Ratings, Difficulty and the World's First 9c/15d

Antonio on No Skill (12c) Owl Tor, Santa Maria, CA

I guess 12c is a lot
harder than 12b.

— Antonio Labaro             

I've planned on writing something about ratings and difficulty for a while, but Antonio's comment finally motivated me to do the work. Antonio has been progressing through the grades at the Owl Tor and in April he redpointed The Hell of the Upside-Down Sinners, his first 5.12b. Full of psyche and energy, he moved on to No Skill, a 5.12c variation of two other routes. He's doing well, but he did notice: yes, in fact, 12c is a lot harder than 12b.
   But how much harder? And aren't ratings subjective? Most climbers talk about them as if they are. I haven't seen this done before, and I wish I had more data, but we need to start somewhere and try to have an objective discussion about ratings.

Foundation 2.0 & Owltoberfest 2014

I just completed my latest foundation phase and I'm so happy with it I'm dubbing it foundation 2.0. The refinements might seem minor, and I still need to find a better plan for climbing outside on the weekends; but overall, I resolved enough basic problems that feels like a solid step forward. The foundation phase I've been looking for involves training on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday with a large volume of campusing, fingers, core, pulling, and "prehab" shoulder training for 3-4 weeks. I'm a weekend warrior, and am 100% focused on sport climbing; hopefully, the handful of sport climbers left might find some of this useful. I still have one cycle to write-up, but these will be more productive if written while I'm in the cycle; so that's what I'm doing this week. I redesigned this phase by reviewing my previous ones , noting the problems, and testing alternatives.

The holidays are a bad time for training

Food, wine, traveling, family obligations - all of these combine to make training challenging around the holidays. While this might cause many to conclude not to attempt a training cycle, I see this as the most important time for structure. Sure, it might not generate the gains one would usually hope for; but the structure is a better defense against the onslaught of temptations. For a goal, nothing outside was too close and/or enticing, so I went with only campusing goals: 1:4-7 & 1:5-7 on the 5/8" and 1:5-8 on the 1". The first two were quite realistic, although both would be personal bests; but the third was definitely a long shot.