Far Out Son of Lung...

Everything but...

...the girl.

I spoke to my girl friday on mutliple occassions throughout the weekend. I called her Monday morning in an attempt to wake her up (since she does same to me), but she didn't answer. She called me back later in the morning and left a lengthy message to eat up VM space and I intended to call her during the day but got busy training Tish & Martin. I returned her call when I got home and chatted briefly with her only because I had exceptional timing and called only seconds after she'd departed the plane and switched on her phone.

I figure I'll call her Thursday to wish her well on her last final exam, good fun at a society function and good luck in a race this weekend. With any luck I'll get to see her before Xmas/New Year vacations set in, but who knows. It may be '06 before any of this starts to get sorted out any more clearly in my mind than the present state of muddy fog.



I went back to Stoneworks last night for some more bouldering and traversing. I'm not doing any true routes yet, primarily because they require me to use power in both feet and I'm not quite to that point yet with the right. I had a couple more offers to go vertical but still declined as I just want to gain some confidence and make certain I don't take 45 minutes to go 25 feet on a 120 foot climb... I'm headed back on Thursday and should have some company, which means I'll be going up instead of just around. It'll help having someone there to stoke me into a roped climb, so I'm looking forward to it. That and it should be decent company, though we'll see if she's still flakey or if she's settled down some... belay that...

Just got an email from her and she's backing out. She's got a cold (as do many people) and won't be in any shape to climb tomorrow night. No worries, its almost expected at this point. I'll be there anyway, despite my big toe.

I got up this morning and noticed my big toe (right) was hurting again. I think my toe hurts because the nail is coming off. The nail is coming off because when I climb, I am packing my foot into a small shoe and putting so much energy onto that toe while climbing. I think the nail might have been a little long as well. Primarily though, my right foot is larger than my left, and I don't think this helps the situation, given the compact nature of my Phoenix climbing shoes.

This morning I trimmed the nail back a little and something gross happened. When I squeezed my toe, some rather foul smelling (i checked) fluid squeeked out from under my nail. I squeezed again and wiped up what little was there, but it was off-color and smelled a bit like very old sweat. Yeah, it was gross. Couple that with the yellow color of a brusied nail and the fact that it is only being held on my toe by the first third (by the cuticle) of the nail itself.

So I'm looking for some new climbing shoes. According to La Sportiva, your foot should fill the shoe and be snug, without any pain. When I was at Mountain Hideout trying on any of 14 different pairs of shoes, I found that a size 39.5 La Sportiva Katana fit my left foot very nicely, while a 40.5 Katana fit the right very nicely. The right foot will barely fit into a 39.5 and the left is ok in the 40.5...

The Katana, however, is not my ideal shoe. It is designed for bouldering and overhanging sport, but my primary function will likely be edging and smearing. As such, I need a less aggressive shoe with a flat grippy sole. I think. Reading up on all the different brands and things get tricky, so I'm just going to contact manufacturers directly and ask them for opinions. If there's one thing I can say about the climbing community, it seems like most folks are pretty laidback and honest.

posted by GreSam @ 10:34