasts for precipitation on Friday and Saturday, we decided that skiing was the thing to for the weekend. A real skiing weekend, not just a weekend of snowboarding that we end up calling a “skiing” weekend. Which meant Luke was getting back on skis for the first time in a long time and I was trying skiing for the first time. Impressively enough, we both had our own ski set-ups, so we didn’t have to rent anything.

Look, we have skis!

I wasn’t really sure how I was going to do at skiing, since, when I was learning to snowboard, most of my friends were also switching to snowboarding because they said skiing was harder. After trying skiing, I’m not sure what they were talking about – it feels so much more natural for me to be facing downhill, to not have my feet attached to the same board, and to get poles to help me balance (plus its easy to get off the lift!). I’m not a good skier yet by any means, but it all felt so intuitive. Anyways, I’m psyched to practice more next season (isn’t it climbing season now?) and get good enough to start tagging along on backcountry ski trips.

I'm skiing!

Heading down to try out a blue run.

Luke enjoyed getting back on skis too, although I guess he didn’t get as lucky with his ski boots as I did (mine are really comfortable!). He played around in the trees and powder on the sides of runs, while I stuck to the groomers to practice my turns on a smoother surface.

Luke likes skiing too :)

I guess it’s pretty uncommon to switch from snowboarding to skiing, but it seems like skis are so much more logical any sort of backcountry endeavor (and, it turns out, skis feel more natural to me anyways, so I’m so glad I tried). I know a snowboard can be really awesome in fresh powder, but there’s so much terrain where it’s not so fun… flat stuff, moguls… What do you think about the skiing/boarding debate? Which is more fun in more conditions? Which is better for backcountry?

I think I’m gonna stick with skiing for now, cause it was just so much fun!

Posted by Lizzy at 6:00 am Tagged with: , , , ,

2010 Winter Update

Notes 6 Responses »
Feb 042010

It’s been ages since I have posted on the blog. More than 4 weeks. Not to say I haven’t written anything but it hasn’t gone “live”. In NorCal, El Nino is in full effect and we have been getting slammed with “bad” weather. By that I only mean highs in the 50’s and a bunch of rain. Nothing really worthy of complaining about but I’ve been spoiled by year round sun in San Diego and temps in the 60’s and sunny.

Lizzy has been quite busy with her first year of grad school. Endless hours of reading, and hard work has kept her from writing. School takes up much time coupled with climbing many nights a week and the occasional skiing or climbing trip on the weekends. All of Lizzy’s work seems to have paid off since her first paper that she submitted in December as been recommended for publication (pending revisions)! On top of this Lizzy has started running in prep for Triathlon season which she plans on participating in this coming year. Much effort has gone into researching and trying out Triathlon bikes which have a different geometry for the “aero” position. Expect a few Triathlon trip reports in the spring.

Anyone who knows me or reads this blog can tell that I like climbing. I like talking about it, reading about it and most importantly doing it. Beyond just going climbing I like performing well and pushing my self. I often feel the need to feed my ego and work on things I enjoy and am good at. So far this year I am taking a first step towards becoming a better/smarter climber. Over the last three years I have improved simply by attempting hard problems and routes at the gym and outside. This process is not very systematic but slowly made my body stronger.

In 2010 I decided that I wanted to try a formalized training cycle. I have heard good things about Periodization and I have a few obvious weaknesses that I would like to improve upon. My routine is taken from Mike Anderson’s “Making of a Rockprodigy” with a few changes. In addition to just getting stronger I want to actively work on my weaknesses. I fail most often when I cannot hold onto a small hold compared to failing due to pump on a large hold.

Tommy Caldwell on Golden Gate (Photo by Lincoln Else from Alpinist.com)

So far I have seen instant improvement which is very motivating since I have sacrificed climbing time to train. It is hard for me to go to the gym and not climb the many new routes so I have been cheating a bit which has most likely lessened the effectiveness of the hangboarding.

The real motivation for formal training comes from a series of goals. Last year my friend and climbing partner, Stein, was doing a regimented training cycle. These cycles require a lot of psyche and persistence and hopefully a goal in mind. His goal, which became my goal as well, was to free climb El Capitan. This has been in the back of my mind for a while but having a psyched partner brought it to center stage.

Tommy Caldwell on the Monster Offwidth of Freerider (Photo from Rock Climbing.com)

In addition to free climbing El Capitan, I want to work on some of the other multipitch free routes in the Valley. I have two partners lined up for the spring and fall to free climb Half Dome. My expectation is to take a first trip up in early June to check out the hike, climb all the pitches and understand the logistics. I want to climb the route in a day so I expect to bivy at the base, possibly twice. Then in the fall, with a good understanding of the Regular route I hope to go back and free it.

Quantum Mechanic Topo from Alpinist.com

I hope to use these routes as stepping stones for some of the 5.13 multipitches in the Valley. I have my eye on Golden Gate, seen above, the West Face of the Leaning Tower, shown in the video below and possibly Quantum Mechanic on the Washington Column.

These three routes are goals that go beyond 2010 but leave me something to dream about and keep shooting for. I have a lot of work to do in order to gain the fitness for these routes but I hope that I will have a productive 2010 climbing in the valley and learn more tricks for climbing hard big walls.

Lynn Hill and Katie Brown on the West Face of the Leaning Tower. Video via Patagonia

Thanks for stopping by and being patient with us at DreamInVertical.

Lizzy and I expect to have more posts in the coming month including a few Sweet Gear Reviews.

Cheers,

Luke

Posted by lstefurak at 4:42 pm Tagged with: , , , , ,

Reflections on 2009

Notes 6 Responses »
Dec 312009

As the year comes to a close and climbing trips seem a bit less frequent, I feel it is important to reflect.

As a climber I like to focus on progress and usually push myself to increase my abilities.  While I have been climbing for about ten years, I have only been setting goals for the last five. I have most of these written down in various word documents and it is interesting to look back and see where I was at.

Was a certain level of climbing intimidating? Did I tend to try only a particular style of routes? What was my most proud accomplishment of the year?

Lizzy had a good idea to put events in chronological order to make everything more readable. Here are some of my important events of 2009.

  • Pinky finger pulley rupture at the climbing gym.
  • Strained ring finger  bouldering on pockets in Bishop.
  • Competed in my first trail races since high school (25k, 15k, and 22k).
  • Had a very fun and relaxing trip to Indian Creek. (No grade chasing)
  • Regained bouldering strength and met up with college friends in Joe’s Valley, Utah.

On Planet of the Apes in Joe’s Valley

  • Climbed a number of diverse 5.11’s in Joshua Tree.
  • Continued improving and took a first trip to Zion and onsighted all but one pitch of my first 5.12 multi-pitch, Sheer Lunacy.
  • Climbed Vahalla at Suicide Rock. (Stonemaster!)
  • Got taught a lesson in fear and footwork at Smith Rock.
  • Started off a great alpine season with an ascent of Positive Vibrations on the 4th of July.
  • Climbed two awesome 5.11+ bolted multipitches, The Cathedral Route at Mount Charleston and The Megaplex in Pine Creek Canyon.
  • Continued alpine climbing all summer and brought Lizzy to the Hulk to finish off the pitches I had missed on Positive Vibrations.

On the Incredible Hulk with Lizzy!

  • Did a new 5 pitch route on Mt Langley and a new finish variation on the Keyhole Wall. (Yeah first ascents)
  • Had an amazing trip to the Needles and climbed Atlantis and Spook Book!
  • Re-climbed The Vampire at Tahquitz and stepped it up by leading The Flakes and following Stairway to Heaven.
  • Climbed my first Yosemite 5.11 (The Tube) and 5.12 (Underclingon).
  • Started training for Freerider by climbing the Free Blast.

Climbing high on El Capitan

  • Climbed the Original route on Rainbow Wall with one take. Likely my best single day of climbing all year.
  • Climbed El Capitan via Freerider over 4 days. Free climbed almost 75% of the pitches.
  • Had an amazing trip to Indian Creek and climb my first handful of 5.12 crack routes.
  • Finished the year in Sunnyvale ready for more trips to the Valley.

I think the most important thing this year has been a change in attitude. In the past I have been bent on doing things in a particular style. Climbing onsight and not wanting to get on climbs that I couldn’t do first try. This limited me mentally and I wouldn’t push myself as far as possible. This year my positive relaxed attitude really helped a lot and my climbing has noticeably improved.

I really hope to get in to a good routine in 2010 with more regimented training to prepare for climbing El Cap again as well as finding a few hard projects to keep me motivated.

Happy New Year’s Eve!

-   Luke

Posted by lstefurak at 11:21 am Tagged with: , , , , ,

2009 – A Milestone Year

Notes 6 Responses »
Dec 292009

The year is drawing to a close and I’ve begun to realize that, even though I didn’t allow myself to literally write down a list of goals for the year (I find this just results in too much pressure and disappointment…), I did in fact have a bunch of goals and I accomplished a big number of them. In fact, I hit some pretty big milestones this year. So without further ado, here are the highlights (in chronological order):

  • First time: pulling a chest muscle by coughing too much. And then taking 2+ months to recover.
  • Onsighted my first Indian Creek 5.11, Rump Roast II. After several months of not climbing because I had pulled a chest muscle.
  • Turned 21.
  • Accepted as a PhD student in geology at Stanford.
  • Awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.
  • Ran my longest ever trail race: 22k in Malibu.

  • First time: in Zion, and first time on a multipitch free route in Zion – Sheer Lunacy.
  • Graduated from Caltech with a B.S. in Geology.

  • Returned to Smith Rock after not visiting for almost 5 years.
  • First time: onsighting 5.11d (or sending any 5.11d, for that matter) – my dream route, Sunshine Dihedral.
  • Returned to Squamish, one of my favorite areas to climb, and finally sent Crime of the Century, right before onsighting Yorkshire Gripper.
  • Moved to Palo Alto, started climbing at Planet Granite Sunnyvale.
  • First: duathlon. Competed in the Luna Bar Women’s Duathlon at the Luna Bar Women’s Triathlon Festival: 2mi run, 20mi bike, 4mi run.

  • Met Sarah Kate, my awesome climbing partner. :)
  • Started my first term of grad school at Stanford.
  • Biked to school every single day.
  • Visited Arkansas for the first time, on a geology field trip.
  • First: Climbed my 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Yosemite 5.10s – 2 onsights and a redpoint.
  • First: Climbed my first Yosemite 5.11, the crux pitch of South by Southwest, which I climbed with Sarah Kate.

  • First time: Feeling like I am getting over being cripplingly intimidated of climbing in Yosemite.
  • First time: attending a tweetup: #jtreetweetup!
  • Finally sent Gunsmoke! (First tried it in April 2005)
  • First time: getting the whole week of Thanksgiving off, prompting an awesome trip to Indian Creek.
  • First: 5.11++ onsight in Indian Creek – Quarter of a Man.
  • First: 5.12!!! Swedin-Ringle.

  • First: 5.11+ that felt easy… Coyne Crack.
  • Finished my first term as a grad student at Stanford.
  • First time: living less than 2 hours away from Luke – he moved to Mountain View!
  • Finally met theclimbergirl :)

So, as you can tell, it’s been a great year, in both my lives (as a climber and a geologist). I think 2010 will be a really exciting year as well, as I start to get more involved in my research at school and I continue to train (and hopefully not get injured). Sarah Kate and I have a really big goal for next year in Yosemite, so hopefully that will keep us motivated! Also, Luke got me a triathlon wetsuit for Christmas, yet another reason to start training for a triathlon (or two!) in 2010 – hopefully a sprint distance first and, if all goes well, an Olympic distance.

Happy (almost) new year!

Lizzy

Posted by Lizzy at 8:12 am Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,

Alpine Art by Renan Ozturk

Notes 1 Response »
Nov 112009

I wanted to take a moment to highlight some climbing inspired art. As climbers we travel to amazing places and often return home with just memories. I have tried to take photographs but they do not even start to capture the brilliance and emotion of places I go. I think Renan’s art shows a very interesting perspective of the mountain peaks he has visited. It seems working in the field can help motivate a new artistic method and bring additional character to the pieces. The raw environment of the mountains allows for a unique studio and puts you in touch with the power of nature.

[vimeo 7379877]

Renan shows some of the wild environments where his pieces were created.

[vimeo 7364304]

“Alpine Wonderlands” exhibition in the Max Bell building at the Banff Centre

[vimeo 3075426]

“Samsara” Trailer with Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin and Renan Ozturk trying to climb Meru’s Sharkfin

You can follow Renan’s adventures via his blog or his vimeo account.

Enjoy,

Luke

Posted by lstefurak at 11:59 am Tagged with: , , ,
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