Sessions: Early 90s

The Positive Aspects of Bad Training

There was nothing smart about what we did and, in fact, I’m surprised we could climb well at all considering how we trained. On reflection, we made a ton of mistakes, but there were two things that we developed back in the early days that are hard to build on principle-based training plans.

Let’s set the scene. We climbed through the winters at Sinks Canyon and through the summers at Baldwin Creek or at Wild Iris. In those early days, there were climbers around, but not that many climbers. Many of us climbed every other day, bolted routes on rest days, and tried to train, as well.

There was no gym. Greg Collins had an outdoor area with a campus board and a barbell, Frank Dusl had a spray wall in his parents’ garage, and the Skinners had the Woodie, which is still probably the best spraywall I’ve ever been on. Depending on the psych of the crew,we’d end up with a group of 4-5 climbers set to train together anytime the weather forced us inside.

The craziest of the training days were the post-climbing days. We climbed much as we do today—a warm-up and then tries on a project—but there was often a burnout lap or two on some pumpy route to top off the day. I remember so many days of stopping a Sinks day because of the dark and cold rather than simply being too tired to climb.

The most memorable days went like this:

• Climb all day at Sinks. Walk down in the cold. Ten pitches was a good target.

• Try to get warm on the drive home.

• Eat a little food, grab a bottle of Cytomax, probably slam a couple of ephedra to restart the engine, and then meet at the Woodie around 6:30.

• Boulder on 50 degree limit-level problems for 3-4 hours.

• Go home and eat a big dinner.

• Sleep like shit for some reason.

• Take loads of whatever naturopathic joint remedy was popular that year.

The training days that weren’t preceded by climbing outside were the same, but longer.

The problems in the Woodie were almost all on homemade wooden holds, and we found early on that we could actually climb better in bare feet on that angle than we could with the shoes of the day, which tended to be flatter and thicker than modern versions.

There was no airflow and not really any heat. There was a thick maroon carpet throughout the room, and the 12’ x 15’ board had eight or ten used queen mattresses stuffed under it. I can’t remember if we just weren’t aware of the filth and dust, or if we just didn’t care. The mission—maybe to get stronger or maybe just to “be” climbers—was the only thing.

So if we didn’t get profoundly stronger and we couldn’t transfer our barefoot 50 degree bouldering to rock, what did we gain? Well, capacity for work, for one. When your climbing days go to ten pitches and then include hours of training into the night, any full day of climbing starts to feel more manageable. Spending a half day trying a project and the other half building trails and bolting was no big deal. And in those early days, we’d fly off across the globe for a few months each year to climb big walls. I can’t help thinking that the Woodie sessions helped more with just being able to handle the chores of wall climbing than with actually sorting out the crux boulder problems. Unfortunately, we never did find the elusive “overhanging mile,” which might have had moves like the ones we trained on at home.

The second thing that came out of those days was perspective. The exercise load and fatigue that came out of those long ephedra/caffeine/techno music sessions was real. You’d sometimes be sore for days. In the thirty years since that time, I can’t say that I’ve ever felt like any training session was the hardest I’d ever done—I checked that box back in 1994. Nor have I felt like I couldn’t do one more move. Once you go all the way, everything else is kind of gravy.

More than anything, those days made climbing feel worthwhile. We found our tribe and worked together toward a common goal, which feels right to us on a primal level. I think that spending time with people while doing something you love so deeply is an anchoring experience, and you can find yourself very close to those people for the remainder of your days. I don’t remember anything about my job in those years, nor which shows I watched on TV, nor anything in the news, nor how the Dow Jones performed. The only thing that sticks is the people and the struggles we faced, both in the gym and in the mountains.