Annular Eclipse and busy Weekend

This was a busy weekend here for us. We headed to El Rito to do some climbing on Saturday with Jodi and her daughter Livia as well as Greg and Magdel and their 2 kids. It was my first time climbing in about 5 weeks, since I crashed on my long board and and scrapped up my forearm and hip (bruised as well, this seems like it is going to continue to be an issue for another month or more). Anyway I was predictably out of shape and got super pumped and almost pitched off the top of a couple of routes that I normally run laps on. Once at the top of a climb after clipping the anchor I dropped back exhausted into my harness, not a good move when you have a bruised hip, and immediately jumped back on to readjust.

Later we set up a rope swing at the base of Bolting Barbie for the kids. Magdel and Greg's two thought it was better than anything they had ever done and threw fits when their turns were over, sorry about that guys. Her Livia helps Dylan out with the swing and yes there is usually a Barbie doll hanging out around the route.

On Sunday I left home really early to head to Santa Fe to ride the Santa Fe Century. I made good time and with the early start it was a bit weird being out on the course with nobody around but still with all the aid stations set up and waiting. Towards the end I ran into a fair number of other riders since the end of the course is used as an out-and-back for shorter rides. I was finished and driving back to Albuquerque by noon, not too bad since I've not ridden more than about 50 miles since PBP in Auguat. Linda and Dylan spent the morning at the climbing gym and Explora!, a children's science museum. In the afternoon there were 2 rare events happening.

The first was Page and Anthony's wedding. Both of them have house sat for us and are good friends and great people. We could not be happier seeing the two of them exchange their vows. Here is Page being walked in by her dad Charlie.

 And the happy couple walking out after the ceremony.

 Dylan was well behaved for the most part through the ceremony and afterwards when we were hanging out with some fellow climbers waiting for the reception to start Dylan got his hands on a Canon, with a canon for a lens. He had a good time taking pictures of everything, all very zoomed in since it was a 70-300mm lens. Tim, the camera's owner keeping a close eye on proceedings.

After playing with the camera Dylan also helped put away the folding chairs. 

Dylan entertaining himself with the place settings.

 Dylan getting his mug in every shot possible then asking to see it immediately after, the sticking out the tung in a nice touch.

And stealing the bride after.

 Our Sunday ended looking at the sun. We had a good view of the horizon where the sun was going down from the synagog parking lot and several of the guests had either glass from welding glasses or the eclipse viewing glasses that were in short supply but given out for free around town during the last week. Pretty cool stuff, this annular eclipse, and how lucky for us that Albuquerque was right in the center of the viewing path. It took awhile for me to figure out how to get a photo of the sun and with sharing the glass and glasses it took a bit, but eventually... the moon moving over the sun,

 and the moon centered in the sun creating the "Ring of Fire" or the "One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them..."

 OK so maybe it did not get dark, but if you looked at the thing without the special protection you'd be blind, not quite like disappearing but hey. I guess the last time this happened around here was 1994 so a pretty rare occurrence and one I'm glad I was able to see and share with Dylan and so many friends.

Campus Board, Training #2, Exercises

So for those of you that have looked at my post about building your own campus rungs and how I assembled the board itself. Here is something that I prepared for the gym to hang near the board to educate users on different exercises to do on the apparatus. 

Campus Board Training Ideas

PURPOSE

Campusing trains recruitment in the forearm.

To train recruitment you should be failing in a minimal number of moves and always starting out fresh, LOTS of rest.

For campus training you want to fail because you can’t catch the next rung, not due to upper body fatigue or the inability to pull far enough.

EASIEST

-Ladders matching and leading with the same hand: Both hands on #1, R #2, L #2, R #3, L #3, R #4 etc.: repeat for Left

-Ladders matching alternating lead hand: Both hands on #1, R #2, L #2, L#3, R #3, R #4 etc.: repeat for Left

-True Ladders: Both hands on #1, R #2, L #3, R #4, L #5 etc.: repeat for Left

-Any of the previous exercise skipping a rung or rungs

-Bumps: Start both hands on #1, R #2, R #3, R #4, R #5, to failure: repeat for Left

-The biggest move you can do: Both hands on #1, R #7: repeat for Left

GETTING HARDER

These are harder versions of the previous , not necessarily using the biggest move but one a little smaller

:Start R #1, L #2 then R #8: repeat for Left

:Start R #1, L #3 then R #9: repeat for Left

:etc

:Start both hands #1, R #7, L #13: repeat for Left

-Doubles: Start both hands on #1, both hands #2, both hands #3 etc.

-Doubles skipping a rung or rungs

QUITE DIFFICULT

Note: All of the following exercises involve negative movement (starting from a higher rung and working down the board). Doing this is the fastest way to get stronger and the easiest way to get injured. This is because when you ask your body to pull harder than what it thinks it can do safely your brain will make you let go, shock loading negatives lets you short circuit this response and pull harder and potentially too hard.

-Negatives: Start both hands as high as possible #5, R #3, L #3: repeat for Left

:Start both hands #5, R #1, L #1: repeat for Left

-Negative doubles: Start both hands as high as possible, #5, both hands #4, #3, etc

:Negative doubles skipping rungs

-Double, Up, Down: Both hands #1, up to #4, down to #2, up to #5, down to #3, up to #6 etc. 

Ultimately the goal is to force yourself to contract extremely hard to latch the next rung in the chosen sequence. This means that if you can hang one handed for more than a second or so it should be easy to hold the next rung if you can reach it as long as your timing is on. In this case you will only really fail when you can't get to the next rung which is more of a pull up exercise and a failure in the strength of your lats, which is not really what my goal is. Because of this I end up doing mostly negatives and some of the largest move I can since the further your hands get spread the less the lower hand help in taking weight. Another thing to consider is that ladders with lots of space between the hold is probably the most similar to what you might end up doing climbing.

Thoughts and Route Setting video

As many of you know I've driven a Tacoma for a long time, no longer. First it was a 1999 extended cab with a raised camper shell and a deck built in the back. After Dylan was born we needed to upgrade to 4 doors so I sold the '99 with 230,000 miles on it and got a 2009 4 door Tacoma to replace it, same style camera shell and the deck was rejigged to work in the larger bed. Everything was great until our house got broken into at the beginning of February and among the things that were taken was an extra key chain (it happened to be in a bag that was stolen). I looked into re-keying the truck and shell, it was going to cost close to $1000, so I checked with a Toyota dealership and I was able to trade my 2.5 year old Tacoma with over 40,000 miles on it for a brand new Prius and a check for $100. More thought on the change in another post.

That story and the new vehicle makes me more aware of other high milage/hybrid vehicles. Everyone is trying to get in on the HYBRID game. Listed at 20/23 mpg, and only $50,000 naturally it was in front of Whole Foods.

 Dylan getting his "team" picture taken, they don't actually play games yet at this age, just practice and drills.

 Dylan looking at fish in a circular tank that he was calling their elevator.

A little Route Setting 101, probably should be filled under, don't do it this way. Though we all have at one point or another. Impact drivers and ladders are much better, not sure why Anna was not using a ladder, we have about 10 of the short A frame ones.