This past weekend was the first competition in the Spot Bouldering Series for this season as well as an ABS competition. The competition had almost 200 youth competitors in the morning and as far as I have heard somewhere in the range of one to two hundred adult competitors as well at night. It turned out to be a great competition, tons a great problems and music with the typical competition atmosphere that comes with competing at the Spot Bouldering Gym.
As the first competition I had been to so far this season for Bouldering it was a great experience and good to see people again and interact with other competitors from all over. At this competition particularly there was also an interesting and fun atmosphere as there was a good group of college kids competing for their teams there. The most memorable teams being the team from the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, and the U.S. Air Force Academy, having these teams there added to the unique atmosphere of the competition as there were not only the typical competitors from Colorado but also the new freshman and transfer students from these Universities and others in Colorado that attended; many of which had never competed at the Spot before.
Overall the competition went great, I spent the first part of the competition having a great time and climbing well. The only downfall to the competition was having an old injury pain flair up in my shoulder for the second half of the competition that prevented me from finishing as strong as I would have wished to. But one of the joy’s about a competition is knowing that even when old injuries flair up and cause you to not climb as well as you had desired you can still have a great time interacting with and building community with the other competitors while also learning how to become a better climber from watching those that are better then you. In the end the Spot competition went very well and was a great experience, I can’t wait to compete in the next ABS competition and continue to train and climb outside more in the Boulder area.