This year, Youth Nationals for Speed Climbing only lasted two days. This was because they decided to put Semifinals and Finals on the same day. In the past, Qualifying, Semifinals, and Finals were each on a separate day. That change was helpful for me, because my Finals runs were only two hours after I ran my Semifinals runs. I was mostly warmed up for Finals after completing Semis. I typically climb better after a few runs. The first day of Nationals went well, and the second went even better.
I had to get to the gym quite a bit earlier than Qualifying day. I already knew the layout of the Reach gym from the previous day. As soon as I got to the gym, I started warming up. It took me about an hour to warm up which was about the same as the previous day. I actually started warming up a little bit late, but it was fine because I was able to keep warm in line by jumping in place as high as I could.
My first run in Semifinals was a smooth run from start to finish and was good enough to qualify for Finals at 9.04 seconds. On my second Semifinal run I tried to go faster and slipped and got 10.06 seconds. It was unfortunate, but I still made it to Finals. I fell back a spot to seventh place. I knew I could go faster but was happy to make it to Speed Finals for the first time in my life.
I had about two hours before Finals so I watched the older speed climbers race. The kids in the Male A and Male Junior categories were exciting to watch. They were running in the mid-6 seconds. I filmed them in order to analyze their beta (the route and technique on the wall). When 40 minutes were left before my Finals runs, I warmed up again. Even though I was seventh going into finals, this did not bother me. I was mentally in a good spot.
My warm up went quickly inside the crowded and chaotic gym. Before I knew it, the announcer was introducing the Finalist climbers for my Male B age category. It was hard to hear with all the noise of people screaming and music blaring.
I did my usual routine of placing the auto-belay behind my arm, putting chalk on my hands, and mentally rehearsing the route. Once I placed my hands on the red start hold, I stopped thinking and went on autopilot. In the last 12 months, I had run the route a couple hundred times and knew it by muscle memory. My first run was as good as I could have hoped. It was 8.75 seconds and was a clean run without any slips. After coming off of that good run, I decided that I would attempt to go as fast as I could on the second run. My first run was great so if I didn’t do well on the second run, I would still place high.
My routine on the second run was the same, but this time I thought when I placed my hands on the holds. Rather than relying on muscle memory, I knew that I would have to go as fast as possible off the start and that required my brain to be active. My final run from the beginning was amazing. Everything was going perfect including the big dyno which is the riskiest move of the whole route until the top. I had a slight slip on the very last move, which cost me at least a tenth of a second. Even with the slip, on the second run I ended up setting a new personal record of 8.59 seconds. It was a great way to finish Nationals.
Setting a PR at Nationals happened the year before, as well. In 2018 that PR was 10.26 seconds. In a year, I improved by over 1.5 seconds. Hundreds of hours of training went into reducing my time by that much.
I finished in fifth place which was a great improvement over my 15th place finish the prior year. Even though I missed fourth place by just four hundredths of a second, I was still elated about my achievement at Nationals. USA Climbing puts the top four climbers from Nationals on the US National Youth Team. That slight slip at the top had cost me a spot on the US Team, but nevertheless it was still my best run ever. This was the greatest achievement of my life to date. I’ve only been climbing for three years versus others who have climbed twice as long as me.
Despite not making the US National Team, my placement at Nationals qualified me for the Youth Pan American Games that were to take place in Ecuador in November. I was already thinking about my training for Pan Ams.
After my last run, I hugged my dad. He told me, “What an awesome birthday gift!” I suddenly realized that it was my birthday. I had not even thought about my birthday for that morning and afternoon. Fifth place at Nationals, new PR, and a bid to my first international competition on my birthday were definitely great gifts. To celebrate, we went to Dalessandro’s, a famous cheesesteak restaurant in Philadelphia, before flying home.
