OK so I have been in Vail, CO since last Thursday setting, forerunning, and preparing for the upcoming Bouldering World Cup and Citizen's competition at the Teva Mountain Games.
I arrived on Thursday to Denver, CO along with the other 3 setters in the citizen's crew. We got a rental car and headed to Vail. Once we arrived we went straight to the World Cup wall that was in the process of being put together.
The wall is made by Pyramid and they had a guy on site who was in charge of the construction and stability of the wall. There was also a few more guys from USA Climbing helping with the construction as well.
Once we checked in with Kynan, the operations director for USA Climbing, we went to our condo. The condo is awesome. It has two rooms and plenty of beds for everyone.
The main thing I have been dealing with is the altitude and dry weather in Vail, CO. The altitude is around 8500 feet and I come from sea level. My breathing has been very heavy when climbing and for that matter when walking up stairs. Sometimes when I would wake up in the middle of the night I would be out of breath and have to take a few quick breaths. It was like I had been holding my breath under water and once resurfacing trying to catch them up.
The Citizen's crew, which includes myself and 3 other USA Climbing National setters, started setting for our competition on Saturday. Over the course of Saturday and Sunday we set 32 boulder problems ranging from V0 to V10 and foreran each of them. All the problems were tweaked to fit the grade and some were also tweaked to fit youth categories. At the end of those two days I was pretty whipped.
On Monday we went to the wall to help the World Cup setting crew forerun their problems they had set for the day. They included mostly Semi and Finals but there were some Qualifiers mixed in there as well. We broke up into two groups and began running the problems. My group included climbers that way out climb me so I was pretty intimidated. Most of those guys send V13. As I got to know them better and talked to them more I began to loosen up. My climbing sucked as this was the third day in a row of climbing for me. Intimidated and having a tired climbing day. Wow I can only imagine what they must have thought. No worries though all of them are pretty cool and I had a lot of fun climbing with them and watching how they work through their setting process.
Today is Tuesday and our Chief setter, Mike, decided to give us the day off. This is awesome. I was excited to have a rest day. We have been going pretty hard since we got here. I think we are going climbing outside tomorrow at Mt. Evans. This should be great and I am looking forward to it.
I miss my family pretty bad. Most every day I have been able to see them by using Skype. That program is so cool and it lets me see my kids and wife. Without that program I wouldn't be able to see my kids until I got back home. By then they will have gotten a lot bigger and I would have missed it.
This trip will be the longest that my wife, Jessica, and I will have been apart. I have noticed while on this trip that I sometimes take my marriage and wife for granted. On previous trips but especially this one I have missed Jess more and more each time I am away from her. Jess is my best friend, among other things, and I miss her tremendously. I miss the way her breath smells as we kiss. I miss the way her face glows when I tell her that I love her. I miss the way her face looks when she tell me that she loves me. I miss the simple hug from her when I get home from work. I miss the way I feel when she randomly holds my hand. I can't wait to arrive home and see her as I come up the stairs at the airport waiting for me. That first embrace when I get back from a trip is something that I begin to long for once I am away from her. I only hope that I can continue to make her happy. My desire each day is to make her feel like she did in the fairy tales that she dreamt of when she was a little girl, teenage, and young woman. I love you very much Jessica?
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