“The best part of climbing is when it all clicks and gravity ceases to exist.”
–Chris Sharma
I got a new personal record (PR) today! 8.58 seconds! It’s always a tremendous feeling to get a new PR. PRs are a reward for all of the hard work that you put into training. They don’t come as often as they used to because I’m getting faster. They feel even more rewarding now than before.
I recently started using a new start called the Reza or the 1-to-3. It skips hold #2. If executed correctly, it is definitely faster than my old standard start. I have been working on the Reza intensely for the last two weeks over Christmas break. I’m ecstatic to have it pay off so quickly with a PR.
I ran the PR run at Momentum Katy where I train most of the time. It was great to get a PR there because they have official timers so my new PR is legitimate. You never know for sure if you truly got a PR when it is hand-timed with a stop watch.
I had a great run and did not slip at all. It was clean and steady the whole way through. As I climbed it, the run felt really good. That being said, I did have a slow reaction time to the timer on the start. My time could have been much better with a faster reaction time; maybe it could have even been under 8.50 seconds.
While the PR was only a hundredth of a second faster than my final run at Nationals (my previous PR), it was still an improvement. 0.01 seconds is still 0.01 seconds in the sport of speed climbing. At the professional level, they time out to the thousandth of a second (0.001). Some World Cup races come down to the thousandth.
The PR showed improvement and progress. It is great to get a PR after a newly implemented change because it shows that your improvements are helping. No matter how small, personal records are always a great achievement for an athlete.
