John's Blog

My Trip to Youth Nationals in Salt Lake City, UT

2009-07-24T10:27:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone,

Recently I was asked to be one of the routesetters for the upcoming SCS Youth Nationals in Salt Lake City, UT on July 10-12, 2009. I can't tell you how excited I was.

Well I just got back from that event and it was awesome. If you have been keeping up with my blog you would have read that I was going to be working with Cheif Setter Molly Beard. Molly and I worked together at the recent Divisional in Harker Heights, TX.

The crew arrived and I arrived in Salt Lake on Sunday, July 5th. We went straight to Momentum Climbing Gym and talked about the upcoming youth nationals. Everyone was given their assignments by Molly and then we all went and checked out our walls and got ideas for Monday when we would begin setting.

The crew was made up of Molly, Kevin, Kyle, Mark, Joel, another Kyle, Scott, Ted, Andy, and Myself. I had already worked with the first 5 before and recently had worked with Joel this year at the World Cup in Vail, CO. The event went ok. As always it is a learning experience and some things can always go better.

We were at the gym everyday for about 12 hours and longer on the competition days. I missed my family very much while I was gone and was excited to see them when I returned home on Monday, July 13th.

Once again my wife picked me up from the airport and was dressed to kill. She had read my mind.

The next day after returning home I went straight back to work. I stripped the belly and reset it competition style. There is everything from a V0 to V10 on it right now and as of last night some more V3s, V5s and V6s were added to the mix by Tom Carter.

Also, the front climbing wall has been reset. There are a lot of easy climbs on it. Three below 5.8, Two 5.9s, Three 5.10s, Two 5.11s and One 5.12.

Check them out and let me know what you think.

Walls have been stripped and set!

2009-06-23T08:34:00.000-07:00

On Monday I walked into the gym to find two entire walls stripped and ready for setting. During the day Tom, Nate, and I set a total of 6 new climbing routes. I have 4 climbers attending the upcoming SCS Youth Nationals in July and I wanted to give them some new routes to try and onsight. I will be tweaking them today and they will be ready to climb this evening. The goal was to set 2 of each of the following:

5.12-
5.12+
5.13-

There are 2 top ropes and 4 lead climbs. Let me know what you think of them when you get on them.

Tuesday 6-23-09

2009-06-23T07:49:00.000-07:00

Sorry guys it has been a couple of weeks since I last posted. I attached a post that I wrote on my flight back from Colorado titled Tuesday 6-9-09. Check it out.

So I have been back for a couple of weeks now. It was hard getting back into the swing of things. Maybe I should just begin with when I landed in Houston two Tuesdays ago.

I stepped off the plane in Houston and was greeted by two overwhelming forces. The first was an abrupt hit in the face with the heat and humidity. I almost passed out when I took a breath. It was like someone threw me down on the ground, stood on me, and then told me to try and breath. It sucked! The second was the most amazing. My wife, Jessica, was waiting for me at baggage claim. It was so awesome to see her. I have never missed someone so much in my entire life. We embraced each other and held each other for a while. I think other around us must have been thinking things but it didn’t matter to me. I would have just kicked someone in the face if they would have said something to me. Jess had left the kids at home with my sister, who had come into town to go with Jess and I on our next trip. We left the airport and arrived back at home and the rest I will leave to your imagination.

The night seemed very short. We got home late and had to get up early in the morning to be in Harker Heights, TX so that I could help set for the Division 2 SCS Divisional Championship. Good thing my sister was in town because we would have never left in time. When I got up in the morning I rushed upstairs to see my little girl, Maggie. When I walked into her room she got a big smile on her face and said, “Daddy home, hold you Daddy, hold you Daddy, miss you Daddy.” After holding Maggie for a little while we took off to Harker Heights, TX. We arrived in Harker Heights, TX at the Boulders Climbing Gym around 11:00am.

Once at Boulders I got my route assignments and began setting. I had been looking forward to this because I would be setting with Molly, who I was also going to set with at SCS Youth Nationals in July. The route setting went well. I set a final for Youth C, 12 and 13 year olds, and a Qualifier 2 for Male Youth A/Male Juniors, 16 to 19 year olds. I kind of hosed the Youth A group on the Qualifier with a big move in the roof that only two in the group were able to complete. The Juniors didn’t have any problem with the move as it was proven to be a height dependent move. I hate when that happens. Despite that mistake the competition went well and I think everyone had a good time.

At the end of the competition on Sunday I was finally able to hang out with my family. We swam the rest of the day and went out to eat that evening. It was great.

On Monday Molly began teaching a USA Climbing Level 1 setting clinic. I stayed around to observe her teach the clinic so that I can get certified by USA Climbing to teach Level 1s. I had some employees, Mike-Jonathon-Ohio, come up from Stone Moves to take the clinic. I think they did a good job and that the clinic will improve their setting.

After the clinic on Tuesday Jess and I along with the kids headed home and my sister headed to Dallas. I was able to get a day of rest before I went to the gym again. It had been 3 weeks since I was last at the gym. I took most of the day off and went to the gym to coach the team. My best friend from Louisiana, Jerry, came into town to visit during the weekend. I hadn’t seen him in a while and hadn’t met John Cole yet. My first day to climb at the gym was Saturday during team practice. The climbing went well and it was good to pull on holds at home again. After practice my family and Jerry swam at the house. Later that night Shelby came over to watch the kids while Jess and I along with Jerry went to the Flying Saucer. We were to meet Tom, Kim, Corey, and Jennifer. It was Tom’s birthday and we had to celebrate.

I climbed mostly on the grey wall since it had been reset while I was out of town. I like most of the problems but think some of them are a little ridiculous. You will have to ask me in person which ones I like and which ones suck as I don’t want to hurt anyone’s ego.

On Sunday, Father’s Day, I was given a gift from my kids, Maggie and John Cole. It was a custom coffee mug that Maggie had made. Jessica gave me a picture of the kids together with me. In the picture Maggie and John Cole are holding my hand. Later that day all of us went to the gym to climb. Climbing Sunday was great because I got to climb with Tom. I hadn’t climbed with him in a while and it is always good climbing with him.

Tuesday 6-9-09

2009-06-23T07:41:00.000-07:00

So it turns out that we didn’t get to go climbing on Wednesday or Thursday. The weather was too bad plus we just didn’t feel up to it. I know, I know. You would have went anyway. My reason is simply that we were putting in 12 to 14 hour days everyday since we had gotten to Vail and we were all pretty whipped. Instead of going climbing or for that matter doing anything at all we just stayed in the condo all day long. The only place I went all day was to get some washing detergent from the front office. It felt awesome to just sit around all day and hang out. I got a lot of reading done and watched a lot of TV.

We helped forerun for the World Cup Crew on Thursday evening to help them tweak their problems. The problems were great and even though I couldn’t climb many of them it was awesome to see others do them and watch the setters work through their problems.

The World Cup started on Friday and was crazy. I think there was 82 competitors. Woods, Puccio, Johnson, Killian, Bautista, Robinson, and Rands are just some of the competitors that you may have heard of. The Americans crushed at the competition. We ended up with 5 American climbers in the finals. There was 6 male and 6 female competitors in the finals. For the females we had Puccio and Johnson. Puccio did all 4 of the final’s problems which gave her 1st place at the end of the day. It was awesome to watch her climb in true Puccio style, raw power. On the men’s side there was Woods, Robinson, and Owen. Woods did all 4 problems but had 2 falls in the process which gave him 2nd at the end of the day. The German, Jonas, flashed all 4 finals problems. It was pretty awesome.

After the finals at the World Cup the citizen’s crew had to stay and set up our 32 boulder problems that we had set the week before. This turned out to be harder than I imagined. We took them down the week before and tagged them different than I was used to. This made it harder for me to work out how they went back on the wall. Keep in mind that each of us had 8 problems to put back up. There was 7 different zones and about and average of 4 to 5 problems in each zone. Pretty confusing when I looked at the blank wall and tried to imagine where my problems went. Lucky I had taken a picture of all the problems before we took them down. This turned out to be a tremendous help for me. It took us until 2:30am to get them all back on the wall.

We showed up back at the wall at 6:30am to put plaques on the wall for the different problems. The competition started at 8:00am for the youth competitors. It was great to watch all these little guys throw down on the problems that we had set for them. I even had Elizabeth, Emily, and Rob from Stone Moves participating in the competition. There was also Cody from the Rok Haus. Throughout the day there were 3 sessions that lasted 2.5 hours each. The awards ceremony was at 5:00pm but we didn’t stick around for that because we were pretty tired. We took down the holds and tape that we could reach from the ground and went back to the condo.

Kynan bought us dinner and Johnny and Mike L. cooked it for us. There were hamburgers with blue cheese in them, salad, bread, and a lot of much needed beer. Those burgers that Johnny made were probably the best burgers that I have ever had in my life. I am definitely going to try and make them when I get home.

Monday and Tuesday were take down day for the wall. This went really fast with about 9 people but was a lot of freakin work. It was amazing to watch the wall that Professional climbers had been climbing on the day before come down in about 3 hours. It was kind of sad to see. It won’t be until next year when we will see that wall again.

In all it was a great experience. The crew that I worked with was awesome and I can’t wait to work with them again. I think we all got along great and didn’t have any problems working together. It was sad to say goodbye today but I am looking forward to seeing my family. My wife called me today and told me that my little girl, Maggie, woke up from her nap crying uncontrollably asking for Daddy to hold her. She wouldn’t stop crying so Jess had to call me and let Maggie talk to me. It was so heartbreaking that I almost started crying myself.

Tuesday 6-2-09

2009-06-02T09:37:00.000-07:00

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?

Tuesday 5-26-09

2009-05-27T09:23:00.000-07:00

I climbed at the gym today. I wasn't feeling good so I only attempted problems that I knew I would be able to do. Also I am getting ready to set at the World Cup in Vail, CO and didn't want to tire myself to much before the event.

Despite not feeling well it was a great climbing day. I got to climb with some of the Stone Moves regulars as well as meet some new climbers. I love watching new climbers try boulder problems and give them technique suggestions.

After climbing I went to Intense Fitness and did some lifting with my friends, Mike, Mike, and Tommy. Lifting went better than climbing on this day. I think I will be a little sore tomorrow.

A Tuesday with John!

2008-08-13T06:21:00.000-07:00

Watched my little girl this morning while my wife, Jessica, went to work to prepare her classroom for the upcoming school year. My little girl, Maggie, is so sweet. She and I played on the floor, went outside and walked in the grass, threw the ball for our dog Abby, and rocked in a chair. Shortly there after Maggie decided to take a nap for a couple of hours.
The timeing of her nap was convenient. It gave me time to send emails, work on climbing team stuff, and catch up on the books. Jessica arrived home around the two hour nap mark for Maggie. Maggie must have known that her mom was home because she woke up not five minutes after Jess got home. Once Maggie was up she had lunch and all of us were able to spend some quality family time together before I had to leave the house for work.

I left the house around 2pm to head toward the South gym. Tuesdays and Thursdays are my normal days to spend at that gym. Along the way I decided to stop and visit with my friend Jerald to talk about business stuff and what life has been throwing at each of us. After the visit I continued on my way to the South gym arriving there around 4pm.

The South gym today was very fun for me. I climbed with my employees and was introdruced to serveral regular climbers that I had never met before. I set a 100 move traverse and a difficult boulder problem on one of the walls that was being set on. I ended up getting the boulder problem that I set along with several others that I tried. The boulder problems that I got on were all great. I think the guys down there are doing a great job at setting what everyone wants to climb and not just what their personal desires might be. The atmosphere today seemed cool and challenging at the same time. Also while I was at the South gym a group came in to climb for a couple of hours. It was a church group from up the road and I got to talk to the Youth Pastor and a couple of the kids one of which is going to join the climbing team.

A day like to day I would consider a great day. To top things off as I was on my way home I saw a shooting star up in the sky in front of my car. The star burn out lasted for about 1/2 second leaving a nice streek in the sky.

After arriving home I ate dinner, that Jess had left in the microwave for me, as I sat down to talk to her for a while. She had a good day as well. She quickly went to bed and I sat down to write this entry.