Pre-Nationals training is extremely important to doing well during youth Nationals. It helps with building your strength, refining your beta, and improving your consistency during competition runs. In 2018, I went to the Team Texas pre-nationals training camp in Salt Lake City, Utah, and it helped me improve my times by over a second. The coaching and interaction with other climbers was tremendous. Without a pre-nationals training camp you would be severely behind all of your competitors.
I decided to train in Dallas since Team Texas decided to hold their training camp in Austria, and I had too many other commitments to go to Europe. Unfortunately, the brand new state-of-the-art Summit Plano gym was not open yet in early June, so I decided to train at Summit Grapevine. While Grapevine only had a 10 meter wall, it worked out well for the first two weeks, but the speed holds got taken down to get put up at Plano, so there was a day or two where I could not train. Luckily, I was able to get into Plano not long after that so it worked out, though, it was stressful and I worried about getting on the wall.
I worked with one of my Team Texas coaches, Merritt Ernsberger, who helped me perfect my beta. We made a schedule that worked despite all the challenges. For the first week I could get into Summit Plano, I could only get in during the evenings, so I did not get in the way of the construction workers finishing the building. I also had to build strength inside the gym, but I had a computer class going on for 8 hours a day and a Human Geography class going on for two hours every other day.
Additionally, during Divisionals I jumped onto an uneven part of carpet for part of my warm-up. This resulted in my right leg getting a major calf-strain, which kept me off the speed wall for a little over a week. I was still able to do upper body workouts, but I needed to get on the speed wall to practice my beta and consistency. With only two weeks before Nationals, I also got a cold, which luckily only lasted for two days.
Most of my competitors were extremely strong but did not have the optimal beta and were not that smooth on the wall. My strategy for training was to do some strength training and a lot of consistency practicing and perfecting my beta. While not advised, I climbed for eight days straight in order to make my beta flawless. My coach wanted me to take a rest day after the third day, but I was determined to make up for the lost time and perfect my beta.
Speed climbing is a balance between unbridled speed and being controlled and consistent. If you are not fast enough, you can’t make it to the final round, but if you do not complete any runs with a competitive time, you won’t make it on either.
Training camp helped improve my times and my consistency tremendously. There were many struggles along the way, but ultimately it worked out well. I could not have done as well at Nationals without all the help I got from the training camp and Coach Merritt.