When I decided to embark on this journey of trying to climb El Capitan, I knew I needed to train hard. Two years ago before I made my first trek to the valley I trained with my friend and mentor Sean O’ Neill. Unfortunately I couldn’t just bring him to California with me this time to help me train.
So I had to do some research and find a gym or someone else that could help me stay in shape this summer. Of course I went straight to Google and found local gyms in the area and even went on meetup to try to find people to climb with. The first gym I went to with the initials PG, climbers will know what that is haha, was very unhelpful. I basically went in and they made me sign the waiver and then offered no other help at all. So I stuck around for the meetup but couldn’t find any of the other members after sending messages. I just left wondering if I was ever going to find anyone to train with.
The next gym I tried was The Studio Climbing Gym in San Jose California. Wow what a find. I emailed first just to make sure they were willing to help and they greeted me with open arms. I couldn’t have found a better place to train. Pete, my trainer went out of his way to make this happen and also his manager Diane did everything she could to make it work for me. It is a really cool gym built into an old movie theater and even still has the marquis out front. They have bouldering and traditional gym equipment upstairs and all kinds of leading and top roping routes downstairs.
I have been training with Pete twice a week for an hour doing about 240 – 300 ft per session. I am feeling really strong and I am not actually sore or all that tired after a session.
So I think if everything works out correctly I should be good to go for El Capitan in just about 2 weeks. It is hard to believe a year has passed since I was climbing in Yosemite on Astroman. I can’t wait to be back with all my friends and enjoying being out on the rock.
Remember if you are in the Silicon Valley area The Studio Climbing is the place to climb!
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Posted by Enock Glidden on Wednesday, September 21, 2016
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