Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

I’m lucky to be surrounded by athletes that know how to suffer and know how to break down boundaries. What I’m continuing to learn from them and my own experience is that boundaries are somewhat self imposed. Yes, I’m not gonna lift off the ground and fly tomorrow, or run a 4:00 minute mile next month just because I really really want to, but we all can do quite a bit more than the mainstream tells us.

Between Steve Edwards (one of the fittest almost 50 year old people on the planet and master of suffering for fun), Elijah Ball (the guy who somehow survived a bout with pneumonia that was supposed to kill him and now climbs as hard as ever, and swims better than most people), and Phil Requist (the 40 something CFO who refuses to give up on 15 year projects and is still making progress towards finishing them post shoulder surgery), and numerous others, I’m surrounded by people who don’t really believe in taking the easy route. Yes, turns out this whole success thing is predicated by a shit ton of down and dirty hard work.

I’ve mentioned that Hardboiled 5.13b is at the center of my attention these days. This route has a history of not giving in easily to suitors. She’ll take a dose of effort far beyond any other route I’ve spent time with. So Last week because of the holiday Elijah got Monday of work and we managed the drive to Santa Maria Sat and Mon to project and train on steep terrain. Then, this past weekend we camped out at Silly Rock to facilitate climbing on both Sat and Sun. In the end, things took a turn towards the epic, but no one ever said this was supposed to be easy right?

Saturday I was able to warm up well and get 3 good burns on Hardboiled. I say good, not because of redpoint potential (nowhere close), but because of the progress made on specific goals and a continued positive vibe. After a break to shoot some photos and take a look at some possible work, I took a stroll up Crocodile Hunter 5.12d, resting when necessary to relearn the moves and clip chains. Not a bad day at Mr. Lees.

Down the road past Mr. Lees Elijah and I found a groomed camp site. We set up camp, had a great meal of buffalo trip tip and grilled veggies, killed a six pack and after some interesting bug encounters, headed in separate directions to hit the sack - Elijah to a bivy sack and me to a small tent. Not to long into what seemed like deep sleep I awake to flashes outside. Of course the first half conscious thought through my head was that hicks were stocking our camp. Maybe I was dreaming about the ones from Monday that fired off an armory’s worth of guns across the canyon from the Tor. Soon reason returned with the addition of pitter patter above. No fucking way. Rain in July... here? In fact, a full blown thunder storm came through and kept both of us awake most of the night. Elijah rode things out in the bivy until just before day break and then retreated to the truck where he slept until woken a few hours later because my dumb ass couldn’t get the stove working and I needed coffee in a bad way. After some finagling with a wet lighter, coffee was on along with a carton of eggs and a full packet of bacon.

And then we tried to climb at the Tor. I should back up and point out that although it rained for most of the night, just after sunrise the clouds parted for the most part and let in the July sun that one expects out at Silly Rock. So the possible upside of cool temps that we both fixated our minds on while tossing and turning the prior night was gone with breakfast. But things were much worse than that. Like a proper thunderstorm this one left us with a Sunday humidity of like 75%. We slugged through 4 laps each and called it a day. Not the most fun anyone’s had climbing, but I think our bodies serve to respond well to the additional stress.

The plan is to keep doing this on a regular basis, but it’ll have to start out biweekly cause next Sunday I’ll be driving up to Bob’s cabin in Tom’s Place to hang out, climb, see Dr. Karch, and drink at least one twelver of Oly. Hopefully Elijah doesn’t come to his senses before I return, cause I’m gonna need a belay the following weekend.