Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Quick on the Draw 2011

One of my favorite comps every year is the the Quick on the Draw at Adventure Rock, Milwaukee.  I have been attending this comp since I was 11 or 12 years old.  It has always been one of my favorite comps because the people, the routes, the creativity, the costumes, and the excitement of finals.  It is a tradition for many finals climbers to dress up in costumes during finals - Kasia and her dress, the HP girls in Turtle costumes, and Tyler and David in whatever the hell they wore.  As much as I used to enjoy dressing in costumes while climbing, (gum underneath a chair, grapes, super super short shorts) I find myself trying to minimize my humiliation on finals routes. 

In the past there have been some creative comp themes but this year took this idea to a whole new level, with special holds made in honor of the theme.  The theme for 2011 was mustaches.  In preparation for the comp many of the AD rockers grew their stashes long and proud.  There even was a competition for the best mustache.  Although this theme was a bit sexist there were still some women who came up with ways to have mustaches. 

Qualifiers were jammed packed with little to no room to move from route to route.  Despite this I was able to get on all of my routes without much wait.  To everyones' enjoyment the routes are scored per hold so that even if you don't top it out you will still get partial credit.  The routes this year were pretty consistent and a few had me spitting off all over the place.  The Boulder problems were cool, although one of the probs had a dangerous fall that put me on my back. 

I was last coming out for finals as I qualified in first position.  I choose We Didn't Start the Fire by Billy Joel as my song to be played as I climbed (the climber typically never hears his/her song as they are too focused on the route and the crowd can get pretty loud).  After all of the women and all the advanced men and open men had already gone out I felt like a rat trapped in a cage as I was ready to get out of isolation and get it done. 

The finals route include all the mustache holds made by a really cool new company out of Appleton WI, Figure 4.  The first move was a jump start which concerned me because I was not used to jump starting with a rope tied to me, only over a bouldering mat.  My first few attempts at the jump left me with my tail between my legs as I was scared of crushing my diagram on the stalactite that we were jumping to.  After a few false starts, my belay, Jeremy ( a good friend, going back to the days of JCCA), had me stop and take a few breaths.  I slowed my heart rate and took one last long deep breath, grabbed some chalk, gave Jeremy a node, and launch for those seemingly distant starting holds.  To my surprise I caught one of the start holds and clawed at the stalactite with the other.  I pulled my feet up and established on the start holds.  I immediately took to getting my self up this route quickly as I knew it would be bouldery.  The first few moves were powerful and juggy.  I made a few fancy healhooks and before I knew it I was on giant mustache hold. It was quite slopey but I kept my body low on it.  I made my next clip, chalked, and brought my feet up to sprint to the next big hold.  After a few crimps, I was on another sloper which had me squeezing it pretty hard as it was tremendously warm in the gym at the time.  I made the next clip and powered on.  I hamhocked the next hold and tried to reach out to the volume where the definitive crux was.  While reaching over, I failed to see the hold on the other side of the volume and I tried gastoning the volume itself.  This gaston was not very good so it went to spit me off prematurely.  I felt that I had some more gas left in the tank - I blame the disco lights that cast a shadow over that hold that I missed but either way that volume was hard stuff. 

As the results turned out David Nimmer and Alex Nimmer both beat me as well as this other strong fella from Indiana.  I took 4th, which was a little upsetting but my peaking times are for Bouldering and Rope Nationals. 

If you haven't been to Adventure Rock before you should go! It is one of the best gyms in the Midwest!