It's been a while since I posted a blog on here! To recap on this summer, I placed 5th at the 2010 SCS Nationals in Lead at the Stone Summit Climbing Gym in Atlanta, GA. I made the 2010 US Team for MYA Lead and had an invite to go to the IFSC Youth World Championships in Edinburgh, Scotland in September. I was able to fund raise for the trip, but that was not the only thing that was required to make this trip count. I had to put more effort into training than I ever had before.

Unfortunately I wouldn't be attending the US Team training camp back at Stone Summit with head coach (Five Ten Athlete) Claudiu Vidulescu, so I had to make the most of what I had back in Washington.  My training consisted of climbing in the gym 3 days a week with power endurance and onsighting work outs from my own coach Tyson Schoene, and along with workouts from Claudiu. I also had the luck to climb consistently outside for basically 2 days a week all summer. Our local crag of Little Si has really long, pumpy sport routes that whipped my endurance into what I needed for the competition that was to come. With the opportunity to climb outside so much, I pushed myself to my limits and sent four 8a+'s, one 8a, and four 7c+'s, which is way harder than I've ever climbed before. By the time September rolled around, I was definitely ready physically for this competition.

The Edinburgh International Climbing Arena is considered the biggest climbing gym in the world, and I was so overwhelmed by it's amazingness walking into the doors for Qualifiers. Both days in Qualifiers, I fell slapping the finish hold on both routes. Unfortunately with my level of competition, this placed me in 18th place, but I was sitting pretty comfortably with the 26 they took to Semis. I was really psyched to even make it to Semis because my only goal for this competition was to complete either Qualifier route. I did not meet that goal, but I still had a good shot at making Finals! Unfortunately, I felt strong in Semis, but I do not think I climbed my best. My high point was about half way up the route, which was not where I would have liked, but the route was really freaking hard. This put me in 17th place out of 76 competitors, which is incredible considering my goals. For all the kids who made Finals, every single one of them had climbed 5.14 outside - amazing. All in all, this really opened my eyes to how strong the youth climbers of the world are, how strong they will be in a few years, and most importantly...how strong I can be. I've very proud of how I climbed and it was good to see how I compared to the best youth climbers in the world.

I'm really looking forward to this coming up bouldering season and climbing outside. My goal for this ABS season is V12, and I'm more than psyched to meet that goal. Hopefully as the season picks up I'll be posting more and I hope to see some of you guys out on the rock!

And of course, thank you Five Ten for the support this year! Great shoes guys. :)