I travel and climb about eight months a year. That's pretty great training in itself. When I am home, I do a lot of bouldering, gym climbing, and specific strength training in a effort to get stronger for climbing.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I'm done with Everest. I did it three times, and I need to be good at that and be happy with it and focus on other climbs.
I love to go hiking. I hike every day for about 1 1/2 to 2 hours in the hills around LA. I go to the gym every day, too.
I see myself being married to my girlfriend and backpacking all over the world. If I can go out and do a 15-mile hike and climb a 12,000-ft. peak, I'm good to go.
Big climbs energize me. It's all the other aspects of being a pro-climber that wear me down. The travel and expeditions and training can become pretty tiring. But the actual big climbs - that's what I live for.
Climbing is what I do.
I live three blocks away from the beach, so every day I walk down to the beach to run or go swimming. Hiking is a big one for me - so long as it's something where I'm not thinking about working out, like in a contrived class or the gym.
The thing with physical preparation is I have tons of friends who train at a really high level and who can give me advice. But with mental training, I don't really know anybody who has a much better mind for climbing, I guess, so I don't really know where I would go. It's not really a limiting factor for me.
I enjoyed climbing with other people, good friends, but I did quite a lot of solo climbing, too.
I exercise about 40 minutes a day, and I'll run one day and do circuit training the next day. I live in an area where there are brilliant hills and mountains, so I get a good hill run with my dog. At home, I'll do the circuit training with old weights, along with pull-ups in the trees and that sort of stuff.
I am an amateur mountain climber. Once or twice a year I go off to Chamonix in the French Alps, under Mont Blanc, and with a guide do treks that include rock climbing at high altitude.