Wednesday, February 19, 2014

HOW GU HELPED ME WIN THE SPEED COMP IN OURAY

 GU products have always been a huge part of my training and performance. From World Cups to expeditions and everything in between.
This year at the Ouray Ice Festival, I saw the benefits of hard training combined with good healthy performance products.
The competition at the Ouray Ice Fest is the most prestigious ice climbing competition in the country  and world renown one.

There are two different comps; difficulty and speed. World class ice climbers come from all over the globe to give their best and hope to stand on the podium.
In the difficulty competition you have to climb a very long and complex overhanging route. This kind of comp it is my favorite style.

On Saturday morning it was my turn, filled up with plenty of energy from the Roctane that I took while warming up, I launched my quest of getting to the top. After climbing 80+% of the route I made a technical mistake, loosing my ice axe. I still tried to climb up with only one. The couple thousand people cheering me on,  I could feel their energy while I was upside down fighting to try and get at least one more move up. I had plenty of energy, but with only one ice axe, there was only so much that I could do. At the end, I ranked 6 place overall not too bad considering that I was head to head with some of the best mixed climbers in the sport.

Moving from that result, I needed to focus my attention on the next day's comp, the speed comp. It consists of climbing two long ice routes as fast as you can while going head to head against another competitor. The final time combined from both routes gives the overall result.

I started my day with a smoothie that contained mainly fruits and recovery Brew, a session of stretching and visualization of how I was going to do the course, as fast as I could, set for the challenge.

The day went super good for me. It was my time to go and I was ready with my plan.  Which was to climb both routes giving 110% effort.

Lots of people cheering, I could hear the judges counting down the time.  I heard the clock count down to go and all the noise disappeared, as if no body was there. My surreal state stopped once I hit the bell on the first route. My senses came back and all the sudden, the noise of lots of people came back. Got lowered down, the other competitor had not finish the route, which was a good sign. I had a few extra seconds for me to lower my heart rate. My heart was pounding really fast.
Ninety seconds went fast, and it was time for the next route.

Once again, I heard the GO! And all my senses just focused on what I had in front of me. I climbed so fast that it almost felt like I was holding my breath all the way to the top. Once I swung for the bell, reality came back.

It was time to wait for the results, I knew I had a great run, but so did the other 16 competitors. Especially the Europeans, who are well known to be world class in the speed format.

A couple of hours later, at the award ceremony we heard the final results. When they called first place and my name was on the big check, it was a great feeling.  Like a dream come true.

This was possible thanks to GU and climbing partners/trainers Rob Pizem and Steve House.



     

  

     

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