NOR’EASTER AND UNIFIED BOULDERING CHAMPIONSHIPS WRAP UP

By Gavin Heverly

All photos by Stephanie Crumley

For those of you whom have been living under a rock, this past weekend was the Eastern Mountain Sports/NE2C Nor’Easter Fest up at Loon Mountain in New Hampshire. The event was a slammer jammer mash-up of music, cyclocross racing, bouldering competition, outdoor climbing clinics, vendor village, and really, really bad food selection. I went up for the main events on Saturday and to support our head route-setter Maxim Zolotukhin in the UBC Pro Tour finals. He placed 16th in qualifiers which didn’t quite get him in to finals. Boston Rock Gym was also the partner gym for the event, and we helped with some logistics, volunteers, as well as climbing holds and crash pads and some other random stuff. The Geekhouse X BRG cyclocross team was also along for the ride as their team captain and Geekhouse owner Marty Walsh was racing!

The author being a social butterfly in the vendor village.

At any rate, Saturday went down something like this: Woke up super early to get Marty to the race. We arrived at Loon and skipped our way right to staff parking. A nice luxury of being an event partner. Thanks guys! Marty got suited up and we scoped out the cyclocross course. It looked, as Marty put it “like a mountain bike course”, which meant that a lot of the roadies in the race were going to be not psyched, but guys like Marty whom have a mountain bike racing background were stoked!

The Custom Built Handmade GEEKHOUSE Cyclocross machine ready to roll.

Marty rocking the coolest cycling kit on the entire course as he rolls through some of the switchbacks on the race course.

After the cross race was over, I headed over to the vendor village to chat up some pals I hadn’t seen in a while at the Prana and Evolv tents. Everyone seemed pretty psyched on the cross race seeing as how the entire vendor village was basically in the center of the course. Overall the cyclocross race was pretty awesome. A great course and a welcome addition to the Nor’Easter. It definitely helped make it seem as though there was something HAPPENING since there were bikes whizzing past you all throughout the day. A nice element. There was also some big stage with bands playing. But I didn’t really pay any attention to it, and that seemed to be the general consensus. Although after the UBC comp, some more big name bands like The Gaslight Anthem played, as well as !!! (Chik Chik Chik), and The Walkmen. And while I didn’t stick around, I would guess a great deal more people were interested in that.

SPEAKING OF THE UBC COMP!:

Boston's own Francesca Metcalf waiting for her go as Terry climbs on Men's 2 in the background.

Sasha DiGiulian high on Women's 2

The comp started pretty promptly at 3pm. Lights, camera, ACTION! Jason Danforth took the mic and introduced the day’s finalists:

MENS: 6th place Terry Paholek, 5th Ian Dorey, 4th Brian Kim, 3rd Ethan Pringle, 2nd Vasya Vorotnikov, 1st Daniel Woods.

WOMENS: 6th Melissa Lacasse, 5th Natasha Barnes, 4th Alex Johnson, 3rd Angela Payne, 2nd Sasha Digiulian, 1st Francesca Metcalf.

So with that sort of placing going in to finals, it certainly felt like it was anyone’s game. And man did it turn out to be a surprise ending. The turnout for the comp was a little less than what I expected, although with the weather being about 68 and sunny and breezy, perhaps it was both a blessing and a curse for the event. I quickly snagged a seat front and center to absorb all the action I possible could. it became clear early on that Daniel Woods, the crowd favorite, and shoe-in for the win was NOT having such a hot day of climbing. Problem #1 which was a techinical tension based boulder seemed to work against his style and essentially shut him down. New York’s Brian Kim flashed it. Done and done. “What’s this?”, everyone thought as he easily flew to the top. He cruised to the top on number 2 as well. Where as Daniel and Ian Dorey had some real trouble with the opening dyno. Vasya came about as close as you can on #2 without actually sending. Also quite the upset. In the end, it was clear that the men’s competition was going to be east meets west as Brian Kim and Ethan Pringle duked it out.

On the lady’s side, it was clearly anyone’s game. Although I think most people were assuming Angie or Alex would take it. Francesca Metcalf crushed. Although women’s #3 appeared to be a bit reachy for all the competitors. (Editor’s note: I was told over a cup of tea in my living room the following day by one of the route-setters that all the girls botched the beta on the problem.) Natasha Barnes came out of nowhere to fly up women’s 1 and 2 with ease. In the end, it was hard to even tell who would win.

Natasha Barnes come all the way from SF, CA to crush on Women's 2.

All in all a good comp.The organization seemed to be much better than at the Salt Lake City comp. the MC-ing was greatly improved upon, although left something to be desired, and the route-setting was a lot better as well. Here were the surprising results of the day:

MENS: 3rd Daniel Woods, 2nd Brian Kim, 1st Ethan Pringle

WOMENS: 3rd Angie Payne, 2nd Francesca Metcalf, 1st Alex Johnson

The Nor’Easter is a massively valiant effort by the dudes at NE2C to bring an exciting and energized outdoor festival to the East Coast. Combining music, climbing, cycling, and more to give the residents of New England an entire weekend of activities and to grow the community that I know for sure Jason and Pete of NE2C care so much about. So while there are a lot of things that I would do differently, my hat is off to them for their passion, organization, energy, and dedication. The climbing world could use a lot more Jason Danforths and Pete Wards. Looking forward to next year. Count me in, and count BRG in.

ASCEND!

TRAINING FOR AEROBIC AND ANAEROBIC FITNESS

By MATT MCCORMICK

Over the last 4-5 weeks I’ve been following a plan to prepare for a week-long trip to the Red River Gorge in Kentucky. For those of you unfamiliar with the Red, the climbing is most often characterized by monstrous endurance and resistance routes.

Jonathan Siegrist on his recent sendfest in the Red

Climbers who perform at a high level in the Red possess an amazing balance of aerobic and anaerobic fitness. Below I share a quick explanation of the difference between aerobic and anaerobic as well as sharing the plan I’ve been following for the past several weeks. We’ll see how it goes!

A quick explanation of aerobic and anaerobic energy production…

Aerobic: This is the body’s most efficient energy production mode and can be sustained indefinitely because the body is able to use oxygen in the energy production process. The body can only sustain aerobic energy production at steady, sub-maximal levels of exertion. Ie. A route that you don’t get pumped on at all and that has no moves that are difficult for you. Another great example is going for a long steady run.

Anaerobic: At a certain level of exertion (this is different for each person and called the anaerobic threshold) each person’s body will no longer be able to supply the necessary energy using the aerobic system. At this point the body begin to supply energy using the anaerobic system which does not utilize oxygen and can only be sustained for 1-3 minutes. Anaerobic energy production is inefficient in producing long-term energy because of the build up of lactic acid that it produces. This lactic acid buildup seriously inhibits muscle function and results in that all too familiar pump. The anaerobic system is good at producing energy for short bursts of high intensity exertion. Ie. A crux on a route or a boulder problem. Climbers can train to increase their body’s ability to function well with a high build-up of lactic acid. This is called anaerobic endurance.

Here’s the catch! In climbing, unless you specialize in one-move-wonders, you need to train both systems.

Climbing, more than most sports, is extremely complex and difficult to categorize. Over the course of a route or long boulder problem, a climber will draw energy from a both aerobic and anaerobic systems. Moving through cruxes at their limit the climber will utilize the anaerobic system for energy and then at rests and through easier sections the climber can recover because his energy is being drawn from the efficiency of the aerobic system.

Check out this video of Sharma on Pachamama in Spain. The routes Sharma is doing, you know are amazing performances of anaerobic endurance.

The Red River Plan

The plan I followed over the last several weeks focused on building anaerobic endurance as well as building finger strength, power, and aerobic endurance. Here it is…

Day 1

Hangboard – (Absolute finger strength): Why this for the Red you might ask? Think of the V13 boulderer who goes to the Red and onsights 5.13+ in the Madness Cave. He may not have the best aerobic endurance but the moves are not hard for him and the holds feel easy to hang onto.

Pick 4 grips on the hangboard. Train your weaknesses!

Perform 3 sets on each of the four grips. You’ll need a stopwatch right in front of you for this. One set = Seven 7 second hangs with 3 seconds of rest between each hang. Rest 1 minute and repeat 3 sets for each grip. Rest  2 minutes between each grip. If you can complete One set without dropping off the board, increase the weight 2-5 lbs. For the sake of your tendon pulleys, use an open grip rather than full closed crimp grip.

Open Grip

Closed (full crimp) grip

Traverse into Boulder Problems x 5:

Create a 30+ move traverse at sub-maximal level (ie. if you boulder V7 create a V4 crux or cruxes in the traverse split up by rests). Have the traverse end at the start of a boulder problem slightly below your max (For the V7 boulderer V5/V5+ would be perfect). The goal is to recover on some good holds before the final boulder problem. Crush the boulder problem and then rest 1 minute before repeating or repeating into another problem. Do this 5 times.

Cool Down: Aerobic Recovery Capillary (ARC)

15-20 minutes of traversing. The goal here is to stay in the Aerobic zone (just slightly below your anaerobic threshold) for the entire 20 minutes. You’ll be able to tell this by staying just below the point where you’re getting really pumped but still at a level where your getting fatigued. Kind of like going for a long run or bike ride. This exercise will increase your local endurance as well as build more capillary density in the forearm muscles. Capillaries move nutrients to and from the muscle and help speed recovery.

Core: Complete 15 minutes of core exercises of your choice.

Day 2:

Campus Board: (Power)

Ladders and Touches

Perform one ladder up and down. Rest 1 minute and then perform one set of touches doing 2-3 touches with each arm without stepping off the board.

Here’s a great site with some video of these 2 exercises:

http://www.nicros.com/archive/archive15.cfm

Repeat this 4 times.

Boulder Pyramid: This is an excellent anaerobic endurance exercise!

Pick 6 boulder problems and arrange them in a pyramid as below.

V3,V3+,V4,V4+,V5,V5+,V4+,V4,V3+,V3

Complete this pyramid 4 times moving between problems as quickly as possible. Rest 2 minutes between completing each pyramid.

Cool Down: Aerobic Recovery Capillary (ARC) (See above)

Core: Complete 15 minutes of core exercises of your choice.

Rest Day: Think about doing some aerobic exercise for 30-60 minutes. This will accelerate recovery and help build general aerobic fitness.

Day 3:

Repeat Day 1…