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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.apadventures.net\/images\/sentWheaties\/1.jpg\")
<\/a>\nBetter Eat Your Wheaties<\/em>. Done.<\/center><\/p>\n
Last Thursday may perhaps hold the most memorable send of all time for me. I finally (FINALLY!) completed a boulder problem I’d been dreaming about doing for a long, long, very long time: Better Eat Your Wheaties, v8<\/em>. This is one of those climbs, maybe the only climb come to think of it, that I vividly remember walking up to for the very first time. I suppose most climbers have one of those moments at least once. First thought: What is THAT climb? Immediately followed by second thought: How hard is it? (Not because harder is better but because it’s nice to know if it’s in the immediate realm of possibility).<\/p>\n At the time that I first laid eyes on Wheaties<\/em> it was not in the realm of possibility for me. It wasn’t even close. I was barely making my way to the top of v4’s and 5’s with a lot of work. Wheaties<\/em> was a dream climb. A “someday” sorta climb. A “if I send this one I’ll be satisfied for life and will quit climbing and move back east” kinda climb. I’m pretty certain that on that first day I was standing there gawking at it I really believed it was a climb I’d never do because it was too hard. That day was November 20th, 2004. I know this because I’m an obsessive climbing nerd and keep a climbing journal.<\/p>\n One year later, climbing not much harder than v4’s and 5’s, I got on it for the very first time. It was a moonlight tour with Paul, our friend Grit from Germany, Tammy and Vince, and Sam and Ana. I remember Ana running up it and then insisting that Tammy and I give it a try. So we did. And we got our asses handed to us on that incredibly hard first move. <\/p>\n Two years after that (now the fall of 2007), a bit stronger and bit smarter on how to train, I went back to it to see how hard it felt. Four days on it over the course of four months and my assessment remained the same: yep, still too hard.<\/p>\n Then came our big trip in 2008 to Rocklands, South Africa where I sent my first v8, Minki<\/em>. At this point I had a nice base of quality v6’s from a variety of crags and even a few 7’s. Now we’re talkin! But, before I could get back to Wheaties<\/em>, along came Silas. I’ll take Silas over Wheaties<\/em> any day.<\/p>\n Now it’s the Spring of 2011, with Silas toddling around under the boulders and me training like a madwoman to get back in shape ASAP. I stick the first move of Wheaties<\/em> for the very first time. This is HUGE! The climb has now been unlocked and I start working it in earnest. But alas, summer comes too soon and it gets hot. And then but whom should come along after that: Ivan. And I’ll take Ivan over Wheaties<\/em> any day.<\/p>\n Fast forward past all the getting back in shape again and it’s now the fall of 2013. I’m finally able to stick that first move again. Game on. I quickly start linking pieces of it together over the course of a few weeks and by December am giving it full-on sending go’s. I was truly convinced I could pull it off before the holidays. I was wrong<\/a>. On our final day there before heading east for 3 weeks to lounge and gorge over the holidays, I fell off the last move. <\/p>\n So here we are now at the end of my Better Eat Your Wheaties<\/em> journey. Nine years, 34 days of effort, 2 babies and a whole lotta late-night training later, I pull on and…<\/p>\n effortlessly…stick…every…single…move. A climb that had been so impossibly hard for so long now felt easy.<\/p>\n Pulling over the top of the boulder I was positively beaming. I could faintly hear Paul’s and a handful of other dude’s whoops and hollers below and may have uttered a little “wooo!” of my own. Standing up I almost got emotional as tears welled up in my eyes. But then I remembered the handful of dudes below, quickly composed myself, climbed down, and hi-fived the crowd. Wheaties<\/em> is mine.<\/p>\n posted by arr<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Better Eat Your Wheaties. Done. Last Thursday may perhaps hold the most memorable send of all time for me. I finally (FINALLY!) completed a boulder problem I’d been dreaming about doing for a long, long, very long time: Better Eat Your Wheaties, v8. This is one of those climbs, maybe the only climb come to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,19],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apadventures.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1642"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apadventures.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apadventures.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apadventures.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apadventures.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1642"}],"version-history":[{"count":54,"href":"https:\/\/www.apadventures.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1696,"href":"https:\/\/www.apadventures.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1642\/revisions\/1696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apadventures.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apadventures.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apadventures.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nCheers!<\/center><\/p>\n