If you've ever climbed at Muir, chances are you've benefited from some of the best climbing the Red has to offer. Please consider donating so it doesn't get shut down.
See this link for some of the costs the owners are incurring in trying to maintain the place.
You can donate here. It's a non-profit that aren't owned by the Webers, and helps defray some of the cost of running the place.
While I assemble pics for a couple posts on trips to the Red and Jackson, here's an interesting performance article from the NYTimes.
In short, if you spit, you will climb harder.
Just kidding. There's a part of this article I found painfully funny; it talked about top runners finishing races with saliva covering their faces. I assume they're spitting instead of swallowing as they run, and certainly not bothering to turn their head while doing so. All in an effort to conserve energy and keep focus.
This part was very akin to the redpointing process and certainly made sense:
"And as athletes improve — getting faster and beating their own records — “it never gets any easier,” Dr. Swart said. “You hurt just as much.”
But, he added, “Knowing how to accept that allows people to improve their performance.”
One trick is to try a course before racing it. In one study, Dr. Swart told trained cyclists to ride as hard as they could over a 40-kilometer course. The more familiar they got with the course, the faster they rode, even though — to their minds — it felt as if they were putting out maximal effort on every attempt.
Then Dr. Swart and his colleagues asked the cyclists to ride the course with all-out effort, but withheld information about how far they’d gone and how far they had to go. Subconsciously, the cyclists held back the most in this attempt, leaving some energy in reserve."
I'll hopefully have pics and some words up soon. Enjoy your Fall climbing!
t Saturday, but Friday he was putting it together nicely, and will hopefully send it next trip!
The 24 hour competition itself was intense. The first ten hours were easy; everyone climbed hard, spirits were high, and energy was flowing. Dane and I got on some 5.11s, while John and Yusuf sent some .12s. All four of us were cruising, s
ticking to our motto of “Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop.” Once it started getting dark, the first wave of exhaustion hit. What we had accomplished so far was a normal day of climbing, but instead of going home to cook food and drink beer we were to climb for another fourteen hours, the next eight of them in the dark.
By midnight, I found the atmosphere was becoming surreal. It was no doubt partly due to fatigue-induced delirium; the glow of all those headlamps flying along the rock, the climbers heard but not seen, the mixture of people napping, hanging out, and madly scrambling upwards – everything blurred together, and as we continued to fight our way through the routes, people would appear out of the darkness. What kep
t us going, other than the red bull and sugar we inhaled between climbs, were the cries of “Can’t Stop Won’t Stop” that frequently permeated the night air, letting us know that Yusuf and John were not too far away. We repaid the favor in kind.
By 10 am Sunday we were past tired. Luckily Calvin drove us home: I would not have made it out of the ranch’s gates. St Louis’ performance in the comp was extraordinary. Russ and John Richard placed 7th and 8th in the Team Total Points category, with John and Yusuf right behind them. Dane and I accomplished 101 pitches each, breaking the century mark at 9:52 am on Sunday morning! All in all, an amazing experience. If you haven’t done it yet, clear your calendar for the last weekend of September next year, because whether you compete or volunteer, it is a great weekend.
-Marc C. (guest blogger)
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