Midterms in the bag, climbing again!

Midterms have finally ended, and after a week of getting fat on burritos, pizza and ice cream I am back to climbing. Unfortunately it looks like the Gunks is covered in 3 feet of snow (though I'm betting some stuff has to be dry), so I might have to try to get up to Rumney from NJ... a bit longer of a drive than I really wanted to do. Spring Break starts tomorrow, so hopefully I'll find some real rock that is dry, but training at the gym in NJ wouldn't be bad either.

Climbing and training have been put on hold for a week during midterm hell - fortunately I'll be on spring break next week and might be able to get on Crouching Dragon. I hate feeling like I'm sitting around getting fat when I could be out climbing. Especially when I read all the various climbing news sites talking about who did this and that.

BRG

Jeremy, Chelsea, and I hit up the BRG tonight for some new problems while Metro is stripped for the Darkhorse comp on Saturday. None of us climbed exceptionally well today, and I felt especially weak and fatigued. Lately I've been having issues going to sleep - for some reason I lay awake in bed until 2 or 3am, at which time I am able to sleep. This would all be fine if I didn't have early classes, but Monday/Wednesday I have class at 8am, so I end up sleeping 2:30-6:30, which just isn't enough sleep to apply myself academically and still be psyched to train hard at the gym. Additionally, when I don't sleep well I find myself drinking espresso and eating poorly, which in turn diminishes my ability to climb/train well.

On the up side, I received "Flash Training" by Eric Horst (one of his older books - 1995 I think) in the mail today. Taking a quick flip through it, there are some chapters on strength, forearm recruitment, and nutrition that look particularly interesting. Hopefully this gives me some insight into how to train better and eat better.

Hittin the gym

I hit Metrorock up tonight, hoping to work some of the problems in the old cave. Unfortunately the cave had been stripped for the Darkhorse competition this Saturday. Not the end of the world though, as Alex and Dave were setting some of the finals problems, and I was able to help forerun them for a couple hours. After that I worked the campus bored 45 mins and ended with 15 mins of core. Hopefully I'm doing enough to accomplish my goals. I ordered a copy of Eric Horst's Flash Training to get some more ideas on how to vary my training.

Goals

Throughout my climbing "career", I've always set goals, but rarely have I taken them seriously. Lately I've been thinking a lot about how to break the 8b+/14a and 8A/V11 barrier, and I am starting to believe I need to make some concrete, measurable goals for myself in order to motivate myself to train more. So far, I'm thinking the best way to do this is to decide on a series of routes and problems and set a deadline for each. Here they are:

Dr No. Rumney (8b/+ ) 6/1/10

Parallel Universe (8b+) 9/30/10

Supernova (8b+/c) 11/30/10

Something from Nothing (8A)8/1/10

Crouching Dragon (8A)9/1/10

Currently I've only climbed a couple 7C+s, and a single 8b, so I think these goals are challenging enough both in the difficulty of the climbs and the time horizon. Right now I am ~152lbs and 5'9", and it will be interesting to see how this all changes over the course of my training.