The quantity of writing on this blog is directly proportional to the amount of time I have and how inspired I am. When I'm psyched I can get a lot done when under life's fire, but when I'm down, well, not much gets done. The temperatures have been ridiculous here in the Rockies, and I gotta admit I'm down about that. Some friends from France are going back a week early because they've had it with these disastrous temps. I asked if I could go back with them but they told me I had too much to do, and they're right. So the lack of posts reflect both temperature-induced torpor syndrome (five points to whomever figures that one out first) and the quantity of stuff I've had going on. Two magazine articles, a journalist inhabiting my life, Christmas, kid, parties, shoveling the walk, feeding the fire and a whole list of other excuses for the limited climbing and posting I've done lately. I have stayed on the training bandwagon though, getting stronger! See the picture for my latest training tactic, it's a triceps workout from hell combined with kid care!
But there are going to be even fewer posts for the next week, as I'm packing duffels and and clanking gear like mad. The quest is on, and we're off tomorrow morning. I can't say much more about it than that, but there's a big route out there, time to go hunting for ice!
Best,wg

The winner of this years coveted Cody Cup (with wife Julie).

Friday night the gang met at Outback Steakhouse in Layton for the first official Cody Cup awards presentation and dinner. Ok, it's just the four of us I know, but we still had fun this summer flying XC and competing for the treasured Cup. The concept of the Cup began last summer when Cody came up with the idea of a low profile comp just among friends. Cody got the Cup last year, which was a used coffee mug. This years trophy was a cool thermal mug with a custom silk screened logo with the winners flight details on the mug. I was the recipient this year, as my 96 mile flight from Heber won the comp.



Matt and Keri. Matt had a nice 86 mile flight from the short divide.


Greg and Jennifer. Greg had several mentionable XC flights including the fly to Cody's house for a BBQ.


Cody and Dorothy. On my 96 miler, Cody was just behind me the whole flight. He landed less than fifteen miles short of where I landed.

Cold weather always makes me feel excited in a, "I sure am glad I'm not on a climb!" sort of way. The squeaking crunch of the snow underfoot, the sudden numbness in an earlobe, the hyper-real sound transmission in the air and of course the, "Just how cold is this going to go?" feeling all combine to make cold weather something I really look forward to. I know there's no way in hell I'm going to do anything except hike in this weather, which is sort of liberating.
Fortunately I climbed the last two days in a row before this "cold snap" blew in. I say fortunately because I give up on ice climbing below about -20, I just don't enjoy it. I've done some days at -30, it's just too damn nasty. I also feel like the line between survival and total chaos is much closer when the temperature is so low; break a leg at -5 and you'll have a shot at living until help shows up, but at -30, well, good luck. But I still feel invigorated by extreme cold, it's just such a clean, sharp feeling every time I step out the door to get more wood for the stove. Overall I'm pleased with the wood stove addition to the house, and we haven't had to turn the heat on yet. All the wood cutting in the fall (standing dead trees only, they have very low moisture content and so are OK to burn now) is paying off! 
Minus 35 isn't that bad compared to the cold I've felt in the far north, but just a week ago it was warm enough to climb rock outside in the sun! Amazing transition.
Training:
Mostly outdoors on one long route and a few drytooling days, although I did get sucked into a wicked session at the Vsion two days ago. I went in for a quick evening slam after a short day out in the morning; I had clear-cut goals (front levers, power pulls) but the Junior team had a new toy: A speed system... Stand on the little pedal, punch it to the top, hit a buzzer. The Juniors were going fast and it looked like fun, so I had to play. Before I knew it 45 minutes of desperate yanking laps had gone by. I lowered my initial time of seven seconds (short wall) down to just under 2.5 seconds but couldn't get it any lower despite trying as hard as I could. The record is 1.91 seconds (nice work Eric!) to go from standing at the bottom to the buzzer on the top of the roughly 20 foot wall. Basically three power moves in a row to the top, so maybe it was a good power workout after all! 
One thing I know now is that when you get a groove on in a training session it's way better to go with that than to try and force the original plan. Staying fresh mentally is as or more important than anything else. If you're not motivated by your workouts then you ultimately won't go. So next time I hit the front levers and power pulls I'll be feeling extra aggro and psyched, and the speed didn't hurt my forward progress. If anything the psyche pushed me to try harder and go deeper, which is what good training is often all about.
Stay warm!
PS--the temp is now -36, could we hit -40 tonight? I haven't seen -40 in many years in the Rockies (apparently neither have the pine beetles, one reason they are expanding their range so dramatically to the north). Cold, cold, let's go -40! The sun doesn't come up until 8:38 tomorrow, so lots of time left tonight...
11:20 PPS--Now we're down to -37! Time for bed, but I'll check the stats from last night in the morning, this is getting really, really cold!
The temp dropped to -42 last night. I can't remember the last time it was -40 something around here, nice to see.

We all need inspiration. I find a lot of mine outdoors, from friends and family, but also in music and reading. If you're looking for some inspiration here's what I've been abusing my ear drums and eyes with:
Books:
Raw Shark Text: This is about the weirdest thing I've ever read, and one of the best. There's this idea that words can become alive, and eat us as "sharks." Brilliant stuff, I wish I were half as smart as the author.
Five Novels: Phillip K. Dick. This guy saw the world so very differently. I picked this lunker of a collection up in some airport on the way to Europe because it had the most words per Euro of anything on the rack, and it then took over my mind. Dick defined so many pre-cursors to things we take for granted today (cyber punk, the ascendance of the electronic over the physical, viruses, electronic propaganda, etc. etc.) up to 50 years ago. Cool read.
Music:
MGMT: Evil good pop.Buck 65. So many good lines... Old Crystal Method: I was playing some of this in the office today after a good Nordic workout when my daughter wandered in and started grooving like a glam queen. Hard to argue with that, I was too.
The reason I'm thinking about inspiration is that I can sense it's time for winter climbing to change for me again. Ice climbing isn't going to look the same in 20 years as it does now; sometimes climbing evolution is incremental, other times a new idea comes along that completely shakes things up. Mixed climbing did that for me, and changed the sport around the world pretty dramatically. Standards on both ice and mixed have shot up massively in the last five years, and that's cool. I saw that yesterday while teaching a clinic; two guys I didn't really know came into Grotto and climbed brilliantly up the ice. Their technique was obviously refined well past the usual "X and grunt" method of ascending; nice body position, safe, fast. It would have been impossible to see that 20 years ago as that technique didn't exist. Now the question is, "What next?" I need a shot of Phillip K. Dick's futurecasting to find the path of most interesting resistance and drop into the groove of new possibilities.
Training: Did some more icicles of late, having a ton of fun just climbing ice with the odd mixed bit throw in, plus it's the start of the ski season. Nothing like pounding for an hour with a 30-pound kidlet on my back, killer workout and fun for both of us.
Give 'er.
WG

There's finally enough ice and time to get out, yeah! Last Wed. I headed up to the Stanley Headwall with my favorite philosopher, David, who moonlights as some kind of oil-patch bidness man and general outdoor organizer. We've been climbing and attempting to climb together for over 20 years, so it's always good to get out with him. Anyhow, we left the car kinda late (8:40) with vague plans to do Killer Pillar, but there was a party on that. Plan B was to do Suffer Machine, but there was a party on that. Plan C was to climb anything without people on it, and somehow that made Nemesis the goal. Nemesis is one of those all-time classic ice routes, something that novices wonder about, up-and-comers epic on, and the experienced tell two-beer stories about. It's about 160M of very steep ice, and back in the day it was a very long day at best and a bivouac situation. Times change.
At the base David was looking nervous about the time; I'd had to stop and duct-tape my heels together (first time skiing in ice boots that season, joy) so now it was going on eleven, and David had to be back in Calgary to give a slideshow that evening. My wife, Kim, had done the route pretty fast with Scott S. back in the day, and we had 80M ropes so I figured we could do the route in two pitches (normally 4). We wouldn't be slowed down too much by placing protection as I'd kinda only brought eight screws, a bit light. I know David can move, so I semi-jokingly said, "We'll be back at the packs in under three hours, no problem." I figured we'd probably rap from the first anchor but what the hell, I'd never actually done the climb (put me in the "up and comers having an epic back in the day" category for sure) and really wanted to!
Swing, kick, swing, kick, kick, kick, gee that screw is a long way down there, anchor 80M later. David raced up despite somehow taking a softball sized chunk to the helmet; I know how big it was 'cause it left that sized dent in his helmet. He wasn't feeling too hot but was still game, so off to the top, crux move fighting through the soft slab and finding an anchor, back down at the packs in under three hours, David made his show and reportedly did well despite the head injury. Sure was a nice day, thanks!
Also had fun at Hafner yesterday; I love thin ice climbing, the kind where it's just thick enough to hold your pick but thin enough to show the first tooth. This type of climbing is just provocative, like a strip tease show but more interesting; what you can't see is what it's really all about. A nice day out with old guard again. I like going climbing with people who have a sense of humor as black as their coffee, plenty of both going around. Nice crowd in Hafner despite the fact that it rained all the way from Canmore to about 10K from Hafner. I was sure we were on a drive to a coffee shop with a detour toward a climbing area but the temps and ice were fine if a bit wet. There is just nothing like pulling the crux of a climb with a shower of ice-water in your face and running down your neck, I will NEVER whine about the temps while sport climbing again.
So the season is on around here, lots to do, yeah! And today there is snow outside my window and the temps are down to -10 finally, I was starting to think global warming had finally arrived.
Training: Yep. Had a wicked session with Dr. Simon in the gym the other night. 15 minutes of big offset pulls and front levers turned into something more than that, thanks for the motivation. Today I took my kidlet to kidlet gymnastics (she's going well!), and managed to almost hold a front lever on the rings for a second. It's coming! My workouts haven't been perfect, but they have been as regular as I can make 'em, and the results are starting to show.
Hope you're having fun outside wherever you are!
wg

It's certainly rare that anyone get's paid to fly...it certainly never even comes close to covering the costs of flying (at least for me) but it's certainly appreciated when you do get compsensated for it.

After posting the pic on the Oz Report and My Club's site and writing an article about my simple camera mount system, the USHPA approached me about submiting it just in time for their annual calendar.

So I'm Mr September for 2009. Payment....I never thought I'd see it but I got the big purse today....$50us! Yipee!

Please...support their efforts and buy a calendar

Kind of an interesting morning. When I arrived at the South Side this morning a very peculiar cloud capped the west end. Once on top, I noticed a fog bank followed the low lying area from Provo Lake to the point. The cloud bank was less than a half mile wide, and as it approached the hill it snaked it's way over the top. As the sun rose the fog quickly burned off. The morning turned out to be quite nice.



A Salt Lake Tribune reporter came out and took a few shots of the R.C. gliders as well as an in air shot of me. It's possible there might be a story about the point in the Tribune tomorrow morning. Notice the Red Tail Hawk at the left of the pic.


Photo courtesy of Steve Griffin - Salt Lake Tribune

Nothing going lately that's blog worthy. My sail finally came back from repair, but I'm afraid the next week holds only bad flying weather. Time to dig in to the old stash.
I ran across this pic of Jeff O'Brien that I took this summer at the South Side.

I've been out wandering a bit in search of new ice, but not much success. Normally this time of year I'm climbing a fair amount, but there isn't all that much ice in at the moment, or at least ice I haven't climbed. I'm always up for climbing just about anything, but given a choice I'd rather wander the woods in search of something new than climb something I already have. So more wandering will take place!
Training: Good gym sessions. Spoga, offset pulls, bouldering, lots of laps up and down the wall locking off on every hold and reaching up, some front lever training. It's going.
I hope it's game on wherever you are!

Had a wicked session in the gym today (well, yesterday as it's late at night now), and a decent one Wed. Plus I did some solid logging recently, very nice dry wood from standing trees with Keith, and scored a whack of wood from Alpine Precision Tree Removal (Thanks Jeff and Chad!). The picture is of me being a tree hugger, all proud of the very dead tree that went down cleanly. Oh, cutting that thing up and then splitting it was a bad-ass workout too--knotty-ass tree, I had to resort to the new chainsaw a couple of time to win. Kinda weak but that's how it goes sometimes, all of it is very nice firewood now. New saw required a new chain too, knowing how to sharpen ice tools does not translate directly to sharpening chain saws. It is possible to remove too much of that little tooth that sets the depth of the cut. Bought a guide thing.

Training Wed: Good warmup, then bouldering, then kinda got psyched to work with the Vsion Junior Team for a bit on some skills, then blasted myself on the system board for body tension and power moves. Wicked.

Training Friday: Solid warmup, sent some problems that had been beating me down, wore my soft skin out then got on the dry tool campus board. Big offset pulls, new season record (I'll take any victory I can get), half levers, worked. Full Spoga set in there too, never stopped moving except when I had to gasp like a new-born for breath. Love that.

Plus wrestling a couple of tons of wood, some walks with live weight on my back. A good week, beat some long-standing office stuff into at least a stand-off, the kind of work that just keeps piling up and piling up then it's really late so it's even worse to deal with so I didn't until this week. Lame, but fixed now.

Saturday on the South Side. Moderate wind, hangs, bags and other flying things made for a congested morning. John Lindbergh effortlessly cruised above the calamity below, as though he was on a different layer of the lift band.

Meanwhile, I squeaked in a few flights when the crowded skies lightened up. (The following photos were taken by Val Stevens)









As I attempted a slider, my lack of expertise and a odd bit of turbulence spoiled my morning. The following - a broken downtube. Rats!

The ice season is on around here, but the temps have been really warm. Only the relatively high and north-facing ice (Ranger Creek, Replicant, etc) has stayed in. The last month has really reminded me of winter in Colorado--highs above freezing most days, warm enough to rock climb in the sun, a few degrees below freezing at night at most, pretty stable weather in general. While this has been pleasant, it's not right for mid-November in the Canadian Rockies. It rained here in Canmore last night, and the most snow we've seen this season was in August. WTF? I've decided "global warming" is a misnomer; what the term should really be is, "Weather Fuckitedus." It may be colder, warmer, windier, wetter, dryer, sunnier, cloudier or just generally totally unpredictable compared to any pattern you might once have recognized.
Training: It's fallen apart a bit due to weather-induced lassitude. It's hard to get really psyched to mixed climb when it's sunny and plus five, or raining. But these little lulls often lead to better results in the end. I'm likely tired from all the mad travel, and my motivation is the first thing to suffer when I'm not fully in the game mentally. I expect things will come back with a vengeance here shortly. Over the years I've found that pushing through demotivated periods often leads to injuries, or severe and long-lasting demotivation. Better to focus on things in life that need to get done, stay healthy, train when the energy is there, and know that it will come back when it's right. That was a hard lesson to learn for me...

Yesterday I went for an all-time fugly walk in the woods. We went the wrong way repeatedly, mired ourselves deep in the debris of an overgrown logging slash, fell down, groveled, cursed and were rewarded at the end of this experience by not finding any ice to climb. But you know what? It was a pretty good day of it. This is what's funny about climbing; you can not climb anything and still have a good day. If I'm working in the office and, say, the video editing system implodes it can ruin my entire day. But I can sweat and grovel for three or four hours in the mountains and it's pretty fun. This just confirms my basic idea that office work is evil.
The day did end well when I scored a bigger chainsaw in good condition for a fair price. This things should wail through the bigger logs with aplomb (can you use a word like that to describe a chainsaw?). I had a dream last night that I used it to quarry a huge cave in my back yard, it was going through solid rock like butter. This is likely a man dream that women will not relate to, but I was stoked, sad to wake up and find out it wasn't true. My backyard is cobbles for at least a hundred feet of depth anyhow.

Training: See above, with some time spent hanging by the tools in the garage. Getting stronger!

The late news is that the mods worked a little too well. After enjoying a week in Guayaquil, the circus relocated to Canoa for a quick couple of practice days. Jeff, Daniel, and I only briefly joined up for some glide posturing but all seemed normal. Within seconds of the first day's start, I realized that my glider had something special and for three days of competition I was able to sit back and watch the race from above, making moves when and where I chose, and moving to the front position whenever I liked. The race is all about the glider and harness combo, no illusion there, so the lucky person with the most aero package takes it all. In my case, a month of work payed off big and some worthwhile tuning tricks were discovered.

Thanks to all of our great friends from Ecuador for another week of the best free flight on the planet and especially Raul for pulling off a monumental organizational masterpiece. Hope to see all our buddies and more next year for some more racing and relaxation. And don't doubt that I will again have the best glider.

Pics to follow.

Every so often my home gym, the Vsion, has a bouldering comp. All the local climbers rejoice not just because the comp is fun, which it is, but because the new routesetting means a total reorganization of the holds on the wall, and a lot of new boulder problems. Something like 50. Yesterday I went in with Scott, and we started on the easiest, 1, and worked ourselves up to about 35. Yeah, it's not the best mixed training but it sure was fun! Lots of big hold jug pulling and body tension, I feel it today after the relatively lower-angled climbing in Poland.
Then my friend Keith and I went and chopped down some dead standing trees as part of Firewood Quest 2008. This is undoubtedly the most dangerous thing I do; I don't know shit about chopping trees down, so we're making it up. My favorite line from yesterday was, "Keep running!" from Keith as I headed out of the danger zone. It was a big tree, and not really going the direction I'd have liked it to... Some kind of workout for sure. 
A few interesting bits from friends:
-Andy Kirkpatrick, one of the more entertaining guys in climbing, just finished his book, Psychovertical. Worth checking out for sure, and part of the Banff Book Festival.
-Kev Shields, the one-handed but all-talent climber, went and soloed a classic M10--again.
-The Coldsmoke powder festival is on again for Nelson. I can't imagine any sort of cold smoke coming out of Nelson given the astounding ability of the locals to create hot smoke. Wait, I think that means powder, not greenery. A really cool event by all reports, I'll be heading there this winter to get my ski on.
Finally, Obama, as anyone who doesn't live in solitary confinement knows, is the president elect in the United States. Politics generally just piss me off (I've got a degree in political science so it's an educated annoyance), but this is genuinely cool. Finally a slim majority of Americans got their heads out of their asses and voted for something different. I say that as a part-American; nothing is more frustrating than watching a country you know reasonably well go so wrong for so long. Maybe Obama is just another pawn of the powers that be, maybe not, but I am damn glad he's president-elect and not McCain. On the other hand, a bunch of states voted for anti-gay marriage ballot measures, so fear and loathing of the "different" is still alive and well. I can't fathom the fear and small-mindedness of voting against allowing someone else to marry someone he, she or it truly loves. With all the problems in the world, so many children in pain, so many people suffering, gay marriage is worth spending millions to fight? Shame on those who would rather spend money on fighting for fear and intolerance rather than helping others.

I came across some ancient photos. Some I don't remember ever seeing until recently. It's hard to believe how fast life whirls by.


This photo captures one of my first flights on a hang glider. A 40' hill beside I-240 in Oklahoma City. Notice the unique take off form.


Great composition. My two young girls playing on a rock with me in the background. Crestline, CA. Photo - Susan Hibbard


Gotta love that LA smog. Another Crestine pic. Circa - 1980. Photo - Susan Hibbard.


1981 Southern Cal regional's.


Lake Elsinore, CA. Circa - 1980

Poland:
Leave Calgary at 6:00 p.m., change planes a bunch,  (you know you've spent to much time in airports when you know which lounge to go to at the Frankfurt airport, and recognize some of the servers...), get off last plane in Krakow, Poland. Surprisingly, it looks pretty much like Germany or something. Massive construction, nice houses, very Western European feel. Locals drag me off to dinner in the nicest wooden building I've ever seen, then somewhere else, and then it's 7:00 in the morning and I'm drytooling up the side of an obscure quarry so jet-lagged I can barely lift my tools. But it's fun. The weather is supposedly too shitty to go alpine climbing in the Tatras, then the sun comes out and we go sport climbing in another quarry somewhere.
There's a really obvious cool roof crack line, but I end up on some bouldery 7a (11d) in the shade and fall off in a frozen haze. Then it's onto the roof crack, which the local master (serious master--this Micah dude can PULL) absolutely hikes without jamming once. I spool up, fall off the opening move before I even get to any bolts, laugh, then trash my hands in the crack 'cause if you don't jam it's 7b+ or something. I jam like a mofo on the serrated edges and get to the anchor with everyone asking me exactly what the hell I was doing with my hands in the crack--"there are no holds in there?" Then we meet more great people, do an impromptu movie night with the best scotch I've ever tasted,  and then drive somewhere else and then it's off to bed in a haze. 
Morning strikes (it doesn't rise when I'm jet-lagged, it strikes me in the forehead like a snake), and it's more driving. Somehow, despite the distances never being more than a few hundred K, we drive hours and hours each day. This time only drive an hour, and then ride a tram up into the Tatra Mountains, which are incredibly beautiful peaks. My handlers tell me these mountains are small, not so nice, not so many good climbs, etc. By the end of the trip I figure out that if anyone in Poland says something is going to be not so nice then it's going to be great. It's a national characteristic among Poles to talk down everything Polish. Sort of Canadian in a way, I feel right at home. I also suspect there was some serious sandbagging going on with the grades, but payback on that one will be fun when the team comes over to Canada.
Anyhow, we hike up to the top of a peak from the tram, and it's just gorgeous. I spy a long granite ridge running off into the distance and immediately have to do it, it's just too cool looking. My handlers decline my offer to come, and we have no rope anyhow, so it's a solo game. One side of the ridge is in beaming sun and so warm I have to take off everything, the other side is -10 with ice, snow, and frozen turf everywhere. After cruising around some rocky bits I'm into some mixed on the north side, and go for the crampons. Unfortunately they aren't in my pack. All I have is a huge loaf of bread, two pounds of cheese, an empty water bottle, and an mp3 player with broken headphones. I do have one ice tool, so I keep going, ripping my hands up some more jamming in the cracks with added force 'cause, well, I don't have crampons and falling off would be bad. It's a mega couple of hours of breathing hard, going the wrong way, going the right way, climbing past rap anchors, being horrified on the dry sunny grass, being horrified on the frozen grass, and eventually making it back to the tram after one of the coolest ridge traverses I've ever done. Yep, these Polish Tatras are not so nice... Lying Poles, these mountains are fantastic. There were some really nice mixed lines to do if one had two ice tools, some crampons, some gear, a rope and a partner. But no complaints, absolutely a great afternoon of it.
Then it's off on a mad tour of Poland for the Black Diamond slide shows. My translator (Adam) can climb 8c, the guy I'm doing the shows with has done 13 of the fourteen 8,000m (Piotr) peaks, then there's me stuffed in the backseat for at least five hours a day between gigs. I've driven all over the world, but I gotta say that the Polish roads and drivers are far more engaging than I'd expected. The shows go well, nobody dies on the road, and we're back in Krakow in one piece. Adam suggests we visit a local crag that's, "Not so nice," and of course it's a great little crag with perfect grass at the base. We would KILL for a crag like this here in Canada! One more show and then it's off to the after-event party, where I survive one of the all-time greatest attempts on my life. Many people have tried to kill me in foreign countries with drinking games, but this was seriously a world-class effort. I had to use every Jedi mind trick I knew to make it out alive, and still the next morning barely qualified as "alive."
My overall impression of Poland is nothing like what I'd expected. I grew up listening to the radio reports from Poland in the late seventies, when Lech Walesa was leading strikes and the government was pretty aggressive to the people. But what I found was a country a lot more like Germany and Austria than the other countries I've visited in the former "east" European block. Construction everywhere, good infrastructure (good in general, the roads could use some more time in finished state and less under construction), and a generally optimistic people. The "communism" years are ancient history for anyone under 30, and many of the older people simply don't want to look back. I kept digging for information about what the country was like when I was a kid and hearing about the strikes on the radio, but it's a chapter of life that's just less interesting for the Poles than the future. I admire that outlook, and the results show in the country. The Tatras are fantastic and worth visiting again, there are some really big walls with mixed routes to do (maybe already done, no idea, but they look great).
My deepest and sincere thanks to Michal, Adam, Maciev (sorry, you're welcome at my house anytime but I never did figure out how to spell your name!), all the Piotrs and the many stellar people who put us up in their houses and truly went out of the way to help me have a great Polish experience. Sometimes slideshow trips are pretty industrial; this one had industrial moments, but it was without a doubt the most enjoyable week of travel I've had in a long time. I know I'll see some of the people I met in the future, either at my house in Canada or around the world somewhere. I look forward to that. And if some of my hosts show up at my house I'll do my best to show them some things in Canada that, "Aren't so nice..." Right. Thanks also to Raphael for recording the video segments for the shows in Poland, they worked well.
WG
PS--Training: Two days of sport climbing, one day of mountain beating, one day of gym climbing/training, some hiking. Not ideal, but I feel pretty good about getting all that in while on the road so much. Back at it here now!

I'm in Poland, having loads of fun. More later, but some nice photos here. Managing to have a very good time and get some climbing in.

Off to the crags now.

wg

I've had a few emails asking what Spoga is--explained it a few posts ago, but it's what I laughingly call "speed yoga." It's yoga without all the woo-woo, which likely means it isn't yoga to those who practice some form of Yoga. I fit a fairly fixed collection of about 20 different "poses" (asanas) that flow together in roughly five "sets." If I do these straight through they take as little as 20 minutes or as long as an hour. One thing I don't like about most yoga classes is that I often want to stop and work with a position a bit longer, or not go into some movement because my body doesn't feel right for it then. That's what I do in Spoga--do my routine, but feel the positions carefully, really move well into each pose in my own time, feel it. I'm wired like a Jack Russel dog, not a lot of flexibility going on here, but I've been doing my routine off and on for three years now, and it has really helped me. So I often do a set or problem or whatever in the climbing gym, then recover by working through a set of my Spoga poses, repeat. It keeps me moving, helps me breathe well while gasping for air, and fits more good stuff into less time. Spoga, it works for me...
Training:
I'm on this near-compulsive firewood gathering kick, so I've been knocking over dead and living (only when they were destined to die anyhow, I might as well burn 'em rather than have them go to the landfill) trees and carting the carcasses back home. My driveway looked like it belonged in the Yukon, so many logs... My neighbors thought it was pretty funny. The whole process has just worked me. After a lot of work I'm down to about a cord of wood that is too wet to use this year; I've gathered, moved, split and stacked a lot of wood over the last two weeks, and in the last three days that's been my main training. I'm going to get some freaky wood chopping/carrying muscles if these keeps up... I figure moving several tons of wood around has got to be good for something, it's certainly worked all the climbing muscles with the exception of power grip strength and maybe lats (although picking huge rounds up gets in there some).
Anyhow, after the mega wood workout from hell I got back into the gym tonight. Good warmup, then did five laps (up and down until failure) on this longish jug haul problem out a roof, no feet, big moves. Grrr.... Hard enough for me that I had to do spoga between sets, fully anaerobic death. Then an accuracy drill on the tool board where I hang one-handed and try to slot a pocket with the other tool. Harder than it sounds, and an important skill. Then one-handed hangs on the tool shafts (can't hold that long before I end up on the grip), then 20/20 intervals to get a good deep pump. Front lever training to finish it out (still just extending one leg while horizontal, back to full hang, repeat until all I can do is curl my feet up level with the bar, back straight, hold that until done. That's one set. I do somewhere between 3 and 5 depending on what I've got in me).
The intensity level is going up. I'll start climbing more and more as the season progresses, and that will take care of specific strengths and specific endurance. Now I want the power to bust the more difficult moves out without injury. I've got some slight tweak in my anterior delt but otherwise good to go. The 20/20 gives a good level of endurance, the fine-tuning will come in action.

What's Dustin up to???

http://hang6.blogspot.com/2008/10/whats-dustin-up-to.html

Here's what I've been doing this month - besides tandems - I have been obsessing over the finest details of drag reduction on my wing. Now that Jeff OBrien is getting on a plane tomorrow, his time spent wisely I hope, I am releasing my secrets.




I was never satisfied with the mylar haulback fairing and I always wanted a carbon stinger so I decided to start the project with the keel. It turned out to be a huge undertaking but I finally turned out an acceptable piece. After such a committed effort, the other little things that were bothering me - exposed vg cleats, side wire tangs, etc - seemed easy in comparison.










The apex area has always bothered me, so it got a lot of attention. It wasn't difficult to seal the gaps around the apex/keel pocket/hang strap area, but it took a week or so of thinking about it to come up with the right idea. Sealing the sail was an idea I had been considering for a long time, but it only seemed worthwhile after taking care of all the other little draggy items. Those taken care of, I went to work on every air escape route - nose cone, apex, keel pocket, sidewire entry holes, tip wand bolt area, and even the little gaps between each batten pocket where they exit the double surface - those were a bitch. Here's an example of an admittedly hurried wing seal test on a mid-performance sailplane http://www.hph.cz/304cz_flytest.php?&lang=en Sealing the wing from internal air leakage improved the min sink performance from 120 fpm at 46 kts to 95 fpm at 39 kts. That is huge. Glide performance also improved dramatically - L/D of 40.5 at 51kts to L/D of 45 at 56 kts. I couldn't not do it. Time will tell if these changes will be worth a one second advantage over 80 kms...