my middle finger's crimp pulley is almost completely healed too. ive been able to crimp pretty hard on it. ive lost some crimp strength from my right hand taking a break because of my wrist and my left hand taking a break because of the injury in hueco...but im good to go now!
my good friend JJ had vacation this past week for the first time in 2 years, and he really wanted to climb a lot...so we climbed 5 days this week...saturday, monday, tuesday, thursday, and friday. each session was at least 3 hours long. i was wrecked on tuesday! i felt the elbow tendonitis coming back, and i tried very hard to keep climbing lol.
climbed at brooklyn boulders, garden state rocks, earth treks in rockville near washington d.c., elite climbing gym in south jersey by philly, and manhattan health plaza club rock gym in nyc.
at bkb, i didnt feel too strong, i had a 5 day break to rest up and i needed to break my muscles in again..but i took some vids of v9 attempts (video below)
monday at gsr, i felt strong. i finally sent the red v8 pinch problem (video below). that v8 felt really hard when i first tried it over a month ago. i sent the problem first go on monday, and it made me really feel like im progressing. i also sent a orange v6- upstairs with my really burly beta that makes it go at v7, first go. that problem felt really hard with my bad beta the first time i ever tried it, so once again i felt good.
tuesday in d.c. i felt drained. however, i managed to make progress on a couple v9's and 8's, although no sends. one particular v9 on the overhang involved a powerful heelhook, big throw move which started up my elbow tendonitis..
thursday at elite, almost nothing was graded because it was all new, but i was able to bust out a send on a problem that i was maxing out on. i felt my fingers uncurling, but i pulled through. no matter what grade, i felt that i mentally made progress. there was also a pretty gnarly crimp problem i made some progress on. but i felt whooped.
friday at mhpc, i was dead. but i still climbed somehow... in fact, i almost flashed a v7+ on the overhang. it felt pretty burly even with being super sore. i made progress on a v-hard there as well. seeing jj and manuel try the problem, although they were tired as well, helped me get a sense of how hard the problems were. the problems were much more beta intensive, but i had fun, and was glad to be on new stuff.
tomorrow is another day. i took off the past two days from climbing, and im trying to recover so that i can climb hard at gsr tomorrow. i have an idea of what i want to work on. i really feel like im about to make a big breakthrough in my climbing. we shall see!
(by the way, in a couple days it will be exactly 1 year and a half since i started climbing. im getting old.)
Red V8 @ GSR from Alan Kahn on Vimeo.
Two V9 Attempts @ BKB from Alan Kahn on Vimeo.
