Birthday Challenge: 230 boulder problems at age 23

While I'm posting here, medicine I figured I would recount my 23rd birthday celebration from May 15, 2006 to inspire you all to continue the tradition. By the way, I'm turning 25 this May, and I plan to come up with a challenge. See www.birthdaychallenge.com for inspiration for your own challenge. Since San Diego is devoid of any highly-concentrated, high-quality bouldering, I had to make do with a day at Santee boulders.

With Adam Kimmerly as my cheerleader, expert route finder, and route counter, I started the day at 8 am on Carousel boulder. When I did the math, I realized it would take far too long/not have enough boulder problems to complete this challenge unless I counted downclimbing and repetitions of same problems. I know it sounds lame to include downclimbs, but 230 boulder problems is a fucking lot of climbing (230 x 10 ft = 2,300 feet of climbing in a day). I think I did some climbs more than 10 times, and with adam's help did some climbs I'd never done before. They were all kinda a blur after about 2 hrs, and fear of falling melted into pure drive to complete the challenge. Even pain from pulling tiny crimps, and wearing cramped shoes, disappeared as the repetitive process wore on. After about 8 hrs of constant climbing (truly...I was in motion whenever I wasn't stopping to drink the gallon of water I brought with me) I had finally finished. Very nearly ready to pass out, we went to get burritos in celebration. I think I was mostly dehydrated, but anyway I was out of it. Orange soda never tasted so good.

Next time I do a birthday challenge, I'm definitely bringing a camera. Maybe next time I'll go to Bishop for my birthday challenge...so that I don't have to do the same polished granite climbs 10 times in a row. It'd be pretty easy to find 250 boulder problems in bishop...