8a is the equivalent to.....

From The Usual Suspect

I had an interesting chat with a friend of mine while on the road recently. He was of the opinion that 8a-5.13b-29 is the equivalent of running a 3-hour marathon. I.e. that the amount of effort it would require to prepare and train to run a marathon in under 3 hours is the equivalent to the amount of preparation required to climb an 8a. It's an interesting comparison and something that non-climbers could potentially relate to.
We don't really like to think of climbing as a sport in the same sense but I thought it was an interesting comparison. Climbing of course can have a lot of variables that might have to be accounted for either (say, different rock types, angle, etc.) that runners don't have deal with - although some runs might take place on my hilly terrain.

Honestly, I'm not sure if the grade is exactly right (haven't run a 3-hour marathon either so can't compare :) but I wonder what other people think?
And what's, say, 7a-5.11c/d-23 equivalent to ?

All ideas welcome below


Image Credit: myself training on Metolius fingerboard in my folk's house in 2007. Proof that training and preparation works!

An inspiring event

Every once in a while you hear a truly amazing story. See the picture above? It's from the Open Panel discussion at the FivePoint Film Festival held in Carbondale, Colorado that I was lucky enough to visit. It's an amazing collection of people.
Starting from the right:
Lynn Hill - first ascent of the Nose in Yosemite and general all-round super climber. Of course, I arranged to get a book with her autograph on it :)
Irene Beardsley - first American female ascent of Annapurna and still after over 50 years
Kelly Perkins - heart transplant recipient who is now climbing. Amazing
Sari Anderson - Team Nike Adventure Racer
and the woman on the left, Amanda Boxtel, who suffered paralysis from a skiing accident 17 years ago and is learning to walk again. Through the absolute wonder of stem-cell research, she is now regaining control of her legs again. What a phenomenal and game-changing medical breakthrough. She has to fly to India currently as it's not officially run in the States yet but after seeing the video footage of her walking again, it's truly amazing. She still has a long road ahead of her to full normality but considering that she still rides a mono-ski and openly uses her fantastic personality to promote and support other charities, you could only be inspired.

As it happened, it was an interesting discussion and a very interesting insight into the minds of some truly exceptional people. I have no idea who was more inspiring but I know I left with a lot of insightful ideas.

Cool site for hooking up with other climbers: climbfind.com

An old traveling friend of mine started up a cool new website for hooking up with other climbers. They're just after starting a road-trip to promote the site across the USA and Canada and this is their first video post - I can expect it's going to be pretty funny/good :)

Anyway, check out www.climbfind.com (covers Ireland, UK, Canada and USA). As always free sign-up to the website and it's simple to use!