Paige’s Project, Odin’s Eye

The route that Paige wants to do is a super steep climb called Odin’s Eye (or Eye of Odin), which is just down the hill from Adam’s current project, possibly a 5.15d.

Here’s Ethan Pringle, Dani Andrada, and Magnus Mitdbo vying for the FA of Odin’s Eye.

Paige Training for Flatanger

Paige Claassen Flatanger Interview Details

I’ll be sitting down with Paige a few times during my 3-week stay here to document her training and her progress on her project. This is the first interview, where we talked about how she’s been preparing for this trip, why she chose this place of all places, and her first impressions of the climbing (spoiler alert: it’s amazing here).

• How she trained for overhanging climbing
• How she worked on her toe-hooking weakness
• The advice she got from Joe Kinder about training for Flatanger
• Her ankle injury that had her out for half the year
• What she’s been climbing on the past few years
• What it’s like living in South Africa

Paige Claassen Links

• My first interview in 2013 with Paige about Lead Now
• Paige’s Rock Climbing Website: www.paigeclaassen.com
• Paige’s non-profit Southern Africa Education Fund: www.saeducationfund.org that helps kids receive the education necessary to lift themselves and their families out of poverty

Pledge Your Birthday

If you want to help provide school supplies and clothing to impoverished school kids in South Africa, please consider pledging your birthday to Paige’s non-profit, Southern Africa Education Fund.

100% of donations to Southern Africa Education Fund (all tax deductible) go directly toward kids in Namibia whose families can’t afford their school necessities. Every $100 donated provides one child with a new backpack, school uniform and shoes, and school supplies.

–>>You can pledge your own birthday at www.saeducationfund.org/birthdays

Training Programs for You

Do you want a well-laid-out, easy-to-follow training program that will get you stronger quickly? Here’s what we have to offer on TrainingBeta. Something for everyone…

• Personal Training Online:  www.trainingbeta.com/mercedes
• For Boulderers: Bouldering Training Program for boulderers of all abilities
• For Route Climbers: Route Climbing Training Program for route climbers of all abilities
• Finger Strength : www.trainingbeta.com/fingers
• All of our training programs: Training Programs Page

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Please give the podcast an honest review on iTunes here to help the show reach more curious climbers around the world.

Transcript

Neely Quinn: Welcome to the TrainingBeta Podcast, where I talk with climbers and trainers about how we can get a little better at our favorite sport. I’m your host, Neely Quinn, and today we’re on Episode 86, and I’m coming right at you from Norway. So I’m in Norway right now for three weeks. I’m here with my husband Seth, and my very good friend Paige Claassen. Paige is a professional climber who now lives in South Africa. She used to live in Colorado- she’s from Estes Park. She was married last year to her husband, Arjan DeCock, and they live and work in South Africa in Namibia. She’ll tell you more about that in this interview coming up.

The reason that I’m doing this interview with Paige, is that she invited me to come to Norway with her, because she got inspired by the videos that she watched of people climbing in Flatanger. That’s where we’re climbing right now, and it’s very roof-y, the climbs- well a lot of the climbs are in the cave, and this cave is just massive. It’s completely overhung. For some reason, Paige was inspired by that, and it’s odd for her, because she’s mostly a slab climber, a vertical climber. She’s a very technical climber. So when she asked me to come to Norway, I was very surprised, but also like, why not? Why not go to Norway and see something really, really beautiful and live in the Fjords for a few weeks. So that’s what we’re doing right now.

Today I’m going to talk to Paige about why she decided she wanted to come to Flatanger, how she trained for it. She really wasn’t doing much overhanging climbing, so she had to do some really specific training for this, and what her objective is here, and what she hopes to accomplish while she’s here.

So just a little bit more background on Paige. She is a 27 year old professional climber. She has climbed up to 5.14c sport climbs around the world. She also has climbed up to 5.13c trad climbs, and she was a super successful competition climber back in the day too. She kind of quit that in order to focus more on outdoor climbing. She did a Lead Now- it was called the Lead Now Tour, in 2012 and 13 I think it was, where she visited nine countries and raised money for non-profits around those countries as she was climbing and had climbing objectives in each of those countries. She’s very non-profit oriented and she’s going to tell you about the non-profit that she recently founded, and the good work that she’s doing in South Africa.

So without further ado, here’s Paige Claasen on our first interview of probably three while we are here in Norway. Enjoy.

Neely Quinn: Alright welcome to the show Paige, for the second time.

Paige Claassen: Woo!

Neely Quinn: And now can you tell everybody where we are?

Paige Claassen: We are in Flatanger.

Neely Quinn: Flatanger! Yeah. We’re in Norway, and we are sitting in our house, and we’re overlooking- tell us what we are seeing here.

Paige Claassen: We’re overlooking the Fjords during a beautiful sunset that has been going on for three hours, because the sun sets so slowly here.

[laughter]

Neely Quinn: That is true.

Paige Claassen: Golden hour, all evening.

Neely Quinn: Right. It’s about 9pm and I feel like it’s almost time to eat dinner.

[laughter].

So why are we in Flatanger, Paige?

Paige Claassen: Basically we’re in Flatanger because I convinced you to come here, because I really needed a partner [laughs]. I actually missed the climbing season the first half of this year, because I tore the ligaments in my ankle while bouldering in Font. So I needed to make up for the rest of the year, and was super eager and motivated to climb, but I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go. And I think you kind of know me, I kind of tend more towards projecting- I kind of get sucked into a very specific route. So as I was researching around, I was looking for that route that was really going to captivate me, or at least the area that was going to captivate me. I kept watching videos of different areas, and I had a few ideas, but nothing was really sucking me in.

Then I saw a few videos of Odin’s Eye, of Ethan Pringle and Joe Kinder, and I was like “That is where I’m going, 100%”. So I started looking around for partners- my husband was going on a surf trip, so he couldn’t come right away. It was about three weeks before I wanted to leave, so pretty much everyone already had plans [laughs]. But my dear friend Neely, who had just had shoulder surgery, didn’t have any climbing plans yet, as her shoulder was still healing. So I called you up, and I was like “Are you busy, I really need you for like a month”. And here we are.

Neely Quinn: And I said, “Of course I’m not busy”.

[laughter].

Paige Claassen: No I just- you know- how can you deny overlooking the Fjords and climbing on spectacular granite? Like the most amazing granite I’ve ever touched.

Neely Quinn: Yeah. Tell me more about that, because I do totally agree, even though I’m not climbing on anything hard at all. But it is absolutely spectacular rock.

Paige Claassen: So in the videos it looks like these crazy features. It almost looks like sandstone, it’s such fine grain granite. It almost looks soft on your skin, but I totally didn’t know what to expect. I knew it would be kind of physically brutal just because it’s so steep and overhanging. And I kind of thought everything was steep and overhanging in the cave. But we walk up to the wall, and at first you can’t even see the cave, you just see this massive headwall, that’s at least as tall as the cave if not taller. There’s so much rock here, it just keeps going forever. There’s the cave, and the headwall- the headwall doesn’t even have any climbing on it. But then there’s this whole outer part of the cave, with tons and tons and tons of lines of incredible quality. The rock features are stunning- they’re stunning to look at but they’re also so fun to climb. Every route I lower off of, I’m like “That was the best route I’ve ever climbed”. And I mean it. It’s so amazing.

Neely Quinn: It is, yeah. We were looking up at the cave yesterday saying that- or I was saying that it looked like a fire. Like you could gaze into the cave forever. The features of the wall and the colors and just beautiful. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Paige Claassen: I haven’t either, not even close. And we were trying to take photos, and you were trying to take a video to capture what it looks like, and every photo makes it look so much smaller than it is. You just can’t capture how huge the cave- but also all of the surrounding walls are.

Neely Quinn: Mhmm. So I want to go back a little bit, because for you, this place is not your normal place that you would want to go. Even Odin’s Eye isn’t a normal climb that you would want to climb because it’s so overhanging. So why now? What changed? And what would you normally want to climb on?

Paige Claassen: Well, so my style is kind of… pretty textbook technical climbing, vertical to slightly overhanging. That’s what I normally excel on. But I’d like to think that I will try and work on a route of any style. It just has to tick a few boxes for me. So even though a lot of the things I’ve done are very technical and vertical, I’d like to think that I can apply my motivation to any style that captures me.

Just seeing how beautiful this rock is- I mean, I can’t deny that I’ve always wanted to come to this part of the world, and like, cliche, but to see the northern lights. To be in the fjords, and like let’s get real cheesy here, but I love the show Vikings and this whole area- I’ve really wanted to see it for a long time. And this climbing area has not been on my dream list. I’ve never even thought of coming here to climb, I’ve just always kind of been in awe of this part of the world and wanted to see it.

Paige Claassen: Then I saw a few climbing videos, and I was like “That’s definitely where I’m going”. It’s a newish crag, but it’s been around for a long time and there’s been a lot of media on it. But as you said, it’s really steep, and it’s not my typical style that I would excel on. So to decide that I want to come here and work on a route that’s at my limit might be a little bold. I’m not sure how that’s going to go, but I’m definitely willing to give it a go. We’ve only been here for two days so far, but I’m having so much fun. The first route I did was a 12a, and I was like, “If I just did this for the whole trip I’d honesty be satisfied, because it’s awesome!”.

Neely Quinn: So tell me how you trained for this.

Paige Claassen: So, as I said, I hurt my ankle in February and it took bout four months to get to the point where I was comfortable, confident in myself climbing again. I wasn’t comfortable taking sport falls until a few weeks ago really, and I’m definitely not comfortable taking falls bouldering, even in the gym. My training was a bit rushed in a way, because we didn’t decide we were going to come probably until five weeks ago. Previously, a few minutes ago I said three weeks, but I think it was more like five. Which isn’t very long to prepare for a trip, especially when it’s a style that you’re not used to, and not particularly good at. I decided I needed to do a lot of strength training. Joe Kinder had recommended that I focus on big muscle groups rather than fine tuning, and that’s definitely not a type of training I’ve done before or focused on.

Neely Quinn: Is that because it’s so overhung and squeezy? Why do you think he told you that?

Paige Claassen: Just the nature of roof climbing- it’s so physical and you really are using your big muscle groups, whereas with more technical climbing- like for example, I’ve found Smith Rock to be so core intensive, oddly, because you have to stay so close into the wall for these tiny, precarious moves. But those are very specific, fine tuned muscle groups. So I’m assuming for cave climbing, which I’ve not done much of, you’re kind of beasting your way through it. Hopefully there is some finesse in there, otherwise I’m hosed [laughs].

One of my main exercises was weighted pull-ups, and I think it’s really paid off. Normally when I come to a new area, I feel super off for a few days, and incapable, is the only way I can describe. Where you know you can do moves, you know how to do them, but they’re not happening. These last few days of being here, I haven’t tried anything hard, but I feel capable. So I’m hoping that I am well trained, and I think those weighted pull-ups really helped a lot.

I came up with a pretty specific training program for myself over the last five weeks. I would do specific exercises two or three times a week, so as to not get injured, because that’s been a big problem for me in the past if I overtrain. So weighted pull-ups, Is Ys and Ts on the TRX. I really like TRX because I feel like there is less risk for getting injured, because you’re using your own bodyweight rather than weights that you could perhaps use incorrectly. I’ve actually made my own TRX- it cost $13, so I highly recommend that.

Neely Quinn: We’d love to hear about it [laughs].

Paige Claassen: Big savings. So the Is Ys and Ts, weighted pull-ups, and then I actually invented- I’m sure millions of people have done these before, but I just made up some exercises on the MoonBoard that I thought would be helpful here. One was to just toe hook my way up the sides of the MoonBoard, because I’m terrible at toe hooking. Toe hooking is one of those skills that I can’t do at all, and was like, that’s going to be a big problem in this cave. I think toe hooks and kneebars.

Neely Quinn: There’s a video that you made that will be on this episode page. She’s literally putting her toes on the outside of the MoonBoard on the edges of the wood, and then climbing up with her hands on the holds.

Paige Claassen: Yeah, it sounds really stupid, but the first couple of times I tried it I couldn’t keep my feet on at all. I don’t know if my shins are really weak or what, but I think it really helped because by the end I felt a lot more confident. Then going to the bouldering gym, I would go find problems with toe hooks, and I know that I wouldn’t have been able to do those problems before, because I’ve never been able to hold a toe hook before practically.

Neely Quinn: That’s so crazy- and then the same with kneebars. You’re not a kneebar-er, and there are a lot of kneebars here, so tell me about that.

Paige Claassen: Yeah, I definitely did not train kneebars, I don’t know how this is going to go [laughs]. All the routes I’ve done before that have crucial kneebars, I’ve typically skipped the kneebars, whether it’s a rest or move. I just can’t kneebar. I find it so hard, and I waste so much energy and core energy, so for me it doesn’t feel worth it. So I don’t know how that’s going to go. Hopefully these kneebars are straightforward, or I just don’t need them,I’m not sure, because I did not train that. I don’t know how to train kneebars, other than going to Rifle, and that wasn’t an option.

Neely Quinn: I did get a photo of you doing a kneebarr the other day, so I know that you can do it.

Paige Claassen: It’s possible- I mean my knee can slot behind a rock, but whether I can engage it and not destroy myself…

Neely Quinn: And you’re going to try Eye of Odin tomorrow, right?

Paige Claassen: I think so. I had planned kind of spending a week getting used to rock here and the style, but in typical fashion, I’m super antsy and eager to try what I want to try. So, I think I’m just going to test it out tomorrow, and do some moves, see how it feels, and then kind of know if I need to go back and spend a week training on other routes, or if I am ready to start working on it.

Neely Quinn: Right, and you have five weeks here?

Paige Claassen: Five weeks more or less, yes.

Neely Quinn: So you’ve given yourself a pretty ample amount of time to do this project.

Paige Claassen: I think so, but you never know. It’s a grade that is hard for me, that I’m capable of, but as we all know grades don’t mean a lot, especially on different styles. I think I have to just try and see what happens, but I’m so happy climbing here, that I think there is more than enough to keep me entertained. So even if, you know…

Neely Quinn: So this route is 8b+, which is 14c, correct?

Paige Claassen: No, it’s 8c+.

Neely Quinn: Oh sorry, 8c+. I will never get these! I have to carry around a photo of a chart.

Paige Claassen: Yeah, Neely counts down from 9a+ because that’s the only one she knows the conversion of [laughs]. So she counts down to whatever grade she wants from 9a+.

Neely Quinn: I’m sorry Europeans, I just… So anyways, 8c+, 14c, and how many 14c’s have you done?

Paige Claassen: Well… that’s kind of a trick question. Just Do It is supposedly 14c, although some people say it’s soft. So that would be one-ish [laughs]. I’ve also heard Eye of Odin given various opinions on whether it’s hard or easy, so we’ll see.

Neely Quinn: And any others?

Paige Claassen: No, no others [laughs].

Neely Quinn: And have you been climbing hard recently? I know that you were injured, but…

Paige Claassen: So last year I was working on another 8c+, 14c in South Africa, that I never did. It would have been great training for this, because it was super physical and a lot of compression, and quite blocky. But I worked on that for about two months, and that was the only rock climb I touched. So I got super weak, which I think is why I ended up not doing it. Again, I tend to get sucked into projects and not try anything else, which is pretty detrimental to my process. So actually you should hold me to this- I’ve decided here, at least every other climbing day I need to climb another route of substance that’s not my project.

Neely Quinn: Okay.

Paige Claassen: Otherwise I’m just going to get super weak, and I can only do the moves on the route I’m working.

Neely Quinn: Do you want to have mini project? Or not mini projects, but side projects?

Paige Claassen: Yeah, maybe. Like routes I can do in a few tries. Just enough that you are still trying hard, but it also helps you kind of maintain confidence and psyche, and check out the whole area. I’m definitely guilty of going to a new area and only touching one route the whole time, because that’s my project, and that’s not really a way to see, experience a new area.

Neely Quinn: I want to go back to your training a little bit. So you did MoonBoarding, you did the MoonBoard toe hooks, and then what else did you do besides the TRX and pull-ups?

Paige Claassen: So I’m sure this has a name- this is also on the MoonBoard, but you can do it on any holds, that’s just what I had available. It’s like, you’re campusing, so you’re not using your feet, but you’re staying on the same holds the whole time, and you’re moving your weight from right to left.

Neely Quinn: Oh yeah- are those called windshield wipers or something?

Paige Claassen: I have no idea. I thought windshield wipers were ab exercises where you move your feet.

Neely Quinn: Oh yeah, those are windshield wipers. But you’re doing that in the video as well.

Paige Claassen: Yeah- so check out the video. I couldn’t do very many of those, they’re really hard for me. But again, it was like, I feel like on steep climbs you have to really stabilize your shoulders in quite a unique way, and I had a feeling that that was something I might be weak at, so I did those.

Neely Quinn: Hangboard?

Paige Claassen: Uh, I actually didn’t do much hangboarding. I feel like my fingers, in general, are in fairly good shape, and I didn’t expect it to be too fingery here. There’s not really micro crimps or anything. So as much as I love some good finger strength training, I didn’t think that would be the most beneficial.

Neely Quinn: You did core stuff, which you’ve always done core stuff. What kind of stuff do you do?

Paige Claassen: Yeah I always do a lot of stuff, like floor exercises for core. A lot of different leg lifts, making circles with your legs. I recently learned a new exercise. We could make a super embarrassing iPhone clip of this. It’s called “wiggly worm” or something, and you basically just lay on your back on the ground and wiggle your legs up and down and turn yourself in circles. It actually is very hard.

Neely Quinn: Yeah, it sounds.

Paige Claassen: And then there’s an ab exercise I like to do on the TRX as well, it’s- I think it’s a Pilates move, in a way. You’re kind of in plank, and then you pull your legs to your hands, and your butt goes in the air.

Neely Quinn: Yup.

Paige Claassen: So yeah, just kind of a combination of probably very elementary strength training exercises, but ones I had never done before.

Neely Quinn: Any cardio stuff?

Paige Claassen: Not at all, because I can’t really run on my ankle yet. I actually found out that I can run a bit, but I was worried about aggravating it, so I’ve not done any cardio at all.

Neely Quinn: Okay. And how many times a week? You were training solely two or three times a week, and what were you doing on your rest days?

Paige Claassen: Well I was just doing the weighted pull-ups and TRX stuff two to three times a week, because I didn’t want to overdo it. But then I would go climb at the bouldering gyms, and do roof specific boulders. We don’t have really a route climbing gym, so I mostly was bouldering. I tried to go outside at least once a week to a crag that’s kind of like the closest thing we have to a gym. It’s quite bouldery there as well, even though it’s sport climbing. Then we did two weekend trips to an area called Oudtshoorn, which is the closest thing South Africa has to Spanish limestone. There I did a 14b/8c called Street Fighter, and that was the first hard-for-me route I’ve done in a while, in a couple of years. So that was a good confidence boost, and a reminder that after my injury I am still capable and I still can get myself in that mindset of trying hard, and pulling it together.

For me, all this training aside, for me, the main components are don’t get injured- that was one of my main goals before this trip, was to not hurt myself training. But the other thing is to be psyched. If I’m not psyched, it doesn’t matter how strong I am, I’m not going to climb well. If I’m amped, I think I can climb above my ability level for the moment.

Neely Quinn: Mhm.

Paige Claassen: Climbing is so mental for me. But after being injured, I was super motivated to train and be as fit as I could, and to come here as prepared as I could, and try hard. So let’s see what happens.

Neely Quinn: So over the last couple of years, what happened? Why do you think you didn’t climb anything at your limit, or hard for you?

Paige Claassen: Well two years ago I did a couple of things, including my five year project which I was really psyched on.

Neely Quinn: No big deal.

Paige Claassen: The Bleeding. Um, but last year was mainly just that I tried that one route, Mazawattee, for so long, and didn’t do it. But I got so weak in the process, because it was the only thing I was trying. I got married last year, and I almost did it a few days before our wedding, and then I was like “Cool, I’m going to do it this season”, and then two months later still falling off the last move. Kind of another Bleeding situation, where you just fall off the last move for a few years. After those few months I was so burnt out on projecting that I really just wanted to climb for fun for a few months. So there was a trad route in Colorado that I wanted to do, and just some easier things that were fun and would help me enjoy climbing without feeling that pressure of working something really hard.

Neely Quinn: Mhm. I think a lot of people are probably intrigued by the fact that you live in South Africa now, so I’m just going to ask you a couple of questions. So you got married, and you married a South African man.

Paige Claassen: Yes, Arjan is from South Africa- he is South African. His family farms eating grapes there. His work is seasonal- the packing and harvesting season is kind of from October to March or so. So that leaves the rest of the year with some flexibility to go to the US. That’s kind of peoples main question- how are you able to live in two places? Our goal is to go back and forth between Colorado and South Africa, and we’re able to that because his work is seasonal, and I help on the farm during the packing season, and then rock climbing is any and everywhere.

Then I started my own non-profit organization last year, called Southern Africa Education Fund. That was after seeing the condition of living in schools in some of the regions where we farm, particularly a town in Namibia that doesn’t see hardly any government support. Everyone is kind of just waiting on the government to improve the school, and I don’t see that happening, so I wanted to do what I could to make a change there. I’m raising money to renovate the school and add new classrooms, and build a playground and everything. That’s just our first project- I hope someday it grows so we are supporting many different regions and make an impact. That takes up a lot of my time when I’m not climbing. So that’s kind of what I do when I’m in South Africa- that’s my work.

Neely Quinn: What’s the website?

Paige Claassen: It’s saeducationfund.org.

Neely Quinn: Cool. Yeah.

Paige Claassen: And quick plug- if you want to pledge your birthday, we are doing birthday drives, so that instead of asking for gifts, you can raise money for school kids-  kids get a backpack, a new school uniform, shoes, and school supplies, which their families otherwise couldn’t afford. All you have to do is spend like five minutes making a page that we help you with, and then you ask your friends and family for donations instead of gifts. And then they don’t have to go shopping for you.

Neely Quinn: And that’s that same website?

Paige Claassen: Yeah, there’s a birthday link on that website, you’ll find it.

Neely Quinn: Cool, you’re doing good work.

Paige Claassen: Thanks, I’m excited. It’s like, I’m in a cool stage of life where I wake up every morning excited for the work that I’m doing, whether it’s climbing or working on my non-profit organization. So it’s hard to be on the other side of the world, really far from my family and my friends. But I do really like it in South Africa, and I get to live in two of the coolest places in the world, so I can’t really complain about that.

Neely Quinn: Yeah, so you split your times between South Africa and Namibia too, right?

Paige Claassen: Yes. We are in Namibia for two months of every year, November December, and then we go up frequently throughout the year to work on the schools and for Arjan to check in on the farms.

Neely Quinn: Cool. Alright so we are going to talk a few more times while we are here. I’ll be here for three and a half weeks, she’ll be here for five weeks, and we will be checking in on social media and all that. But any last thoughts, before we end this first interview?

Paige Claassen: Let’s see how tomorrow goes, and we’ll check in next week.

Neely Quinn: I’ll take some photos of you kneebarring, because I know you’ll end up kneebarring.

Paige Claassen: Maybe.

Neely Quinn: And yeah, it’s going to be a pleasure to watch this process.

Paige Claassen: Yeah. Thanks for coming to Norway with me.

Neely Quinn: Thanks for inviting me.

Paige Claassen: No problem.

Neely Quinn: Alright, I hope you enjoyed that interview with Paige Claassen. You can find her climbing website at paigeclaassen.com. Claassen is spelled C-L-A-A-S-S-E-N. That’s paigeclaassen.com, and then her non-profit organization can be found at SA as in South Africa- saeducationfund.org. She’s also on social media, and we’re both posting a bunch on social media right now. On Instagram she is @paigeclaassen, on Facebook she’s Paige Claassen, and you can also follow on TrainingBeta on Instagram and Facebook while we are here as well.

So thanks for listening. If you want help with your own training, we have a route training program that will get you in power endurance shape, it will improve your strength overall, it will improve your finger strength and your core. You can find that at trainingbeta.com, and at the top there is a link to training programs, and you will find it in there. It’s an ongoing subscription program where you get three workouts every week. They are unique every week, so you’ll never get bored. They’re all laid out for you, you don’t really have to do much thinking about things. You just go to gym, follow the instructions, and get stronger. So thanks for listening all the way to the end. Stay tuned for more interviews with Paige, and potentially some other people who I’ve met here in Norway so far. So I’ll talk to you soon.