Some may say I was doomed from the start with a title built around the word, aimless, and an equally vague idea of what to talk about. In the end, those few might be right.

Reading back through what has collected here, it’s eclectic at best and A.D.D. at worst. But at least it’s helped me realize I like writing about climbing most. Since that’s also what I spend most of my free time doing anyway, it’s silly for me to pretend that my attention is anywhere else.

So thanks for reading (don’t hesitate to keep poking around) and for anyone curious to see what rises from these ashes, stop by www.gonebouldering.wordpress.com.

Jeff Ho works the campus rungs at Spire.

Ryan Holm teaches how to make the most of the climbing gym

It’s not a magic formula or the proverbial keys to the castle. Ryan Holm is more interested in teaching climbers how to use the tools of the trade.

“Ninety percent of the population aren’t professional climbers, so if you’re not able to climb at that high intensity for 8 hours a day bouldering or rope climbing – that’s like their training forum – basically, you have to substitute with indoor training,” Holm said. “So this is designed to give those people those tools.”

This is the Holmer Training Program, a workout regime built specifically for climbing. Holm has been developing and compiling the information over the past four years, reading, climbing and talking to other accomplished athletes.

Flip open the program guide stamped with a likeness of Bruce Lee and the first items are a reading list.

“(It’s) reading material that is similar to climbing. Some of it’s very specific to climbing. Some has nothing to do with climbing at all, just has to do with the mind,” Holm said.

Abbey Keene does ring exercises to strengthen shoulders and chest.

As probably climbing’s most strength-dependent discipline, Bouldering at times also requires the most mental poise to avoid taking a nasty fall without a rope.

“You have to be able to focus on the moment, be present in your climbing. You’re not thinking about your laundry when you’re sending your project, or you’re not thinking about your 8a scorecard,” Holm said. “I’m very intrigued about that side of how to become a better climber, because I think mentally is where people get stopped in progressing to that higher level. When you start to get to like V10 and above V10, then it starts to come down to, you have enough strength.

“If you can boulder V10 or V11 you can probably boulder 13 or 14, and the difference between that 13 or 14 and the 11 is mental, being able to convince yourself 110 percent that you can do that move.”

That same conviction is reflected in the physical elements of the training as well in the adage that every athlete has heard before on a hard day, “practice like you play.”

From actual repetitions of climbs to the fingerboards and other strength-training devices upstairs at Spire Climbing Center in Bozeman, Holm focuses on the moves and motions actually useful for climbing. His is a practical approach, after all unless training for Joshua Tree’s Gun Smoke traverse, why do a 45-move wander through the gym to warm up?

Holm teaches monthly sessions at Spire beginning on the first Thursday of every month (except November 2010, due to a climbing trip to Joe’s Valley). More details can be found at holmertrainingprogram.blogspot.com. Or bump into him at the gym.

And it’s not just for advanced climbers, but anyone needing a boost.

“Usually you progress really fast, then you slow down,” Holm said. “You basically tank and you come into a plateau and then you stay there forever until you do something about it.”

That’s been the motivation for Holm all along.

“Most people in the climbing industry, as far Bozeman or Montana goes, haven’t adapted the training regime for bouldering,” Holm said. “I’ve been in the gym, I’ve been doing my own training … just my passion for climbing has extended into (this and) I really enjoy helping people reach their goals. I mean, when I was up there, training in the gym upstairs (at Spire) I’d always be showing people how to do it correctly and then I was like, ‘I wonder if I could just train people?’”

Bozeman’s Shaun Marshall-Pryde is a veteran of the U.S. national team and has traveled the globe to compete. Marshall-Pryde finished third overall, despite not shooting as well as he would have hoped.

Below are some more of his quips about the sport that didn’t make it into the paper story.

“Biathlon’s a very mental sport – when you end up shooting badly like that it could really affect the rest of your race. So, you either leave the range kind of slow, shoulders down and head down, or you take off like you’ve got another stage to make it up.”

“You should be in around 70 percent anyway to be competitive and I think the fact that I haven’t gotten in and out of my position (lately hasn’t helped) – the slightest 1/8 of an inch when you’re out, puts you way far off when your 50 meters away from the target.”

“Basically you’re shooting at something like the size of a 50-cent piece for prone. At 50 meters it’s pretty small. There’s not a lot of room for error when your heart rate’s come down from 190, and you’re trying to drop it down to roughly 170 within about 15 seconds and then you have to time the heart beats with the rifle. All that while also making sure your position is perfect and squeezing the trigger gently so that you’re not jerking if off the target. And that’s just the prone phase.

“In the standing phase there’s all kinds of stuff to anticipate, ’cause now you’re standing up and of course the rifle’s moving everywhere. Your body is trying to stay loose but also you’re trying to lock your body into a position. And then the target gets a little bigger. It’s hard to stay on the target, so you kind of want to hit it when it’s going by.”

“I think I had to be 30 seconds ahead of the field, I think, running. I think that helped me and it allowed me some mistakes that you don’t normally get by with, and then dropping from here down to sea level in Tukwila helped me also. And the course itself only had one large hill in it. It was definitely a shooter’s kind of race.”

“The talent, for some reason, for biathlon seems to shine through in Bozeman in phases. I don’t know where it comes from or why.”

“(Biathlon is) a great thing because some races you go out in the woods and you race and you come back in and you finish hard and you’re all done. Whereas biathlon you’re kind of on a stage. You go out, race hard until you come back in and then everybody is sitting there watching you. So then you’re whole mental state I believe is on the stage for the whole world to see because if you can’t handle it you just blow up and you start missing everything. And the ones that are cool and calm and have practiced, they make it look easy. It’s amazing to watch because there’s very few sports that take such aggression into something and then completely switch to finesse right in the middle of the sport and then you go back out and be aggressive again. It’s such an art of opposites, a balance of opposites.”

The Chronicle story is HERE.

But for more on Tejay and what happens behind the scenes, follow his blog HERE.

“Any team that is looking to take adult kickball to the next level should check out what we offer – The Circuit. More details can be found at

http://www.kickball365.com/TheCircuit/“

By Cameron Alford

After a characteristically late departure, we actually jumped ship a littler earlier than expected.

Not an hour earlier a full moon had replaced the slow-burning Nicaraguan sun, but despite the brilliant white light, the boat is now caught up in a submerged fishing net. A few lights poking humbly through the jungle mark Colon’s existence perhaps 100 meters away. The locals, some of them students returning home for Semana Santa from Nicaragua’s more developed parts, suddenly show an urgency you’d never expect from a group that can sit motionless through a four-hour, shoulder-to-shoulder boat ride.

After a fifteen-minute scramble in the crowded boat’s dark, wet under story occasionally aided by the shifting illumination of the one flashlight on board, I found my bags and jumped into Lake Cocibolca’s waist-deep warmth to join the procession wading towards the beach. As we trudge closer, the moon reveals silhouettes before the people of the village become real – parents, siblings and grandparents waiting to greet their loved ones.

Not having any idea who is who, I find the only other outsiders around, the other two white folks I met on the boat earlier. They are already being greeted by Miguel, Colon’s town leader. Soon we are motoring up the Rio Colon together, a weak but warm light on the fore guiding the way. More so during winter’s rains than tonight, the river divides the town in two.

The other two white people, Americans, have come to the village for much more philanthropic reasons than myself. They have recently teamed up in hopes of starting a school in Colon, something to supplement the tiny town’s poorly-funded governmental institution that doesn’t offer class beyond the sixth grade.

I am now a tag-along, invited to place my hammock between two posts in their fledgling wooden school building for the night. The gringos are accompanied by a lawyer from the city and a large, white-haired bodyguard named Ivan. Boisterous and jolly, Ivan is some kind of war hero from the country’s decade of civil conflict.

The group has connections with a generous matriarch in a house by the lake who ensures I go to bed well-fed.

Cars do not exist here and in the morning I take a trail into Colon Viejo – Colon Nuevo representing everything on the other side of the river – to discover that my presence is something of an anomaly. All previous gringo visitors, and there haven’t been many, have come with something to give. My meager offering is a bag of soccer uniforms donated by an American also living in Cardenas, the town from which the boat left yesterday.

“Did you bring a ball?”
“Well, no. There aren’t any here?”

“We do not have any balls. This pueblo is poor.”

The residents are rightfully surprised to learn that I am here simply to visit. They have heard of this concept, but it has never manifested itself in their front yard. They are amused and perplexed, yet a raw form of hospitality is evident from the start.

I too, have been living in Cardenas. A woman there, a friend of mine, gave me a piece of paper before I left. It was sealed but there was little doubt in my mind of its message. I am to give it to the town leader, the man Miguel from last night.

When I do, he is in no hurry to read it. Mention of her name is enough.

His four sons, all very perplexed by my awful brand of the only tongue they’ve ever known, are told to invite me along for some fishing. Thing, fit and dark, they do not lack for time outside. One grabs an empty glass bottle, puts in a few spoonfuls of rice and beans, and beckons me down to the river.

He dives in with the bottle and reappears without it a moment later. We sit and wait. He dives in again, disappearing for much longer this time, and re-emerges with a bottle that now contains rice, beans and a live sardine. This process is repeated several times until we have enough bait.

In the afternoon we return to town victorious, with close to thirty fish on the line. I, a recent debutante with the hand line, can claim only one.

When I left for Colon, I felt I was taking a risk. I wasn’t sure if anyone here would talk to me or accept me as a visitor. The next couple days of wandering around town blow my fears away.

Semana Santa, in Colon, means not working – there isn’t any other way to spend Central America’s week-long holiday. Sitting in front of their small homes in plastic chairs, the people widely smile and fix their eyes to mine when they greet. They invite me in for coffee, bread and a hug plate of oily but delicious rice and fish.

They want to sit and talk, to learn about my homeland. Are there rivers and mountains? Is all one big wired and concrete mass? Are the buildings really tall? Do you have a car? They’ve never been able to ask such questions before. It’s not just my rudimentary Spanish that causes me to struggle for words.

The people both give and take information slowly, muttering, “hmmm,” and nodding their heads gently when a truth about the great land of development is revealed. They are a simple and beautiful people.

In a very good way, I feel very far from home.

Unfortunately, I resist devoting all my time to these incredibly teaching conversations. I am on a mission to find a guide. Nearly everyone uses the four-dollar boat ride to get to and from Colon. But there is an alternate route.

I first heard of it a month ago and have not been able to let the idea go since. I must walk the 46-kilometer trail back to Cardenas. The trail roughly follows the lake shore, squeezed between the water and the country’s southern border with Costa Rica. I’ve been told repeatedly not to attempt it alone, hence the decision to search for some needy Nicaraguan who might take 10 or 12 dollars to be my guide. Surely, I rationalize, I’ll be doing a good thing by putting forth Colon’s first ecotourism dollars.

The locals are now further amused and perplexed with my motives for being there. Why walk when there is a boat? The trail is very dangerous, they say, do not go alone. The drug smugglers might rob you, might kill you. You must have a trustworthy partner. Do you have a gun?

I listen to their warnings, but foolishly let waves of testosterone muddle my judgment. The boat departs from Colon’s lake shore this morning. I can still get on and guarantee safe passage back. Internal fires of debate rage. My adventurous side wins and I watch the modest vessel disappear.

Before leaving on that boat, the other American contingent tried to convince me to abandon my idea. Ivan the bodyguard, in particular, was insisting that I am going to be robbed and violated. I didn’t understand his Spanish terms for everything, but the body language was hard to miss.

But, as I told Ivan, I found a guide. Maykel, 23, is “El Teniente,” the head of the armed forces outpost in Colon. He volunteered to accompany me, refusing pay, upon hearing my ridiculous plan.

Even worse, Ivan said. You can’t trust the army here. He will probably rob you, too. Good luck.

Miguel’s wife, Nicole, is also concerned. She has seen the note that asks her husband to watch over me and has let her maternal umbrella expand. She asks me to stay and share the rest of the holy week with her family. There is a hammock in the family room, special treats for the holiday and beautiful girls who would love to be swept away by an American, she tells me.

Even though I am on vacation for the week, I cannot stay, I hear myself saying. I am walking the trail with Maykel tomorrow. We will start before dawn.

Nicole does not understand.

We Americans are like this, I claim as an excuse. But in reality, I know that only some of us are born, or instilled, with the oft-imperialist desire to explore, risk and triumph. Only some of us would turn down the rare opportunity to spend an entire week in a remote, enchanting place choosing instead to march all day through territory that inspires whispers of everything from vicious snakes and drug smugglers to a long, boring walk that makes your feet really sore.

It’s the former whispers that get to me the most, and my mind spends the day kicking itself in a brutal game of hindsight and doubt. As the sun sets and bearable temperatures finally set in, I wander down to the town’s center, a little spot on the riverbank that makes the best spot for washing clothes and bathing. As usual, many of the locals are seated on plastic chairs in front of their houses doing nothing more than taking in the tranquility. Several times I’m called over for conversation.

“You are going to walk back to Cardenas?” they ask me with not-so-subtle skepticism.

“Yes,” I reply.

I then proceed to interrogate them on the details of the trail, gathering further information for the trek. I am too preoccupied to ask the people of Colon anything else. My concern must show through like the fluid in a ripe blister. I try not to let it distract me from my mission.

I am completely blind to the astounding beauty and humility that surrounds me.

With the other Americans gone, Miguel’s family takes me in for the night. Nicole and a few neighbors are baking treats for Semana Santa inside the family’s clay oven. As the house fills with sweet-smelling smoke I join Miguel and his boys in the living room that’s raised to avoid winter’s floods. With bags of rice as furniture, we sit and watch precious television shows provided by Colon’s nightly stint of electrical power.

At 9 p.m. the generator shuts off and the town goes dark. After a walk, I attempt to sleep in a hammock strung across the living room but find myself far too intrigued by the constant racket of dog, roosters and howler monkeys to get much rest.

Nicole groggily lets me out of the house at 4:30 the next morning.

“Make sure Maykel walks in front of you so you don’t get bitten by the snakes,” she commands.

Maykel and I walk fast as we try to get the bulk of the trail done before the afternoon heat. We reach a river mouth as the sun’s first rays grace the smooth waters of the lake. A gentle mist has formed. Maykel takes us to an old rowboat, but it’s filled with water. As I’m stripping down preparing to cross the river, I hear Maykel’s pistol click.

“Por algun caiman,” he says. For a certain alligator.

Waist deep in the river mouth’s accepting waters, I follow Maykel closely. Serious and attentive, he stops to point his handgun at every old tree stump we pass, holding it there until he’s satisfied that it is only the lapping waves on wood that drew his attention.

Feeling like I’m adventuring at the end of the world, I am suddenly quite glad to be on this journey.

When the boat left Colon the previous day Maykel was actually on board. My companion rode some 10 kilometers out from Colon before jumping off at a friend’s farm. He walked back to Colon himself after arranging to borrow two horses, in order to make our all-day walk a bit easier. Or so I thought.

A couple hours after the river crossing, Maykel and I round a bend and find a skinny boy, no older than 13, patiently waiting on a horse. With only one other in tow. The math doesn’t make sense to me.

“Where is your horse Maykel?”
“I don’t like to ride horses. I get bored.”

There is no turning down such hospitality, but I’m embarrassed. Especially as I sit high on a saddle amongst our group, which expanded when we encountered another man traveling by foot without food, water or laces on one shoe.

We plod forward for two hours before reaching the boy’s home, a structure that actually has wooden floors, on the trail that has now become a dirt road. His older brother, Maykel’s friend, accepts only a 3-liter bottle of Coke in exchange for loaning his horses and younger sibling for the morning.

After an hour-long break that includes water and bread in the house, the cool tranquility of the early morning is painfully far behind us. And we are only half done with the distance. Maykel begins to inquire when a truck might happen to be traveling towards Cardenas. I don’t speak, but my body language must communicate disapproval. My marathon-like mission is in peril.

Maykel asks me if I’d prefer to keep walking. The absurdity of our endeavor is starting to become apparent, but I sheepishly answer that I would. His own bit of testosterone, or his sheer generosity, shines through and he quickly informs me he has no problem carrying on.

Though we are passing plantain plantations and grazing lands that I still consider beautiful, we are no longer in the exotic jungle that surrounds Colon. Our trail is now a wide gravel road that seems to conduct the sun’s heat directly into our feet.

In the early afternoon, we hear tires on gravel coming from ahead. A big, black pick-up passes by, its passengers shouting they’ll be back within an hour. Our ill-equipped companion rejoices and finds shade to wait. He couldn’t care less that Maykel and I trudge on.

We continue the march for a few more kilometers and I debate what to do when the truck comes by. I can tell Maykel prefers to hitch a ride, but he clearly wants to honor my preference. We are both covered in sweat and our water is hot. I adopt a what-the-hell attitude and we flag down the black truck when it comes back by. What would have long, heat-exhausted afternoon turns into a bumpy, but breezy, jaunt through the colorful land surrounding Cardenas.

After paying the 65 cents customarily requested for a ride, Maykel and I get out of the truck on Cardenas’ shore of Lake Cocibolca. The beach, which is usually vacant aside from the occasional woman washing clothes, lone bather or wandering horse, is swarming with Costa Rican tourists visiting for Semana Santa. Many of the locals are seizing the opportunity to become vendors, setting up tents on the beach and selling beer to their wealthier neighbors.

Although we, especially I, didn’t actually complete the distance on foot, I feel some sense of accomplishment – perhaps only because none of the prophesized problems came true. I feel I deserve a beer, so Maykel and I take off our shoes, let our feet relax in the sand and sip cold ones under that shade of a canvas tent.

Not 24 hours ago, I was experiencing Semanan Santa 46 kilometers away. It was after dark and I told Miguel that I was going out for a walk. Not especially pleased that I was going alone, he requested that I wear my machete for protection in case of unfriendly animals. Under a full moon that reflected brilliantly off the water, I waded across then walked alongside the river to the other side of town. I passed Colon Viejo’s two dinky bars, a little wooden shack that houses the only telephone around, the re-crossed the river where it enters the lake and made my way back to Miguel’s via the well-traveled yet bumpy dirt track. With the town asleep, the crickets, monkeys and other nocturnals gave the air a thick but serene feel. It was on of those moments – perfect, absolute, timeless.

As it will do to any hungry, dehydrated body after a long day, the beer starts to make the world wonderful by default. But my mind knows it’s not that simple.

The streets of Cardenas, some of them paved, are filled with the clean, shiny cars of the week’s visitors. Many are talking on their cell phones. Nearly half of those who are still conscious have a bottle in hand. Everyone is on vacation, living easy. Music blares.

In not such a good way, I feel very close to home.

Establishing a longer Tour reign will be very impressive when it happens. But it’s been done. What hasn’t been done yet is a sweep of the three grand tours – in the same year.

That would have to be one of the most exhausting, and possibly debilitating, goals ever. Impressive would only hint at the nature of that accomplishment.

Now, Alberto Contador – Armstrong’s heir-apparent – hasn’t actually claimed that he’s going to try for it. But in this latest bit from The AP, the thought seems like it might be floating around his mind.

Contador plans to race 2 majors next year

MADRID (AP) — Tour de France champion Alberto Contador wants to compete in two of cycling’s three major races in 2011, and says winning all three in one year is “not impossible.”

Contador will join Saxo Bank next year and says he still hasn’t decided which races he will compete in. The Tour is sandwiched between the Giro d’Italia and Spanish Vuelta.

Contador is already one of only five riders to win all three during his career, and he says winning all three in one season is “only a dream, but it isn’t impossible. Everyone has their dreams and this is mine.”

The three-time Tour winner hopes to bring fellow Spanish riders Benjamin Noval, Dani Navarro and Jesus Hernandez along with him to Saxo Bank from Astana to strengthen his new team.

Rowers break Atlantic record from NY to UK

LONDON (AP) — A four-man rowing team has broken the 114-year-old record for crossing the Atlantic from New York to Britain by 11 days.

Skippered by Scotland’s Leven Brown, the team left on June 17 and rowed 3,262 miles to the Isles of Scilly off England’s southwest tip in 43 days, 21 hours, 26 minutes, 48 seconds.

The previous record of 55 days, 13 hours was set in 1896 by two Norwegians.

The crew that arrived Saturday also set the record for the most ocean miles rowed in 24 hours: 118 miles on July 14.

Brown says “every bit of technology that we had seemed to break. In the end it came down to four men and four oars.”

“Good morning,” the sonorous baritone voice blares from the flickering television set in the room with the shades still pulled. “And welcome to Mundane Modernity. The only game on the air showcasing the masters of consumption, those people who seem to have a knack for knowing how everything we buy works, those intrepid few people who actually read the manuals.

“And today they’ll be competing for the cash prize sitting in the back of this brand new Aston Martin. But before they can try unlocking those doors, there are more immediate challenges awaiting our contestants. And so, please welcome our host, Mr. Peacock.”

The applause that erupts in the auditorium is near deafening and blurs like static through the set’s speakers. The man’s entrance involves a rather flamboyant toss of the stage’s curtain and a bow. As he rises back up and looks into the camera, the furious clapping winds down to silence.

“Thank you. Thank you. But seriously, folks, I’m here everyday, so let’s get to know our contestants.”

The screen pans over to the three players, two women and a man.

“There’s mommy,” pipes up a little voice at the end of the couch.

Mr. Peacock glides across the stage to the cluster of thin podiums in front of the players. He leads with his microphone leveled at the first woman on the left. She stands rigidly with her hands clasped and resting on her chest, just above her gentle curves exposed by the low cut of the dress. The genuine smile she’s wearing belies the demure calm her stillness suggests. Then she opens her mouth to start speaking well before the microphone is within range. With something like the wiggling excitement of a puppy, she seems ready to throw her arms wide and grasp the famed Mr. Peacock if he comes close enough. But he stops a step away, smiles back at the camera and looks at the small card of notes in his palm.

“Mary is from Queen Ann City. She is studying to take the bar exam. But she is currently working as a locksmith. How are you, Mary?”

“Great, Mr. Peacock. I’m so excited to be here.”

“Good. So, Mary, what else do you have going on back at home? Any kids you need to say hi to?”

“Yes, Mr. Peacock. Three strong boys, Randy, George and Bri, Bridger. Oh, I mean …”

“Great. I’m sure they’re going to love this. Hi kids.”

Four pairs of eyes watch the woman as she hesitates, looking suddenly and momentarily uncomfortable and surprised. Three pairs of eyes look away instantly as she returns to the collective smiling of the jovial scene on the screen and lock onto the youngest boy sitting at the end of the couch with his chin in his hand. The family dog is resting his head on the boy’s knee, its ear perked, slightly curious.

The show cuts to commercial and the bit of silence quickly becomes awkward, a fragile truce. The advertisement’s start breaks the spell.

Tears flow from the little one’s wide eyes and he slowly shakes his head while staring down at the floor. The father reaches over the other two and touches his shoulder. The little boy’s gaze lifts, rakes across his family and settles back on the family hound.

“Bridger?” His tiny voice cracks then sinks, “my name’s Brian.”