Athlete • Speaker • Guide 
Athlete • Speaker • Guide Date: 20th November 2006
The ice season is in full swing here–it’s been a bit of an odd November so far, very warm days (+8 Canadian here today, that’s about +50 US) alternating with good periods of colder weather. Most of the higher north-facing routes are “in,” some of the lower north-facing routes are “in,” and the rest is pretty random. It seems like air masses have been very localized; what’s true in K-Country isn’t for the Parkway, and even along the Parkway there is a lot of variety. The conditions pages are in good form.
Training (elbow and aerobics):
The elbow continues to annoy, I haven’t done much climbing in a while, it’s getting pretty aggravating. Some ice (well, not climbing, in plastic bags…), light gym workouts that don’t annoy the elbow, doing my best. My situps are going damn well, I’m in top form for dips and pushups too, but unfortunately these don’t apply to climbing all that well… I’ve been doing a lot of dog training too, beat the old “Chili Dog” record up to the first talus slope on Lady Mac from my house today, round trip 58 minutes (previous best time a little over an hour round-trip, done while training for the X Alps). I’d like to go alpine climbing as there are some new routes worth trying, but pulling ropes through a belay device is one of the things that hurts my elbow most. I’m thinking of going back to a hip-belay, but that might freak some of my partners out, grin. I do trust hip belays if done right, the first lead fall I ever caught was a near factor-two straight onto me and a hip belay. I don’t know who was more stunned that it worked, the leader or me, but it did… I’ve been doing a fair amount of Yoga as well, although I’ve been avoiding Ashtanga classes as I can’t do the “swing through” move to seated or back, too much strain on the elbow. Did a “Hot Yoga” class yesterday while in Calgary, bunch of nutters in a room with the heat cranked up to hallucination hot, pretty fun. Very different from the normal Ashtanga flow stuff I do, seemed good to switch it up. Initiatlly I was OK with taking a break from climbing, but now I’m seriously missing it, the feeling of ice flowing by the tools and good times out with good people is just a big part of my life. Whine whine, I’ll eventually heal ’cause I’m gonna lose it if I don’t get out climbing pretty quick.
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