#1: The goals
Day 1 of 31 days to 5.12: my quest to climb 5.12, eat uber-local, and just maybe find meaning
Sending Short Wave, 11b, at New Wave crag in Rumney, NH (August 1st, 2020)
So I’m doing an experiment. For the next 31 days (the month of August), the following four goals:
Red point 5.12 by August 31st
Eat only food that comes from my property
Write daily (stories published on Substack)
Jettison, for one month, my general aversion to documenting my life on social media
It started with the climbing goal. I’ve never come close to being able to lead 5.12, much less lead it clean. Part of that is because I feel I’ve never really dedicated myself. Last year I made huge progress in my climbing, though, pushing form leading 10s into leading low 11s. My highest red points to date are a smattering of 11b’s.
But 5.12 is the real goal. Why? I don’t know why. It’s arbitrary. Maybe in writing this, in doing the thing, the why will come.
As I was thinking about the climbing goal a few weeks ago, though, and the extra ten pounds I should probably lose to achieve it, my ambition started to grow. As it does.
I started thinking about my diet, and another idea that's been kicking around my head: eating uber-local, meaning only food grown from my own property here in Rumney. Maybe it’s COVID, maybe it’s a desire to become more self-sufficient, but I want to see if it’s possible, and how I will feel physically if I do it.
We have a vegetable garden out back, an herb garden in the front, a bunch of blackberry bushes, and two apple trees — but honestly we didn't plan any of our growing schedules around this. Later in the year is when the apples really get going, and when most of the garden veggies will come in.
But August is the month I've got, so August it is. Whatever comes out of our ground or falls off our trees, that's what I will eat. A few exceptions: black coffee, tea, and wine. Or, as Nassim Taleb might say, only drinks that humans have been drinking for more than a thousand years. Plus cooking oils, and the spices in our cabinet, neither of which I'm quite prepared to forgo just yet.
Finally, I figured I should commit myself to telling the story as I go. That means writing every day, here on Substack, and getting over, or at least burying for one month, my aversion to documenting my personal life on social media. I anticipate I'll rely heavily on Instagram stories, plus a few public Facebook updates. And this newsletter.
Maybe other climbers will get something out of it. My feeling for a while now has been that climbing content is too focused on the superstars, the competition, Adam Ondras, the Alex Honold’s, the first ascents, the extraordinary new achievements (though they are indeed extraordinary) — and too little attention is paid to… I don’t know. The rest of it, I suppose.
I don't know if any of this will work. It could all just turn in to a public, embarrassing failure. I could abandon the project midway, or decide I just really need some freakin' eggs and bacon. Or decide I’ve picked the wrong 5.12 and it’ll never send. Or I could get injured. Who knows? Regardless, even in failure there are lessons. Or perhaps particularly in failure.
That's it for now. I hope you follow along.