I try not to listen to Cedar often but he had a point. Rob told me the same thing a few times, so has Honnold, and Drew Rollins, and a number of other climbers. There's a pretty solid correlation between grip and weight ratio. Be strong, be light, and you will crush- being a Man of Girth won't get you up the cliff.
After my screws in my foot were removed, I sat around on the coach. Some would say that I was just a little big, some might say I just had broad shoulders. My mom would have said that I was, "Husky." I went to Indian Creek with a lot of weight above my belt, I weighed more than I ever have before.
The wafer thin super model Kate Moss gave me my mantra, "Nothing Tastes as good as skinny feels." I realized that I had been eating a lot. I decided that I needed to adjust my weight, and tighten my belt. Before I fell in Joshua Tree, I weighed about 157 pounds. I was thin, lean and mean. I ran around 14 miles a week, not much but combined with cycling up and down from UC Santa Cruz campus a couple times a day, I was fit. After I fell, I couldn't run anymore because of the fusion in my ankle. So, I started to get fat.
After punting from the top of most of the routes in Indian Creek, I decided I need to return to the lean mean climbing machine that James Lucas once was. I looked at myself in the mirror and screamed, "Get it together tubby! Stop day dreaming about pie and apple fritters. Start flexing and do some god damn rock climbing."
I tried to enlist some group support. Shannon Moore and I stepped on scales, weighed ourselves, and said we'd lose 10 pounds by June 15. That'd be like 160 for me. So far, I'm not sure how close I actually am to that goal. I don't have a scale and suspect that I haven't lost any actual weight. My diet has gotten significantly better- less pie and candy bars more apples and grapes. I've actually been climbing really well lately. Every week, I'm doing a little better than the week before.
The plan is send the sport project- at least one, maybe both. I managed to eek out a redpoint of my Gold Wall project yesterday. I sent it my fourth try of the day, after four previous attempts. I hoped it was 5.13- but after watching Stanley send it second try, Nik Berry and Hayden Kennedy flash it, the route was quickly down rated to 12d. Balls. Wicked Gold is still hard. Then after sending the sport proj, head back to a dry Yosemite and head up on the Leaning Tower. The Westie Face seeps through most of the spring and this has been a particularly wet year. Still, I think I can do it. I'm bouldering fairly well, and definitely stronger.
I'm not sure how it started, but I must have gotten poison oak on my clothes or my hands. It looks like I virtually swam in it. The Oak covers my forearms and torso, onto my upper thighs, and across my armpits. I have to swim in calamine lotion right now. It is making me slightly neurotic. When I say slightly, I mean totally insanely neurotic. If I could lose all my poison oak, I'd ditch a solid five pounds in water and oil retention. Might be times to put on more calamine.