Canadian National Championships - Montreal 2009, Allez Up

A couple weeks post Nationals and I am sitting in Vail at a World Cup and finally have time to reflect.

It was fun to be back at Allez Up, which is where I attended my first Nationals in 2005, almost exactly 5 years prior.

The season has been a weird one for me, others years I have always been very consistent, consistent in training, resting, competing and results. This year with much forced time off, I have had the best and worst comps of my career? Go figure.

It has been a perfect pattern this year, 2 months off first comp back climbed strong and won, next weekend got killed. Third comp after another month off won, next weekend killed ect. I seem to do well after a big rest with no expectation and terrible when I feel strong and confident; pattern here? Not 100% sure actually, since there are so many factors at play, overworked, to much travel with no sleep and bad diet etc.

I have found it very hard to figure out what to change, as there are no consistent control variables to compare. More on this later.

Anyway, coming into Montreal I had been having a good season and was hoping to make top 10 which should have left me top 5 overall for the year, which I would have been happy with. I did not feel to much pressure at all, and was feeling generally good with no injuries (benefit of all the down time this year).

Qualifiers was excellent the setting team did a great job the problems were fun and quite hard, I qualified 6th, a perfect spot going into finals. There was one new guy from Colorado, Andre Difelice who blew me away, the only one to send 4 out of five problems, I was impressed. In my mind he was likely to take the win.



Finals saw 10 of us faced with the 5 coolest comp problems I have ever climbed on, in huge part to the awesome volumes by Bolo and Delire!

Here is a video of mens finals #5, aka. the mario kart problem, credit Drtopo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_07BMQRMx8&feature=related

Normally two day comps are not my thing, but I was surprised to be feeling quite good in warm up and was physced to get it on! It went excellently sending 4 out of five problems and flashing all bonuses, which after a technical appeal ruling was enough for the win!

It felt bad however to win on an appeal, but I have been on the wrong side of those decisions before and I guess it was finally my turn to have one go in my favor.

It was a good end to the year with a win at Nationals it also gave me the National Championships overall win for the year for Canada which I was very happy with.

It took five years to get to it and was a long journey of learning, but worth it in the end.

Here is a look at my season so far.

1st Overall Canadian National Championships, Montreal Quebec
1st place North American Championship Speed
1st place Atlantic Regional’s, UNB Tour de Bloc, Fredericton NB
1st place Roc Gym Tour de Bloc, Quebec City, Quebec
4th place Rock Court, Tour de Bloc, Halifax, Nova Scotia
5th place Delire, Tour de Bloc, Quebec
7th place North American Championships Lead