Jason Lancaster

And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for. *drum roll……..* My year 2008 goals list:

1. Comfortably climb v7 boulder problems and complete a few v8 boulder problems. A v9 would be nice but I’ll keep my expectations real until I have time to climb much more often.
2. Climb a 5.12d/5.13a route.
3. Complete home renovation and enjoy fruits of my labor.
4. Complete a swing dance routine with Emily.
5. Spend more time practicing swing dancing with Emily (more than our current once a month-if-that allotment).
6. Spend some time mountain biking (since I didn’t at all last year).
7. Backpack in the Smokey Mountains.
8. Visit Ottowa during the snow season to try snowshoeing for the first time.
9. Play guitar more. Specifically begin memorizing more popular songs so I can have sing-a-longs with friends.
10. New idea for a web application and launch of product at Fusion Bay.
11. Turn GiftListIt into a wedding registry and “buying list” site.
12. Save more money (and quit spending it on the damn house!)

I was a little spoiled this year by being privileged to not only have Christmas with my family but to have it with Emily’s as well. “Christmas” to me is both a holiday for family and leeway into a new year, meaning I tend to think of Christmas-time as that time between December 23rd and January 2nd (or about).

After an ordeal getting to Shreveport on the 26th, I actually ended up in Shreveport on the 27th, choosing to spend my night in Baltimore instead of the Houston airport. We spent time with Emily’s parents, grandparents, and friends before leaving for Nashville to spend New Years Eve with her sister and fiancé.

Unfortunately, we had to come home which meant traveling on New Years Day — driving the normally 11 hour but instead 13 hour snow, ice, and accident filled drive back to Baltimore. Arriving at about 4:30am, we made it safe but many others weren’t as fortunate.

I really enjoyed the fact that I made a goals list the start of last year. I’m not sure I’ve ever done that before. It was a wonderful reference point into my mindset and thinking at the start of last year. Now I can look back and see where I focused my time and energy and how it differed from what I thought it would be. My goals from last year:

1. Purchase house
2. Renovate and move into house *
3. Come up with a new idea for a web application and execute it for Fusion Bay
4. Launch Gift List It a little before Thanksgiving 2007
5. Successfully climb a 5.11 rated climb
6. Begin 5.12 climbing
7. Successfully climb a V7 boulder problem
8. Do some bouldering outdoors (which I have yet to ever do)
9. Go backpacking at least twice **
10. Try snowboarding

* The renovation process was much more extensive than originally planned. I’m nearing the end but this has actually become a 2008 goal
** While I only backpacked once, I had some other great vacations!

Now that I’m back and things are resuming their normal pace. Like many others, I’m expecting a fresh start on things. One that I’m looking most forward to is a new MacBook Pro which I’m set to receive any day now. I’ll finally be able to run iMovie and create some cool videos. My old computer was too slow to run iMovie so it wouldn’t even install! Stay on the lookout for my year 2008 goals list.

Now that the hubbub of purchasing/finding Christmas gifts and tweaking GiftListIt is over, I can spend a bit of time organizing things like my photos. I’d like to show you a picture of what I think will make a really great boulder problem at Rocks State Park. The problem with the problem is, in order to do it safely I’ll need at least on more (if not 2) mats. 

This is definitely in my list of things to do in 2008. I’ll need to wait until we’ve had a period of warm dry days — the area this is in has a lot of ground seepage so things are always damp.

Dave took some great pictures of some bouldering we did at Rocks State Park on Thanksgiving Day. The picture above is from that album. Check out my picasaweb gallery for the rest of the pictures.

I’ve been meaning to note a few things related to climbing. First, I’ve been making some real progress on my goals earlier this year. Goal 5 was to complete a 5.11, which I knew I’d do but maybe not so quick. I’m pretty sure I sent my first 5.11 early last month, which was actually a 5.11b. It was super bouldery with a roof-like start but very short, so it played off my strengths. I’m still really weak on endurance related climbs. I’ve been working on a few 5.11′s since then but have not done a clean ascent of anything in the 5.11 range. The crazy thing is that I can flash most 5.10′s, so I don’t get why I can’t get a 5.11 with a little work. Most have been crimpy and small with some very technical footwork. There’s this one called slap and untickle over at Earth Treks timonium that seems so possible but I just lose my strength halfway through. I was feeling really strong last week and tried a 5.12a, made it about 3/4′s of the way through and couldn’t figure out how to get past this nasty sloper that wouldn’t hold any weight. That’s two of more of my goals knocked out right there.

On the other side of climbing, my bouldering has been going well, but I feel like I’m really hitting a wall there. Roped climbs seem to have an easy solution: I just need more endurance. But the boulders, well, they sort of evade an easy solution. I just don’t know where I need to go to get better. I’m pretty strong so it has to be some type of technique. Or something. But it’s completely unknown to me what I need to do. I’ve climbed a variety of v5′s, but still need a few tries on each to complete. I’ve done one v6. v7′s are totally lost on me.

Earth Treks is doing a little seminar next month on some weight training techniques to improve your climbing. I think I’ll probably head over to that to see if strength is a factor, but if I really want to improve on bouldering I think I’m going to need to start doing it more often. 1 day a week doesn’t seem to get me past this wall.