On Tuesday Paul Robinson nabbed a repeat of Daniel Woods’ RMNP V14 Mirror Reailty. He then put in some more work on another hard boulder of Woods’ in The Park, the unrepeated Paint It Black (V15). Deterred by a lack of pads for the high finish12, he vowed to return the next day.
Read more on PRob’s send at ClimbingNarc
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Club Tread is far from being a resort in an exotic location. At this club there are no sandy beaches or umbrellas in your drink. There is no relaxation or leisurely activity here. What you can find in this all inclusive resort is a motorized climbing treadwall, rings, system board, and bouldering wall. All this was established by a climber family and can be found nestled within a friend’s garage in Las Vegas.
Many climbers believe the climbing treadwall is the answer for building power endurance. Bill Ramsey is responsible for seeking out the treadwall and convincing us this would be an invaluable training tool for the community. About a dozen of us local Las Vegas climbers pitched in to purchase this monster and Rob Jenson graciously offered his garage for its locale.
A typical evening here consists of a game of laser pointing your friend on the motorized wall, making up routes until they fall off exasperated, and finishing off the night with a five minute ab-destroyer. There are a number of established routes as well and we attempt to link the climbs in a consecutive manner. Once these problems seem too easy, a simple twist of the treadwall’s knob to “steeper” makes for a whole new challenge of managing the forearm explosion.
Club Tread is not only a great training tool, but most importantly it is a unique destination where like-minded people get together and motivate each other to help attain their goals. A big thank you to Rob Jenson for providing his home- this is an asset to the Las Vegas climbing community. Oh, and sorry to the neighbors for the late night yelling and blaring techno music- this must be very confusing.
~Heather Robinson, prAna Ambassador
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I first heard about Albarracin many years ago. I heard good things and bad things over the years and finally decided that I had to check the area out for myself to be the judge. I made the drive from Lisbon, Portugal to Albarracin in hopes of colder temperatures and majestic sandstone. To my amazement, it was everything I had ever dreamed of.
The climbing in Albarracin is some of the best bouldering in all of Europe! There are big proud boulders in all directions and tons of potential for new lines. I spent my first few days climbing many of the classics of the area but soon found some amazing projects that i was quite eager to try. One of which was on a big boulder and was super steep, much like a lot of the climbing in Albarracin. The climb looked really gymnastic and powerful. Out of all the projects I had seen I was most psyched on this one!
The first day I tried the line I was unable to do either of the crux moves but felt close to both of them. The crux moves are back to back and both are quite low percentage, especially the second one. The first hard move involves jumping to a bad pinch and holding a hard swing. Once you do that you have to match the pinch and do the hardest move on t he climb, a long blind dead point to a very small crimp high up on the face of the boulder. I fell here countless times!
On my third day of trying, I was beginning to get really close.
Unfortunately the weather was not looking so good and it began to rain. I was forced to stop trying for a bit. A lull in the rain finally emerged and I waited 15 minutes or so to let the top out dry slightly. After one bad try, I found myself topping out what would be the first ascent of “Helicopters on Beaches” 8B+.
I am really psyched to have put up such a classic hard line in Albarracin! I think that this line is one of my best FA’s to date and I look forward to people putting effort into repeating it in the future!
After hosting the world premiere of Welcome to the Hood in Madrid, the search is on again for new boulders all around the world!
Paul Robinson, prAna Ambassador
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I love spring. While many, if not most, rock climbers revel in the arrival of autumn, with its crisp, cool temps and relative lack of precipitation and humidity, I prefer spring and summer most of all (though I love autumn, too; don’t get me wrong!). As a person who has an avowed aversion to chilly temperatures, I eagerly anticipate the return of warmth that comes with springtime, along with the knowledge that I have months and months of ever-warming weather ahead of me, months that I’ll spend not feeling frustrated and miserable as I experience yet again my utter inability to rock climb anywhere close to my ability level on cold rock.
Though spring officially starts on March 20, it feels to me as though mid-April marks the true beginning of spring in north-central Wyoming, my home base. Coinciding with this start to the warmer season, this year, prAna ambassador Kevin Wilkinson and I have been celebrating spring by continuing our efforts to have a positive impact on the world at large through our personal actions and choices, while also supporting and enhancing our own healthy lifestyles and our local community. Check out the steps we’ve taken:
Bountiful Baskets Food Co-op: I like Brussels sprouts! I learned this yesterday, after picking up my first delivery of fruit and vegetables from our local Bountiful Baskets Food Co-op pick-up spot, right here in Ten Sleep, Wyoming. Living in a tiny, rural town with no grocery store makes staying stocked up on fresh fruits and veggies a real challenge, since it’s a 50-mile round-trip to the closest market. Bountiful Baskets solves this problem by delivering roughly $50 worth of fresh produce for a mere $15 to numerous local pick-up places in 16 states every week or every other week. For $10 more, you can choose an all-organic basket. You can also add-on other food items, including wonderful organic breads and granolas, for small extra fees. Check out the website for more information about how to become a member of this awesome food cooperative. If there’s no location currently near you, you can also learn how to start one.
Here’s my simple recipe for delicious Brussels sprouts; since they were included in my first Bountiful Basket, I figured I should at least give them another chance (having been a lifelong Brussels sprouts hater) – and it turns out that it’s all in the preparation.
Yummy Brussels Sprouts
Ingredients:
10 Brussels sprouts
2 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
Garlic salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and place the top oven rack close to the broiler.
Halve 10 Brussels sprouts. Place them in a large dish.
Drizzle the Brussels sprouts with 2 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil. Season them with garlic salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste. Toss the Brussels sprouts to coat them evenly.
Spray a nonstick baking sheet with cooking spray. Spread the Brussels sprouts evenly on the sheet.
Broil the sprouts for 5 minutes. Take them out, and turn them over. Broil them for another 5 minutes, then remove them from the oven.
Serve the sprouts alone or with hummus for dipping.
Growing Food Locally/Planting New Trees: We’ve helped ourselves, the community and the earth by taking this proactive step toward a long-term lifestyle change. Kevin and I decided to replace our fast-growing/easily-broken hybrid willow trees with 12 slower-growing fruit trees, after years of cleaning up broken branches scattered about the yard after every windstorm and having four of the willow trees pruned back to stumps annually by the electric company (they were planted too close to the power lines). Kevin planted trees that will hopefully bear us apples, pears, cherries, almonds, peaches, plums and more in the years to come. The apple trees should cross-pollinate with the mature (and beautiful!) crabapple trees already flourishing in my yard. Eventually, we’ll save money on both gas and produce thanks to our orchard, while both we and our community will enjoy myriad other benefits from trees, as enumerated by the Arbor Day Foundation.
Speaking of the Arbor Day Foundation, did you know that it only costs $15 to become an annual member or $10 for a six-month membership, and that when you join, the foundation will send you 10 free trees appropriate for your area’s growing zone, among other perks? The foundation guarantees that your trees will grow, or it will replace them free of charge. And if you don’t live in a place suitable for planting trees on your own, you can still support the foundation by choosing to have 10 trees planted in a national forest or by purchasing a gift membership for someone else, among other ways to give.
I bought Kevin a membership, as well as one for the lady for whom I buy a May Day gift every year, something I’ve done since I was about six years old. Back then, I’d leave bouquets of freshly picked flowers (read: weeds like dandelions) on her porch in homemade cardboard baskets, a May Day tradition I loved as a child – and I’ve never missed a May Day since. So in addition to the 12 fruit trees that Kevin and I bought to plant and the 10 additional trees we’ll soon receive from the Arbor Day Foundation, I’ll also be responsible in part for the planting of 10 new trees in North Carolina, where my May Day gift recipient now resides. More than 30 new trees planted – how cool is that?
Join Us in Celebrating Springtime!
Consider starting a new spring tradition to coincide with a celebration of one of the season’s upcoming holidays that honor and recognize our planet’s living vitality – Earth Day (April 21), Arbor Day (April 27) and May Day (May 1). Plant a tree or a garden (or both!); join or start a local food co-op; give the gift of home-grown produce, living plants or trees to neighbors, friends and family; or come up with your own seasonal ways to enhance and improve both your own life and that of your community.
~Alli Rainey, prAna Ambassador
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I am a Kindergarten teacher at Sopris Elementary School in Glenwood Springs, CO. This year one of my co-workers, Mark Browning, began an ambitious greenhouse project to help provide healthy vegetables to our school cafeteria.
Browning worked out a deal with the school’s neighbor, Mountain Valley Developmental Services. They would provide the space and we would provide the labor as well as a solar-thermal system to heat the plant beds. Additionally Browning received grants from Alpine Bank, the Aspen Snowmass Foundation, Toyota, and Colorado Big Country Resource Conservation and Development to fund this project. All of the soil was donated and delivered by local companies. Some of the soil even came from the mastodon dig in Snowmass!
Mountain Valley and Sopris Elementary also collaborated to create a worm compost program. All of the scraps from our classrooms and the cafeteria are now wheel-barreled next door and fed to the worms. The worm compost is then used in the greenhouse beds and will also be sold as a fundraiser to support both the school and Mountain Valley. Classes are currently conducting experiments to see if plants grow better with or without worm compost.
Early in the school year I took my students over the greenhouse to get them excited about growing their own food. My students are 5 and 6-years old. They tend to be picky eaters, typically favoring junk food and processed foods over fresh fruits and vegetables. So I was shocked when they decided they wanted to plant radishes, beets, carrots, and peas.
Their excitement about growing food escalated as they watched their seeds sprout, transported their sprouts to their pots, and watered and weeded their plants. They looked forward to our weekly trip to the greenhouse to measure and write about their plants. When it was finally time to pick out first vegetables they were elated.
The first things to be pulled out of the ground were our radishes. After weighing, drawing, and describing their appearance we finally got to eat our food. To my great surprise every child in my class happily crunched into a radish. Even the child who only likes chips and cookies declared that our radishes were delicious.
Browning put it best when he said “since the produce will be fresh and the kids grew it them themselves, they’re going to be more apt to try it.” We are seeing these results throughout the school. Children are excited about eating vegetables and salads that they grew themselves. “It’s not just iceberg lettuce in the salad bar any more,” says Browning.
It’s wonderful to see the look of excitement when a child gets to eat something they grew themselves. I can’t wait to watch my kiddos bite into our next harvest of peas!
~Jen Vennon, prAna Ambassador
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The Tadasana Festival of Yoga & Music is a three-day transformative experience in Santa Monica, CA to be held over Earth Day Weekend, April 20-22, 2012. Attendees will be able to choose from 60 master teachers offering 75+ classes and workshops with live, in-class musical performances by artists from around the world, as well as dozens of lectures and an eco-conscious shopping market in an outstanding location, a mere five-minute walk from the famed Santa Monica Pier.
The Tadasana Village, located at the edge of the beach facing the Pacific Ocean, will feature five themed yoga tents, The Daily Love Lounge Lecture Dome, artwork, chill zones, an organic food court, 60+ booths of eco-goodness and so much more!
Tadasana will treat attendees to an outstanding community experience, featuring world class yoga and one-of-a-kind musical events, in a city that has become the epicenter of yoga in America. A typical day begins around 8 am with beach strolls, smoothies, organic food and of course, yoga. Morning meditations will be on tap for early risers. Throughout the day, attendees choose from a variety of classes, workshops and lectures. In addition to practicing yoga, the Tadasana Village will offer an awesome place for people to connect, shop, eat and hang.
Join prAna Ambassador Shiva Rea and a host of amazing yogi’s, musicians, artists and speakers!
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Later this year, I’ll turn 40. To celebrate, I ran 40 miles Saturday. But not just any 40 miles: 40 miles of rocky, icy trail up and back down Mount Mitchell, the highest peak in the eastern United States at 6,684 feet. It was a long day of exercise, and it was very hard. Here are some thoughts for those who are considering doing this race in the future, or who, like my father, want to know “Why?!?”
THE RACE
The race itself, the Mount Mitchell Challenge, was wonderfully organized, and the volunteers were kind and enthusiastic, even—especially—at the higher elevations, where the wind was gusting and the drinks were freezing. This year, race organizers instituted a lottery system. My best friend and two of my former coaching clients all put their names in the lottery, and all four of us got in. Coincidence? Not sure, but it made for a fun group. We rented a cabin that was a little ways out of Black Mountain, where the race started and finished. I’d suggest staying in town if possible. It’s a lovely downtown with shops and restaurants, and the Monte Vista hotel, where packet pickup was held, was cozy and charming.
THE TRAINING
I trained by running lots, of course. Between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, I ran at least a mile a day. I spread out my long runs so they were at least nine days apart, and my longest run was 30 miles. (I ran those from home, accompanied almost the entire time by various compassionate friends, and felt good enough to put high-heeled boots on over my compression socks and go to a wine tasting that night.) Most of my running was on singletrack in the Carolina North forest, though I did a few runs at Umstead State Park, where the singletrack more closely mimicked the Mount Mitchell trails and the bridle paths simulate the up- and downhill grades of the Mount Mitchell Race.
While I was at Kripalu earlier this month, two of my students and I ran three miles up and down a mountain trail covered in ice. It was very tricky, and it shook my confidence about my ability to negotiate what I knew would be icy terrain up the mountain. Most troubling to me was the idea of breaking a wrist, which would hamper my typing, driving, and downward-dogging abilities for a month or more. As the race organizers let you downgrade to the marathon, run at the same time, at the marathon turnaround point, I remained open to the idea of not heading up the summit if the preceding trail was exhausting.
THE RUN
Ultras are wonderful for their low-key starts. We gathered in downtown Black Mountain and headed out right on time. Here are my friends at the start: Tara, Kika, Dave, and Guido. Dave has run the marathon and the 40-mile challenge in previous years; Guido has run the 40 miler every year, and he ran with me to mile 16. That was a real blessing; he knew the ins and outs of the course intimately, and he told me which hills to walk and when to keep chugging.
The course is a string of various grades and terrains. The first few miles are on pavement through town, heading through the pretty campus of Montreat College, where a long, steep hill leads to a beautiful trail through the rhododendron. This was a lovely section, soft and lush, with reasonable footing and grades. Soon we entered the Toll Road, which is no longer a road but a long, double-wide trail with plenty of roots, a steep drop to one side, and lots and LOTS of rocks. Many, many, many rocks. This trail brings runners to the Blue Ridge Parkway, where the marathoners turn around and the challengers continue up Mount Mitchell. By this point, the air is getting thinner. Entering the state park, we moved onto a relatively flat, smooth trail that traverses the mountain horizontally, crossing frozen streams along the way. The trail that leads to the summit, by contrast, is almost vertical, and I needed to use my arms to help as I picked my way around the ice floes that covered the boulders on the trail. The summit is worth the work, though—we emerged into the howling wind and spectacular views, and it was very exciting to have reached the peak.
There’s no time to linger at the top, and many more miles to run. After checking in at the one warm aid station in the ranger hut, I started back down the mountain, via a trail so steep and rooty I often stopped in my tracks to consider where to put my foot next. This tricky section then feeds into a gravel road that heads, cruelly, back uphill for a mile or so to the paved road. While pavement is a nice change of pace, the road is so canted that it’s tricky (plus, there was ice), and the wind was really roaring. The course reenters the trail at the Toll Road, which seemed to have grown some rocks over the last few hours, then emerges on a very, very steep downhill to run through Montreat and along a creek before finishing with a long loop of Lake Tomahawk, back in Black Mountain.
EQUIPMENT AND FOOD
The weather was cold but dry, which worked out fine. When I arrived at the top of the mountain, it was 15 degrees Fahrenheit with 20 mph winds—tough, but manageable—and when I arrived at the finish, it was probably about 50 degrees and pleasantly sunny. There was less ice on the trail than I feared, and it was always on rocks, not the soil, which meant the Yaktrax I carried wouldn’t have helped. It was cold enough to keep on my warm jacket almost the whole time, as well as my insulated mittens. On my feet, I wore wool socks and Brooks Cascadias, which did a wonderful job on the trail and left me without a single blister.
I carried 70 ounces of Power Bar Endurance sport drink in my Nathan Intensity women’s-specific vest. (Big thanks to Nathan here: my original bladder for the pack sprung a hole, and they worked hard to get it replaced in time.) I drank it all on the way up and refilled with another two liters of water at the summit, which I drank completely just before the finish. At aid stations, I grazed on trail mix, chips, and graham crackers, as well as hot soup at the Parkway station. And I ate four Power Bar gels, each with caffeine.
THE PROCESS
My intention for the race was to finish smiling, and I certainly did. My secondary intention was not to get hurt. To that end, I walked every time I felt like I was losing control, which meant I wound up walking a lot of the downhill. That was definitely not the fastest approach, but it kept my mood even and was a major factor in my feeling good at the end. While I stumbled a few times, I never fell, and my wrists made it out unscathed. While a brave runner could have a serious negative split in the race (there are 4,000 feet to descend in the second half!), I ran up in about 4:30 and finished in 8:26.
There was very little drama in my head. I got cranky about the rocks, but when I did, I’d eat a gel and walk till I felt my feet were back under me. A few times, I exclaimed in joy at the views and in wonder at the treat of being able to run all day. Generally, I remembered my intention (finish smiling), mustered up my best form, and breathed.
That said, the race demanded a very high level of focus. It was much harder than Ironman Coeur d’Alene, for example. In the Ironman, especially the swim and the bike, you’ve got to focus to be safe, but not in the moment-to-moment way you must when running technical trails. And the Ironman run looks like a cakewalk in comparison to barreling down icy rocks after 35 miles of running—compare the one-mile-apart aid stations with music, a buffet, and enthusiastic fans with running five miles alone on trail before coming upon a few kind hunters at a table with Tang and trail mix. I liked them both, but I found this run much more challenging, and more quietly rewarding.
THE RECOVERY
Downhill running fries your quads. That’s what makes Boston such a challenging marathon—the 15 miles of descent from Hopkinton to Newton demand eccentric contractions in your quadriceps, which really tears them up. The soreness is quite bad, worse than post-Boston, worse than post-Ironman. But it’s a little better today than yesterday, typical of DOMS.
I’ve generally followed the guidelines I lay out in The Athlete’s Guide to Recovery. First, I ate and drank well before and during the race, so my stomach never bothered me, and I refueled well post race, too. (Hush puppies! Mocha pound cake!) After showering, I put on my compression socks, as well as some recovery tights 2XU sent me for review. We lounged in the cabin, watched Spinal Tap, and went to bed very early. It’s tough to sleep, though, when you’ve had to sustain such a level of focus for so many hours. And it’s tough to sleep when the pain in your muscles means you wake yourself up every time you roll over! The soreness is fading now and should be gone by the weekend. I expect a second wave of fatigue to hit around then, as it does post-Ironman.
During those many hours on the trail, I thought about the appropriate amount of time off post–A priority long-distance race, and I developed a new rule of thumb to apply for recreational/age group runners like me. (Competitive/elite runners can shorten this, especially those with more experience at the ultra distances.) If X is the number of hours you’re running in the race, you should take at least X days without running post-race. That holds true for a three- or four-hour marathon, and I bet it’s true for an eight-hour trail run, too.
WHY?!? All these details, and no concrete answer to “Why?!?” Just because.
~Sage Rountree, prAna Ambassador
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After our terrible meal earlier in the trip, one of our travel companions on this climbing trip to Spain, Alisa talked a restaurant that’s usually closed on Mondays into opening up for a lunch serving especially for our group… seven hungry climbers in search of delectable Catalan cuisine. The restaurant, Lo Raco Del Pont, is in the next town over from our digs near Tremp, La Pobla del Segur.
We arrived at around 1 p.m., walking through the unassuming entryway that led us to our table, set up outside. The chef came out and translated the menu for us, describing each item to the best of his ability in English (which was much better than any of our Spanish), along with mimes (such as for duck, “quack, quack” along with an arm flutter) and saying “Bambi” for the venison dish. And that was the beginning of one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten in my life. We kicked it off with a couple of pitchers of sangria, and it was all uphill from there. The first plates were amazing, both beautiful to look at and divine to dig into:
By the time the second plates had arrived, all thoughts of taking individual photographs had flown away as silence prevailed. I’d thoroughly enjoyed my first plate (the carpaccio with truffle oil and parmesan shavings); Kevin and I each split our second plates, enjoying a duck leg served with a berry-infused sauce and chunks of venison stewed in a thick, rich sauce with a hint of cinnamon. Both were amazing, as was the bite of “pig cheeks” that Lawrence offered me, which tasted like the most divinely tender pot roast ever.
Desserts proved every bit as delectable as the main courses; again Kevin and I split ours – a molten chocolate cake and homemade truffles. The incredibly rich, dark chocolate sauce drizzled over both dishes made us lick our plates clean. Dessert was followed by espressos, and finally, some sort of cinnamon schnapps provided by the restaurant to “help with digestion.” (Mm-hmm, not so sure about that one).
Overall, it was an absolutely amazing culinary experience, one of the finest restaurant meals I’ve had in years. We were so impressed by the service (opening especially for us!) and the obvious delight the chef took in explaining and preparing each dish for us; it was well worth the price (36 euros per person, with a tip included, seemed like a steal, in the end, honestly).
So…the next time you’re in Catalunya, be sure to stop in for a meal at Lo Raco Del Pont. You will not be disappointed, I promise!
~Alli Rainey, prAna Ambassador
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