10: Sam Watson, Future Olympian - USA Speed

Nov 27

Sam is only 17 years old, yet he has already won gold at a world cup, holds the speed climbing record in the US, and recently secured his Paris 2024 Olympic ticket at the PanAm Qualifiers. In this episode, we’ll get more insight into speed climbing at the highest level, his experience at the PanAm Games, how he juggles personal life, school, and climbing, and we need your help in figuring out how he can up his social media game!

Show Notes

Guest links:

Instagram

Reference links:

IFSC Ones to Watch Interview

Timestamps

Timestamps of discussion topics

0:00 - Introduction

3:53 - When Sam started climbing

7:21 - Is there an advantage to starting speed climbing younger?

8:56 - Does speed climbing come naturally

10:15 - Surprise! Speed Climbing is an endurance sport

12:06 - PanAm Games experience

19:39 - PanAm Village experience

22:52 - World Cup season in relation to the Olympics

25:14 - Do speed climbers get injuries?

28:34 - Technical false start explanation

37:17 - Breaking sub-5 and having a “clean” run

41:51 - Strength cycle jail

47:33 - Interest in doing non-speed climbing competitions?

51:17 - Figuring out the social media game

55:10 - Juggling high school and world cups

58:22 - Non-climbing hobbies

1:03:13 - Discord Q: Does speed relays have a future?

1:05:37 - How to upload athlete info into the IFSC website

1:07:29 - Discord Q: Who are your heroes?

1:10:26 - Discord Q: Any weird speed ideas/formats to try out?

1:12:04 - Discord Q: Do you do anything weird/unique in training?

1:13:21 - Discord: How do you handle shoe selection for speed?

1:17:15 - Memeing during an IFSC interview

1:18:57 - Where to find Sam + Outro

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I would believe that's a perfect run.
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The 495 I ran in April before the Seoul World Cup.
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Was there any moment in the middle of that
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where you kind of thought like,
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oh, maybe I've just lost it?
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Every single day.
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Every single time.
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Training like every single day,
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I was having like my lifestyle
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on just absolutely being disciplined
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about everything in my life.
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Welcome to the season one finale
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of the That's Not Real Climbing podcast.
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I'm your host Jinni and I'm excited
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to introduce my guest for today, Sam Watson.
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Sam is only 17 years old,
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yet he has already won gold at a World Cup,
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holds the speed climbing record in the US
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and recently secured his Paris 2024 Olympic ticket
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at the Pan Am Games.
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In this episode, we'll get more into speed climbing
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at the highest level, his experience at the Pan Am Games,
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how he juggles personal life, school and climbing,
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and we need your help in figuring out
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how he can up his social media game.
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Hope you enjoy this episode with Sam.
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Okay, awesome.
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Well, thanks for joining me and how are you doing?
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Doing quite well, how are you?
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I'm all right.
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Are you feeling relaxed after that huge weight
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of trying to get an Olympic ticket is off your shoulders?
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Yeah, I think it really does fundamentally change
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the dynamic of how you view and approach the training cycle.
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Whether or not I had gotten it,
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it would be either I'm training for OQS
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or I'm training for the Olympics itself.
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And it's both pretty heavyweight of an event,
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but it's definitely watching the different qualifiers.
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It's definitely a way different perspective
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already being qualified.
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Did you take a break or are you still taking a break?
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So I took six days off.
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I took from the 25th to November 1st,
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and it was so wonderful.
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I enjoyed every single second of it.
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Just because I think lifestyle-wise,
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I'm very committed to being the best I can be off the wall.
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So whether that's sleeping and eating
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and managing my own time day to day,
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that's very stressful for me to do while in training
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to maximize my productivity in my sessions.
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So whenever I was in a break,
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I'm just like, I can climb whenever I want.
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I can hang out with my friends.
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I can do all of this.
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I can just completely not worry about anything
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and not have a care in the world,
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which is good in moderation, I think,
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for just about those times.
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No, I mean, six days isn't even that long.
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So I'm glad you got a little bit of a break.
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Yeah, just basically the travel back
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and then a couple of days was all I needed
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to be more reinvigorated.
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Yeah, like no climbing at all, not even any,
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not even a little bit of climbing.
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So I went bouldering a couple of times, really fun,
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hung out with some friends,
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and then I did a blindfold speed day,
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which was just really fun,
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but no pressure, no training plan.
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I could have gone to the gym.
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I could have not gone to the gym,
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and that was kind of the mentality towards it.
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So I think it worked really well.
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Blindfolded speed sounds interesting.
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Is that something you do on a regular basis ever?
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No, it is so difficult.
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It's absurdly hard to do because it seems like,
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oh, it's just muscle memory.
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It's really not.
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You use your eyes when you speak.
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Okay, that's good to know.
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Yeah, I kind of thought,
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I think I saw it posted in a story,
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and it was like, oh, that kind of makes sense.
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Maybe that's a good training, good way to train,
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but I guess not.
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Yeah, it was fun to try.
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It was a fun day,
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but I would not seriously implement it into a training plan.
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Okay, makes sense.
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All right, so let's get into, I guess, the meat of it.
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For those who don't know you as well,
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when did you start climbing,
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and why did you end up choosing speed?
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So I started climbing when I was five years old,
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actually on my fifth birthday,
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because that was the requirement.
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You had to be at least five years old to climb
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in the local gym that I was going to.
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So I was just really into climbing when I was a kid,
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and climbing is not very big.
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I'm from Dallas, Texas, so not a lot of mountains here.
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Like, it's very indoor kind of based culture.
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So I started climbing at five years old.
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I eventually joined another team based out of Colleyville,
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which is sort of in the Fort Worth area.
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And it was kind of a more serious thing
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where we would compete.
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And then when I was 10 years old, I joined Team Texas,
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which is a DFW kind of Metroplex based whole organization
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that competes in USA climbing and youth.
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And I ended up really enjoying it
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in the entire process of having
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that kind of community around me.
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I think I was very passionate about climbing
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from kind of day one.
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Like, I just really enjoyed it
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more than anything else, really.
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So I loved Team Texas.
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So I just invested a lot towards that when I was a kid.
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And then speed climbing was kind of the natural,
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it was very sort of embraced, I think,
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through that competitive climbing culture.
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So it was just one of the other disciplines.
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It wasn't obviously as popular as bouldering and lead,
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but there was other athletes who I could join
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and do speed on a regular basis.
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And I was quite good at it.
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But I think I was
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13 years old when I started speed climbing more,
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almost the only one I was really
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competitively pursuing at a high level,
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because I think I had, I realized I had more potential
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in that one than the other disciplines.
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Okay, wow, so five years old,
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it was like you had already known about climbing
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at five years old and you decided you wanted to do it?
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I think I was definitely just,
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like my parents would say,
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I'm a vertically inclined child is the term they use,
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where I'd be climbing the walls and I'd be like,
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climbing the different things around
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and just in the most dangerous way possible.
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So they were very excited to take me to somewhere
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where I could kind of express that through a good outlet.
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Yeah, I feel like I have fairly any memories
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before five years old.
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So I can't imagine I would have like,
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decided that climbing is something
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I wanted to do at that age.
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I think I was three years old.
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I have a specific memory of,
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I think one of the first like hard lessons I learned
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in my life was to tell whether or not something was stable.
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Like I remember climbing up on this like plastic shed
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and it just completely caving in on me.
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And I was like, okay, well, that's not like,
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you gotta like at least knock on it
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to make sure it's not gonna fall over on you.
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So that was one of my earliest memories
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of like learning something as a kid.
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Wow, what a memory.
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Yeah, I don't think I have any memories that early.
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I think my earliest memory is my parent,
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my like mom was holding me
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and then she was ripping me away from an ice cream machine.
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That's my earliest memory.
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So the earliest memory of a non-athlete.
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But yeah, back to speed climbing.
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You started speed climbing at 13.
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Do you feel like,
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this is just something that I just thought of.
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Do you feel like it would even make sense
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to start speed climbing earlier?
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Cause like your body goes through so many changes
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in that time and speed climbing is so same every time.
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Like, do you feel like that makes a difference as you grow?
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I do think it would have made a difference
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if I started speed climbing earlier.
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But so when I say I started speed climbing at 13,
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I mean on the official route,
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I think I competed in C and D,
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which is the U I think 12 or maybe U11,
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U13 categories in USA climbing.
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I'm not sure if that's exactly correct.
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But it was a non-standard speed route.
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So it'd be set new every time.
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And I wasn't really that good at that one,
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but I would sort of, I enjoy training it.
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And I think it's good to sort of teach a child
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that's under the age of, I would say 13 or 14,
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the fundamentals of moving your body faster in climbing,
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like in moving all four limbs at once,
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specifically for speed.
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But I would not necessarily say it's essential
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rather than just like,
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I think there's a lot of athletes who could start
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at a later age and be still top of the world.
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But I think we'll also figure out in like 10 years,
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if there's some like kid that's been training
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since he was five years old and just speed climbing
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and how better that's gonna make
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than someone who started at a later age.
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Yeah, that'll be interesting to see.
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Do you feel like speed climbing came naturally to you?
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Yes, I don't think I was ever really
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the strongest athlete.
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I am not very athletically inclined.
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As I would say, no Olympian would say like,
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I'm not an athlete,
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but like I was never good at sports as a kid.
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I was pretty good at competitive climbing
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and bouldering and lead, but not like exceptional.
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But I think I just really, really enjoyed the process
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of training speed climbing.
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And that's what kind of elevated me to a higher level
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where I could sort of embrace the natural talents I had.
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But I think I really only discovered
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that I was very talented at speed climbing
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when I was like 15 years old.
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Like when I was like sort of, I think running,
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like I think I had a big, I had a stretch of time
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where I dropped from like 7.4 seconds to like 5.8 seconds
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in the span of six months,
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just because that was like my primary goal to speed climb.
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And at the time that was kind of like unprecedented
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like territory for someone to do.
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So that was kind of the moment where I realized
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I was really natural at it.
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But before that, I was really just enjoying the process
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of getting better at something.
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And when you first started speed climbing,
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was there anything about it that surprised you?
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I think when I first started competitive speed climbing,
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I think in 2021, just the sort of load,
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like of how much of an endurance sport
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competing in speed climbing is,
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where you're sitting for,
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or you're running around for 40 minutes in line
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and doing your runs and waiting,
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and your heart rate is constantly like elevated.
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So it really does become an endurance effort to a level.
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And like, I remember my first proper competition in speed,
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I was exhausted at the end.
248
00:11:00,280 --> 00:11:02,160
I was like, wow, that was not anything
249
00:11:02,160 --> 00:11:04,160
I've ever experienced in practice.
250
00:11:04,160 --> 00:11:06,560
So that was my first big surprise
251
00:11:06,560 --> 00:11:08,200
for speed climbing, I would say.
252
00:11:08,200 --> 00:11:12,120
You mean running around because of like,
253
00:11:12,120 --> 00:11:15,360
you wanna keep warm or like the venue?
254
00:11:15,360 --> 00:11:18,800
So that competition specifically was Youth Nationals
255
00:11:18,800 --> 00:11:21,400
in Reno at Mesa Rim.
256
00:11:21,400 --> 00:11:23,720
And I do remember the warmup area
257
00:11:23,720 --> 00:11:26,560
was not by the speed wall at all.
258
00:11:26,560 --> 00:11:30,640
So sort of pacing like between there in the bouldering area
259
00:11:30,640 --> 00:11:34,200
and trying to keep my fingers warm and sort of like,
260
00:11:34,200 --> 00:11:36,120
and it was just like volunteers are calling you
261
00:11:36,120 --> 00:11:39,120
to line up and stage and things like that
262
00:11:39,120 --> 00:11:40,800
are constantly happening.
263
00:11:40,800 --> 00:11:45,800
So it's just a very sort of a little bit overwhelming event
264
00:11:45,800 --> 00:11:47,640
for a first time thing.
265
00:11:47,640 --> 00:11:49,560
And I didn't expect, I expected it to just be,
266
00:11:49,560 --> 00:11:52,080
I would race, do my thing, race,
267
00:11:52,080 --> 00:11:54,320
just stay warm like I would in practice.
268
00:11:54,320 --> 00:11:57,720
Cause I had done a lot of preparation for that.
269
00:11:57,720 --> 00:12:01,200
But the real deal was definitely a big shock.
270
00:12:01,200 --> 00:12:05,080
Yeah, I'm sure you've gotten more used to taking on surprises
271
00:12:05,080 --> 00:12:06,680
going to different World Cups.
272
00:12:06,680 --> 00:12:09,200
So we'll get back into like specifics
273
00:12:09,200 --> 00:12:11,120
of speed climbing a little bit later on.
274
00:12:11,120 --> 00:12:13,880
But right now I wanna go into your experience
275
00:12:13,880 --> 00:12:16,440
at the Pan American Games.
276
00:12:16,440 --> 00:12:17,960
Cause that just happened recently.
277
00:12:17,960 --> 00:12:21,360
And of course that is where you took your Olympic ticket.
278
00:12:21,360 --> 00:12:22,760
So congrats on that.
279
00:12:23,680 --> 00:12:26,800
But yeah, just walk me through your experience
280
00:12:26,800 --> 00:12:30,640
at the Pan Am Games and how you were feeling.
281
00:12:30,640 --> 00:12:33,000
So the Pan American Games,
282
00:12:34,960 --> 00:12:37,480
I had sort of planned out the entire year
283
00:12:37,480 --> 00:12:41,560
of wanting to like, of deciding 2023 was the year
284
00:12:41,560 --> 00:12:43,680
that I wanted to get Olympic qualified.
285
00:12:43,680 --> 00:12:45,680
I either wanted to get a spot at the World Championship
286
00:12:45,680 --> 00:12:46,800
or at my continental.
287
00:12:48,240 --> 00:12:52,080
So I think it was announced by the IFSC
288
00:12:52,080 --> 00:12:54,240
that it would be, they wouldn't host
289
00:12:54,240 --> 00:12:55,720
a separate Pan American qualifier.
290
00:12:55,720 --> 00:12:57,600
It would be at the Pan American Games.
291
00:12:59,880 --> 00:13:04,440
And I think earlier this year to my knowledge.
292
00:13:04,440 --> 00:13:08,680
So I really wanted,
293
00:13:08,680 --> 00:13:10,800
so I put all my effort towards the World Championship
294
00:13:10,800 --> 00:13:13,840
and had the worst event I have ever had.
295
00:13:15,160 --> 00:13:17,280
Wasn't necessarily like something I would say
296
00:13:17,280 --> 00:13:19,880
was because of nerves or because of anything really.
297
00:13:19,880 --> 00:13:21,760
Like I wouldn't blame the conditions.
298
00:13:21,760 --> 00:13:25,320
I just happened to have two bad runs back to back.
299
00:13:25,320 --> 00:13:27,520
How often does that happen to you?
300
00:13:27,520 --> 00:13:30,560
I mean, I like to think of speed climbing as your,
301
00:13:30,560 --> 00:13:33,560
the concept of consistency is you want
302
00:13:33,560 --> 00:13:38,560
to raise the rate of mistakes not being made on each move.
303
00:13:40,120 --> 00:13:43,120
So ideally if you're a great competitor,
304
00:13:43,120 --> 00:13:45,680
you can get to like an 83%.
305
00:13:45,680 --> 00:13:48,440
It's sort of what it takes to win a four race competition
306
00:13:49,920 --> 00:13:54,000
in order for it to sort of be in control of what you're doing.
307
00:13:54,000 --> 00:13:56,240
And I felt really, really good
308
00:13:56,240 --> 00:13:57,840
with my completion rates before burn.
309
00:13:57,840 --> 00:14:01,720
I was not slipping really at all.
310
00:14:01,720 --> 00:14:05,240
Like I was dropping like three runs out of 20
311
00:14:05,240 --> 00:14:08,560
or something like that before that.
312
00:14:08,560 --> 00:14:13,280
And so I felt great, but that actual day, I think,
313
00:14:13,280 --> 00:14:14,240
I was a little thrown off
314
00:14:14,240 --> 00:14:16,400
because there wasn't any practice runs.
315
00:14:16,400 --> 00:14:18,760
The practice runs were the day before.
316
00:14:18,760 --> 00:14:23,600
And it was sort of just like,
317
00:14:23,600 --> 00:14:25,400
I was trying to just do my runs,
318
00:14:26,680 --> 00:14:28,520
but it ended up just being,
319
00:14:29,800 --> 00:14:31,240
I didn't change my mentality at all.
320
00:14:31,240 --> 00:14:33,040
So I was just like, I feel confident for my next one
321
00:14:33,040 --> 00:14:34,640
after I slipped on my first run.
322
00:14:35,720 --> 00:14:37,560
And then it just didn't work out.
323
00:14:38,760 --> 00:14:43,760
That kind of 17% of not having a good run is not,
324
00:14:44,440 --> 00:14:46,640
it just wasn't, just happened to roll twice really.
325
00:14:46,640 --> 00:14:51,000
So I was just like, anyway, so after that event,
326
00:14:51,000 --> 00:14:53,760
I was like, I have about 70 days to train
327
00:14:53,760 --> 00:14:55,880
for the Pan American Championships.
328
00:14:55,880 --> 00:15:00,880
So I was like, I will partition 45 of them
329
00:15:02,160 --> 00:15:04,840
to the Wujing World Cup as well,
330
00:15:04,840 --> 00:15:07,400
where I want to just get way stronger
331
00:15:07,400 --> 00:15:08,800
and consistently be sub five.
332
00:15:10,920 --> 00:15:13,560
And I did that and it was just,
333
00:15:13,560 --> 00:15:16,640
I ended up doing an insanely like brutal training cycle
334
00:15:16,640 --> 00:15:20,160
where I was training like every single day,
335
00:15:20,160 --> 00:15:22,080
I was having like my lifestyle
336
00:15:22,080 --> 00:15:24,120
on just absolutely being disciplined
337
00:15:24,120 --> 00:15:25,560
about everything in my life.
338
00:15:25,560 --> 00:15:27,360
I was not only tracking my calories,
339
00:15:27,360 --> 00:15:29,920
but I was tracking the individual amino acids
340
00:15:29,920 --> 00:15:32,440
of every single thing I ate to that,
341
00:15:32,440 --> 00:15:33,760
make sure I could have my leucine,
342
00:15:33,760 --> 00:15:35,000
isoleucine and valine levels,
343
00:15:35,000 --> 00:15:37,120
which are the muscle building compounds
344
00:15:38,160 --> 00:15:39,400
at constantly a high level
345
00:15:39,400 --> 00:15:41,680
so I could be completely optimal.
346
00:15:42,880 --> 00:15:44,160
So that was about 25 days.
347
00:15:44,160 --> 00:15:46,360
And I was kind of miserable doing that
348
00:15:46,360 --> 00:15:49,240
because it's just so much constant work,
349
00:15:49,240 --> 00:15:51,600
but it really did pay off
350
00:15:51,600 --> 00:15:55,320
because I was the week before trying to doing great.
351
00:15:55,320 --> 00:15:56,760
The comp itself wasn't amazing,
352
00:15:56,760 --> 00:15:58,240
but I acknowledged,
353
00:15:58,240 --> 00:16:00,240
I think I was pushing for a world record run
354
00:16:00,240 --> 00:16:03,200
and it just didn't happen in the last couple of moves.
355
00:16:03,200 --> 00:16:08,080
So I was at the end of the day content with that.
356
00:16:08,080 --> 00:16:12,320
And then after that competition leading up,
357
00:16:12,320 --> 00:16:14,040
I said I wanted to do just performance.
358
00:16:14,040 --> 00:16:16,520
How do I win at the time three races?
359
00:16:16,520 --> 00:16:20,000
Was it what I thought because there were 16 athletes.
360
00:16:20,000 --> 00:16:20,840
So I was like, okay,
361
00:16:20,840 --> 00:16:23,640
so they won't take all 16 athletes to,
362
00:16:23,640 --> 00:16:24,480
it'll be a round of eight
363
00:16:24,480 --> 00:16:26,880
because it said that in the info sheet.
364
00:16:26,880 --> 00:16:29,960
And they ended up actually changing the rule last minute.
365
00:16:29,960 --> 00:16:34,080
So I had learned from the Salt Lake World Cup,
366
00:16:34,080 --> 00:16:36,240
that was men and women on separate days
367
00:16:36,240 --> 00:16:40,080
that doing the men only format is kind of brutal
368
00:16:40,080 --> 00:16:43,080
because the five minute breasts really gets depleted
369
00:16:43,080 --> 00:16:45,240
because you're staging and you're warming up
370
00:16:45,240 --> 00:16:46,960
and you really don't have that much time.
371
00:16:46,960 --> 00:16:47,800
And you're kind of like,
372
00:16:47,800 --> 00:16:49,680
you're out of breath a lot of times.
373
00:16:49,680 --> 00:16:54,640
So I was planning to do that with three races
374
00:16:54,640 --> 00:16:57,000
and just saying I wanna have three clean laps
375
00:16:57,000 --> 00:16:59,160
and I'll be able to win the comp.
376
00:16:59,160 --> 00:17:01,280
And so that was just my entire training
377
00:17:01,280 --> 00:17:03,600
of just I wanna have perfect days.
378
00:17:05,280 --> 00:17:08,000
And I was doing, I think six out of seven,
379
00:17:08,000 --> 00:17:09,840
six out of seven, seven out of eight, seven out of eight,
380
00:17:09,840 --> 00:17:12,520
like 10 out of 11 days all the time.
381
00:17:12,520 --> 00:17:14,080
And then the only perfect session
382
00:17:14,080 --> 00:17:15,880
where I didn't mess up a single run
383
00:17:15,880 --> 00:17:19,160
was actually the day or the last session in Santiago
384
00:17:19,160 --> 00:17:20,600
on the wall.
385
00:17:20,600 --> 00:17:22,640
And then of course the comp itself.
386
00:17:22,640 --> 00:17:27,360
So yeah, that was kind of the entire preparation.
387
00:17:27,360 --> 00:17:32,360
As far as like the micro level of being at the competition
388
00:17:33,040 --> 00:17:35,880
and being immersed in that experience of the village,
389
00:17:35,880 --> 00:17:37,440
it was a bit more than I would expect
390
00:17:37,440 --> 00:17:38,960
in terms of like kind of a shock of just,
391
00:17:38,960 --> 00:17:41,160
wow, it's so much stuff going on.
392
00:17:41,160 --> 00:17:43,040
But I really did enjoy it.
393
00:17:43,040 --> 00:17:45,120
I did feel kind of at home with,
394
00:17:45,120 --> 00:17:47,320
I just had the mentality of I'm here,
395
00:17:47,320 --> 00:17:48,480
I wanna compete in speed climbing
396
00:17:48,480 --> 00:17:50,320
and I wanna win races.
397
00:17:50,320 --> 00:17:52,560
And that kind of brought me pretty far.
398
00:17:52,560 --> 00:17:55,240
Yeah, was there anything that happened at the games
399
00:17:55,240 --> 00:17:58,760
that you weren't expecting or kind of threw you off?
400
00:17:58,760 --> 00:18:00,360
So if you watch the stream actually,
401
00:18:00,360 --> 00:18:01,800
you could probably see this.
402
00:18:01,800 --> 00:18:02,920
It was very cold.
403
00:18:02,920 --> 00:18:05,200
It was not very great conditions.
404
00:18:05,200 --> 00:18:08,880
So it was like probably 60 degrees Fahrenheit.
405
00:18:08,880 --> 00:18:11,680
I don't speak Celsius unfortunately.
406
00:18:11,680 --> 00:18:18,680
But it was pretty cold and they actually brought us out.
407
00:18:18,720 --> 00:18:21,360
I was racing Isaac Estevez from Ecuador
408
00:18:21,360 --> 00:18:25,040
and they said, we were like,
409
00:18:25,040 --> 00:18:26,480
I was about to go, right?
410
00:18:26,480 --> 00:18:28,080
They're about to climb up the mark, right?
411
00:18:28,080 --> 00:18:29,800
I'm sitting here in a Jersey in shorts
412
00:18:29,800 --> 00:18:31,240
and it's freezing, right?
413
00:18:31,240 --> 00:18:32,600
And the wind is like blowing too.
414
00:18:32,600 --> 00:18:34,840
So like the auto blade is flapping in the wind
415
00:18:34,840 --> 00:18:38,040
and I'm like super cold and they're like one minute delay.
416
00:18:38,040 --> 00:18:42,000
I just stand here like stone faced for a minute.
417
00:18:42,000 --> 00:18:45,040
And I'm just like, I got this.
418
00:18:46,160 --> 00:18:48,080
I didn't expect this to happen
419
00:18:48,080 --> 00:18:49,520
but I'm not gonna let it throw me off.
420
00:18:49,520 --> 00:18:50,720
And I'm really proud of myself
421
00:18:50,720 --> 00:18:53,400
because I had the fastest run I had with a comp
422
00:18:53,400 --> 00:18:55,160
after that happened.
423
00:18:55,160 --> 00:18:58,440
And I think so did he,
424
00:18:58,440 --> 00:19:00,880
one of the faster comp times of the comp as well.
425
00:19:01,800 --> 00:19:05,320
So it was really just, the conditions weren't amazing.
426
00:19:05,320 --> 00:19:08,520
I think I had a foot pop on one of my races as well
427
00:19:08,520 --> 00:19:11,400
but just doing what I trained for,
428
00:19:11,400 --> 00:19:13,040
you still have that little bit of margin of error
429
00:19:13,040 --> 00:19:15,160
when you're trying to get a little bit more consistent
430
00:19:15,160 --> 00:19:18,280
but just recovering your runs and doing your best
431
00:19:18,280 --> 00:19:23,280
to just win every race was the goal.
432
00:19:23,800 --> 00:19:26,200
Yeah, I sort of remember seeing that there was a delay
433
00:19:26,200 --> 00:19:27,960
and it just felt like ages,
434
00:19:27,960 --> 00:19:29,560
just watching you guys stand up there.
435
00:19:29,560 --> 00:19:30,440
It was a tense moment.
436
00:19:30,440 --> 00:19:34,280
It was like so palpable of like everyone in this crowd
437
00:19:34,280 --> 00:19:36,120
was like, oh my God, how are these athletes
438
00:19:36,120 --> 00:19:37,040
doing this right now?
439
00:19:37,040 --> 00:19:40,760
Like it was an immense amount of pressure for sure.
440
00:19:40,760 --> 00:19:43,040
Yeah, well, Glad you pulled through.
441
00:19:43,040 --> 00:19:46,920
And I think another thing people talk about at the games
442
00:19:46,920 --> 00:19:49,400
is like the village experience.
443
00:19:49,400 --> 00:19:51,960
Was that anything interesting for you?
444
00:19:51,960 --> 00:19:54,240
I really think that the Santiago 2023 people
445
00:19:54,240 --> 00:19:56,080
did really, really well,
446
00:19:56,080 --> 00:19:58,920
especially because some games are kind of like,
447
00:19:58,920 --> 00:20:00,160
like nightmare experiences
448
00:20:00,160 --> 00:20:02,280
with like the village is not working.
449
00:20:02,280 --> 00:20:05,400
I think we had some issues like the first couple of days
450
00:20:05,400 --> 00:20:06,640
with like our water.
451
00:20:06,640 --> 00:20:09,600
But besides that, our village was a great experience.
452
00:20:09,600 --> 00:20:12,800
You have to like sit around or go around the village
453
00:20:12,800 --> 00:20:16,840
and see all the other athletes and all the other sports.
454
00:20:16,840 --> 00:20:20,000
So it was a cool experience.
455
00:20:21,440 --> 00:20:24,560
I didn't, before the games or before I competed,
456
00:20:24,560 --> 00:20:26,680
I didn't try to explore a ton,
457
00:20:26,680 --> 00:20:30,880
but I ended up a couple of days after like
458
00:20:30,880 --> 00:20:32,320
exploring the whole village and it was a really cool
459
00:20:32,320 --> 00:20:33,160
experience.
460
00:20:34,040 --> 00:20:37,160
They put in a lot of work and a lot of effort.
461
00:20:37,160 --> 00:20:39,200
So it was just a really good time
462
00:20:39,200 --> 00:20:40,800
for all the athletes, I think.
463
00:20:40,800 --> 00:20:44,560
Yeah, I figured like, I feel like in that situation,
464
00:20:44,560 --> 00:20:49,360
I wouldn't really want to explore before time to compete.
465
00:20:51,040 --> 00:20:53,880
So you had like some time after to just relax
466
00:20:53,880 --> 00:20:54,720
and hang out there.
467
00:20:54,720 --> 00:20:56,760
Yeah, because I think they flew out the entire
468
00:20:56,760 --> 00:20:57,800
USA climbing team.
469
00:20:57,800 --> 00:21:01,200
So it was women's speed, men's speed,
470
00:21:01,200 --> 00:21:03,800
men's boulder lead, women's boulder lead.
471
00:21:03,800 --> 00:21:05,440
And that was like the entire competition.
472
00:21:05,440 --> 00:21:07,080
So we had three more days.
473
00:21:07,080 --> 00:21:08,360
Oh, okay, awesome.
474
00:21:08,360 --> 00:21:11,400
And I don't want to like get too much into it
475
00:21:11,400 --> 00:21:15,000
because she's not on the podcast to talk about it.
476
00:21:15,000 --> 00:21:19,480
But if you had some info on it being on the same team,
477
00:21:19,480 --> 00:21:21,240
I think a lot of people are just wondering
478
00:21:21,240 --> 00:21:25,080
why did Emma Hunt end up competing despite already having
479
00:21:25,080 --> 00:21:26,560
an Olympic ticket?
480
00:21:26,560 --> 00:21:28,400
Like, wouldn't it be better to focus on training
481
00:21:28,400 --> 00:21:29,240
or something like that?
482
00:21:29,240 --> 00:21:33,440
Yeah, so that one was kind of an issue that sort of
483
00:21:33,440 --> 00:21:35,200
arise, I think, from the fact that it was
484
00:21:35,200 --> 00:21:39,480
the Pan American Games and not an individual qualifier event.
485
00:21:39,480 --> 00:21:41,000
Like I think they did for Asia.
486
00:21:41,000 --> 00:21:43,640
Like Asia had their full like Hong-Jau Asian Games.
487
00:21:45,640 --> 00:21:48,080
But Pan America didn't have that same situation.
488
00:21:48,080 --> 00:21:51,480
So it's a pretty big deal to compete at the Pan American
489
00:21:51,480 --> 00:21:55,800
Games as far as like all the athletes that want to go there.
490
00:21:55,800 --> 00:21:57,880
And even if you're Olympic medalist,
491
00:21:57,880 --> 00:22:00,480
it's still common for you to want to go to that event.
492
00:22:00,480 --> 00:22:05,240
So I think that became a sort of conflict of you want to
493
00:22:05,240 --> 00:22:08,080
compete as an athlete because it's not just an Olympic
494
00:22:08,080 --> 00:22:10,760
qualifier, it's just a competition you want to do good at.
495
00:22:10,760 --> 00:22:14,400
And I think also it's good practice to be in that village
496
00:22:14,400 --> 00:22:19,400
environment and to be immersed in that experience
497
00:22:21,120 --> 00:22:22,160
before the Olympic Games.
498
00:22:22,160 --> 00:22:24,360
So it's not as much of a shock.
499
00:22:24,360 --> 00:22:28,240
I do think there's obviously an argument either way of
500
00:22:28,240 --> 00:22:30,400
it's really the elephant in the room because the Olympics
501
00:22:30,400 --> 00:22:32,680
are so big compared to anything else climbing
502
00:22:32,680 --> 00:22:33,800
has really seen.
503
00:22:33,800 --> 00:22:36,840
So it's like you sort of want to preserve the purity
504
00:22:36,840 --> 00:22:41,840
of the sport through not competing in a bracket
505
00:22:42,720 --> 00:22:44,320
or messing it up potentially.
506
00:22:44,320 --> 00:22:47,480
But I think it worked out well.
507
00:22:47,480 --> 00:22:49,920
I think Piper is completely deserving of the spot
508
00:22:49,920 --> 00:22:51,280
that she ended up getting.
509
00:22:51,280 --> 00:22:54,560
So I don't really have too much quarrel with it.
510
00:22:54,560 --> 00:22:55,400
Yeah.
511
00:22:55,400 --> 00:22:58,240
And so thinking ahead to the Olympics,
512
00:22:58,240 --> 00:23:00,760
do you sort of have a training plan in mind?
513
00:23:00,760 --> 00:23:02,880
And are you going to be doing like any of the
514
00:23:02,880 --> 00:23:03,880
World Cup season?
515
00:23:04,920 --> 00:23:09,080
Yeah. So I think I would like to try to win a World Cup
516
00:23:09,080 --> 00:23:11,520
series at some point.
517
00:23:11,520 --> 00:23:13,440
That's still a major goal of mine.
518
00:23:13,440 --> 00:23:16,680
I think I will do Wujiang, Salt Lake City,
519
00:23:16,680 --> 00:23:19,560
Chamonix, Skip, Branchon right before the Olympics
520
00:23:19,560 --> 00:23:20,920
and go home and train.
521
00:23:20,920 --> 00:23:24,920
And do Seoul after the Olympics if I'm inspired to do so.
522
00:23:25,960 --> 00:23:29,360
So I think the World Cup circuit is still a big part
523
00:23:29,360 --> 00:23:30,840
of climbing and competing.
524
00:23:30,840 --> 00:23:33,240
And I still want to go to events and learn from my mistakes
525
00:23:33,240 --> 00:23:35,320
if I do make any, which I will,
526
00:23:36,320 --> 00:23:39,240
about how to compete and how do I be the best athlete
527
00:23:39,240 --> 00:23:40,080
in Paris.
528
00:23:41,800 --> 00:23:44,360
So that's like a pretty big deal to me to go to those events
529
00:23:44,360 --> 00:23:45,720
and figure out what to do.
530
00:23:45,720 --> 00:23:50,720
But I do have sort of a plan of month by month
531
00:23:51,160 --> 00:23:52,960
of doing different training cycles and trying to get
532
00:23:52,960 --> 00:23:55,880
stronger and more powerful and a better performer
533
00:23:55,880 --> 00:23:58,360
as a sort of an alternating cycle.
534
00:23:58,360 --> 00:24:01,800
How much faster do you think you can go by the Olympics?
535
00:24:01,800 --> 00:24:04,480
Is that something that people think about?
536
00:24:05,320 --> 00:24:08,240
Personally, I think I have some, definitely some doors
537
00:24:08,240 --> 00:24:11,360
to open as far as I'm pretty young.
538
00:24:11,360 --> 00:24:12,680
I'm not that strong.
539
00:24:12,680 --> 00:24:16,080
Like I am, I definitely could,
540
00:24:16,080 --> 00:24:19,480
I have only really been training as far as I'm consistently
541
00:24:19,480 --> 00:24:22,800
doing a good like weight regimen for a few months now.
542
00:24:22,800 --> 00:24:25,280
And it's been like very, very helpful.
543
00:24:25,280 --> 00:24:27,440
Like it's helped a lot on the wall to do that.
544
00:24:27,440 --> 00:24:31,800
So I think the sky's limit sort of as far as pushing times
545
00:24:31,800 --> 00:24:33,840
down via just raw power output.
546
00:24:35,640 --> 00:24:38,880
And just far from being perfect,
547
00:24:38,880 --> 00:24:40,360
I think the sport is still really young.
548
00:24:40,360 --> 00:24:44,640
So I think I'm not saying anything is impossible
549
00:24:44,640 --> 00:24:46,520
at this point because I think it's not a good mentality
550
00:24:46,520 --> 00:24:48,240
to be putting yourself in a box of,
551
00:24:48,240 --> 00:24:50,440
I think the limit is four or five or whatever.
552
00:24:50,440 --> 00:24:52,400
I don't, I think it's,
553
00:24:52,400 --> 00:24:55,920
I'm gonna continue to work my hardest to push my times down
554
00:24:55,920 --> 00:25:00,000
and I have no clue what the limit will be.
555
00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:03,640
Okay, yeah, I think that'll answer one of the later
556
00:25:03,640 --> 00:25:06,720
questions that came from Discord as well.
557
00:25:06,720 --> 00:25:11,720
So yeah, a few questions just about like speed climbing
558
00:25:11,720 --> 00:25:13,560
logistics in general.
559
00:25:14,960 --> 00:25:17,360
This one may be kind of like a silly question,
560
00:25:17,360 --> 00:25:20,240
but I was listening to a previous podcast you did
561
00:25:20,240 --> 00:25:22,720
and you mentioned that you had like a finger injury
562
00:25:22,720 --> 00:25:26,800
at one point and it just kind of made me wonder like,
563
00:25:26,800 --> 00:25:30,040
do speed climbers get injuries?
564
00:25:30,040 --> 00:25:33,000
Like, did you get it from speed climbing or like,
565
00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:34,840
of course with like bouldering or lead,
566
00:25:34,840 --> 00:25:37,760
people get like finger injuries or sprains were falling,
567
00:25:37,760 --> 00:25:40,640
but there's no like surprises on the wall with speed.
568
00:25:40,640 --> 00:25:44,040
So just kind of wondering if that happens.
569
00:25:44,040 --> 00:25:48,360
Yeah, so for speed, I think since you're pulling on jugs,
570
00:25:48,360 --> 00:25:49,760
but pulling on jugs fast,
571
00:25:49,760 --> 00:25:52,760
you can be prone to a sort of a different set of injuries.
572
00:25:54,080 --> 00:25:57,800
So I think that specific injury I got when I was pretty young,
573
00:25:57,800 --> 00:26:02,000
I think I was like 15, of just pulling on,
574
00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:04,400
of too much volume on a certain finger.
575
00:26:04,400 --> 00:26:08,400
I think it was like my left index finger and it just ended up,
576
00:26:08,400 --> 00:26:11,000
I think getting tendonitis or something like that.
577
00:26:11,800 --> 00:26:15,000
And I just rehabbed it like normal, took some time off,
578
00:26:15,000 --> 00:26:17,600
did some loading on it and it was no huge deal.
579
00:26:17,600 --> 00:26:21,920
But I think as far as a broader question of injuries
580
00:26:21,920 --> 00:26:23,360
and speed climbing, it's definitely something
581
00:26:23,360 --> 00:26:24,200
that does happen.
582
00:26:25,200 --> 00:26:28,000
It's just a different nature because bouldering,
583
00:26:28,000 --> 00:26:30,200
I think is a bit more brutal on the body because you're
584
00:26:30,200 --> 00:26:33,400
falling and you're hitting the ground at that kind of rate.
585
00:26:33,400 --> 00:26:36,800
So it's a little bit more aspect of randomness of you can fall
586
00:26:36,800 --> 00:26:41,400
weird or you can, it's just not good for wear and tear
587
00:26:41,400 --> 00:26:42,800
to be hitting the ground that many times.
588
00:26:42,800 --> 00:26:45,600
Or just speed, you're on an auto-boule consistently.
589
00:26:47,200 --> 00:26:50,600
You're hitting the ground at a normal rate
590
00:26:50,600 --> 00:26:55,000
and you're not like falling like large distances.
591
00:26:55,800 --> 00:26:58,800
But sometimes like different training regiments
592
00:26:58,800 --> 00:27:03,200
can be bad for you if you're lifting a ton of weight
593
00:27:03,200 --> 00:27:07,000
when you shouldn't be or you're using bad form or you're,
594
00:27:08,000 --> 00:27:10,200
I think a lot of times people will overload their fingers.
595
00:27:10,200 --> 00:27:11,600
Like they'll try to do hangboard stuff.
596
00:27:11,600 --> 00:27:15,200
Like if you try to do hangboard stuff on really small ledges,
597
00:27:15,200 --> 00:27:19,200
really fast, that's really not good for your fingers
598
00:27:19,200 --> 00:27:23,200
unless you're training to be that level of ability.
599
00:27:23,200 --> 00:27:26,400
So I think that's a bit of an issue.
600
00:27:26,400 --> 00:27:32,400
But besides that, it's, I would say generally a bit more healthy
601
00:27:32,400 --> 00:27:35,800
than boulder or lead for injuries.
602
00:27:36,800 --> 00:27:40,400
Yeah, I guess like why are people training a lot of weight
603
00:27:40,400 --> 00:27:42,800
on small edges for speed climbing?
604
00:27:45,600 --> 00:27:50,000
I think just as a like hangboarding thing,
605
00:27:50,000 --> 00:27:53,200
they want to pull on tiny edges when they don't have to.
606
00:27:53,200 --> 00:27:55,200
Sometimes it's just because they're not doing it
607
00:27:55,200 --> 00:27:57,400
sometimes it's just because it's like cross training with bouldering
608
00:27:57,400 --> 00:27:59,200
they want to get strong with their fingers.
609
00:28:00,800 --> 00:28:04,200
Sometimes like a workout I'll do a lot is pulling on the campus rungs.
610
00:28:04,200 --> 00:28:09,600
So like you pull on the campus rungs like at a higher level of width.
611
00:28:09,600 --> 00:28:11,200
So they're larger, right? They're like jugs.
612
00:28:12,600 --> 00:28:14,600
And you try to do them fast.
613
00:28:14,600 --> 00:28:17,000
And it's really good to train for contact strength
614
00:28:17,000 --> 00:28:21,600
if you're trying to do it like on those jugs.
615
00:28:21,600 --> 00:28:23,400
But if you do it on the smaller ones,
616
00:28:23,400 --> 00:28:26,600
you're just shock loading your fingers over and over and over again.
617
00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:29,200
And that could potentially not be good.
618
00:28:29,200 --> 00:28:33,000
I'm not a doctor, but I could potentially see some issues
619
00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:33,800
with you doing that.
620
00:28:35,000 --> 00:28:36,400
As you know, I think some people have.
621
00:28:36,400 --> 00:28:39,400
So yeah, another speed question I had.
622
00:28:39,400 --> 00:28:43,200
This is also this is always something I've wondered about.
623
00:28:43,200 --> 00:28:49,000
But I thought so it also stems from like this discord discussion.
624
00:28:49,000 --> 00:28:53,000
You have this like rhythmic beef that counts you in.
625
00:28:53,000 --> 00:29:00,800
And then someone said that you still have to react to it less than 0.1 seconds to start.
626
00:29:00,800 --> 00:29:02,400
Is that the case?
627
00:29:02,400 --> 00:29:08,600
So yeah, that's a pretty controversial point in speed climbing
628
00:29:08,600 --> 00:29:10,200
is the technical false start rule.
629
00:29:10,200 --> 00:29:16,400
So the idea behind it is that a human cannot react to a cue
630
00:29:16,400 --> 00:29:19,800
within only 0.1 seconds, right?
631
00:29:19,800 --> 00:29:21,800
They have to be longer than that.
632
00:29:21,800 --> 00:29:23,400
They have to be if they were there,
633
00:29:23,400 --> 00:29:27,000
or if they were to get under 0.1, they would be anticipating it.
634
00:29:27,000 --> 00:29:28,600
And there'll be a false start.
635
00:29:28,600 --> 00:29:36,000
So what ends up happening is it doesn't really do its job
636
00:29:36,000 --> 00:29:37,800
because you're anticipating it anyway.
637
00:29:37,800 --> 00:29:41,400
If you're running a one to your anticipating the beep,
638
00:29:41,400 --> 00:29:44,200
like I can tell you right now, I do not react to the third beep
639
00:29:44,200 --> 00:29:48,400
because if I did, the reaction time would be like 0.3, 0.4.
640
00:29:48,400 --> 00:29:53,600
Because if in a controlled scientific setting, you're given a beep
641
00:29:53,600 --> 00:29:56,800
and you're saying, okay, press this button when you hear the beep.
642
00:29:56,800 --> 00:29:59,000
In theory, the max would be about 0.1.
643
00:29:59,000 --> 00:30:03,200
If you're like a highest percentage of a very good reaction time.
644
00:30:03,200 --> 00:30:06,400
But the thing about speed climbing is you're not doing you're not just pressing a button.
645
00:30:06,400 --> 00:30:10,200
You're fully moving your entire body off the ground to get off the pad,
646
00:30:10,200 --> 00:30:13,000
which requires a ton of energy and takes longer.
647
00:30:13,000 --> 00:30:14,800
So you're anticipating it anyway.
648
00:30:14,800 --> 00:30:20,000
So I personally have a cueing system where I'll do a certain swing based on the beeps.
649
00:30:20,000 --> 00:30:25,400
So that the motion allows me to move before the beeps go off.
650
00:30:25,400 --> 00:30:30,000
I'm generating momentum when the timer isn't going.
651
00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:36,000
So that's why I'm a big fan of swinging at the start because it's basically cheating.
652
00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:39,800
I mean, with no rule against it, it's like it's beta.
653
00:30:39,800 --> 00:30:45,800
It's part of the route is to get off the ground faster than the clock can start you, essentially.
654
00:30:45,800 --> 00:30:51,800
Because you want to get that ideal reaction time because it is a lot like shaving off.
655
00:30:51,800 --> 00:30:55,800
If the difference is 0.1 versus 0.2, that's a tenth of a second.
656
00:30:55,800 --> 00:31:02,000
And that's a lot of like 0.1 seconds on reaction time versus 0.1 seconds of strength.
657
00:31:02,000 --> 00:31:05,000
Like just getting stronger is a big deal.
658
00:31:05,000 --> 00:31:09,000
That's like several months of training at least at a high level.
659
00:31:09,000 --> 00:31:15,600
So I would say it's definitely, I would personally make some changes to the rule itself.
660
00:31:15,600 --> 00:31:23,600
But that's generally the rundown of what the best athletes will do to try and circumvent it, essentially.
661
00:31:23,600 --> 00:31:30,600
Yeah. So is it like the last beep is not always a consistent amount of time after the first two?
662
00:31:30,600 --> 00:31:31,600
No, it is.
663
00:31:31,600 --> 00:31:41,600
And so do you know why they don't just like do like one starting sound like say like track races or something like that?
664
00:31:41,600 --> 00:31:44,600
I think it did for a while.
665
00:31:44,600 --> 00:31:48,600
And the IFSC, if you watch like 2014 comps, I think the year they did away with it.
666
00:31:48,600 --> 00:32:00,600
But what ended up happening is I was talking earlier about the margin of error of sort of like getting off the ground in 0.3 versus 0.2 or even like 0.6 if you're really slow, like actually reacting to it.
667
00:32:00,600 --> 00:32:06,600
That's a very like that's a very large amount of skill in climbing to make up that amount of time.
668
00:32:06,600 --> 00:32:15,600
So it sort of is a little bit better to have the standardized beeps because you're maybe at a different you're not in the same position.
669
00:32:15,600 --> 00:32:19,600
Your body maybe isn't cued because you can't just stay there cued for a while.
670
00:32:19,600 --> 00:32:21,600
You have to be like, you know, in a routine.
671
00:32:21,600 --> 00:32:23,600
I mean, there's obviously a benefit to that.
672
00:32:23,600 --> 00:32:36,600
So it wouldn't necessarily be fair to be constantly giving everyone, say, in a qualifier round a random beep at a different time because potentially it could help other athletes do better than others.
673
00:32:36,600 --> 00:32:40,600
And it also just lowers times to have a standardized beep to have faster reaction times.
674
00:32:40,600 --> 00:32:43,600
If you're getting off the ground in 0.1, it just lowers times.
675
00:32:43,600 --> 00:32:44,600
That's all it does.
676
00:32:44,600 --> 00:32:56,600
I mean, it's just really I have a see obviously does benefit from having lower world records because it's interesting to the viewer. So they don't want to needlessly push that those up.
677
00:32:56,600 --> 00:33:03,600
Yeah, I guess they do always kind of advertise it as like this is the fastest race in the Olympics.
678
00:33:03,600 --> 00:33:06,600
So, yeah, I guess that makes sense.
679
00:33:06,600 --> 00:33:09,600
Does that mean like you need to train reaction time at all?
680
00:33:09,600 --> 00:33:13,600
Or do you just kind of have that beep going in your head?
681
00:33:13,600 --> 00:33:15,600
I think it's a matter of a set of cues.
682
00:33:15,600 --> 00:33:25,600
So you're like super react like you're very used to using the beeps as a cueing mechanism to get off the ground in a certain amount of time.
683
00:33:25,600 --> 00:33:30,600
So like personally, I put some effort into it.
684
00:33:30,600 --> 00:33:36,600
You still far start occasionally because you still have variance because it's not humanly controllable to the thousandth of a second.
685
00:33:36,600 --> 00:33:42,600
Unfortunately, so you still have some errors, either being too slow or way too fast.
686
00:33:42,600 --> 00:33:45,600
So it's an issue sometimes.
687
00:33:45,600 --> 00:33:50,600
But I guess it's a necessary part of having a racing sport.
688
00:33:50,600 --> 00:33:51,600
Yeah, thanks.
689
00:33:51,600 --> 00:34:07,600
So back to your personal speed climbing specifically, I'm excited to ask about speed again because like before when I did my speed interviews, I had like never touched a speed wall.
690
00:34:07,600 --> 00:34:13,600
And then I finally got a chance to like try it in Salt Lake, educated myself, tried it.
691
00:34:13,600 --> 00:34:19,600
And now I just have like more questions related to it.
692
00:34:19,600 --> 00:34:31,600
I did it the first time and I got like 41 seconds, which is slow, but honestly, like less time than I thought I would take because it felt like an eternity on the wall.
693
00:34:31,600 --> 00:34:42,600
When it comes to making improvements in speed climbing, do you remember like where you like what time you started out at and how quickly you improved?
694
00:34:42,600 --> 00:34:49,600
So we actually didn't have a 15 meter wall in Dallas until 2019, which is when I started.
695
00:34:49,600 --> 00:34:53,600
I was born 2006. I was 13 at the time.
696
00:34:53,600 --> 00:35:03,600
So I actually had trained at another wall like because that was both in the fall and I started training in the spring. That was a 10 meter wall. So there was no timer on that one.
697
00:35:03,600 --> 00:35:15,600
So I think the first time I ever like did a day on a timer was I went down to Houston and I had run 11.63 on the 15 meter wall.
698
00:35:15,600 --> 00:35:20,600
And I was like really, really. That was pretty good for the time, to be honest.
699
00:35:20,600 --> 00:35:26,600
And then I kind of shaved it down. I like had like a joke of like we didn't have PR. We didn't have a timer system.
700
00:35:26,600 --> 00:35:31,600
So my PR like was like 9.7 seconds on a mobile timer and then like 11 seconds on an actual timer.
701
00:35:31,600 --> 00:35:43,600
And then I really just wanted to lower it down via the actual like system once we got it at the new gym in Plano installed in 2019 in the fall.
702
00:35:43,600 --> 00:35:51,600
So I do just remember really enjoying the process of wanting to lower that time in practice because I wasn't competing at the time.
703
00:35:51,600 --> 00:35:55,600
So just wanted to lower that time was really what I wanted.
704
00:35:55,600 --> 00:36:03,600
Was it I'm assuming it's a lot easier to improve when you're first starting out and then you kind of just get like really tiny gains after that.
705
00:36:03,600 --> 00:36:12,600
In terms of actual time, yes. So I think it took me from that to like in the first year I was able to shave like four seconds.
706
00:36:12,600 --> 00:36:23,600
And then in the next year, like one and a half. Then in the next year, like another second.
707
00:36:23,600 --> 00:36:36,600
And then this year, like a half a second. And then from the beginning of 2023 to the end of or to now in November when recording this, like 0.2.
708
00:36:36,600 --> 00:36:45,600
So it does get like logarithmically hard. But I would say you're definitely improving at climbing itself.
709
00:36:45,600 --> 00:36:49,600
Like at a pretty good rate as you're training harder and more advanced like training mechanisms.
710
00:36:49,600 --> 00:36:58,600
Just the time is lower. Like the gains just show up as less because it's just you can't be improving by that much every single every single day.
711
00:36:58,600 --> 00:37:08,600
And I guess you also consider like accuracy and consistency as like gains and training as well.
712
00:37:08,600 --> 00:37:16,600
Yeah, of course. Like being able to run your fastest run last year on an average Tuesday is a good thing to do for sure.
713
00:37:16,600 --> 00:37:27,600
Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. Yeah. And then after I had tried it out, I kind of just wanted to have like a good clean run.
714
00:37:27,600 --> 00:37:32,600
Like it's still not going to be fast or good, but just like it felt like a clean run.
715
00:37:32,600 --> 00:37:40,600
And I was talking to like Albert and Grace and they said that that's impossible and you'll never feel like you have a clean run.
716
00:37:40,600 --> 00:37:51,600
But like you finally did sub five and like April and I feel like at sub five, it's hard for me to imagine that you didn't feel like you had a clean run.
717
00:37:51,600 --> 00:37:59,600
Do you ever feel like you have that or in your mind, you still know like exactly what you should have done to like do better?
718
00:37:59,600 --> 00:38:06,600
Sometimes I'll have runs where I'm like, oh, if I just improve that a little bit, it would have been a little bit faster.
719
00:38:06,600 --> 00:38:15,600
And the sub five barrier was brutal, especially because I had run so many runs that if I had just gotten off the ground a little bit faster than I would have.
720
00:38:15,600 --> 00:38:22,600
I would have gotten the official sub five time like I'm not not in competition, but it was just I've done that so many times.
721
00:38:22,600 --> 00:38:31,600
Like I think I've run maybe 14 maybe like 14, 15 ish sub five is like on an actual timer now.
722
00:38:31,600 --> 00:38:39,600
And I've run maybe 40 or 50, five O's that if I had gotten off the ground in a perfect reaction time, I would have gotten a sub five.
723
00:38:39,600 --> 00:38:49,600
So that was for a while. The like the joke is that it's just so hard to like it's just such a tough barrier to push past.
724
00:38:49,600 --> 00:38:57,600
But as far as your question about the perfect run goes, I definitely do have it sometimes like when I'll head a major PR and it's like a big gap.
725
00:38:57,600 --> 00:39:02,600
It's just all that comes together. It just all clicks, I think, a lot of times.
726
00:39:02,600 --> 00:39:14,600
And that's really just like a one and like, I would say for me to run that sub five that I did in April, I was trying like for that to be my primary goal in life.
727
00:39:14,600 --> 00:39:22,600
I probably put in a legitimate 250 attempts of this. I'm trying 100 percent to get this run and to get off the ground fast and to do this.
728
00:39:22,600 --> 00:39:34,600
And I got it once. So it's really like that's that I would believe that's a perfect run. The four, five, the four, nine, five I ran in April before the World Cup.
729
00:39:34,600 --> 00:39:39,600
Well, glad that you can feel like you have a perfect run. Maybe I'll feel like that one day.
730
00:39:39,600 --> 00:39:41,600
I believe.
731
00:39:41,600 --> 00:39:51,600
And in terms of coaching in climbing, what kind of coaches have you had? Like, when did you start coaching with Albert?
732
00:39:51,600 --> 00:40:00,600
So I worked with the coach Merit Ernsberger since from when I was 13 to about the time I was like 16 or 17.
733
00:40:00,600 --> 00:40:04,600
I started managing my own stuff more myself.
734
00:40:04,600 --> 00:40:12,600
And he was on Team Texas as an official speed coach still is. And I would go to the practices and do those lessons plans.
735
00:40:12,600 --> 00:40:28,600
I think when I started doing the more like the senior World Cup tours, I more enjoyed just climbing on my own and I was more productive to be at the gym, like the daytime hours and doing my own lesson plan.
736
00:40:28,600 --> 00:40:40,600
And I definitely learned sort of I had more of a self-coached phase through the World Cup season last year, where I was still getting a lot of support from other people, but I wasn't necessarily taking any one input.
737
00:40:40,600 --> 00:40:48,600
I think I started working with Albert in the latter half of like, I would say around the Jakarta World Cup last year in 2022.
738
00:40:48,600 --> 00:40:55,600
So that was September, where I would like analyze stuff with him and go over stuff.
739
00:40:55,600 --> 00:41:07,600
And then I think he started writing my plans like the stuff I would do like early this year and like March or so, where I would like have a lesson plans is what I'm doing today.
740
00:41:07,600 --> 00:41:18,600
And then USA climbing hired a trainer, Matthew Madison, the current speed team manager and strength conditioning coach. And then he made he started making my workout plans.
741
00:41:18,600 --> 00:41:27,600
Just about two months ago. So that's been my coaching support status. There's a lot of other names that are in there that I haven't mentioned that have been incredibly supportive.
742
00:41:27,600 --> 00:41:42,600
And as far as my coaching goes, that process, please excuse this brief intermission, but I would just like to take some time and remind you that if you are enjoying this podcast, please follow and rate it on your preferred listening platform.
743
00:41:42,600 --> 00:41:54,600
If you're watching on YouTube, be sure to subscribe and hit the like button. Anything helps to push this podcast out to more people and get even more amazing guests on back to the show.
744
00:41:54,600 --> 00:41:59,600
Yeah, he had mentioned that you were in strength cycle jail.
745
00:41:59,600 --> 00:42:11,600
What happened there? How did you come out of it? So I was explaining this earlier. After burn, I just did a brutal, brutal strength cycle. And it was the first time in my life that I had done that much training that consistently.
746
00:42:11,600 --> 00:42:19,600
I was very, very bad at skipping the gym in order to climb a lot of times because I just enjoyed climbing so much more than I enjoy lifting.
747
00:42:19,600 --> 00:42:35,600
I did that and I was just so sore. I was lifting a lot. I was doing a lot of weight and I was doing a lot of climbing and I was still doing a full voluminous three day on one day off schedule in climbing.
748
00:42:35,600 --> 00:42:47,600
I was doing the same schedule I would for climbing if I wasn't doing any lifts with a full pretty hard lifting schedule. I was thrown in the deep end for sure, which is what I wanted because it works.
749
00:42:47,600 --> 00:42:58,600
But I was just so like, it really takes a toll on everything in your life because you're putting in absolutely everything to keep your lifestyle afloat.
750
00:42:58,600 --> 00:43:06,600
Because really what would happen if I hadn't, like if I was not focusing on sleeping enough every night, I would probably just get injured.
751
00:43:06,600 --> 00:43:19,600
That's probably the outcome that would most likely happen or I would just not have this production I would have. It gets really demoralizing to be running really fast times.
752
00:43:19,600 --> 00:43:31,600
In March of this year and February this year, I was running five O's with relative ease without all this training. And now I'm training and I'm running five three every session because my body is so tired.
753
00:43:31,600 --> 00:43:39,600
So it is a necessary part to sort of get slower to get faster, especially when that involves hypertrophy and gaining weight.
754
00:43:39,600 --> 00:43:49,600
It's a necessary part of every athlete really if you're trying to train optimally. You don't have to show up every session with sort of the ego of I want to do the best today.
755
00:43:49,600 --> 00:44:05,600
I want to PR every session. It's not a realistic goal. And that especially sort of took a mental toll on me because I said like I love the process of getting faster in practice. Like I love just like that's how I get motivation to climb at a high level.
756
00:44:05,600 --> 00:44:13,600
So that was especially real for me. But I'm doing it again now and I've made some adjustments and it's definitely working way better.
757
00:44:13,600 --> 00:44:16,600
So you did manage to like get out of it.
758
00:44:16,600 --> 00:44:28,600
Yeah, and that was the that was the plan. So it's three weeks of training and then one week of D load and then competing at the end of that for a month. So as soon as I started downloading every session got faster than the last basically.
759
00:44:28,600 --> 00:44:38,600
And it was a great feeling like everything. I was living in Utah at the time and I went back home to Texas and like all in life was just so well.
760
00:44:38,600 --> 00:44:47,600
And I was just really enjoying it. And like it, it really does like if you want to go through a process for I mean any sport really.
761
00:44:47,600 --> 00:45:04,600
And you really want to show like you really want to work hard and then get results. That's how you do it. And it's like almost like I mean even outside of competition just going to the gym and being able to run some five multiple times in a day and being like wow this is this really did work.
762
00:45:04,600 --> 00:45:07,600
It's a great feeling for sure.
763
00:45:07,600 --> 00:45:13,600
Yeah. Was there any moment in the middle of that where you kind of thought like oh maybe I've just lost it.
764
00:45:13,600 --> 00:45:15,600
Every single day.
765
00:45:15,600 --> 00:45:16,600
Oh wow.
766
00:45:16,600 --> 00:45:18,600
Every single time.
767
00:45:18,600 --> 00:45:26,600
It'll definitely get easier and easier as I do it more as an athlete, but it because it's becoming so new.
768
00:45:26,600 --> 00:45:38,600
Robert's a great coach, but he's he's never had an experience of coaching a high level athlete like this much of having that high of an intensity. And sometimes just like, am I doing the wrong thing.
769
00:45:38,600 --> 00:45:44,600
To train, and which I made some adjustments and I did lower the volume eventually.
770
00:45:44,600 --> 00:45:50,600
I just changed the so instead of doing three days on one day off, I would do two days on one day off.
771
00:45:50,600 --> 00:46:02,600
Because it's just sort of a math equation. If you think about it, where you have three days, and one day off that 75% of the time you're climbing, 25% you're resting right.
772
00:46:02,600 --> 00:46:14,600
If you do two days and one day off it's 66% of the time, and one day is 33% right. So, all you have to do to make the easier sort of less volume work is be 9% more productive.
773
00:46:14,600 --> 00:46:23,600
And I was like, I looked at that, and I was like, I can definitely do that if I am, because the third day on would just be pulling on the wall and screaming at my skin hurts.
774
00:46:23,600 --> 00:46:41,600
So, I eventually realized this isn't working really that well. And it was, but I mean even just figuring that out and sort of letting go of the ego of knowing, I am not an athlete who can train that much, like, you want to work hard and you want to put in the volume.
775
00:46:41,600 --> 00:46:51,600
And it really does take a toll on your ego. As someone who's done that, like I did that the entire time of the past two years of I would do three days on one day off.
776
00:46:51,600 --> 00:47:02,600
So, it really does take a toll and to say, it's more optimal to not do, to do less right. You're over training, essentially.
777
00:47:02,600 --> 00:47:15,600
So, it didn't work out, it does take some time, and I think I'll hopefully if someone if someone reaches out to me and is like, how do I do this at the highest level, I would be like, don't make the mistakes I made.
778
00:47:15,600 --> 00:47:22,600
So, it's a full it's a full learning experience for sure. Well, glad you're out of it.
779
00:47:22,600 --> 00:47:34,600
And thank you for the insight on speed climbing. I think that was everything I had about speed climbing so far. We might get back into it a little bit in the Discord questions later.
780
00:47:34,600 --> 00:47:42,600
But for now, I just want to go into climbing, but like non speed climbing for a bit.
781
00:47:42,600 --> 00:47:55,600
People are always kind of curious what speed climbers do outside of speed. So, do you ever do like competitions for bouldering or lead?
782
00:47:55,600 --> 00:48:01,600
I love rock climbing. It's I will always be a lifetime climber.
783
00:48:01,600 --> 00:48:08,600
Even I don't I'm not going to competitively speed climb for the rest of my life, but I think I will always be a climber for sure.
784
00:48:08,600 --> 00:48:16,600
So, I never really enjoyed the process of getting better and training lead climbing. I just didn't like it.
785
00:48:16,600 --> 00:48:21,600
Like I didn't like going to the gym and doing doubles on like plastic roots.
786
00:48:21,600 --> 00:48:30,600
So, I was never the most invested in competitively climbing. I did enjoy the process of competitive bouldering.
787
00:48:30,600 --> 00:48:39,600
I like doing hard moves on indoor routes and I like doing like big dynamic stuff. I love the style of competition route setting and how it pushes athletes.
788
00:48:39,600 --> 00:48:55,600
So, I do it occasionally. I haven't I've strayed away from doing bouldering comps just because it's kind of dangerous as far as getting injured goes to the point which is not worth it for me personally.
789
00:48:55,600 --> 00:49:03,600
Like I do genuinely love doing it, but I remember I had a session where I was like on a spray wall and I was just trying really hard and I was really enjoying myself.
790
00:49:03,600 --> 00:49:23,600
And one of my coaches kind of pulled me aside like the one of the team pecs is like lead boulder coaches and was like you can't be doing this like I was just like I will I mean not in that way really but it was just like you can't be going on these routes and trying your absolute hardest and campers sing it and then dry firing off and then hitting the mat at like high speeds right you just need to be more careful.
791
00:49:23,600 --> 00:49:36,600
And for me, I'm a type of person who wants to invest fully in something if I'm going to invest in it. So, I was like okay, I still do it occasionally in a more chill sense.
792
00:49:36,600 --> 00:49:42,600
I love bringing my non-commer friends to the gym and bouldering with them. And it's always kind of a shock to them.
793
00:49:42,600 --> 00:49:54,600
Because it's like wow you're the difference between like me and a new climber as even just as a boulder who someone who doesn't do it that much is just astonishing. But it's always fun to get people into climbing.
794
00:49:54,600 --> 00:50:00,600
I want to be the best ambassador I can so yeah that's mostly answers that question for me.
795
00:50:00,600 --> 00:50:01,600
Yeah.
796
00:50:01,600 --> 00:50:09,600
So you don't even in the future you don't think you'll do like any bouldering competition starting day like that.
797
00:50:09,600 --> 00:50:19,600
Um, I don't want to close the door forever but I don't have any immediate plans to pursue all three disciplines at any point really in the near future.
798
00:50:19,600 --> 00:50:27,600
Maybe as a collegiate athlete or a master's athlete or at a more recreational level but I don't ever plan on entering the bouldering World Cup or anything like that.
799
00:50:27,600 --> 00:50:29,600
Sure. Yeah.
800
00:50:29,600 --> 00:50:39,600
When was the last time you did another kind of competition because like you, I guess in Team Texas you still did like some bouldering elite stuff.
801
00:50:39,600 --> 00:50:52,600
I think last year I actually won a qualifying event that we did. And it was actually kind of an upset because everyone was like, I am not a better boulderer than at least like 10 people at that event.
802
00:50:52,600 --> 00:51:05,600
So, um, I guess the setting just kind of fit around my style of just big jumping moves, and I think that like a lot of the stuff I could do and I was just like being really scrappy and fighting for the zones and stuff so it worked out really well.
803
00:51:05,600 --> 00:51:13,600
And that's like still a, like, sort of like a joke or my friend group that I want to work up before I want to qualify event.
804
00:51:13,600 --> 00:51:23,600
So, I do really enjoy it but it's just kind of, there's, there's many reasons that I kind of have to take a cautious approach to doing things like that. Yeah, understandable.
805
00:51:23,600 --> 00:51:35,600
Yeah, we just, we don't really see much in terms of your social media in terms of like you bouldering so I think it's just something people are curious about. Maybe I should just upload more boulders onto Instagram.
806
00:51:35,600 --> 00:51:47,600
I always felt a little weird doing that of like saying like, unless it's just like a massive fan or something like, if you want to watch someone who's really good at bouldering don't watch me.
807
00:51:47,600 --> 00:51:57,600
But, I mean, maybe it would be entertaining. But, like, there's, there's a lot of other boulders in this world that you would rather watch do a boulder, but yeah, maybe.
808
00:51:57,600 --> 00:52:08,600
I mean, yeah, to me it's not like I'm watching bouldering videos to see like the best person do it, like, I mean, especially because that's like not even relatable to me.
809
00:52:08,600 --> 00:52:14,600
I just have like that curiosity to see like, I guess like the cross discipline kind of thing.
810
00:52:14,600 --> 00:52:35,600
Because it's interesting to see like, it was really interesting to see like boulder lead climbers do speed and like the 2021 Olympics and it's also really interesting to see speed climbers, not speed climbing, so it kind of helps put into perspective the difficulty of one discipline and like the mastery of another.
811
00:52:35,600 --> 00:52:38,600
Yeah, I think it's, I think you should do it.
812
00:52:38,600 --> 00:52:48,600
All right, well, that's some social media advice. I'm still trying to work on that. I'm figuring out what to post and things like that because I, I do want to put in more work into my social medias and stuff.
813
00:52:48,600 --> 00:52:59,600
But I just can't bring myself to post like the same route every time first becoming. I do it every day right. Or I do it, you know, a lot of like five days of the week.
814
00:52:59,600 --> 00:53:09,600
But it's like, do you really want to watch me run like five? Oh, like you watch me run for nine. Like, do you want to, would you rather watch me like have an average run in training?
815
00:53:09,600 --> 00:53:14,600
It's kind of the question, but I don't know. I've definitely explored it.
816
00:53:14,600 --> 00:53:22,600
Yeah, that's kind of the difficulty with like being a speed climbing athlete because it's the same thing and people don't really want to watch.
817
00:53:22,600 --> 00:53:31,600
I did try on social media. I tried to make like a voiceover like video of I got some footage from my friend Dylan Countryman.
818
00:53:31,600 --> 00:53:38,600
He gave me some footage. I made like a sort of information video on contact strength. And I was like, okay, I'm going to make this series. I'll call it Snip Snippets.
819
00:53:38,600 --> 00:53:46,600
And I'll make one like every week. And I did it. I was like, okay, I'll take me five minutes. I'll take me 20 minutes. It'll take me an hour. It'll take me two hours.
820
00:53:46,600 --> 00:53:55,600
And I spent like so long trying to perfect this video. And it's gotten like a hundredth of the views that a video of me just like speed climbing would get.
821
00:53:55,600 --> 00:54:02,600
I'm just like, is this is this really worth it? Because like, or do I just want to funnel more effort into being the best athlete I can?
822
00:54:02,600 --> 00:54:12,600
Because I remember I put in so much work into that video. Like I spent I spent probably like a whole day like writing a script, compiling the videos, figuring out what I'm going to say.
823
00:54:12,600 --> 00:54:21,600
I like texted a coach and was like, am I what is what I'm saying about this contact strength thing like valid? Am I going to am I giving out good information right to people about this?
824
00:54:21,600 --> 00:54:32,600
And so it was a lot of effort into contact creation. And then I ran the first Survive next week, and it got like so many more views.
825
00:54:32,600 --> 00:54:46,600
And it was just like a huge thing. I'm like, well, should I just try to be a better athlete and more things like that will happen? Or should I focus on content creation? So I'll figure that out one figure that one out eventually.
826
00:54:46,600 --> 00:54:54,600
Yeah, I mean, if anyone's listening and wants to see certain things, maybe suggest it. That's always helpful.
827
00:54:54,600 --> 00:55:08,600
But yeah, maybe don't put like, you don't have to put like too much effort into it. Yeah, because that's like that becomes kind of a time sink. And then people just like watching like good old classic boulder.
828
00:55:08,600 --> 00:55:09,600
I'll get some ideas gone.
829
00:55:09,600 --> 00:55:14,600
Yeah, exactly. And people will let you know if they have any.
830
00:55:14,600 --> 00:55:29,600
So yeah, and then also in terms of, I guess, just like your personal life, I think you mentioned earlier that you might want to do like collegiate competitions, or that's like something that's a possibility for you.
831
00:55:29,600 --> 00:55:39,600
I guess, first of all, like you are quite young, you are still in school, I think. So how was it doing like school in addition to competition?
832
00:55:39,600 --> 00:55:50,600
So, um, I think so during COVID, I was in online school through the my freshman year of high school, which was 2020 to 2021.
833
00:55:50,600 --> 00:55:54,600
And I did I did enjoy it. It was a bit boring.
834
00:55:54,600 --> 00:56:03,600
And then I was an in person school the next year, my sophomore year, and I really did enjoy it. I'm still very close with a lot of the friends I made that year.
835
00:56:03,600 --> 00:56:15,600
But I was just like, I can't be doing this because it goes back to the thing of I want to be putting 100% of my effort into my lifestyle, and I can't be getting up at eight in the morning and going to school and not being able to have access to like
836
00:56:15,600 --> 00:56:26,600
meal timing and doing sessions when I want. And it's just like another level of percentages of like, is it going to be 10% worse for me to be in actual school, right.
837
00:56:26,600 --> 00:56:39,600
So, um, it's kind of a sacrifice I had to make was like, okay, I'll just do online schooling. Um, so I'll probably graduate around March or April, ideally before the World Cup season starts my senior year of high school.
838
00:56:39,600 --> 00:56:45,600
And I am applying to colleges.
839
00:56:45,600 --> 00:56:55,600
I probably will go to the University of Utah, and if I get accepted in Slick City and live there, because it's climbing is great there. And there's a lot of, there's a very good Olympic culture around there.
840
00:56:55,600 --> 00:57:00,600
I think they have like 54 Olympians that have gone there in the history of the school.
841
00:57:00,600 --> 00:57:04,600
So, I would feel kind of at home there.
842
00:57:04,600 --> 00:57:17,600
So, um, I think if I can develop a kind of a community of friends who want to do like bouldering and things like that, with them and competing at a collegiate level, I can definitely see myself being in that path.
843
00:57:17,600 --> 00:57:26,600
But it's definitely sort of an open door and my number one focus is obviously the Paris games and being the best become I can be as of now. Yeah, definitely.
844
00:57:26,600 --> 00:57:29,600
What are you interested in studying?
845
00:57:29,600 --> 00:57:31,600
If you have no coin.
846
00:57:31,600 --> 00:57:49,600
Um, so I want to study business. I love the idea of like logistics and just sort of to know how the world works. So, specifically that school I would study operations, the project management, which is sort of two degrees into one, and sort of the shipping
847
00:57:49,600 --> 00:57:58,600
routes of getting things places is a really unique interest I have sort of uncommon, but I get to work sort of in the global field.
848
00:57:58,600 --> 00:58:03,600
And I always love the idea of doing international business.
849
00:58:03,600 --> 00:58:07,600
So if I wanted to have a career outside of climbing that would probably be my choice as of now.
850
00:58:07,600 --> 00:58:17,600
Okay, yeah that's interesting I feel like I don't hear that many climbers going into business school, so pretty cool.
851
00:58:17,600 --> 00:58:24,600
And then outside of climbing and school, all things that are a lot of like hard work.
852
00:58:24,600 --> 00:58:36,600
I guess like what are you do you have time for other interests or hobbies. I think I seem like chess stuff, but I love chess, it's awesome.
853
00:58:36,600 --> 00:58:42,600
I love it. I like it in the same way I like speed climbing. I am not nearly as good.
854
00:58:42,600 --> 00:58:48,600
But I play as a hobby, play my friends.
855
00:58:48,600 --> 00:58:50,600
Play it online.
856
00:58:50,600 --> 00:58:53,600
It's really fun I like studying lines.
857
00:58:53,600 --> 00:58:56,600
It's just a whole process I like doing.
858
00:58:56,600 --> 00:58:59,600
Then, I like learning languages.
859
00:58:59,600 --> 00:59:07,600
I think I have a like very good memory. So I can learn words really fast.
860
00:59:07,600 --> 00:59:15,600
So, I think it's something that's been really useful, traveling on the World Cup circuit is just to be able to have an extra level of communication with other people.
861
00:59:15,600 --> 00:59:19,600
So, that's been sort of an advent.
862
00:59:19,600 --> 00:59:27,600
But my social life is very important to me. My friends, like relationships in my life are very important.
863
00:59:27,600 --> 00:59:37,600
Like keeping everything there. I definitely draw a lot of happiness and a lot of balance from trying to climb at a high level from having healthy social relationships.
864
00:59:37,600 --> 00:59:47,600
And yeah, that's a very scientific way to describe I'm mostly a normal person outside of climbing. But, yeah, that's what I would say.
865
00:59:47,600 --> 00:59:52,600
You're giving all these reasons for how normal you are outside of climbing.
866
00:59:52,600 --> 00:59:59,600
Is there anything that you wish you had time for that you don't because of climbing?
867
00:59:59,600 --> 01:00:06,600
I would love to have like a business. Like I would like to like pursue like an entrepreneurial endeavor.
868
01:00:06,600 --> 01:00:15,600
I like that. Like the whole deal of doing that and having something like trying to fill a hole and figuring out the logistics around that.
869
01:00:15,600 --> 01:00:22,600
But I wouldn't want to do that unless I could commit myself to that. And I definitely couldn't as of now.
870
01:00:22,600 --> 01:00:33,600
But maybe later in my life, I would want to like sort of either have a product or a service that would be something that I could personally want to financially gain from or sort of a stakeholder.
871
01:00:33,600 --> 01:00:36,600
Like I want to help the world in a way.
872
01:00:36,600 --> 01:00:43,600
So things like that I would definitely want to do or be a part of an organization or service.
873
01:00:43,600 --> 01:00:50,600
It's just things I kind of like can't do at a really meaningful level because I am so busy.
874
01:00:50,600 --> 01:01:01,600
Absolutely. I mean, being an entrepreneur is like 24-7. Or at least all the entrepreneur online people make it seem like that.
875
01:01:01,600 --> 01:01:10,600
Yeah. That was like a thing. Like it's a major thing. And if you're a person like that and you're trying to pursue something, it really like the more effort you put in, the better you do.
876
01:01:10,600 --> 01:01:19,600
And it becomes a sacrifice of everyone wants to be financially well off. If you're the 10% of people who actually succeed, probably higher than that.
877
01:01:19,600 --> 01:01:24,600
But then you also you're giving up eight hour weeks. Right. And I don't want to do that.
878
01:01:24,600 --> 01:01:28,600
And I don't want to put myself through something that I'm not going to fully put myself something.
879
01:01:28,600 --> 01:01:35,600
And it would take away from climbing. And if I had a whole nother life where I could sort of pursue a different path, that might be it.
880
01:01:35,600 --> 01:01:41,600
I mean, it's good you're at least thinking of it ahead of time. You have some time to go.
881
01:01:41,600 --> 01:01:53,600
But yeah, I think like a lot of people climbers especially struggle with like getting financial things in order just because it's pretty expensive.
882
01:01:53,600 --> 01:02:00,600
Traveling around is really expensive and there's just not as much money coming into climbing yet, but hopefully one day.
883
01:02:00,600 --> 01:02:14,600
Yeah, I'm lucky enough to have wonderful parents as my sort of angel sponsor and a wonderful federation and a wonderful Olympic committee that gives me a lot of support that I wouldn't be able to really do it without of, obviously.
884
01:02:14,600 --> 01:02:21,600
So my parents not only like financially are contributing to I'm a dependent on 17.
885
01:02:21,600 --> 01:02:32,600
Like of the housing and you know normal normal child things which are obviously great to have. Like I don't have to work a job or, you know, support people around me.
886
01:02:32,600 --> 01:02:47,600
But also coming to my events and taking time off their works and their lives to be supportive of me and all these different places like it's definitely a major thing and my dad is also
887
01:02:47,600 --> 01:02:53,600
a really good friend of mine and he's been a really good friend of mine for the international business world for 20, 25 years.
888
01:02:53,600 --> 01:03:02,600
And that's been a tremendous help being a more accustomed traveler and really know what knowing what I'm doing and not making a lot of the rookie mistakes.
889
01:03:02,600 --> 01:03:09,600
A lot of athletes do when they enter the World Cup circuit. Yeah, definitely. And behind every athlete. There's a whole lot of support.
890
01:03:09,600 --> 01:03:17,600
But yeah, I think those are all the questions I had so we can also just move really quickly into some of the discord questions.
891
01:03:17,600 --> 01:03:22,600
So first one does speed relay have a future.
892
01:03:22,600 --> 01:03:24,600
Absolutely.
893
01:03:24,600 --> 01:03:30,600
I hopefully, I don't know how the qualification process will work but I think the
894
01:03:30,600 --> 01:03:43,600
World Games 2025 will be in either Chengdu or Chongqing in China and speed really will be a part of that. And I, I love that idea of expanding on the form of speed climbing.
895
01:03:43,600 --> 01:03:55,600
It has a couple flaws that need to be sort of addressed is that one of them being, it's a little bit dangerous because you can only have two auto belays and one top rope and that is not safe.
896
01:03:55,600 --> 01:04:05,600
So maybe expanding the type of six lane wall and figuring out the mixed format of you want three men or two men and women, or woman, and then two or two women and a man.
897
01:04:05,600 --> 01:04:17,600
So figuring out that, or figuring out do you want to do country like nationally based or do you want to do teams you have two Indonesian teams, or you have a mixed like I can compete with a great British athlete or Spanish athlete right.
898
01:04:17,600 --> 01:04:27,600
So there's a lot of open potential as far as the speed really goes and I'm excited to be a part of that, potentially if it would get a bid for its own Olympic medal, if that wanted to expand.
899
01:04:27,600 --> 01:04:41,600
Because I think things like that can make more decorated Olympians, because it's part of Asian Games as well like it's good to sort of like, I personally will never be able to reach the level of another athlete like Michael Phelps because there's so many disciplines
900
01:04:41,600 --> 01:04:51,600
that one person can compete in. And for climbing, it'll maybe be, I mean in theory you could be competing in boulder lead and speed, we probably won't see any athletes that actually will qualify doing that.
901
01:04:51,600 --> 01:05:00,600
Maybe like an Oceania or African doing that with a continental quota, but no one's for sure going to win a medal in both boulder lead and speed.
902
01:05:00,600 --> 01:05:14,600
So maybe boulder lead will be split and then you have speed relay that you might have athletes, probably not even in my generation but years down the line will be able to accumulate medals and be decorated Olympians which will help the sport as well.
903
01:05:14,600 --> 01:05:22,600
Yeah, that would be really cool. Have you tried speed relay yourself? No, there's unfortunately probably not a setup in the entire United States that could support it.
904
01:05:22,600 --> 01:05:35,600
We do have technically a four-wheel-in-a-wall in Texas, but we don't have enough holds and we don't have the timing system. So it is, if you want to choose an insanely expensive sport to do something with, you have a speed relay.
905
01:05:35,600 --> 01:05:41,600
Well I hope you get to try it one day, maybe if you get a chance to go to China.
906
01:05:41,600 --> 01:05:59,600
Next question, who are your heroes and inspirations? I think I actually saw on the IFSC page for you, you have some things listed. I guess actually this is kind of a tangent, but like where did you submit this information that shows up on IFSC?
907
01:05:59,600 --> 01:06:03,600
Because like some people have hobbies and stuff listed and some people don't.
908
01:06:03,600 --> 01:06:12,600
It's actually very, it's very obscure and very hard to get to. So what you have to do is you have to go to the, if you're an athlete, you hold an athlete registration card.
909
01:06:12,600 --> 01:06:20,600
Go to the IFSC results info, then click on the top little profile, and you can make a login.
910
01:06:20,600 --> 01:06:32,600
And then from there it shows you, there's a little profile, it's like another hidden little profile section where you can enter like your hobbies, your, I think sporting hero, I said Mono Genoble.
911
01:06:32,600 --> 01:06:41,600
Like your hobby, yeah your hobbies and then like also there's another box that you can tell the commentators that they'll see, like what to say on the broadcast.
912
01:06:41,600 --> 01:06:50,600
So, like I think Grace they're talking about like, I can put my pronouns here and say, so they say they them on the broadcast, which is a good thing.
913
01:06:50,600 --> 01:06:57,600
I think that's an option. Then just other things about yourself like your height and your weight.
914
01:06:57,600 --> 01:07:06,600
One thing is, I'm not sure if I could actually enter my height and my weight. I don't, some stuff is restricted like to your Federation, like I have a horrible picture in there.
915
01:07:06,600 --> 01:07:13,600
Like my arm is bleeding in my IFSC profile. So I couldn't change that, or I couldn't add a banner.
916
01:07:13,600 --> 01:07:16,600
Oh you're right, I see it. That's funny.
917
01:07:16,600 --> 01:07:27,600
Yeah, it's very hidden. Hopefully, that's a pretty easy fix for them to roll out like a better website and a better way for athletes to give it because it does add a level to commentary to know that about them.
918
01:07:27,600 --> 01:07:31,600
So, yeah, if you're an IFSC athlete, that's what you do.
919
01:07:31,600 --> 01:07:42,600
Okay, yeah I'll let them know. But yeah, so your hero, I guess, what, why did you choose Manu? I don't really know this person, so I need some context.
920
01:07:42,600 --> 01:07:50,600
So he is a Argentinian basketball player. I am a big basketball fan. I love the San Antonio Spurs.
921
01:07:50,600 --> 01:07:57,600
Parents are from San Antonio, and like it's a major part of like my entire life growing up is this team like we're like super fans.
922
01:07:57,600 --> 01:08:09,600
So, Manu was a very like foreign, like at the time, I think he was drafted in the early 2000s. Foreign players didn't really play in the NBA.
923
01:08:09,600 --> 01:08:22,600
So, he was drafted with like the 50th draft pick. And he was playing in Italy at the time and he played in Italy, and then for like two years and then he finally joined the NBA.
924
01:08:22,600 --> 01:08:35,600
And then he had a very unique case of, he was an incredible player, but he came off the bench in the system, and that helped the Spurs win four championships I think with him.
925
01:08:35,600 --> 01:08:48,600
As like the sixth man of the year, like the unit. So, that was a very unique thing. He's also just a great person, very like philanthropic, outside of basketball.
926
01:08:48,600 --> 01:08:59,600
And I think also his coolest feat was in 2004, the Argentine team completely upset the US team and won the Olympics in Athens.
927
01:08:59,600 --> 01:09:08,600
So, that was like a major moment that kind of etched his name and like the kind of the first bout Hall of Fame kind of thing so I thought that was really cool.
928
01:09:08,600 --> 01:09:11,600
When I was first getting into basketball.
929
01:09:11,600 --> 01:09:25,600
The Spurs were playing the Rockets which is kind of the rival team in Houston, to Antonio versus Houston. And he like at like 38 years old got a crazy like game winning block on another one of the Houston Rockets star players.
930
01:09:25,600 --> 01:09:35,600
And I remember that's like one of my fondest sports memories. So, that's why I put that there's definitely a lot of other people I could have put as that but yeah.
931
01:09:35,600 --> 01:09:40,600
Any like climbing heroes, climbing heroes for sure.
932
01:09:40,600 --> 01:09:55,600
Both Miroslav and Yanya, just very good competitive climbers at like a very consistent, like high level is really inspiring and something that I want to do and look after.
933
01:09:55,600 --> 01:10:01,600
And even just my peers like even looking at I mean they're the same age as me but like Serato and Toby.
934
01:10:01,600 --> 01:10:16,600
I've gotten to know both of them kind of a little bit through a language barrier for Serato but it's been it's been a fun time like being inspired by the people that have like going to the Youth Worlds events with them, and you know meeting them for the first time and sort of
935
01:10:16,600 --> 01:10:24,600
experiencing the whole circuit with people your age is a very nice feeling, especially this year because I wasn't really on the circuit with them last year, kind of both of their first years.
936
01:10:24,600 --> 01:10:33,600
So, that matters a lot to me to have friends and peers that you know can kind of uplift you. Yeah, great options.
937
01:10:33,600 --> 01:10:42,600
Next question, if you could do anything to a speed route or format do you have any weird ideas you would like to try out?
938
01:10:42,600 --> 01:11:06,600
So, I think, um, if you really want to try and potentially expand the discipline, I would maybe like either do, wanting to compete in like the Rockmaster event, they did do an ARCO where it's a speed lead climbing route, or like the Seeker Block event, Tuckfest event where you have a Deepwater solo event.
939
01:11:06,600 --> 01:11:21,600
I actually did get invited to Tuckfest but I don't think I can go because it's during a World Cup, but potentially pursuing that because I think it's a little bit more palatable and understandable to the average climber because it's just, there's more crossover, like a really good boulder or really good
940
01:11:21,600 --> 01:11:41,600
speed climber could succeed in that event. And so, that's a cool concept to me, that's a cool bridging concept to watch athletes not on just a standardized route where they're practicing every time but watching them adapt and watching them choose to do a different thing every time.
941
01:11:41,600 --> 01:11:56,600
So, it is definitely cool to watch. Or just speed, like a classic event that's not on a standard wall, just a new route wall every time, and you have a quality semis and finals round, where it's like, you watch everyone get faster and invent new beta as the comp goes on.
942
01:11:56,600 --> 01:11:59,600
That's potentially a new idea.
943
01:11:59,600 --> 01:12:04,600
So, I think there's a good amount of expansion of speed climbing because it's still so young.
944
01:12:04,600 --> 01:12:12,600
And that could happen, maybe not in my career, but down the line.
945
01:12:12,600 --> 01:12:16,600
For training.
946
01:12:16,600 --> 01:12:21,600
Do you do anything unique or unusual.
947
01:12:21,600 --> 01:12:38,600
No, just at a very high intensity. Um, like what I said earlier about tracking not just my calories but my amino acid intakes, like, if you told me that I was gonna be doing that a couple years ago, I would be like, that's crazy, like, the, like the amount of things and you have to slowly
948
01:12:38,600 --> 01:12:55,600
do it if you like, if you're a young athlete, and you want to say I want to be an Olympian one day, you can't jump into the deep end like that because you will burn out so fast but if you slowly like sort of stick your toes in and be able to be into to enjoy the process of every
949
01:12:55,600 --> 01:12:59,600
single time, like, harder and harder.
950
01:12:59,600 --> 01:13:04,600
It's definitely just yeah, just like volume, like I just train a lot.
951
01:13:04,600 --> 01:13:18,600
And, like, really hard and pretty intense every like on a day to day basis like I think is something I get a lot where it's just like, feel or just like oh another day of the office, I'm going to try and run, whatever like I'm like push myself every time.
952
01:13:18,600 --> 01:13:25,600
And when that's sustainable that's amazing, but obviously you got to manage it and balance it with other things in your life.
953
01:13:25,600 --> 01:13:37,600
And last little question, how do you handle shoe selection, is there an optimal point of being broken in, but not too much that you like for competitions.
954
01:13:37,600 --> 01:13:48,600
Um, so it seems like actually there's sort of a little tiny bit of a little bit of a space race going on between some of the climbing shoe companies for designing a suit you.
955
01:13:48,600 --> 01:14:01,600
I don't want to go that in depth because I don't know how much of a like trade secret it is, but there as far as just a regular shoe goes as far as breaking it in.
956
01:14:01,600 --> 01:14:09,600
I think it's virtually negligible unless there's a massive hole in it and it's hurting, because you're using mostly the bottom of the rubber.
957
01:14:09,600 --> 01:14:21,600
But I think as the technology advances, you'll get some thinner margins of error as far as when you want to use the shoe and optimizing the durability for speed specifically will be a future task for companies.
958
01:14:21,600 --> 01:14:26,600
What makes like a good speed shoe.
959
01:14:26,600 --> 01:14:41,600
And then some sort of ideas being floated around that's very, very young things. I personally, this is kind of public information I do not like the sportive of 499 I think it isn't far from optimal.
960
01:14:41,600 --> 01:15:00,600
The stickiness of the rubber at the bottom to be able to smear because you do smell a lot. And the durability of the bottom of the shoe is also an issue because if you wear that rubber out too much and you like start slipping because of that because the rubber is worn down, that becomes an issue.
961
01:15:00,600 --> 01:15:13,600
But as far as just fundamental things, you don't want a super aggressive shoe that's because bouldering shoes a lot of times will be designed to concentrate all the force onto one tiny little point to step on tiny little holes, and you're not doing that to be coming.
962
01:15:13,600 --> 01:15:19,600
So like, um, some of the shoes will be pushing down onto, like,
963
01:15:19,600 --> 01:15:29,600
like that point and you don't want that you don't want the little tiny little toe. And also the little bit of, I forget this doesn't actual shoe term but the one in the shoe bends back to like
964
01:15:29,600 --> 01:15:34,600
be able to do heel hooks.
965
01:15:34,600 --> 01:15:46,600
That I'm this on the tip of my tongue, but, um, that is not the best for speed you typically want a flatter shoe is what I'm saying really. And then you don't need to rubber on the heel.
966
01:15:46,600 --> 01:15:51,600
Because you're not. Yeah. And also like saw.
967
01:15:51,600 --> 01:16:06,600
Um, sometimes you want a softer shoe at the top. It's more like a sock kind of design. I've heard varying opinions about you want a harder design that presses your toe into it more so it doesn't move around, which I find are an issue with some of the
968
01:16:06,600 --> 01:16:25,600
most huge designs, but it's it's still so new that I want to try different things before I definitively say something is better than something else. So, I'm not going to give a solid opinion on that debate, but I'm very excited for the technology to kind of scale up with
969
01:16:25,600 --> 01:16:27,600
the event as well.
970
01:16:27,600 --> 01:16:31,600
So anyone wear socks with their shoes.
971
01:16:31,600 --> 01:16:42,600
Yeah, a lot of the Indonesian athletes do. I think it's weird. But, um, like, I think I was actually asked that question and it was cut out I did an interview with Matt groom privacy.
972
01:16:42,600 --> 01:16:53,600
I said a lot of controversial answers. I'm surprised they actually did the interview. But, um, that was one of those like, they're like socks or no socks and I'm like, absolutely not.
973
01:16:53,600 --> 01:17:02,600
That is weird. Um, I have tried it like I was like okay maybe they're on something. And it's just weird feeling like it's like cushiony on your foot.
974
01:17:02,600 --> 01:17:20,600
Um, I could maybe see the idea like grip socks like at the bottom of your shoe that's like sticking to the toe. But at that point just like I, I am I am I am against socks like I it's such a gross feeling for me, and I'm just like, no, no socks for me.
975
01:17:20,600 --> 01:17:36,600
What's this I have seen review I'd love to see the controversial opinions. Um, it was just so okay, I was, it wasn't controversial necessarily but I just said something that was like kind of, um, I was really out of breath, because they got me right after
976
01:17:36,600 --> 01:17:40,600
the wall. So, they asked me.
977
01:17:40,600 --> 01:17:54,600
Like, so they asked me that they've done it was the ones to watch interviews on YouTube and the I 50 channel, you could see my actual answers. Um, but they ended up trying to get like 15 minutes content and they got like five because they asked me like name as many time, any many types of
978
01:17:54,600 --> 01:17:59,600
climbing holds as possible. I was like the speed handhold and the speed foot.
979
01:17:59,600 --> 01:18:04,600
And I was like, I cannot name climbing holds right now I'm so exhausted.
980
01:18:04,600 --> 01:18:19,600
And, um, and he was like, Do you prefer indoor climbing or after climbing and I pointed at the wall like this is kind of the climbing. And I was just like, you know, I would definitely not want to like, announce this to a public audience on the IFC because I don't think it makes
981
01:18:19,600 --> 01:18:40,600
them look the best like I'm just saying that kind of as a joke, but it doesn't make them look the best. And then I think also, uh, they like talked about who they asked me who is my best friend on the IFC circuit.
982
01:18:40,600 --> 01:18:50,600
And I was like blanked on that one. I was like, Oh, I don't want to want to say an answer to that because there's a lot of people that I would consider that. And there's a lot of people that I wouldn't want to say someone else for.
983
01:18:50,600 --> 01:18:58,600
So, um, but the interview they did great. They did great at taking what they could from that. So good job. Um, the crew over there.
984
01:18:58,600 --> 01:19:06,600
Yeah, I'll try to find it and link it below for anyone who wants to watch. Cool. Well, that's all the questions I had. Thank you so much for joining me.
985
01:19:06,600 --> 01:19:15,600
Anything you want to shout out or let people know where they can find you? Um, from my Instagram, send me a Watson underscore underscore. I'm going to be working in my content now apparently.
986
01:19:15,600 --> 01:19:22,600
I'm going to be, you know, try to list out some ideas and figure out some different things to post focusing on that more.
987
01:19:22,600 --> 01:19:28,600
And just if you can, if you got this far, just check out some speed comps. They're cool.
988
01:19:28,600 --> 01:19:30,600
If you enjoy it.
989
01:19:30,600 --> 01:19:34,600
Follow some of the other athletes got some interesting stories to tell for sure.
990
01:19:34,600 --> 01:19:39,600
Definitely. Awesome. Exciting. And thank you again. It was amazing to talk to you. Thank you.
991
01:19:39,600 --> 01:19:48,600
Thank you so much for making it to the end of the podcast. If you're watching on YouTube, I would love to hear your discussion and thoughts in the comments below.
992
01:19:48,600 --> 01:20:01,600
And don't forget to like and subscribe if you enjoyed. If you're listening through a podcasting platform, I'd appreciate if you rate it five stars and you can continue the discussion through my competition climbing discord.
993
01:20:01,600 --> 01:20:06,600
Um, linked in all of the descriptions through all the platforms. Thanks again for listening.

Jinni Xia

10: Sam Watson, Future Olympian - USA Speed

Show Notes

Timestamps

Full Transcript

11: Stasa Gejo, Serbia’s Climbing Star

9: Campbell Harrison, Australian Lead Climber