The Ice Park emptied out yesterday--I always see the park in the midst of the ice festival, when hundreds of climbers attack the hundreds of routes (Hundred? There sure are a lot!). But by about 2:00 yesterday things were slowing down, and Jason N. and I got in there for some speed laps. 20 minutes on, 20 off, giving it! Three sets of that, then I did a solo session into the dark for a bit to up the distance. I bought a new ascender thing from
Ouray Mountain Sports which made the whole process much smoother. Did about 30 laps again, but the difference in how I felt from the last session was huge.
For starters, don't dry your socks with fabric softener--this makes them incredibly slippery in your boots, which sucks when standing on frontpoints... Figuring out why my heels were lifting so much and why my calfs were cramping so bad in the last session was positive, way better to figure that out now than
during the climb! I was also low on calories last session I think, but a huge burger the night before along with some other food plus a concerted effort to get a whack of calories down my throat during the day. In the last week I've been sick, traveling, eating irregularly, it just hasn't been that good. But it doesn't take all that long to put the pieces back together if given some time and quality food (I don't normally eat hamburgers, but the burger at Drake's in Ridgway is the absolute best thing I've eaten in months, insane!). I'm also already much better adapted to the altitude--you wouldn't think going to 8,5000 feet from 4,500 would make that big a difference, but it does when you're going hard. Plus seeing more friends and just getting the mojo going is worth a lot, the energy is building.
I'm training today and Wednesday and then I'm done with that, it's game time on Saturday at high noon.