As of about 6:30 am this morning, we finally arrived at the new house! We currently in the process of settling in and fighting over beds. This place is HUGE, and just when you think you’ve found everything, there’s an extra room, or a hot tub, or even another kitchen upstairs because WHY NOT.
I’m not sure yet what the plan for today is – I’ve heard talk of either climbing or sleeping today? Stay tuned for a longer post tonight!
Niko: Alright, well. Let’s start off with the most arduous part of the day: getting out of bed. My throat was pretty dead, my nose was really stuffed up, and I wanted to die.
Kyle: Remember to talk about how baller you did on that white route. Because there’s nothing better than taking a giant whipper with a tiny little girl belaying you.
Lolo: I had a change of heart. I still hate the blog though. We started off the day with a nice sesh at Sandy. It was really hard and all of our skin broke. That’s it. That’s just…publish the blog now.
Claire: Thanks…
Lolo: You’re welcome. Let’s just have a conversation between us and that’s the blog.
Claire: Okay. What happened next?
Lolo: Niko took a sick whip on the top of the sweet 13b! (insert Niko now)
Niko: Ehhheeh. Uhh yeah. Pretty pissed at myself that I didn’t send it, but Coach Kyle says I’m a freakin awesome baller so…unlike every woman ever ha!
Lolo: That;s the route I hurt my boob on! Put that. Hickey route. Tricky hickey.
Niko: (currently playing with banana) Daaaamn. So we started off the second session with a competition. We miss you guys byeeeeeeeee
Coach Ellis -Ps. Lolo is a complete nincompoop??? Is that how you spell it?? It probably doesn’t matter. Today was incredible. I can’t tell you how proud of all the kids I am and the way they trained and competed today. We are ready for nationals like whoa!!!!!!!!!
Niko: By the way Nathan young just got a THE Claire Buhrfeind signature on his forehead.
Nathan – “I am never washing my head again!”
Coach Ellis- Well apparently I have to finish the blog soooooooo. Just to reiterate, today was awesome.
We did two sessions today, half the kids at Sandy in the morning and the Speed priority kids at Mill Creek. Speed kids did another comp and worked on nailing down their B Team times for qualifiers. Everyone is wrecked from being three days on and completely ready for the last rest day tomorrow. The Sandy group did a couple of combination routes, working on battling on the wall on HARD routes.
After a quick lunch back at the house we all headed back to Mill Creek for yet another competition. Everyone had a one route challenge with as many as five stars on the line if they sent the route they were challenged with. LOTS OF STARS HAPPENED. MUCH CRUSHING OCCURRED. It was wonderous. Claire got an INSANE speed climbing PR of 9.28!!!! Jessica obliterated every route we gave her. Mattie and Atlantic onsighted a real talk 5.12d……
TZ- Something positiiiiivvveeee……hmmmm. That’s a tough one. I ate a pop tart for breakfast….thats a good one. And. Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I ran a mile! And didn’t feel super dead. I speed climbed. I sport climbed a decent sport climb! Yup. That’s about it. Ohhh!!!! I ate a cookie after dinner. I ATE A COOKIE AFTER DINNER. Put that in all caps, it was super good. That’s good.
So that’s about it for tonight. We are thinking about going to the movies tomorrow and maybe creating some more family game night shenanigans to entertain us. Until then!!!
-Coachella
Today we rock climbed! Shocking I’m sure. Here’s Nerr with some words from today, this is literally exactly what she said to me. Here you go:
Nerr- We slept in. I’m gonna give you my whole day in detail. Kyle went to the store and bought the wrong plastic bags. We all made our lunches blah blah blah blah. We went to the gym and did the speed stuff. We got our competition on and we all tried super hard. Right? did that happen? Stevie Stan! Stan Stan Stan! Didn’t your speeder people speed?
Stan- Yea, keep the speeds.
Nerr- And then, kyle took a group of people….should I try to name all the people? All right so there was- Ellery, sokwon, katie, lolo, john brock, uuummmmm, there’s more. Michael did it with us. CLAIRE went up with us. And the little kids did there work out. We did the works.
Jessica- Ellis how long do blisters usually stay in Skin?
Nerr- That will take a good long time to heal. Anyways. We cut the workout short so we could do the ropes. Uhhhh. The ropes were soooooo difficult. alright Ill describe what we did. We did three routes. All those routes twice. And. The first time we did it super super fast. fast as we could. and then the second time we went slow and steady and just tried to send it. All of the sporters did that. Everyone did that. All of us battled really hard on that. THEN we went back upstairs and did and AB workout. Izzo got video of it all, its gonna be frickin LIT!
Alright thats all for the climbing. Then we went back to the house, like J chilled. People watched videos. Alot of the kids and people went to play ultimate. We got back from that, tired and exhausted. Then we went to the dinner, at the food trucks, it was pretty lit! Alright so we had, a good korean barbecue, falafel, a taco stand, and the cute little burger place. And there was a snow cone place and we all got snow cones. Dinner was lit, it was pretty fun.
Tell them we played a family card games, was that it? It was like a card game with seven major events. Should we talk about that tomorrow or what? Should that be on tomorrow blog. So we just finished with our charades/ family time and we are wrapping up the day. Everyone is tried and everyone is taking showers. And ellery is waiting to take a shower, and Ellis is writing everything she says and that is lit. And everyone is tuckered out, and everyone is ready. wait. and everyone is ready to climb. and. wait. our skin is all dead. the little kids are downstairs in their basement. im pretty sure everyone is asleep cause we are tired. and. what happened next. that was the day! it was a good day. close quote. uuhhmm. yea. guest blogger out. tell them I love them all. Ohh and say Nico gives a shout out.
Nic0- Its with a freakin K!! NOOOOOOO spell it with a K! I hate you.
-Coach Ellis
Izzo made a quick video from our trip to Bloods Lake yesterday. More words to come tomorrow! Enjoy!
Rest day number two! We have crossed the one week mark in our training camp here in Salt Lake, and next week marks the start of a new phase as we buckle down for more Nationals preparation.
The day began with Breezy spearheading an amazing pancake breakfast complete with blueberries, bananas, chocolate chips, strawberries and more. Matt, Sophie, Maya and I ate quickly and loaded up into the rental car to go check out The Front Climbing Club for Maya’s last day of climbing. The Front expanded their Salt Lake location last year and opened an amazing new facility boasting the tallest walls in the country- topping out at 70 feet!! Needless to say we got pumped silly. Maya and Sophie both onsighted two 5.12c’s while Matt and I struggled to climb a few 5.11’s to warm up and figure out how to be rock climbers again. Maya finished out her day by onsighting a 5.13- on the main wall, making sure to turn and point back at me as she grabbed the finish jug to clip the chains (I fell going to the finish hold on my onsight go 5 minutes earlier…classic me).
Kyle and the rest of the crew then met up with us and we made the journey up to Park City to do some vehicle swapping in order to get Maya to the airport on time (I forgot Maya’s bag in the rental car which Stan borrowed earlier…I was on a roll today apparently). We all said our tearful goodbyes to Maya, many kids wrote her notes to take home and wished her well in the week before Nationals without us around.
Kyle and Maya departed for the airport while the rest of us headed further up the canyon to Bloods Lake, an area that Claire knew about from last year and suggested we check out. The drive and the hike to the lake was nothing short of incredible! The lake sits just about 10,000 feet in elevation and we were certainly feeling the effects of the altitude. As we hike down the hill to the lake, little by little we noticed something…more and more mosquitoes. At first it seemed manageable, but by the time we reached the lake itself we were completely swarmed. It was truly unreal and unlike anything I have every experienced before- standing still for more than a second at a time you could find dozens and dozens of huge mosquitos all over your body, relentlessly attacking from all angles. Many of the kids immediately donned swimsuits and ran for the rope swing on the far end of the lake, seeking solace from the seemingly never ending onslaught of blood suckers. After a few flips and shenanigans, we hightailed it out of there as fast as we could- taking a few moments for selfies and group shots silhouetted by the amazing backdrop of the mountains.
Back at the house we met up with Kyle for a brief game of ultimate before dinner and grocery shopping for the coming days. The kids scattered about for dinner and to buy items for tomorrows note day rituals. Many Hawaiian shirts were purchased…not totally sure where they are going with that but I’m sure I’ll find out soon enough.
Exhausted and fed, we rolled back into the house to pack the groceries up and frantically scribble our notes before the ever hastening call of lights out was announced. Back to the grind tomorrow. Until then,
-Coach Ellis
Hooray for extra sleep!! This morning we awoke later than normal and went to the farmers market before an afternoon session at Millcreek.
Downstairs at breakfast, Kyle facetimed with Roman to ask him about the lesson plans…specifically whether or not our skin would be completely wrecked after today’s climbing. Roughly translated by Kyle, Roman replied with “sucks to suck.” Upon hearing this, we knew we were in for a tough day.
After breakfast, we packed up the vans and headed to the farmers market. Purchases included: Mint limeade, candied nuts, tie dye shirts, pastries, sandwiches, cherries, and avocado toast. Everyone enjoyed walking around in the sun (aka getting sunburned) and watching Eric, Theo, Nick, and Lolo attempt to join a weird dance circle…Not really sure what was going on there.
Later, we headed home to get our climbing gear. But not before Matt dropped the van keys into a grate at the gas station…Nice one bro! Thankfully we had a spare (which we found out just after Ellis had stuck his arm into the gross black slime).
Anyways, we finally got to the gym. Despite being three days on and super tired, everyone was excited to work hard for their groups. We all started out by warming up and getting a couple times on the speed wall. Afterwards, the speed priority kids stayed on the speed wall to run more laps before moving on to a workout upstairs. The sport priority kids, however, went to the lead wall and each climbed several routes one-footed/up-down-up. We got SO MANY STARS!
Also, special shoutout to Maya for being an awesome climbing partner and getting me excited to onsight routes with her even when I was dying of exhaustion. You rock.
Brinner at Hub & Spokes came next. Lost of chicken and waffles, biscuit sandwiches, and pound cake french toast was consumed by our group…In fact, we ordered so many waffles that the restaurant broke their waffle iron.
Now we are back at the house and getting ready to sleep in (again!!! yay!)
Until tomorrow,
-Claire
Hey y’all! Grace here. This morning we woke up at 8 o’clock to begin our usual morning routine of making breakfast, hanging out, and packing lunches for ourselves and the occasional guide who asks (or tells) us to make their lunch for them. Before we left to go to the gym, Kyle called in a team meeting to talk about the big changes happening to our team for the coming year. The meeting brought up some questions, heavy hearts, and added a little gloom to the day, but don’t worry, we still had a great day of rock climbing.
After our team meeting, we loaded into the vans to head to Sandy and Millcreek. The sport priority kids climbed at Millcreek to onsignt some new routes and get some stars while the speed priority kids went to Millcreek and met Stan and get some speed runs in. Because of our heavy training day yesterday and terrible body soreness today, there was minimal progress on the speed wall, but the kids at Sandy were able to score a few stars and have fun on the new routes.
After our first session, we returned back to the house to eat lunch and rest before going back to the gym for second session. Koen ate a cinnamon raisin bagel covered with blueberry cream cheese and, most importantly, pieces of cheddar cheese for lunch. Don’t worry, everyone else enjoyed a typical lunch of sandwiches, chips, pretzels, and some quesadillas and grilled cheeses (thanks to Katie, Lolo, and Claire). Michael caught up on his third investing book of the summer and John, unfortunately, did not have an apple core thrown at him. To end our lunch break, we went outside to load up the vans for our second session. Some of the sport priority kids went to Millcreek with some of the speed kids to practice speed. Sophie, Ellery, Lolo, Ashton, Emerson, Eric, John Brock, Gentry, 2 Chainz, and Chad loaded up into the Millcreek Van while everyone else went to Sandy to onsignt some more routes. There were many PRs at Millcreek, also Eric ran 7 miles. At Sandy, Madhag had her first 5.13a flash and Claire onsigted a super hard 5.13c. After battling up about 45 feet, Bob Dylan fell at the last move of a 5.12d and his tears showed just how much he cared about making it to the top. You still killed it buddy! Merritt faced a challenge of climbing up a crack climb and made it almost all the way to the top. It was a true battle, he even got some battle scrapes along the way. It was real. My favorite part of the day was when Karen yelled “take” at the top of her route and Claire thought I said take because I was climbing next to Karen, so she pulled up all the slack when she was still on the wall. It’s okay though. It was all cool. About 100 stars later, we all loaded up into the vans to go to a delicious dinner.
PR’S!
Ashton- 13.4, 12.8
Sophie- 13.66
Lolo- 10.49
Gentry- 7.45?
Katie- 12.59
The best part of Ashton’s day was how hard she laughed when we got to dinner and realized that we had left John Brosler at the climbing gym. Poor John. We split up in groups and ate Whole Foods, burgers, pizzas, and Vietnamese food. The best part of Claire’s day was when she split fried bananas and ice cream with Niko and Grace (they were delicious).
Once we got home, we started chores with our dish groups. Grace’s group cleaned out the vans, Claire’s group ran and flaked the ropes, Gentry’s group cleaned the kitchen, and Niko’s group washed the dishes and put them in the dishwasher. Now we’re chillin out, writin the blog, watchin some reel rock climbing vids, and getting ready for a great day tomorrow!!!
-Grace
We started off the day earlier than usual…but Matt woke us up so it wasn’t too bad. After making a quick breakfast and packing our lunches, we were off to Momentum Lehi (a bouldering gym). Once we were warmed up, we had 30 minutes to climb 3 boulder problems in order to get stars for our junior guide groups. Later we did stations: abs with Kyle, circuit wall with Ellis, strength training with Matt, system wall with Stan, campusing boulder problems, and sessioning.
After the first round of training, it was time for lunch (and apple core throwing) back at the house. 2 chainz started a game which John LOVES which basically goes like this: when you finish your apple, you say “apple core,” someone responds with “Baltimore!” You then ask “Who’s your friend?” And the other person gets to choose who you throw your apple core at. Our answer is always John Brosler, of course. (We do it out of love, bud.)
Our second session of the day was back at Millcreek. The speed kids ran laps with Stan and did a cardio workout at the end. Meanwhile, the sport kids challenged themselves on onsight routes beyond their typical grade ranges.
Even with limited time, Beans managed a new personal record of 13.something seconds on the speed wall AND flashed a 5.12d!! Nice, Beans!
Dinner was delicious tonight thanks to Matt, Grace, John, Niko, Emerson, Ellery, Maya, and Melo. Spaghetti with marinara or pesto and grilled chicken…yum! And to top it off we had ice pops for dessert. Thanks for another great meal, y’all!
Now that we’ve finished our chores and our movie, it’s time for bed…
Until tomorrow,
-Claire
ALSO: We have a ton of climbing pics to post and I will work on getting those up tomorrow. Stay tuned!
on the road with team texas 