Posts Tagged ‘competition’
A month ago I received new climbing shoes on request from Boreal.
Last year I saw a video of Yuji Hirayama testing new Boreal shoes: Kintaro model. I was so surprised and didn’t believe that the shoes had such sticky rubber. Back then I wrote a post about it and it included a video.
I’m going to review these shoes as I’ve been testing it for a month or so. Usually I review the shoes when I receive them but now I know what it feels like.
First of all, I want to give my special thanks to Boreal for supporting me in my sports career. I have been receiving unlimited climbing shoes and I like to talk about it.
In my opinion the unboxing part is always exciting. It makes me happy!
The shoes are wrapped in plastic and it smells like -guess what- rubber. This model is a down turned shoe as you can see. Furthermore, the colours are wicked and easy to wear with the velcro straps. The design looks nice, so I rate it an 8 out of 10 because it’s quite an eye catcher.
How do I experience the shoe? It fits me well, however the sole of the shoe seems a tad thick. I still have a thick sole today and I climbed quite often with these shoes. The heel fits me better than the Boreal Falcon model. I also like the fact that the heel looks normal, no additional rubber on the back of the heel. With a month of experience I can tell you that the heel hook feels great. The toe hook is okay, not bad yet great. The shoe feels a bit small, but I guess it’s just a matter of getting used to new shoes.
When we talk about the Zenith rubber, it’s really sticky in the beginning. The video with Yuji is real because I’ve tested it myself. The shoes really do stick from tip to tip. It only works when the shoes are new or really clean. I can stick everything on it. Click here to find out more about Zenith rubber.
Anyway, the Kintaro model is a great additional model to the Boreal collection. The sole is a bit thick but the design, rubber and my experience of wearing these shoes are great. I’ve come to the conclusion that this model deserves a 8 out of then overall score. Pretty amazing right!
This week I was really looking forward to the annual Dust 2012 event!
I recovered quite well from the 100% boulders event from last week. It was a good training session. This week I didn’t climb 5 times a week but just two times. This morning I woke up and ate some grapes and a sandwich before it was time to peddle my way to Monk Bouldergym.
I arrived just on time and said hello to Teun Keusters, Ulf Lennertz, Daan Groskamp and Vera Zijlstra. It was fun to hang around. Not much later Vera unlocked the CTO area where I changed my clothes and got ready to rumble.
Today I figured it was fun to solve boulder problems with Vera. Most of the time she could catch up with me pretty well. We used my topo guide and climbed like maniacs.
Luckily I managed to flash some hard problems, saving me some skin for the rest of the boulders. Actually I was quite proud of myself whenever that happened haha. Every small success should be celebrated.
I didn’t have any tactics today. I knew it was quite hard to go for the best 8 problems so I set my mind to climb as much as possible. It was my only goal for today. Climb until I’m out of time!
Vera quit a bit earlier but I kept going on. I didn’t have much skin problems. More or less my feet started to hurt from wearing the awesome Boreal Kintaro so long.
Anyway, later I ran into photographer Tom Doms. He wanted to take a few shots and you’ll see the photos in this story as I’m writing it. I was finishing up the easy set problems in my last hour. Sometimes I was just staring at the wall, because it was so ‘Dusty’.
In my last hour I still had to finish about 31 problems. About 10 problems were easy problems and the rest were 7a or harder. Vera was filling in my problems and supported me, thanks for that!
In my last problem I felt a bit tired. It was a black problem on the competition wall. I had to put a lot of effort in this one. I almost fell out of the problem however I didn’t want to give up and try it again. I just needed to put my left foot next to my left hand and stand up. Yeah I managed to do it and sent it! Awesome!
According to my topo guide, I climbed 76 problems out of 90. Tired but satisfied about my performance!
I remember I climbed 80 problems last year, so I was hoping it was enough in my category. I handed in my score form and went to do some groceries. 30 minutes later I received a text message from Vera that the price ceremony had already began! I was warming up some soup and haven’t started yet. Oh well, I got to hurry and peddled back to Monk Bouldergym.
Pheeew, I was just in time for the price ceremony. They started to hand out prizes for several categories. I was waiting for the category: Male most climbed boulders. And finally Joris Klinkenbijl started with number 3: Tim Reuser. I knew he climbed 74. 2nd was Elko Schellingerhout, he climbed 75 problems. Nr 1: Truong Ngo. Hey that’s me! Yeah! I climbed 76 problems, woooow that was a close call. I received 7 bags of Moon chalk. Thank you Dust 2012. You can find the rest of the results here.
More photos of Tom will be soon available on his Facebookpage.
It’s time to get some rest. I had oodles of fun climbing the problems. I’ll climb the rest in my spare time. So see you around at Monk!
Last couple of weeks I’ve had good training sessions!
I believe I climbed on the following days: Tu, We, Th, Fr, Su, Tu, We, Th, Fr, Tu, Th and Sunday.
Meanwhile my fingers looks very calloused, as it should be when you climb this much. However the main question is: Am I fit? I could test my endurance yesterday during a competition called – 100% bouldering – at The Hague.
This competition wasn’t mentioned on my calendar but I added it later on. The climbinggym was build in a boulder paradise. The rules were simple. 100 divers problems, from easy until hard and each problem was worth 1 point.
Eventually I managed to solve 95 problems within 4 hours and ended in the finals together with Ulf Lennertz, Youri van Vliet and Tim Reuser.
After a good break, it was time to climb the finals. The finals contained 4 problems with a limit of 20 minutes. There were no other rules though. Everyone could climb at the same time. I managed to send 2 problems. Problem #2 was a bit hard for me, I managed a zone hold. And I was too tired to solve problem #1.
It was just too hard to bring up the tension after so many problems. Tim managed to send 3 problems and won the competition. I ended on the 2nd place and Youri became 3rd. The female finals was won by Mirthe van Liere, followed by Elena Belova on the 2nd place and Aniek Lith on the 3rd place. I was content about the competition, climbed a lot and feeling quite sore in my biceps and shoulders today.
To answer my question I raised before, I think I’m quite on my way of getting fit. I’m quite convinced yesterday that I should attend the Dust event because it’s a local competition. I was just in time to sign myself in.
I’m going to climb some at Monk Bouldergym. See ya’ll on Saturday!
Come Saturday will be the National Championship Lead climbing. You can still buy tickets to support everyone! I won’t participate however I can wonder about the results beforehand.
My blog wouldn’t be the same if I didn’t add a survey about the results right? So here we go again!
I think it’s quite obvious who will win the lead competition 2011. However to make this more interesting and again original compared to last year’s survey, I’ve changed the question about the expected rankings in both categories. Have fun!
Here we go:
Women contest:
[poll id="19"]
Men contest:
[poll id="18"]
This morning I set my alarm at 6 o’clock but I couldn’t get up on time. I suppose to leave at 6.30h, so I would’ve some spare time for my trip to Schiphol airport, but unfortunately I slept late. I left at 7 o’clock and arrived one hour later at Schiphol.
Fortunately I didn’t have any delay. At the airport I ran into team member Nikki, she was there on time. Team member Elko arrived soon and we’re complete. Checking in went well. This dude at the metal detector checked up on me. I had to open up my bags, but there was nothing dangerous inside my bag. He was just checking out my gadgets, I think he’s jealous at my camera!
The flight to Zurich was nice. I received swiss chocolate during the flight.
It was so delicious, I craved for more. I managed to score some more chocolates with my pure awesomeness at the end of the flight.
We could spend 1 hour at the airport. While Nikki and Elko were busy with their notebooks, I explored the airport. It was quite fun because I could try some fine chocolate sweets. I enjoyed it a lot.
So if you ever have time left at Zurich airport, I suggest you to walk around and you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.
At Zurich, Mathilde and her mom from Sweden joined us. They booked the same flight to Lyon.
When we arrived at Lyon, it was up to fix a rental car.
I booked a small car before, however it was meant for 3 persons. We were with the 5 of us and luckily they had a bigger car available on their parking lot.
We fit well in the car, including our luggage. It took us 2 hours to get to Valence. We managed to get on time at the climbing gym for the registration without navigation.
First we parked our car in the same street of the hotel and checked in. It’s a ** hotel and it’s about 15 minutes by foot to the climbing gym.
To be honest, I’ve seen better hotels in my life. Anyway, I’ll just stay here for a few days!
Next we went downtown to grab a bite. It was already 6.30 P.M. Most of the restaurants open from 7 P.M. We had to hurry because we wanted to be on time for the technical meeting from 7.30 P.M. We ended up in an average restaurant where we got served pretty fast. I ordered entrecote nature avec pomme et salad. Too bad I didn’t have ketchup with my fries. The meat was nice though.
I was too hungry so it was okay I suppose. Nikki picked lasagna and Elko had pizza.
We were on time at the technical meeting. There’s nothing special according the officials.
Nikki will start 7th in her first route and 23rd in her second route. Elko will start 6th in his first route and 28th in his second route. I’ll start 38th in my first route and 16th in my second route.
The programme remains the same. After this meeting we had some desserts to end our long journey. We visited this restaurant near our hotel.
It was super delicious. We’ll definitely return to his restaurant for a meal. After our dessert we went back to our hotel.
That’s it for now. I’m tired and I’m going to sleep because I have to wake up early. Goodnight to everyone and greetings from Valence, France!
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