Dark Horse 2013

Dark Horse 2013

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

(Final)ly is Over!

So this past Saturday was Dark Horse #3. Everyone was super stoked and excited to come fly in for this competition...which was stacked in both womens and mens! Even I was stoked for this comp! But unfortunately, finals week sucked out my soul.

You laugh, but literally I could not even climb a v4 on Saturday. It was horrible! I wound up withdrawing from the competition, which I have never done, even when I'm injured. I figured it was pointless to keep climbing because I am so susceptible to injury. Why beat myself down more when my body was already beaten down by 3 all nighters and some horrible tests? So instead of competing, I cheered on my friends and got some great tacos with Natasha Barnes and Steve Briggs.

Even though I didn't do well on Saturday, I would like to give myself props for such a horrendous semester. But seriously, my schedule was insane. Not only did I coach 5-6 days a week, I took 17 credits, trained for crossfit, trained for climbing, and had some time do some competitions and a paleo challenge.

Here's a little look at what my schedule was like...

6:45am- Wake up, shower, eat, and all that good stuff in between
7:35-8:50am- Anatomy+Physiology lecture....aka nap because it was 7 friggin 30 am
9:00-11:00am- Crossfit (or homework because we all know that got done over the weekend)
11-11:30am- Drive to other campus
11:30-12:20pm- Fitness for life...aka doodling fat people as my notes (yes 'as' them)
12:30-1pm- Lunch
1-2:50pm- Kinesiology Lab
3-4pm- Drive to work and potentially take a quick nap in my car
4-7pm- Coach
7:15-9pm- Climb
9:30-10pm- Make Food, unless I ate dinner before climbing
10:30- Bed

...and that was my Monday! woo what a great start to a week...........unfortunately just about everyday looked like this.

Despite the fact that my schedule was hectic, I still accomplished so many things! And I did fairly well in my classes. I am proud of what I have been able to accomplish...but I will never have a schedule like this again...ever. Cheers to a month off and a spring semester full of advanced personal training, art, sport skill classes, and rock climbing competitions!

I also have gained some pretty cool strengths this past semester. Below are some recent strengths I have developed in the past 3 months. Enjoy!





Friday, December 7, 2012

One Year

I cannot believe that it has been one year since I was diagnosed tenosynovitis in my ring fingers...a whole year!! This week marks not only the 1 year mark of my injury, but the 6 month mark of when I began climbing again (June 2012). This week also marks when I began crossfit 6 months ago. Although my fingers are not fully healed, I am making great progress for a full recovery!

This week also marks the first week where I was able to climb on crimps again with no tape! I have been able to warm up/cooldown without tape, but I decided to try climbing some crimps like these on v3-v5's in the climbing gym, on all wall angles. No pain! I do have to admit that the next day my fingers felt sore, like a sore muscle would feel. So I am not going to climb again for a couple more days. However, this is still progress in my eyes!
 


Not only are my fingers getting better, but I feel tremendously strong! I am able to lift some pretty heavy weights in crossfit, and also do some muscle ups! Here is a little video of some of my muscle up practice:

Now that my recovery is going well, I can finally focus on climbing hard again. Last year, all of my weaknesses were due to an imbalance of musculature in my body. Now that I am doing crossfit, this is not a problem anymore. I feel very powerful on the wall and I can make moves that I could never do before.

Now, my strengths from last year have become my weaknesses. However these are easy fixes such as power endurance training and specific grip strength training. If my fingers stay healthy, these things should attained in time to reach my goals!

I'd like to share my goals for the upcoming months. I have some for climbing, for crossfit, and overall health. I feel that my life is more balanced when I create goals that are not always climbing-specific. I like crossfit and I really want to get better at it. I also care about my health much more than I ever have. So here is my list...I'd like to achieve all of my goals (except for competition scores) by the end of January.

Climbing:
- Make finals for the remaining Dark Horse competitions
- Place top 15 in both ABS/SCS Nationals
- Strive to climb with no tape by February
- Work on pinch/sloper strength
- Practice Dyno's as a part of my technical training
- To climb outside again

Crossfit:
- Increase my metcon (metabolic conditioning) so that I can finish workouts faster/more efficiently
- Learn how to kip/butterfly with pull ups
- Learn/Execute proper form for all lifts
- Learn how to do double unders; get 10 in a row
- No whining/complaining

Overall Health
- Do not overtrain, listen to body
- Perform stretching/recovery exercises everyday
- Do not get injured
- Eat a modified Paleo diet (consists of Paleo with a little more carbs that can be from some grains and rice)
- Take at least 2 rest days a week


Now that I have it all written down, I hope to start working on these goals! Training all of these things without over training is a delicate balance, but seeing as I am going on 3 months with no injuries I think I can do it!