Sugar

My diet has been terrible lately. Seriously, I have been eating like a twelve year old boy. I'm not sure why I have been doing so bad, but I am going to mend my evil ways. I am going on another sugar fast. I am going to start on May 1st (have to help finish off all the Easter candy laying around the house.) Steve is going to do it with me, and any of you who want to join in please feel free. We can be our own little support group. I have my own rules so make your own. Some of mine include; dessert once a week, fruit doesn't count as sugar, sugar in regular food doesn't count, and basically I just want to cut out the extra sugar I really don't need to eat. I am just trying some things so I can quit loosing the same seven pounds over and over. Last time I lost five pounds in a month without changing anything else. Maybe next I will work on portion control. One thing at a time. Someday I hope to have a flat stomach like Kent's.

Amy's Birthday

Saturday was Amy's birthday. She found a 5k that she wanted to do. Amy, Philip, and I all signed up and ran. Amy came in first in her age group.

There she is finishing in 23 minutes and change.

Philip Ran just over 23 minutes. I ran 24:06. I was hoping to be able to just run my standard 24 minutes that I can almost always run even when I am not trained up, but was disappointed when I saw how close I was to going under 24. I should have pushed harder. I had more in the tank, but was leery of going to hard after several weeks of very spotting running.

Amy got this cool shirt. She will have to wear it next year at this race to defend her age group champion title. This is the first time she has ever legitimately beat me at any distance. I must be getting old.

Samson and Delieback 5.9 **

Saturday Ryan and I went up the mountain to do some trad climbing. We went to Green Slabs so Ryan could get in a couple of leads that he had not gotten to do the week before we went to Red Rocks. He lead Banana Cake, and Here and Now. I got to lead Samson and Delieback. It is a 5.9 two star climb. It really was a fun climb. The only thing that kept it from getting all the stars is the best part of the climb, the lie back, was only about two moves. It was worth doing the whole climb just for those two moves. Afterward, we headed up to Windy Point to climb Slippery when wet. I hadn't lead it yet, and it is considered a Tucson classic. All in all it was probably my best day of climbing in at least a week.

Red Rocks

While in Vegas I was forced to take in the sights. I said it, and then heard it from at least two other people independent of my saying it. "The Vegas strip is everything that is wrong with America." It was interesting to see, but I don't feel the need to go back for anything but the climbing. I really hated the cigarette smoke. On our last night we ate at an Irish restaurant in NY NY called Nine Fine Irishmen. The food was awesome, and the company was even better. They also had a very good Irish band that was fun to listen to.

We got to see the Desert Bighorn Sheep. I have seen sheep in the Catalinas, the Silverbells, and now in Red Rocks. It is always a treat for me to get to see them.

I have been saying that climbing Crimson Chrysalis was the highlight of my trip, and it was very good, but the best part of the trip was the good people that I went with. CC is on the far right of the rock with the red cap. It is 960 feet tall, and 9 pitches long.

This is from the top of the third pitch. It really was an adventure. We had at least two other parties bail off below us. It can be intimidating.

Here is Mike on top. 960' off the ground. It was a hard won ascent. We got up with the alarm at 4:00 am. We parked outside the gates of the park because it doesn't open until 6:00, and we wanted to be the first on the route. The approach is steep. At one point we had about forty yards to get to the base of the climb, but I had to do it in three pushes. (Before you judge me please know that I had started to get sick on Sunday, and this was Tuesday. I tried to pretend that I wasn't sick because I didn't want to ruin anyone's trip. I had a splitting headache though.)

Mike lead the first pitch at 7:30, and we swung leads from there. It was awesome leading 100+ foot pitches. What wasn't as awesome was that every pitch ended in a hanging belay. When we topped out we hung out for a few minutes, and then started the long process of rapping back down the way we came. I think it took us as long to rapp off as it did to climb the route. Mike tied our backed up European Death Knot, and we proceeded to get our rope stuck, (but not irretrievably so), on just about every pitch. The route is famous for trying to hang on to your ropes. It is also famous for having to rapp straight down the route. It is hard not to hit the party climbing behind you with your ropes. It requires good communication, and a little diplomacy. Our rope hit the ground at 5:20 pm. We threw our hands in the air and cheered like two men who had just received a call from the Governor. We knew we would live, not loose a rope, and have a great story to tell.

Top 10 Things That Should Be Banned

There are some things that really get under my skin. I try to let things go that don't affect me, but sometimes I have had such a bad experience with something I put it on my banned list. Generally I don't have a problem with the thing on it's own, but how it is used by people. Can't ban people (or so they tell me), so here is my list. Keep in mind I am no Letterman, and if I touch a nerve these are only my opinions. Drum roll please.......... 10. Mariachi Music. I love Mexican food, but hate to eat it with a trumpet blaring in my ear. 9. Plus sized lingerie. Not that I have to deal with this, but just on general principals it should be banned. 8. Horses on hiking and mountain biking trails. There are some equestrians here in town that put obstacles up that mountain bikers can't ride over because they think they own the trail. Some are also hostile to trail runners. None of them clean up after their horses. I don't like to run through crap weather from a horse, or dog. 7. When the morbidly obese wear high end running shoes. If you can't run to the fridge without getting winded you don't need a $130 pair of running shoes. 6. Birthday parties and family night at the climbing gym. I know it's a fun place to take the kids for a party, but some of us are there to get our workout in. Imagine having a bunch of kids hopped up on frosting hogging the stair master or bench press at your gym. 5. Recumbent bikes. OK, I admit these are basically harmless, but they are just ridiculous. They can't even be ridden up hill. 4. Strollers (sorry Ann). I just don't think anyone needs a stroller the size of my truck for an eight pound baby. I know I don't need to be run over by them anymore. 3. Jet Skis. Here is a prime example of an inanimate object not being the problem, but the type of people who would own them are. It is hard to have a nice quiet day at the lake with the jet ski d-bags constantly buzzing you (again, sorry Ann). 2. DUI bikes. These are the motorized bikes that are being ridden in the bike lane by people who have generally lost their license due to DUI. They are two stroke engines that are far more polluting than four stroke engines. In my opinion if you have lost your license to DUI you should be walking or taking the bus. 1. RV's and Motorhomes in the forest. I don't want to camp next to someone who needs to run his generator all night long so he can watch a DVD. If you need all that you should be in a campground with hookups, a cabin, or a hotel. You really don't like camping if you need a small house to enjoy the outdoors.

Vegas

I was looking for a song this week that would help show what is on my mind. Viva Las Vegas was the only song I could think of about Vegas. I couldn't bear to listen to Elvis, but fortunately Jello Biafra and the rest of the Dead Kennedys had covered it. I am going to Red Rocks to climb next week, and we are staying on the Vegas strip. I can't wait.

Locking Carabiner Review

I haven't done a gear review for a while so when I had to replace these carabiners prematurely (in my opinion) I thought I would share my experience. I have two sets of alpine draws I use for lowering, and top roping climbs. One set is over four years old, and the other is less than two years old. I keep one set on my rack of sport draws, and the other with my trad climbing rack. That way I always have a set with me, I won't forget them, and won't have to make do with something that might not be as safe. The older set has four Black Diamond Positron locking carabiners, and the newer set has two Positrons, and two Wild Country Neons. The Positrons that are clipped into the bolts show no wear except for some scratches which is what I would expect. I was looking at the Positrons that the rope gets clipped into, and they showed some wear with a pretty good rope groove. I had been watching them because they were four years old with probably hundreds of routes on them. I took a quick look at the Neons at the same time and was very surprised at the amount of wear they were showing. It would be different if they had hundreds of top rope routes on them, but they get maybe ten percent of the use as the Positrons. They also had half the life span of the Positrons. The depth of the wear was 30 thousandths of an inch. Which equates to about three quarters of a millimeter, and one millimeter is the recommended retirement for a carabiner by most manufacturers. So they should have some life left in them right? The Neon is an I beam style carabiner, and starts to get sharp where the rope runs over the edge of the rope bearing surface. I don't know about you, but I don't want anything sharp around my rope. All of my trad carabiners are Wild Country Helium which is the same body as the Neon, but with a wire gate. I don't worry about them because they don't have the rope running over them with weight on it anywhere near as much as a set of anchors does, but I do watch them. I talked to a guy at the gym last week, and he had the same experience with the Neon so I don't think it is just me. I wouldn't buy the Neons again if I was going to use them for top roping. I have a few more that I will burn up, and then buy something else to replace them. Probably the Positron. Thanks to anyone who made it to the end of this post (Dave). I know no one is probably interested in this but me. Also if anyone knows how to make paragraphs in the body of a post on Blogger please teach me. I swear I put breaks in this post.