Hueco Tanks, December 2012

Just a few photos from a trip this past December to our favorite bouldering destination, Hueco Tanks.  I'll spare you the detailed trip report, but we had an awesome time once again.  We got to hang out, crush, not crush, freeze to death, run into trouble with the law, and enjoy Christmas (in other words...had a good time)with some of our fellow Ohioans (Aaron, Max, and Dan), their giant friend (Ed), our favorite Canadians (Josh, Regan, Etienne, and the adorable Jade), and a really nice couple that we met from the Atlanta area (Haley and Andrew).  We both sent our projects from last year, and got super close to sending a couple more.  Will definitely try to head back next winter and hopefully make it an annual trip.  Also, I threw together a little video of some of our sends from the trip.  Enjoy!

First Impressions: Mad Rock Shark 2.0

 

Mad Rock Shark 2.0 right out of the box

Climbing shoes are absurdly expensive and it seems like their prices just keep going up.  I'm aware that I could just have my shoes resoled for much cheaper and I actually have had many pairs resoled in the past.  However, after a resole, the shoes just don't feel the same to me anymore.  Maybe I don't give them enough time to break in, maybe it's a mental thing, or maybe the shoes really are a little different?  Well, these days I'm usually too late to have them resoled since I always seem to bust through my shoes mid-season when I don't want to send them in.  Plus, resoling shoes doesn't remove the terrible stink.  So, when the time comes I usually just grab a new pair and give up $150.  Unfortunately, that time has come.  Or maybe it's fortunate since I can try something new?

My first pair of climbing shoes were from Evolv, which were a birthday gift from my cousin who pretty much got me hooked on climbing (thanks Nikko!).  Ever since then I have mainly stuck with Evolv since they seemed to fit my feet pretty well.   I tried a couple pairs of Five Ten's in the past (Anasazis and Dragons) and loved the sticky rubber.  However, the fit in the heel was just terrible for me.  So much air in there and I couldn't heel hook in them for the life of me (although the Jet 7's seem to fit me very well and I actually use them in the gym right now and love 'em, but sadly, their rubber is wearing thin).  Then I got a couple pairs of Mad Rock Super Locos a couple years ago because they were being discontinued and were super cheap.  I loved 'em!  They fit really well, and their rubber wasn't too bad either.  So I alternated back and forth between the Evolvs and Mad Rocks until I put holes in all of them.  Then back to Evolv it was since I knew they fit and I couldn't find a store to try on any of the new Mad Rocks. 

The Talons are my favorite Evolv shoe since they fit pretty well in both the toe and the heel, although I do wish the heel was a little more secure.  In order for the Evolv Shamans to fit, I had to size them down a half size (I believe most size them similarly).  The heel is much more secure with the Shamans, but my toes feel too scrunched and I find that I am unable to toe in as well as I can with the Talons.  Unfortunately I am now starting to bust holes through both of them and I guess it's time for some replacements.  I love my Evolv Talons so I will definitely replace those.  As for the Shamans, I thought about it and almost ordered a pair when for some reason I remembered about my Mad Rock Super Locos.  I browsed the Mad Rock website to see if there was anything that looked interesting and that was when I stumbled upon the Shark 2.0.  I read through all the specs and they looked like a pretty nice shoe, but what hit me was the price tag.  They weren't dirt cheap or anything, but at $120 they were very reasonably priced and I was willing to give them a shot if there was a chance that they would fit my feet as well as the Super Locos did.  I emailed customer service to see how they fit compared to the Super Locos and they said they were very similar.  Sold. 



I received my Mad Rock Shark 2.0's yesterday and so far I have only put them through one gym session warm-up.  My first impressions so far are positive.  They fit really well, almost like a glove.  My toes are comfortably uncomfortable (I don't know if that makes sense?) and the heel is very secure with very little to no dead space.  They are like a cross between the toes of the Talons and the heel of the Super Locos/Shamans.  And that flexible arch thing is really nifty too.  My only concern is with the stretch.  Right now the fit is just about perfect and I am hoping they do not stretch much, if at all.  As for the rubber, I'm not yet sure what to think since they still need some breaking in (and I am not used to wearing a shoe with some actual rubber on the toes...).  I really want to like these shoes but only time will tell.  I'll update this post as I use the shoes more and more and put them through some abuse.  Some more photos of the shoes are below.  Enjoy!
   

*Update (5/21/2013): So it has been a few months since I first posted about the Sharks and since then I have been able to give them some decent mileage in the gym and on some real rock.  I was originally worried about stretch since the fit was just about perfect when I received them.  I am happy to say that the fit of these shoes is still just as good as they were when I took them out of the box and they are still some of the best fitting shoes I've owned.  Although they fit really well, I did notice that my arches had a tendency to ache after wearing them a lot or on very long climbs, which is probably due to the flexible arch and lack of support.  However, I didn't find this to be that big of an issue since I mainly climb single pitch routes and boulder.  

Now the rubber is a little bit of a different story.  To me the rubber seems pretty darn hard compared to my Evolvs and I definitely have not yet broken the rubber in after a season at the Red.  I still don't trust my feet on tiny footholds and for smearing and they just don't stick to the rock as well as my Evolvs do.  The sole is pretty thick and it will probably just need a little more time for me to wear it down to where I like it.  I think I've read of other climbers actually sanding the soles down to solve this problem, but I don't have a sander.  So I'll just have to wear them down naturally.  

The Mad Rock Shark 2.0 is an excellent fitting shoe with so-so rubber.  So far I've only been to warm up and train in these shoes and I have yet to use them on my projects.  I'm hoping that I will be able to wear the rubber down enough that I'll be able to trust my feet and start projecting with them.  Once I do I will post another update.   

Crank'O'Ween 3

Just spreading the word about a bouldering comp being held at my gym next Tuesday, October 23rd in Columbus, Ohio.  More info can be found at Kinetic's website or Facebook page.  There should be tons of good problems, a bunch of new holds, lots of prizes, and a good group of people.  So if you are in the area and are in the mood to crush or if you just want to hang out, stop on by!  If you have not yet been to the gym and have always wanted to check it out, next Tuesday is a pretty good time to do it.  So mark your calendars, put it in your planners, set reminders on your phone, whatever.  Do it!  Do it now!

As for me, I will be there at some point in the evening, but it would depend on what time I get home from work.  I have not yet decided if I will climb.  I have never really enjoyed climbing in competitions since the large crowds, abundance of noise, and craziness of it all is just way too hectic for me.  But we shall see.  Maybe I will enter and use it as a high volume training day...

Must. Climb. Stronger.

The problem with climbing (well, at least for me) is that I always want to climb stronger.  I can remember thinking to myself several years ago when I first started climbing that I would be perfectly content being a solid 5.12 climber.  After a couple of years I climbed my first 5.12 and then I began knocking out more 12's and harder 12's.  Awesome.  I achieved my goal.  However, I wasn't perfectly content like I thought I would be.  I wanted more.  I wanted to be a solid 5.13a/b climber.  That should be pretty reasonable.  If I could climb hard 5.12, easy 5.13 should be attainable with proper training, right?  Then the 13a's started rolling in, and then the 13b's, and then my first 13c.  Awww snap.  Now 13d and maybe even 5.14 seem attainable somewhere in the future.  When does it end?  Does it?  I am already extremely happy with my level of climbing, but there is a part of me that wants to keep going and wants to see how far I can push my abilities.  I have only climbed one two 5.13c's (just added Kaleidoscope to the list this past Friday, yay!), but that doesn't mean anything.  So I would definitely love to add a few more 13c's under my belt and maybe take it to the next level with a 13d and I have a few in mind that I would love to try this fall at the Red.  The season has only just begun so I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens.  Will I send one?  None?  Hopefully the training pays off.

My basement training center: homemade adjustable edge and Metolius Simulator

Training.  Most of my progress is a product of training.  I am not a professional climber nor am I a climbing bum.  I work for a living and having a 9 to 5 job only allows me to climb outside on the weekends (well, it is actually more like 7 to 7 because of my looong commute).  Plus, I live 4 hours away from climbing, making any sort of after work trip impossible.  So the only way for me to improve and climb stronger is by training in the gym or at home.  The first few years that I climbed I didn't train much.  I just went to my university's gym a few times a week.  Then a bouldering co-op called Kinetic opened up in Columbus and I started going there.  The awesome crew and the great facility was very motiviating and after a while I could tell that I was getting stronger, slowly, but still getting stronger.  However, it wasn't until a couple of years ago that I realized that I would need to actually train and not just boulder around in the gym in order for me to improve faster.  Yes, bouldering a ton would eventually make me stronger, but it was definitely an inconsistent way of training, and inconsistent training methods lead to inconsistent results.  So, I decided to do some research into training for climbing, which led me to articles by Mike Doyle, Mike Anderson, and Kris Hampton on periodization training.

I won't go into too much detail, but periodization basically breaks down training into several phases: first a strength training phase, followed by a power phase, and then an endurance phase.  At first I wasn't really strict with my training as I tagged on exercises after my bouldering sessions, but I did see some improvement as it did help me to climb my first 5.13 and a buunch of others.  I probably continued with this half-assed approach to training for about a year or so and found a good bit of success.  But the cycle continued and I wanted to climb even harder.  So things got a little more serious last winter.  I was a little more strict with my training and began keeping a logbook of my exercises as my approach to training became a little more scientific.  As a result, this past spring and summer I was able to climb more hard routes at my level and redpointed my first 5.13c. 

Then, this past summer I stumbled upon Eva Lopez and her methodology for training.  Being an engineer and biomechanist I loved her scientific approach to training.  Her methods were easy, short in duration, and scientifically/physiologically made sense to me.  So I thought I would give it a shot and made some tweaks to my periodizatoin cycle to incorporate some of her exercises and her ideas (not sure if it can be considered a periodization cycle anymore...). 


Bring it on!


So our training was cut short (I guess we will have to start earlier next time) due to good weather at the Red and we had to skip over a few exercises that were in our schedule.  However, we did manage to get in a couple weeks of power endurance training.  I would like to think that this new training method is working for us.  I just sent my second 5.13c this past Friday, Nadya made 5.12 look easy, and our season has only just begun.  Hopefully it wasn't a fluke.  Only time will tell.