so tired...

i've stopped drinking coffee for a couple of days, just to give myself a break from the caffeine.
it's not like a drink a lot, most days it's just one cup of half-caf in the mornings. but my consumption has been creeping up lately; full caf, or even a double latte, has become more common, so i figured i'd take a short break.

of course, since i'm kind of an idiot it didn't occur to me to do this during the bootcamp hiatus (i have two weeks off between seasons this year), so not only am i dealing with having to get up early after two weeks of sleeping in, i have to do it with no coffee.

it's freakin' hard. i felt like i was going to fall alseep at the wheel on my way in to work this morning, and i've been dragging all day. yesterday i had to go upstairs and lie down for about 30 minutes after lunch, and i may have to do that again today.

ok, enough with the whining.

saturday j. and i competeted in a bouldering competition at the gym in berkeley, which was a huge amount of fun. we were in the advanced category (v4 - v6), which i thought was a little bit laughable, at least for me, but we did a lot better than i expected: 1 v6, 3 v5's, and a bunch of v4's. the v6 was the easiest v6 on the planet, but still...

i placed 17th out of 32, and j. placed 16th, and i'm REALLY happy with my results.

pulling down

friday morning at 5:00 my buddy j. and i hopped into my car and headed out to bishop ca. for three days of bouldering, or at least as much as our gym-soft hands would allow.

we made it to bishop in 6 hours flat, and after a brief stop in town to get directions and some food we headed out to the sad boulders and got started.

it was pretty hot, so after warming up on a few things we went into the ice caves, which are cool and out of the sun and stayed there for the rest of the day. we got on 'mothership connection', and after some false starts we both sent it, although we found out later that we did it a weird way. most people get their right hand in the jam under the roof, and come out with their left to a side-pull thing. we went with a left in the jam, then right to a crimp, which was hard but doable.

j. got on 'erotic terrorism', which is v6, and put that away too, but it was too much for me, and i had to let it go.
by this point our skin was really starting to hurt and we were just about to go back to car to call our friend m. (we were staying with her and her husband) to see what the plan was, when she showed up, so sore skin or no, it was back on the rock.

j. figuring out the beta.

the next day we (j., m., her husband c., and i) went back out to the sads again, warmed up for a bit and started climbing.
boy was it painful; skin already worn a little thin was abraded more, but it was too much fun to stop.

me toe-hooking.

we did a bunch of stuff on a great overhanging juggy boulder, and then moved over to 'pop a wheelie' which j. had been on before. i got on it first, just planning on checking out the first few moves, and much to my surprise i ended up flashing it!
it was my first ever outdoor v4 on-sight, and i was really stoked.

m. going for the top on 'pop a wheelie'

we did a couple of variations on that problem, and then went back into the ice caves to escape the heat. we got back on 'mothership' and tried to do it with the right hand-jam, but i was too toasted, although j. got it no problem.

the rest of the day we tried to climb while nursing our incredibly sore skin, but nothing too exciting happened.

me failing to latch the first move on 'fueled by hate'

sunday morning we went out to a newer area called tungsten boulders, which is granite. the slightly softer rock was the only thing that made it possible to climb; our fingertips had developed purple patches in the center where the skin was worn almost through, and it hurt to touch anything.

despite this i managed to send a very sharp crimpy problem that felt like a very hard v4, maybe a v5, as well as a throwy, powerful arete problem that was probably v4 as well.

i didn't think i was going to get it, but i rested before my last try, focused, and it went. j. got on it right after me for his last try and sent it too, and on that note we piled into the car, and headed back to san francisco, tired, happy, and with very thin skin.

matt jackson is a moron

i don't usually play pile-on, but this seems like a good reason to.


matt jackson said some pretty unpleasant things about heather armstrong of dooce.com, and women in general, so click through to dooce, read all about it, and then send him some email about it if you feel like it.

"update your blog already, punk!"

okay okay! sheesh, chill out a little already.

what happened? it rained a lot, which means that i was denied my usual exercise outlets, which meant i was cranky and not fit to associate with.

something of note happened though, probably the most noteworthy of which was that i went out. to a bar. at night.

i used to do that a lot, but now that i am cranky-exercise-boy-who-gets-up-early it almost never happens, and it took a pretty unusual event for it to happen.

my friend h., who is all kinds of smart and lovely (and the person of mac the wonder dog) flew up from l.a. to buy a car.
it's not quite as extravagant as it sounds, 'cause it's only a short flight, and she'd been looking for this car for a long time, and the only one in the state happened to be in berkeley, but still, it all seemed pretty grown-up and fancy to me.

anyway, since she was only in the city for about 24 hours we (me, k., n., h., and m.) all met up at the elbo room for some beers, and there was chatting about this and that, especially about the international bear rendezvous, which m. was going to check out after i went to bed, and about m.'s pink hat, which he said was 'so post-ironic it was sarcastic'.

he knows how to turn a phrase.