Hey Nate,

Aside from the physical training how are you going to get your headspace ready for the festival? Go out early and take a bunch of falls? Hit the gym? Try and get out in ontario?

I was thinking about this because it usually takes a couple of sessions to get my head back into anything and I'm guessing you can't have that kind of issue during a comp like this.

 -Rob

I think my biggest headspace issue is going to be climbing in front of a roaring crowd of hundreds of people. At least I don't have to look at them. I'm going to try and concentrate on the fact that the outcome is going to be what it will be. The only control I have over it is myself and trying to climb my best.

As far as headspace for the actual climbing, for me drytooling is climbing and I usually feel more secure drytooling than while rock climbing so as long as my lead head is still okay from this drawn out shoulder season I think I should be okay.

It doesn't matter if you are competing or just climbing for fun, you can't climb your best if you are thinking about falling. Thinking about falling takes attention away from doing what you need to do to not fall.

I'm hoping to get out and drytool on some real rock between now and then but that will be very weather dependent. Last weekend nothing was frozen together so there wasn't much to get on with out fear of breaking off holds.

John and I are getting out there a week before so I can acclimate and hopefully get some climbing in. The fact that we basically live at sea level and Ouray is near  8,000' will probably make things more challenging.