Today has got to be one of the most epic days I’ve had in a long time, and it’s not even over… I doubt anything else too crazy can happen, although that being said I am currently on a train…

My day started like any other, I woke up (slightly early than usual [04:30]) for a 06:00 flight from Toulouse. I bought a ticket to Zurich for the world cup in Innsbruck because it was half the price. From Zurich, I planned on taking the train. I bought everything beforehand, my day was “supposed” to go 6am flight from Toulouse-Paris. 10:20 flight from Paris-Zurich, and finish with a train ride at 14:40 Zurich-Innsbruck. I knew it was going to be a full day, but I had my computer, I knew there were outlets everywhere, and I just recently downloaded a few HD movies for me to peruse on the journey.

As I mentioned earlier, my day started off nicely, woke up, got to the airport in 5 minutes and got all my stuff together. I guess the first thing that bugged me is going through the security. On my carry-on, I had my computer (and accessories), my climbing shoes (just in case) and my new D7000 camera, which I wanted to test out at the world cup. I took out my computer, placed it in their trays, start walking, and the TSA agent or whatever starts man handling my bag, turning it pretty heavily. I calmly say (in near perfect French) “be careful, it’s very fragile” (camera inside…). She looks at me like I’m speaking a different language, and asks me why she has to be careful. I say there’s a camera inside and she snaps that it must come out of the bag. Ok fine, whatever, it comes out, and she vaguely motions for the next person. Awesome start.

I shake it off, text Mathilde, tweet a few times how ridiculous those security guards can be, and continue with my adventure. The flight was normal, a little croissant, coffee, short nap, and voila I’m in Paris. I hustle to the shuttle that brings me across gates even though I know I have 2 and a half hours until my next flight. I get to the hall, pass security again and see that I have a good 2 hours before they even say what gate it’s at. I roam the duty free like I always do in airport before checking to see if there’s Wi-Fi. There’s an Orange partner for the Wi-Fi, which means that through my French phone, I’d be able to connect. With the 1.5 hours I had until my scheduled 10:20 departure, I broke out my whole computer setup. Computer, mouse pad, mouse, charger, headphones. I was ready. My cousin Gary Lee was online and Diablo III just got released. After testing the internet speed at CDG Airport, it was an astonishing 70MBPS. For those who aren’t computer savvy, that’s REALLY FAST.

I went online, bought Diablo III, and spent the next hour and a half playing it. Awesome! At around 10:00, I packed up and waited for my gate to be announced. 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes… and then a message that everyone dreads appears next to the flight… delayed. Delayed until 12:20… HAHA. Delayed 2 hours, speechless. I kind of chuckled as 2 hours is a pretty big delay. 20 minutes is nothing, even 45, but 2 hours… all you can do is laugh. I also knew I’d have to wait in Zurich for my train, so I didn’t care too much. I then whipped out my computer setup and spent the next hour and a half playing D3 again… An hour and a half later, the gate came on, although we waited in the airplane for like 45 minutes and we finally took off at 12:55… Not bad!

An hour and somewhat later, we landed in Zurich, and that’s when thing’s started to get spicy. It was 14:05 when I left the plane, and with my train at 14:40, and a short train ride from the airport to Zurich Main Station, it was going to be tight. I quickly went to baggage claim and waited as everyone does for the stupid tram to start working. 14:15… and a message in German comes on. I can vaguely understand enough German to know that it didn’t sound good, and when the guy next to me sighed, turned around and started walking away, I knew it was bad news. The next announcement was in English, and I understood why he has sighed. “We are sorry to inform the people arriving from Paris CDG that none of the luggage was loaded on the plane. Please come to customer service to fill out a form”. Because all of the German speaking people were already walking towards customer service, I was probably 20th in line after doing a short jog to jockey for position. 20th in line meant a 30 minute wait, and a missed train. As soon as I started lining up, I knew I’d probably miss my train. It was 15:00 by the time I finished up and because I’m heading straight to Innsbruck, they’ll try to send it there. The problem with sending my bag to Innsbruck is there are no direct flights from Zurich, so my bag will have to go through Vienna… It won’t arrive until the EARLIEST tomorrow sometime, so hopefully I have it by tomorrow night (fingers crossed).

I’d like to pause a second from this epic adventure and thank Murphy for his law and for nothing bending me over. Before I left on my trip, I was packing my bag, and I always pack my climbing shoes on carry on, because you never know when they’re going to lose your bag. I’ve only ever not packed my shoes in my carry on while going to Hueco once, and they lost my bag… (Murphy’s Law). I almost did it a second time last night, but thought better of it. Thank goodness… I chuckled to myself while waiting in line, that I safely had my competition Solutions just behind my lower back. I’ll have to borrow some shorts, chalk, and a make-shift Canada t-shirt, but none of that compares to having to borrow climbing shoes…

When I got to the main train station in Zurich, I went straight to the departure board, and looked for the next train to Innsbruck. As I vaguely remembered, it was 2 hours after, and it was. Another one left at 16:40, and got in 2 hours later as well. I had an hour and a bit, so I bought some food from the nearby MIGROS and went Starbucks hunting. I knew where there was one very close to the station and headed straight for it. After another misspelled Starbucks cup (Shean) and a 7.80 CHF americano, I was sitting in a comfy chair, sipping coffee with free Wi-Fi again… As I sat there thinking about my day, I wondered what else would happen. I decided to blog about it, and if you’d made it this far, good job! I did internet stuff for a while, and then walked back to the station. It’s kind of nice to just walk around with a small backpack.

Did I also mention that the customer service gave me a “toilet pack”. It’s pretty nice, toothbrush, mouthwash, little towel, a white t-shirt (for tomorrow). Also, thank goodness I have my computer… what would I do without it… haha. So I’m now on the train from Zurich, it’s been about 2 hours without incident which is nice. I’ll get to Innsbruck in a few hours, go to the Mammut festival, which I’ll pretty much miss now, and call it a day… That’s it for now; check back in a few days for how the REAL part of my weekend went, aka World Cup Innsbruck!

I’ve just gotten the bus back from the competitions here at ABS 13, and I’m still a bit shocked by the results. I missed finals by one place and now finish in 7th. The disappointing part is that it came to one attempt.

I’ve had a good hour to let the results sink in, and I’m just disappointed with the results, not my climbing. I thought I climbed pretty well, excluding the little slips here and there. I topped all 4 problems in semis, and some of them were battles. On problem 2 and 3, I finished the problem with under 20 seconds left.

I guess my mind is really just going over the first, second and fourth boulder. The first boulder, I literally pulled on, did the first move and as I was pulling up my left heel, I just kind of fell backwards. I stepped on a minute later and fired the problem second go.

The second is getting more painful as I flashed the problem to the last move, and on the last move, I had my fingers wrapped around the final hold, but they didn’t engage properly and I found myself falling. I rested until the minute warning, and sent it also second go.

The fourth one is the most painful to think about because it went like this; I spent 30-40 seconds previewing the problem even though it was pretty straight forward. I was still a bit tired from number 3, and I knew that the climber before me had flashed it. The first move was a sort of jump to a sloper. I pulled on, and jumped slightly too high, my butt came out, and I fell backwards. I literally rested 2 seconds, gave a little grunt and fired it second go as well.

If either one of those three things hadn’t of happened, this post wouldn’t be here, and I’d be heading to iso. Sadly, this was not the case, and I’m now the stranger in 7th looking in.

It feels good to write, even though this is the 3rd or 4th revision. I started by being mad at myself, then realizing that it’s all part of the game. There are going to be competitions where I climb pretty well, and don’t make the next round. I have to keep my head up and look to the future. In order to succeed, you must first fail, and that drive is what I think about while I train.

I can only imagine that this is kind of how Daniel felt after missing finals last year at the same competition. There was never any doubt in my mind that I wouldn’t watch finals, I just wished I was a part of it.

The finals this year is stacked and it should be a good show. The finalists this year are:

• Daniel Woods
• Austin Geiman
• Jon Cardwell
• Ethan Pringle
• Michael Bautista
• Carlo Traversi 

Full results can be found at ABS Nationals website or clicking HERE. I have the utmost respect for these climbers and I wish them good luck in finals. Although I won’t be competing with them, I’ll be front and centre in the crowd to cheer them on!

CRUSH!

This past Saturday, I was invited to one of the Regional training camps for French athletes. They have these sort of training camps every once in a while at a very special place. I had the chance to bring my camera this time and snap a few pictures of the gym before our training started. I find myself lucky to be invited to some of these training camps because I miss the feeling of having a real coach; someone always there to push you, guide you, and motivate you. The closest thing I have to a coach is my girlfriend who is always there at training with me. We motivate each other quite well; it’s just different from having a real coach.

As I mentioned before, this gym is quite special in that it is owned and was build was the Raboutou family. Didier Roboutou and “Robyn Erbesfield” (before marriage), now Robyn Raboutou built the gym in the 80′s I believe and trained here as well. I know there have been editions as the years progressed and now it is just a matter of adding volumes to make the walls the equivalent of some world cup structures. As the gym has progressed throughout the years, it is now used as a training camp location for the Regional training camp. It’s in St. Antonin which is about an hour North-East of Toulouse. If you’re within an hour of Toulouse, it isn’t very far, and a lot of the climbers don’t have to drive more than an hour to get there.

At the training camp, there were about 10 climbers there and 3 coaches. To be invited to these Regional training camps, you have to be a dedicated climber to begin with. The next stage are the National training camps which are mostly reserved for climbers that the coaches think will be on the World Cup team. Those training camps are also run by the National team coaches. We got to St. Antonin at around noon, and just chilled for the better part of a half an hour. We got some coffee and ate lunch in preparation for our training.

To start things off, we were given pretty much an hour to be perfectly warmed up. We knew what we were going to be doing in an hour and for me, it was 4 boulders, world cup format (semifinals). That is to say, we’d wait in isolation and go out one at a time on a circuit of 4 boulders; 5 minutes on, 5 minutes off. After doing this on the first 4 boulders, I managed to get 3 tops in 7 tries and 3 bonuses in 5. I couldn’t touch the first boulder although being painfully close to the zone. It was a weird slab boulder which I did manage to fire off first try after resting for a bit.

After a 20 minute rest, I did the exact same thing on another set of 4 boulders. These boulders went much better than the first 4, maybe because I was more motivated. I flashed 3 of the 4, and send the last one second go. I felt good, I had done all 8 of the boulders, which would in the range of V10 or 11.

I find that this is the best training that I could’ve asked for before ABS Nationals. To have the chance to have high level climbers set new boulders with new holds and add volumes is absolutely perfect for competition training. I get to climb on different styles of boulders and climb alongside strong climbers as well.

After the two sets of 4′s, I could tell that I should probably feel tired, so I took the next 8 problems the setters had set, and just ran around, trying to do them as fast as I could. I managed to do all the boulders, but also managed to slip in a lot in weird places. Usually the feet, which were very bad. I find it was good, because when I’m training with Mathilde in Toulouse, we can’t build very many technical problems because on the walls that are vertical, or a bit slabby, there are only jugs. It reminded me what it was like to climb slowly and precise. Added to the fact, that I was wearing pretty old shoes, I felt good. At the very end of the session, I repeated a few boulder problems to analyze different methods and made one variation for my last problem.

When it was time to pack up, we looked at the clock, and it read 5:30. In total, we were climbing for 5 hours. I was absolutely worked but felt like this last training couldn’t have been better. 5 hours of bouldering, especially hard boulder problems is very hard not only physically but mentally as well. I knew that because this was going to be the last hard training before my trip to the States, I’d better make it count. On the short drive home, I felt tired, but satisfied. Another big reason that I loved this training camp was because the last time I came to a training camp at this gym was a week before I left for my Switzerland trip in late 2011. I was in route mode, although felt stronger than ever. I had a great training camp like this, then went to Switzerland to boulder with Daniel Woods and Paul Robinson. I had the best trip I’ve ever had, and it opened my eyes to the world of bouldering hard! The week after Switzerland was where I won my first Lead World Cup as well.

I can only hope that history will repeat itself. Training camp is done, and now in a week, I have ABS Nationals. After that, I head to Hueco for the Rock Rodeo with almost two weeks of Hueco Tanks just after.

We’re now on our way to Paris for a little vacation before my trip to the States. Disneyland Paris for a day, and a day and a half in Paris proper. Mathilde also has a National training camp the day after I leave for the States so for the next week we’ll be doing mostly resting. For the past month and a half, we’ve been 100% dedicated to training, and this rest will be pleasant. We’ll probably go to the gym once or twice just to stretch out and grab a few holds as well.

In the next couple of days, I’ll be writing down my thoughts of all this training and the lead up to ABS Nationals 2012. I’ll be writing whatever comes to my mind on subjects like what I expect, how I feel, and just competing in general. If anything, it’ll hopefully just add to the hype of the competition spirit! It’ll be posted on the Sportiva LIVE site hopefully just before ABS weekend.