July 15, 2010 Fire Olympics, Rugby Day

I came in last, but am completely happy with that. First off, there were only two of us competing in the women's category, my coworker Vivian and I. Vivian is an incredible climber and pound for pound one of the strongest people I know. Now, on to the competition.

The comps are set up so that each climb is given a point value according to its difficulty. A competitor is given 5 attempts to complete a climb, with the point value decreasing for every attempt over one attempt. The competitor's top 5 highest scoring climbs are then totaled up. I onsited (climbed first attempt) my first four climbs, a V0, V1, V2 and V3. I picked the top climbs in each of the category. Encouraged by this I attempted the first V4 and climbed it after only two attempts. I completed another V4 on my 5th attempt. I emboldened by my success, I attempted a V5, but found it to still be a bit beyond my reach. I climbed a few more V3s to round out my score. At the end of the day I climbed two grades higher than I had been climbing for the past few months and higher than I've climbed in years. My main limiting factor was technique, which was very encouraging to see. My core, grip and forearm strength all felt surprisingly good. All in all it was a great day of climbing.