2011 NORTHWEST BOULDERFEST!

The 1st Annual Northwest Boulderfest commenced this past October 15th at the Seattle Bouldering Project. For those that don't know the SBP, it is billed as the world's largest bouldering gym but best of all, it is a mile from my house. They had a USAC local comp during the first session and then an adult comp for the next two sessions.

They let all ages compete in the Open categories so Sidney, Melina and Cierra climbed in the 2nd session with all the adults. It was a redpoint format with the top 10 going to Onsight Finals later that night. Having been to the 1st session to keep score, I had an idea what climbs Sidney should start on. Since I was scoring the first session, I wouldn't be able to talk to her until at least an hour and half into her session. I told her she should start on this nice 770 and then turned her loose. Well, when I saw her a long while later, she had a pleasant surprise for me. I looked at her card and her 1st 5 climbs were all over 800! I asked her why she didn't start on the 770 and she said it looked too easy so she went and found something else to start on. The session soon ended and we went and got some Thai food in the parking lot to wait for scores. When they posted, we saw that there were 18 women in the open category. Cierra finished 16th, Melina finished 14th and Sidney qualified for Finals in 5th place. All the girls were happy with how they climbed. I took Sid home to get some rest before Finals.

There were 4 problems in Finals and they were TOUGH! All ten ladies flashed the 1st problem. Sidney climbed well and used all of her reach to tie for the 3rd highest point on the 2nd problem. She ran into a bit of a reach issue on the 3rd problem but still finished middle of the pack on that one. She was pumped by the time she reached the 4th problem and tied with 2 other women for low point on that one. In the end, Sidney finished in 8th place but climbed really, really well overall. To illustrate how close all the climbers were, places 4th through 8th were all separated by one hold as the final scores were 57, 56, 55, 54 and 53. Every time Sidney makes a Final, she gains valuable experience and this one was no different. We talked about a couple mistakes she made and possibly limiting some of her attempts to save energy, so she will be a better climb for it. All in all, everyone had a great time. The gym is so big that the parents can watch all the climbers which is a rarity at most gyms. If you have a chance to watch a comp at the SBP, I highly recommend it. Thanks SBP for a fun comp!

Sidney flashing problem #1. (Photo courtesy of Justin Pettit)

Sidney using all of her reach to get past the volume on problem #2. (Photo courtesy of Justin Pettit)

WHAT DID ONE ROOSTER SAY TO THE OTHER?

The first comp of the ABS13 season is in a few days at the Seattle Bouldering Project and Sidney is excited to start climbing. Until then, here is a picture I love of Sidney and Melina at Archie McPhee's in Wallingford. Can you tell who is who?

The girls LOVE Archie McPhee's!! (Photo courtesy of me)

2ND ANNUAL TACOMA THROWDOWN!!

All right. The 2011/2012 climbing season has begun! I'm really hoping to keep the kids' blogs up to date this year so I can avoid having to write a huge end of the year re-cap of everything that happened. So, here's hoping this is the first of many entries this year.

I'm going to start by saying that I cannot believe that Sidney is starting her 5th year of competitive climbing already. It has just flown by. The reality check is that she has 7 more years of eligibility in youth climbing if she continues to do it.

So, in our region, the first USAC comp is still a month away but last Saturday was the 2nd Annual Tacoma Throwdown at the Tacoma Vertical Club. Sid competed in the Open category. I was not there for most of the session but showed up during the last hour to do the scoring. By that time, Sidney said she was maxed out and wanted to be done. We did our little dance and in the end she kept climbing and snagged her highest climb of the comp on her last eligible try. It turned out that she really needed it because she came in 3rd place and won $150 but only edged out 4th place by 10 points! Let that be a lesson to all you climbers out there. If you have time, there is always the possibility to improve your score. Not giving up was the difference between winning $150 and nothing. Pretty much what separated the top 4 women climbers was 1 route. That's all that separated them, so it was very close. Sid was stoked to win some dough but more importantly, she learned a valuable lesson about competing. Oh, I forgot that she loved her HUGE check, too. It was a great day all around.

(Photo courtesy of Tacoma Vertical Club)

2011 USAC CLIMBING SEASON REVIEW.

It's been 6 months since our last post but we're back!  Sidney just recently ended the 2011 climbing season on a very good note so let's review what happened this past year. 

This season, after 3 years, Sidney finally aged out of the "D" category and was a 1st year "C".  This year had the potential to knock her around a bit since she would be competing against older girls again.  She more than held her own and was really happy with her season.

Bouldering - Sidney climbed in two locals (Vertical World and Edgeworks) and finished in 1st place in both.  We also went on a road trip with some Bellingham YMCA friends to the FGDX comp in Bozeman, Montana.  We had a blast! Sidney competed in the Open category and after the Redpoint round was in 1st place going into Finals.  Climbing against Idaho and Montana's finest, she made a mental mistake but still rebounded to finish in 2nd place and win $100!  She was stoked but more importantly, she gained a lot of experience climbing in front of a big crowd.  It definitely helped her when she climbed, two weeks later, in the biggest bouldering comp in our area, the Seattle Bouldering Challenge.  Climbing in the Open category again, after the Redpoint round, she snagged the last Finals spot in 11th place.  In front of a huge crowd, she climbed great and moved up 3 spots to finish in 8th place.  An awesome showing for an 11 year old girl!  Regionals was at Tacoma VW and Sidney crushed at the comp.  She was the only "C" climber, boy or girl, to make all 6 routes (3 Qualifiers, 3 Finals) on the day!  Nationals was in Boulder, Colorado. She had a hiccup on a slab route during qualifiers that made her mad but she was still tied for 6th going into Semifinals. She then made a sequencing mistake on the 2nd Semifinal route that cost her after all was said and done. Still, she qualified for Finals in 5th place and had the highest score on the 3rd (and final) route. She climbed great in Finals and tied for the 3rd highest total of the day but it was not enough to bump her ahead of Grace Kane for 4th place and the final U.S. Team spot. The difference was by less than a point which shows how close these comps get at the National level. Sidney was really bummed but I think it made her work harder in getting ready for the Sport and Speed climbing seasons. Of the top 6 placings, 4 were 2nd year "C" girls so Grace and Sidney had terrific showings!

Sport & Speed - Sidney climbed in two locals (Stoneworks and Edgeworks) and finished in 1st place in both. We loved our Bouldering road trip so much, the same group went to the Scendfest comp in Boise, Idaho. We again had a great time! Sidney competed in the Open category and was first by a wide margin after the Redpoint round. What was cool was that she was able to climb on all of the lead routes. She proceeded to flash the 2nd and 4th through 11th highest rated climbs. It was amazing how well she climbed. My favorite story from that comp is when she came down from flashing the 2nd highest rated climb. While she was untying, one of the older team members from the gym came up to her, shook her hand and said with much enthusiasm, "Thank you for climbing at my gym!" That was a nice moment. We thought the comp was over but they had the same format as the Bozeman comp and Sidney was first going into Finals. She crushed both Finals routes and won $150 for first place! Bonus! Regionals was at Clubsport and Sidney climbed well. On Qualifier 2, she fell on the 2nd to last hold and that ended up being the difference between 1st and 2nd place. Cierra Graham, Melina Costanza and Sidney all flashed the Final route so Sidney placed 2nd to Melina after countbacks to Qualifiers. Not counting National events, that broke Sidney's impressive string of 21 first place finishes in a row at USAC events (Locals, Regionals & Divisionals) in all 3 disciplines. Great job Melina! If someone was going to break that string, she would have wanted it to be her best friend. We didn't have to go to Divisionals so we stayed home and saved some money. Melina and Cierra finished 1st and 2nd, respectively. Way to represent the PNW! Nationals was again in Atlanta, Georgia. In Speed, Sidney's Qualifier time of 7.28 seconds was the 2nd fastest time behind Grace Mckeehan. In Semifinals, her time of 6.77 seconds was again the 2nd fastest but this time she was behind Margarita Marsanova. In Finals, Sidney was in the last pairing so she had the advantage of seeing all the times in front of her and would know what she would have to beat. In the pairing before her, Bethany Eversole put up the fastest time of the comp up to that point with a time of 6.40 seconds. On Sidney's first run, she beat Margarita up the wall with a time of 6.41 seconds. She still had another run but would she miss out on 1st place by .01 seconds?! On her 2nd run, she put it all together and beat Margarita up the wall with a very fast looking run. It took 3 or 4 agonizing seconds before her time flashed on the timer.......6.35 seconds!! Her 2nd Speed National Championship in a row and she was ecstatic! It was high drama and VERY exciting to watch. In Sport, Sidney flashed Q1 and Q2 along with 6 other girls. In Semifinals, she was cruising but fell 2 holds from the top when her foot popped, putting her in 3rd place going into Finals. Afterward, she said she was pumped but felt she should have made the route still. In Finals, Sidney was happy to see they were going to be on the roof! She loves roof routes and climbs them exceptionally well. She crushed the route and tied for high point with Margo Hayes. Not flashing the Semifinal route cost her a chance to do a Super-Final with Margo for the National Championship. In the end, she finished in 3rd place by the slimmest of margins and made U.S. Team. It was a great finish to her first year as a "C" climber. A 5th, 3rd and 1st in all three disciplines at Nationals is a great year. Congrats Sidney!

ABS 12 REGIONALS.

ABS 12 Regionals was a couple of weeks ago at the Vertical Club of Tacoma.  That's code for the Tacoma Vertical World bouldering gym.  It was a very hectic day as close to 170 climbers participated at the Regional.  There were 20 girls in Sidney's category alone.  Sidney climbed extremely well, finishing first in her category (12-13 year old females-FYC).  The boys and girls for that age group climbed the exact same routes and Sidney was the only climber, out of 42, to finish all 6 climbs (3 qualifier and 3 final routes).  She had one fall on the #2 Final route and flashed the other 5.  Two of Sidney's best friends on the team also placed well in the same category.  Melina Costanza finished in 2nd place and Cierra Graham finished in 4th place.  All three received invites to ABS 12 Nationals and will be competing in Boulder, Colorado in 3 weeks time.  For those that would like to see some of the aforementioned climbs, please visit our youTube channel at the following link, http://www.youtube.com/user/Chasesidney13

BORN CLIMBER.

(Originally posted at chasesidney.blogspot.com.)


Summer Rock Camp 2007 - Everett VW

 Even though Chase was a butterball until he was 1 1/2, he did start walking at 10 1/2 months old. Sidney showed how competitive she was at an early age by walking when she was 8 1/2 months old. When Chase was 7 and Sidney was 5, they would climb on top of playgrounds as high as 8 or 9 feet and jump into my arms. That freaked out quite a few parents. It was Sidney climbing all over the playground with ease that got us to check out the Little Rockers program at the Redmond Vertical World. Chase initially did not show any interest in climbing, he just wanted to skateboard. So we enrolled Sidney in the program and after the first class the instructors, Josie and none other than B-Hops, said she was already good enough to climb for the team. That definitely gave Sidney an ego boost and she was hooked. She would climb in Little Rockers off and on for a while but we pretty much stuck to skateparking. When she was 8, Vertical World opened up in Everett and it became feasible for her to climb more often. We put her in a summer rock camp there and after the first day, Joe, the manager at the time, introduced himself and said he really wanted her to climb team. Of course, Sidney was excited and it was all she could talk about. I contacted the coach, Tyson, and he said he would love for her to come and try out. I brought her down, dropped her off and left until the end of practice. When I came back, I asked Tyson if she was good enough to climb with the team. He smiled and said she was good enough and that he would love to have her on the team. I think he was pleasantly surprised. At that time, there were only a couple of climbers her age on the team. It's not like it is now where it seems like half the team is 11 or younger. Sidney was ecstatic and a climber was born. Chase would take a little while longer to come around.





Summer Rock Camp 2007 - Everett VW



Summer Rock Camp 2007 - Exit 38















  









FIRST POST ON THE NEW BLOG!

Since Chase no longer climbs, I decided to create another blog just for Sidney and her climbing exploits.  The Extreme Kids blog will now mainly be about our skate park adventures.  Hopefully, someday, Sidney will take over this blog and write about herself so I won't have to.

Let's start with how Sidney came to be called Lil' Sid.  When Sidney first joined the VW team, her coach in Everett was Sydney McNair.  On the team was a Junior climber named Kayla Erickson, who also coached a team at the YMCA in Bellingham.  She had a girl on her team named Kayla who was the same age as Sidney and the two would hang out at comps together.  To put it bluntly, both Sy(i)dneys are Asian and are powerful climbers.  Both Kaylas are Caucasian and tall, long climbers.  After a while, everyone just started calling the older ladies the "Bigs" and the younger ladies the "Littles."  Now, "Little Sidney" has just been shortened to "Lil' Sid" and that's what people who knew her when she started climbing call her now. 


One of their first (of many) pictures together. (Photo courtesy of Big Kayla)

Of course both girls are in "C" now and are not little compared to all the younger girls running around at the comps but they will always be Lil' Sid and Little Kayla to a lot of people.  Heck, I still call the older ones Big Syd and Big Kayla to this day!

More to come soon!