Transcript
WEBVTT
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Friends, welcome back to the Ageless Athlete Podcast, where we uncover stories and tease out secrets of badass athletes in a quest to stay ageless.
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I'm your host, Kush Khandelwal, bringing you the energy from my mission district bunker in San Francisco.
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Huge shout out to our listeners.
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You rock.
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Today, brace yourself for a very special guest.
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A dynamo of will and tenacity, Lee Sheftal is 77 and has been crushing it since forever.
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Climbing 514 at 59.
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Conquering the Grand Teton Traverse at 70.
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Lee's rewriting the book on aging gracefully.
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But here's the kicker.
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He's not just a climbing sensation.
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Lee spills the beans on his secret training sauce.
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From biohacking his diet to experimenting with performance enhancers.
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Oh, and did I mention he's a piano virtuoso too?
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So get ready for a great episode packed with inspiration, perspiration, and a few surprises.
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Let's roll! And hey, if you're vibing with the energy, share it with a friend who needs a dose of this awesomeness.
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Hi, Lee.
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it's a pleasure to connect,
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quick intros.
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I am in San Francisco this afternoon.
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Uh, where are you located?
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Carbondale, Colorado.
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Excellent.
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right in, uh, the middle of, fantastic, rock climbing and, and the outdoors, in the Rockies.
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Would love to kick off with a, quick intro.
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Where did you grow up?
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what do you do?
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How old are you?
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and what did you have for breakfast today?
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so I'll start with the breakfast.
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I typically don't eat breakfast.
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I eat, well, kind of, I kind of eat a, I guess you could call it a brunch because, I pretty much adhere to intermittent fasting, keep my weight down so I don't eat for at least 15 hours after I eat dinner.
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So that means that I don't start eating until around, the earliest I'll ever eat is around 10 30 or 11 o'clock in the morning.
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I grew up in Long Island, New York, a town called Roslyn.
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throughout my teenage years I was into sports, but I had no idea what climbing was or anything about climbing.
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I was into football, baseball, pretty much every sport that was available at the time.
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I did like the outdoors.
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I went to camp for about four years.
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Where I did a lot of outdoor activities.
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my profession wasn't always this, but it has been for about 40, let me think, since 1980, so about 45 years, I've been a, uh, a tax tax professional.
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I do income taxes for a living.
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Great.
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Uh, and how old are you?
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Uh, Lee?
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I am 77 years old right now.
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Great.
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Uh, seven, seven years young.
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Hmm.
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Thanks for the background, uh, to add to it.
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Uh, what's your, uh, background with, sports where did you begin?
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Rock climbing.
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Let's see.
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I would say that I be, became very attracted to the outdoors almost immediately after I got out of college.
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So that would've been back in 1968.
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And so from 1968 until about 1978, I predominantly hiked, well, hiking.
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I did some sort of like, uh, scrambling, mountaineering type of stuff, but nothing with ropes or anything like that.
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And I got introduced to rock climbing in around 1978.
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the reason why I got into it, actually is very interesting because at my time, my, my girlfriend at the time, uh, we were taking a four month trip in my, uh, camper, and
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Hmm.
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we were in Boulder.
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And we decided to climb it.
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Climb up the flat irons, or actually on the side of the flat irons.
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And I ended up just me, but not her.
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I wandered out on, on one of the flat irons, I think it was the first flat iron.
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I just wandered out on the face.
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I don't know why I even did.
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I did that.
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I just started.
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Next thing I knew, I was actually in fifth class climbing and I didn't know how climb really.
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And it was probably, I'm guessing about 5, 6, 5 7 climbing, and I was terrified and I thought I was gonna die.
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if you live in Boulder, that's like a popular, uh, the Flat Irons, I think at least one of the scrambles on it is, uh, often done, uh, free solo style.
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Like people don't use ropes and it's like a kind of a fun activity these days.
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I, I noticed some people later that day that were rope climbing.
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I think they were being guided and I was like, oh, it's interesting.
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People use ropes.
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but anyway, after I managed obviously not to die and got off that first flat iron, I decided that that was, I liked the idea of climbing, but I don't wanna ever do that again.
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So I hired a 18-year-old kid that a friend of mine told me about to teach me.
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can't remember his name,
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Okay.
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it's been too long ago.
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Anyway, he took me out climbing in Santa Barbara and.
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He taught me how to, you know, how to tie into a rope and how to climb.
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And I think we did top roping.
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And at the end of the day, he asked me, so what do I think?
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I said, I, I don't know where this is, has been all my life.
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Mm-Hmm,
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So at that point on, I pursued the sport, fairly religiously.
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sure, sounds like there was some, uh, fascination, some fear, some intrigue the first time you, uh, you began the sport.
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But I think, uh, soon after, maybe like the rest of us, uh, became an enduring obsession.
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I guess, uh, 35 odd years later, you're still, climbing.
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I wanna talk a little bit about your, uh, your history with climbing.
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And one thing I wanna, point out is, uh, you climbed, you know, the lofty grade of, uh, five 14, I think at the age of, uh, 59 or so.
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do you think you still might be the, uh, the oldest person to have climbed, uh, this grade And then also to a non climber?
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Uh, how would you describe, like the five 14 grade?
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Maybe to somebody who understands running or a different sport.
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Uh, how difficult of a grade is five 14
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well, you know, I mean, these days, uh.
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Uh, five 14 is not that an amma that amazing of a grade because people now for the last 15, 20 years have been just training in gyms and, um, I mean, there were gyms back when I did it when I was 59, but that was 18 years ago, and the training methods were not as sophisticated either, and people weren't starting as young either.
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So, you know, five 14 is, is a, a hard grade.
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It's hard for most people for 99.9% of the climbers out there.
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but there's different types.
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So probably just like there's different type of races for runners, for example, climbing.
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a particular grade like five 14 or any grade for that matter, can be very power oriented, can be really short.
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I've tried a number of them.
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mm-Hmm
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back in New Mexico, I actually got on five 14 and, um, it was so short and so powerful that there was no way I could do the moves.
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There wasn't even, I couldn't, I realized that if I was gonna do a five 14 or, or any, anything, or even five thirteens, that they're gonna have to be oriented, which is what my strength has always been.
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Is endurance climbing, not necessarily power climbing.
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For sure.
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I understand that.
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Uh, you also ran quite a bit or were a runner, so to speak.
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Before, uh, you begun climbing.
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Did you also run with the same aplomb and then did you, did you continue running?
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I entered
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some competitions, but I've never been very good at it.
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I'm, or very fast.
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Anyway, so basically.
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Uh, almost my entire time I was a runner.
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I did it for, for being fit and recreational and I enjoyed running in the mountains.
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yeah, but I, didn't really compete that much.
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Sure.
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going back to, uh, some of the milestones and climbing that you, take some pride and, uh, would love to hear about maybe some things you, uh, that brought you, uh, you know, a sense of accomplishment that also took you, uh, a lot of hard work
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when I started to really get into climbing, back when I, even when I was in Santa Fe, I.
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Which has been 25 years since I've been there.
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And I lived in this house there for five years.
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So starting 30 years ago, I've always had a home wall.
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I And then when I moved to Carbondale, the first thing I did was build a, a climbing wall in my garage.
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Especially then, including now, there wasn't any training facilities actually back then.
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There weren't any.
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So, um, I had to make my own training facility or I had to go outside and climb.
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And yes, I put in a lot, a lot of hard training and hard work
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mm-Hmm.
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accomplish my goals.
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And I, you know, I would train specifically to do certain routes in a specific way.
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over the years I have had.
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a couple of coaches.
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Having a home facility and indoor climbing wall right in your garage, I would have to concur can be an absolute game changer.
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One day, I would love to have one.
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Also.
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Any other accomplishments that you are proud of?
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Flea besides obviously sending the, uh, greater five 14.
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Well, there's a lot of roots and rifle that I found to be quite challenging, actually, probably the hardest, effort that I've ever put into a route.
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Mostly because I was not very experienced at the grade, at the time.
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So my first 13 D route.
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mm-Hmm mm-Hmm.
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at that point I had only done 13 C I've done, at that point, I think I had already climbed maybe two 13 Cs, maybe three, I can't remember.
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those didn't really take me that long to do.
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Mm-Hmm.
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Um.
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I mean, actually it turns out that in Rifle, some of the 13 Bs, B as in boy, took me longer than the 13 Cs.
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I've always told that to a lot of people,
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Hmm.
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just probably'cause of the
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Hmm.
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climbing.
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But anyway, this first 13 D that I tried in, um, rifle or anywhere is called the Bride of Frankenstein.
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And it's fairly short.
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It's not super long, but it attracted me because it's, I could do all the moves pretty quickly and the challenge is putting'em all together.
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And the problem that I had with that route is that I tell everybody that I had zero strategy.
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I didn't really have a strategy, I just started getting on the route, seeing how well they did.
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So I'm guessing I probably have the world's record for how many times I could.
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One, fall the route and still not have done it.
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So what I was doing is warming up on the exactly the same roots.
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It didn't matter how I felt.
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It didn't matter what the weather was like.
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mm-Hmm.
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it could be really hot.
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It could be really cold.
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It didn't make any difference.
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I did the exact same warmups and I go to the root and I tried it two or three times in a day.
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well, I wasn't getting anywhere.
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I just kept one falling the route and not getting anywhere.
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And finally it dawned on me that I ever wanna send this route, I need to come up with a strategy.
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So that's what I did.
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Sure.
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So what I did was, is I put up a route in my garage that was similar, but not, and I told myself that until I can do this route in my garage, which is pretty hard, it's a hard route.
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I finally did it and then I said, now I have to do it at least three times with only a five minute rest in between,
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mm-Hmm mm-Hmm
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and I will not get back on the real route that I'm trying to do on the BRI
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mm-Hmm.
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until I accomplish that.
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So I finally accomplished that and I went back on the route, and the second day I got back on the route I did it.
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I learned that I need to have a strategy
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Sure.
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your replica training, uh, paid off
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Well, so I also did a similar strategy.
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I had a different strategy for, I mean, some people think this route is 14 a also in rifle.
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I mean, a lot of these route in rifle that are rated, I mean, a lot of people think they're probably not somewhere else in the world, 14 a Anyway.
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But the hardest route I ever did is,
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isn't rifle, uh, rifle, like known as the land of, uh, 13 Ds.
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You know that these rods that, that should have been, uh, upgraded to 14 a are are sandbagged and are stuck at that 13 D grade.
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That's 13 d and that's the hardest route I have done in rifle.
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Yeah, no, I, I can see that, uh, you are a, a strategist and I think with climbing, you know, people are
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Famously lackadaisical.
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about their approach.
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And, uh, people will say, Hey, you know, I'm just gonna get on this route and I will try, try, try it until I send it.
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But I think, um, I think you are the contrarian, which is, Hey, this is the, uh, this is the amount of time I'm gonna give myself, and I'm gonna prepare myself with all of this training so that when I actually get back on this route, I actually have a reasonable chance of meeting my objective.
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Well, I felt completely different after that, that that training that I did getting more power because this one crux that I had a hard time with before.
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On the first seven sessions or so, I'd get on that route.
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I get up to the crux and even on the dog,
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Mm-Hmm
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maybe I could do that.
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Those that move one outta three times, that's not a good because considering that it's probably mid five 13 just to get to that move and there is any really great rest right before it.
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So I realized that helped my power.
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But when I got back on the route after training for it, I knew right away I could, I can do this route because it felt completely different.
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Wow.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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The before and after effect, pre-training to, uh, to post-training.
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Uh.
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That's great.
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Uh, uh, yeah, that's, that's great summation.
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I am, uh, I'm curious, uh, Lee, you know, you were, uh, embarking to try these, uh, hard roots and, you know, you have some of these first to your name.
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Were there naysayers?
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I'm sure there were, you know, there were probably people who, who thought that, you know, you could not be climbing this hard, or maybe there wasn't actually a precedent of people in their fifties, you know, sending thirties and five fourteens.
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So wondering if there was something, some kind of like belief you had, uh, some conviction that, uh, you know, I don't care, uh, what other people are saying, or, or if there isn't like a, uh, a precedent here, I believe in myself and I know that I can achieve, uh, some of these, uh.
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Uh, climbing goals even if they haven't been done
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mean about my age?
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Yeah.
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Well, okay, so I was a late starter.
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I didn't even start climbing until I was 33 years old.
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So, and I didn't really think about age until I got close to 50.
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So probably around your age.
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And I was like, okay, here I am.
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I'm getting close to 50.
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I wonder if all of a sudden I'm not gonna be able to climb hard anymore.
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So those things, those thoughts did occur to me.
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at the time, I didn't have anybody to look up to that were, that was older than me, that was climbing as hard as I was claiming.
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But I decided that, well, let's, I don't, I'm not, why don't I just not think about my age?
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Who knows what's possible?
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Let's see what happens.
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Well, soon as I turned 50 and into my fifties, I noticed that probably because I didn't start until I was 33.
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And then I, you know, I hadn't really trained very much.
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I just climbed.
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So I was just a, I was not a sport climber until I was about, oh God, let me think.
00:16:53.037 --> 00:16:55.256
That was like the mid eighties.
00:16:55.287 --> 00:16:55.826
So,
00:16:56.326 --> 00:16:56.746
Mm-Hmm
