Date: October 31st, 2009
I was out for a hike in the mountains yesterday and saw these tracks. Five or six animals, lots of deer in the area, hmmm… I’m going with wolf.
The temperatures around here have absolutely spiked, all the way to the summits. When the big melt ends we’ll have the big freeze, and things are likely to be very, very good for icicle hunters in the Canadian Rockies. Until then it’s rock climbing season again…
Happy Winter,
WG
Posted in: Blog
Date: October 29th, 2009
I often hear comments such as, “I only climb/fly/paddle/walk/whatever for myself.” While this is ultimately true, the same people always immediately know their best onsights, longest distance flown, most impressive route climbed, etc. etc. If you ever want to see some competitive attitude come out among climbers just suggest that the local favorite 10c is really 10a… So people do measure themselves, and care about the results. This is why weight-room training is so seductive; you get measurable results, you can compare your results, and it’s all very controlled and nice.
I’m still stuck on this idea of people, myself included, measuring what we did or didn’t do in alpine or winter climbing. Maybe because there’s a tremendous amount of posing in these genres of climbing, and no real quantifiable definition of success other than reaching the summit and/or surviving. The tales that come back from these trips often read like the participants succeeded due to fantastic ability, toughness, training, etc. This interests me; I know I’ve come back from alpine climbing trips with the feeling that the climb took everything I had to give. But was that feeling real or had I just set my own limits and then bumped against them? And when I or anyone fails on a mountain/alpine/whatever climb we usually pull out all kinds of justifications. Too much avalanche hazard, too little snow, not enough ice, wind blowing the wrong direction, etc. Usually these “reasons” are presented as absolutes. “There wasn’t enough ice to go up.”
I suspect that often my and others achievements on any given day are not all that special in the mountains or on the ice, and our failures often more mental than real. By that I mean that if you put a large field of people on that face in the same conditions times would drop dramatically, success rates go up, etc. etc. Ueli Steck has shown this with his North Face ascents in the Alps. Now Ueli is my friend and a very talented guy, but he’s not special genetically or even mentally (well, a bit special mentally). The fastest time on the Grand Teton is held not by any of the guides or well-known alpine climbers who have lived and worked in the range (and gone fast on a lot of routes) but by a runner with enough climbing skill to handle the technical challenges of the Grand.
I’m dancing around an idea here, trying to figure it out. Perhaps the most obvious example of a large pool of talent showing the actual potential of a mountain situation comes in paragliding. A competition day can be lousy for flying distance; weak thermals, bad wind, overcast, etc. etc. But if you set a competition task someone often completes it. Even on a day when the local pilots would all say no cross-country was possible. A little of the positive result comes from the field working together, but it’s often one or two pilots who go off alone and make it to goal. Those pilots show the real potential of the day; if only a few pilots were sitting on launch they would be lazy and the day would be written off as “not good.” How many climbs have I failed on for lack of vision?
To me this realization is cause for great optimism about the future of many mountain sports. 5.9 used to be hard; the rock hasn’t changed, our raw strength hasn’t changed dramatically, but now 5.9 is commonplace, a beginner can do it in street shoes. The north face of the Eigre was the be-all end-all route, worth dying for. Now a guy runs it in under four hours. Running a 30-foot waterfall was the absolute edge of the sport 25 years ago; now people are regularly going over 100 feet, and the “record” is closer to 200.
When we’re in the mountains we’re likely limited more by how we perceive the situation and our abilities than we are by the reality. If we put 100 top or even good athletes on a route in the same conditions the results would be mind-blowing, even in less than ideal conditions. A few years ago we tried to climb a north face in the Himalaya, and never really got going. A few other climbers showed up and sent it in four days, easy. I’m not arguing for pushing harder in the face of “stupid” danger, but trying to understand why the hard routes of yesterday are easy today, and why the impossible is often the easy when enough people put energy toward it.
This blog is likely to slow down for a bit, it’s climbing season and I am so stoked to go and mess with my own limits and headspace, breathe clean air, move, smash some ice and get it ON! Happy winter!
Posted in: Blog
Date: October 28th, 2009
I’m over the pig flu and back training, hopefully climbing a lot more soon!
My bud Kelly Cordes put some
info on gloves here, with comments from various people. It’s good, different perspectives, interesting.
I recently had a long discussion with a group of friends about types of climbing, ethics, and what accomplishment in climbing means. In sport climbing it’s pretty simple; you climb harder than anyone else, or you win the big comps. Either way you’re bad-ass, and there’s an obvious record of it. There are still disagreements and bitching, but by and large it’s clear who is climbing at a very high level in sport land. Or you could be the person who climbs 200 days a year for 20 years; that would be cool and a major accomplishment to me too, maybe the coolest. I don’t think you have to be having the most fun either; climbing is nonsensical, but it’s often not fun, and that’s fine with me. But what if you wanted to find out, say, who was the “best” alpinist? Would you look at summits climbed, new routes done, articles written or times on popular routes? All of these things to me are markers, but they are not direct forms of comparison because of varied conditions and a hundred other variables. Alpinism is a weird game because a lot of people are vying for the public’s attention as being “noteworthy” without having any sort of empirical comparison method. No, if you wanted to compare alpinists you would have to have them all compete on the same objective at the same time, as in any other form of sports competition. This would put a group of people in a true competitive environment, and would produce meaningful results. So, if I had an unlimited budget, I’d have the following event:
1. Everest Dash for Cash. Invite 20 of the “best” alpinists in the world to Everest by offering all expenses paid. Have a start line, and a guy sucking oxygen on the summit with a stopwatch. First one to the top wins a million dollars. First one back to basecamp wins another million dollars. No oxygen, use the fixed ropes, don’t, whatever, haul ass up. Most alpinists of course won’t show up, as they don’t actually compete. They just write articles and pose about their accomplishments with little to no data to back the claims up. It’s easy to “win” an event where you define the rules, the time, the participants, the place and the objective. In fact, incompetency or bad planning is often rewarded or celebrated in alpinism. A few alpinists climb at a very high level (Ueli Steck comes to mind–nearly onsights El Cap, excellent Himalayan climber, and my friend Steve House finally climbed solid 5.13 so he’s definitely trying). Steck holds the record on the Eiger, Matterhorn, etc. I’ll bet he would play the Everest Death Race game. This is all hypothetical and a little bit sarcastic, but what if? Second place is of course a set of steak knives.
2. The Mountain Decathlon
A lot of us take it easy on ourselves by saying, “Well, I’m a generalist, not a sports-specific kinda guy.” Bullshit, sucking at everything and claiming to be a good generalist still means sucking at everything. But, in the interest of finding the best generalist (and I know a few men and women who could give a solid showing in all of the below), how about a comp with:
1. Mountain Running
2. An AT ski race.
3. Sport climbing.
4. Crack climbing (use an artificial crack).
5. Ice climbing.
6. Mixed climbing.
8. Kayaking (creek race).
9. Mountain biking.
10. Heinous road bike climb maybe, but more like likely would be a Loppet-style ski race. Road biking is not really a mountain-specific sport (Hell, look at the road-bike capital of the world, Holland–the place is flat).
I’m leaving out paragliding ’cause nobody but weirdos do that sport, but if we could get enough of us together that would be cool to have too.
Anyhow, I’m thinking about all of this as I look at a few events I’m planning for the next nine months. My “events” are about heading off into new mental or physical zones, pushes to the convoluted edge of my own physical and likely mental limits. In a way I’m coming up with “Alpine” objectives, in that I’ll define all the variables I can. Hmmm, what if I write about it too? You know, I really over-think the hell out of things sometimes.
Right, back to “real” work, the computer calls…
Posted in: Blog
Date: October 22nd, 2009
Greg. T sent me this link, it’s pretty interesting. The idea is that previous iterations of humans were a hell of a lot fitter than even the most fit among us today. Maybe we’re all headed toward becoming the humans in that cinematic classic, Wall-E. They floated around on soft couches swilling their food, with no need to ever move…
I missed my usual Tuesday post as I’ve been fighting either a really bad cold or some form of Influenza A. Hard to tell which, maybe both, but mild fever, bad headache, cough, etc., it all reduced my mental and physical energy to basically nothing. Like no working out, first time I’ve missed the training program in weeks. But if I do have some version of the Flying Pig flu then it’s best to not push it too much. Not that I feel like pushing it… But I’m up off the mat now, just chilling as much as anyone with a life and a two-year old can. May you avoid the seasonal plagues!
Best,
WG
Posted in: Blog
Date: October 13th, 2009
Thanks to everyone who wrote me an email about my reading list for mental training. Really cool to hear from so many people. I started responding to each individual email, and it just got to be too much ’cause I was writing and writing. So I just turned it all into a blog post, here it is. It’s unfortunately a little scattered, but if you’ve been reading this blog then you’re a pro and can wade through it.
Mental training books are always full of contradictions–and often annoying. But maybe, just maybe, some of the more annoying things in the mental training books are exactly what your weaknesses are… One of the first “mental” books I ever read was Dan Millman’s, “Way of the Warrior Athlete.” I remember being so annoyed at his gentle suggestions to look into my motivations and understand why I was doing what I was doing. To hell with that, I was gonna THROW DOWN, not putz around with actually thinking!!! Millman was right, I was wrong, and I was annoyed at his suggestions because I didn’t want to do the work. I’m not quite as much of a fan of Millman’s books as I once was, but I did take the lesson that if something was annoying me I probably need to look at it more closely. And Millman’s books are still useful.
I think every single sports psychology book I’ve ever read had at least one little “Ah ha!” nugget. Until recently I had an entire four-foot shelf filled with used sports psych books. Maybe more. You can go into any used bookstore in North America and find at least a half-dozen sports psych books for about $2/book. Spend $25 and actually read the books and I’ll guarantee that $25 was the best deal of all time for what you get.
Anyhow, here are a few books I’ve read and found useful over the years.
The New Toughness Training for Sports
-Classic. Useful.
Mental Training for Peak Performance
-More “example” based, but good.
Go Rin No Sho: A Book
By Musashi Miyamoto
This is one great book. A bit obscure at times, but damn cool at others.
Arno Ilgner’s books: Climbing-specific but useful.
Secrets of Champions. Flying-specific mostly but very good.
On Combat: The psychology and physiology of deadly conflict in war and in peace.
-Many of our physical responses in high-stress situations are very similar to the stresses of combat…
Music: I often use music to get my competitive or performance groove on; from Ministry to the Animals there’s a song for every situation and mental state, either to maintain or change the space between my ears into what I want it to be.
I really, really like the message of a lot of punk music from the late eighties and early 90s. Minor Threat, Fugazi (anything with Ian M. in it) , Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, etc. It’s all about doing your best in whatever way works, and leaving nothing on the table. The music those bands produced still forms the backbone of my world outlook. The Offspring, Jane’s Addiction, and the Rollins Band are also integral to how I feel about sport and life, and how I try to approach new challenges. So many good lyrics…
Probably the biggest lesson I’ve learned through working on my head is that NOTHING is just sports-specific, from training to introspection. If you want to be a better athlete in the long run then you have to sort your head and life out. Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Chris Sharma, any top athlete either has his mental game figured out in some functional way or he or she stops being a top athlete long before they have to for physical reasons. The inner world of many top athletes might look very weird to an outsider, but it WORKS for that athlete or he or she wouldn’t be at the top of the game. Lance Armstrong is one weird dude, but he’s got a mental game that works for him, as well a life organized to do what he wants. If you want to climb 5.15, win mountain running races or whatever then you’ve got to have the physical training, the mental strength, and the lifestyle to get it done… Kinda cool and daunting at the same time when I first realized that I was going to have to re-structure my entire life if I wanted to perform at a higher level than I currentlyw as. That realization came straight out of the sports psych books.
It’s always a lot easier to talk the people I work with into doing more reps in the gym or even more stretching than to get them to stop and work on their heads. The physical stuff is difficult, but it’s the mental stuff that usually determines an athlete’s longevity and success. Really…
So cut into your head and spread the debris out for a good look. Look your failures in the eye, your successes, and the reasons for each. Modify your life and head as required to succeed. Easy.
Think of what is right and true
Practice and cultivate the science
Become acquainted with the art
Know the principle of the craft
Understand the harm and benefit in everything
Learn to see everything accurately
Become aware of what is not obvious
Be careful even in small matters
Do not do anything useless
-Miyamoto Musashi
Posted in: Blog
Date: October 6th, 2009
It’s a fact of competitive life that the strongest and most skilled often don’t win in the competition. I have won a lot of competitions against those who were better trained, more skilled and likely smarter than me. I have also placed either dead last or in the bottom ten percent of competitions in at least two different sports when I thought I was in world-class shape. My diverse results often have had far more to do with my head than my body.
Nobody wants to think about mental fitness. It’s a lot easier to keep track of physical improvement than mental improvement. To become stronger mentally you have to look inside yourself and realize that, even if you can do a one-arm pullup with an engine block in the other hand, the ultimate limiting factor is your head And most people are simply too weak mentally to actually get stronger mentally. For many people the area between their ears is completely dark, off-limits and filled with soul-twisting demons that just can’t be faced much less slain. But, unless you know how to hit your ideal mental performance state, all your training is quite literally a waste whether your competing at a world-cup level or trying to set a PR of some kind.
When I was competing in a lot of sport climbing comps I had a reputation for climbing “above my ability.” This is debatable, as people tend to remember the successes far more than the failures (nobody remembers me falling off the third move at a world cup in Laval, France–I sure do). Anyhow, I think I could climb at my trained ability in a comp while most people couldn’t. Same with onsighting. It’s not about doing something special in a comp or high-stakes environment, it’s about doing what you’ve trained to do and do in training. That simple.
So how do you train mentally? At a basic level, I try to train like I compete, and compete like I train. That sounds so simple, but very few outdoor athletes do it. I would also include any sort of “goal day” or GD under the competition level. If you’re going to try and redpoint at a high level or set a new PR on the Grouse Grind (look that up if you don’t know it, fun!) then you need to set up situations that mimic what you’re likely to find, and then deal with it. Simulations don’t have to be perfect and never will be, they just have to elicit the same sorts of feelings and stress you’ll be competing or going after a GD under.
These simulations can be entirely mental; I often go and look at a venue I’ll be competing in, and then sit someplace and quiet and populate the stadium or environment with people, a challenge, problems, and noise, distractions, etc. When I walk out to throw down very little surprises me… If I don’t do this kind of prep I often do poorly.
There are many, many books written on mental training, and I have read many of them. Some are hokey and full of mumbo jumbo, but a few are good. I’d rather not endorse books publicly (other than my own, grin…) but drop me a private email and I’ll respond. A few key ideas in good mental training regimes:
1. Worry about the things you can control, and get them right.
-Don’t show up with your blown-out laces about to break. Be well-fed, well-hydrated, well-dressed, etc. etc. This a really deep well to look down once you get going on it…
-You can’t control other people’s results, or even your own. You can only control how well you perform… If you perform well you’ll get a good result, but worrying about the result is wasted energy. We all want to win, but you can’t control that. You can control how ready you are to compete and prepared to get a good result…
2. Nothing is ever perfect in a high-stakes situation. Deal with it, stay focused on competing well. Things will be messy; this is life, competition, solve the problem and move forward. Easy to write, hard to do.
3. Know what your head feels like when you are competing well, and get to that place.
-I often get very negative before big comps. I don’t feel trained, don’t feel excited, worry about failure, etc. etc. But I know that if I sit down in a bathroom stall for about 15 minutes I can generally pull this together and get into my preferred comp state… Not always, but about 90 percent of the time. Everybody needs to get to their performance state differently, but get there we must.
4. Do your best in training and in competition.
-Never accept less than your best possible effort. Some days you will be tired, sore, distracted, hung over, whatever, but do your best. You know when you do your best, when you leave nothing on the table. Sometimes my best isn’t much, but if I’ve done my best then fuck it, that’s all I’ve got. I have also not done my best in competition, and I still get pissed about those days when I left a little on the table…
Fundamentally I believe in training my weaknesses. Finding those weaknesses often takes more personal honesty than I may have on any given day. It’s a lot easier to bang out another set of pullups than it is to admit I have the contact strength of a fish… In almost all situations your head is the limiting factor in performance, not your body. You do need to be trained, but if your head explodes at the sight of a starting line then what’s the point?
Posted in: Blog
I was out for a hike in the mountains yesterday and saw these tracks. Five or six animals, lots of deer in the area, hmmm… I’m going with wolf.
