[laughs] and I climbed out of my mom’s womb. I would say the first climbing I had was back in high school. I didn’t have a rope that was worth climbing on so I used my mom’s clothesline and my uncle caught me. He got me a Goldline, which is not your normal core rope. It’s a weave, and that’s what learned on back in the day. That was probably 25 – some odd, 27 years ago.

 

Neely Quinn: And then what was your evolution of climbing? Like, where are you from and where did you go?

 

Ray Vachon: I grew up north of Boston by about 20 miles – that was supposed to be my Boston accent. I’d go to North Conway, New Hampshire, to climb granite, so I did that pretty much towards the end of high school and into college. I was really a mountain biker at the time. I did a ton of racing, of mountain biking and road racing, with climbing on the side. It wasn’t until I went to grad school, here in Colorado, back in the late ‘90s that my ears started to perk up about how I could become a better climber.

I did climb a lot before that but it wasn’t until I immersed myself in the ecosystem that is the Front Range of Colorado that I really started to, I don’t know, identify myself as a climber as opposed to a biker. I think that I still didn’t climb all that much until three, maybe four years ago, when I found that I could separate my science from my climbing and I found an even deeper passion for climbing because I did the separation.

 

Neely Quinn: You didn’t start climbing very much until three or four years ago?

 

Ray Vachon: I think I climb a lot more than I used to. I think that I still climbed quite a bit, but I wasn’t as serious about it. I wasn’t as focused.

 

Neely Quinn: And so what changed, and what did you do after that change?

 

Ray Vachon: You know, it came down to a singular day. I’d been climbing kind of recreationally, maybe once or twice a week, up to four times a week, for 20 years of my life and this buddy of mine, Eric, invited me to go back out to do some ice. I hadn’t done ice in a few years because I had other things on my mind. The smell of the ropes, the screaming barfies in your hands and all that just called me and I went back the next week, and the next week, and I was hooked back on it.

Then I wanted to train. I wanted to think about how I could use my body to do the things I didn’t think it could. To address my insecurities as a person trying to solve these problems, saying those are insecurities and I can’t get over these climbs or through these climbs until I look those insecurities square in the face. That’s when I think I started to really become a more well-adjusted climber.

 

Neely Quinn: Can you tell me more about those insecurities and what you looked in the face?

 

Ray Vachon: I don’t want to talk to you about it [whining voice]. I think my first insecurity is that climbing, if you have a goal in mind, it’s looking at a goal and failure. You can easily choose to fail, so that’s getting through the decision making process of how you’re going to look at that climb. You’re just going to fail because you don’t put your mind and your body into it because of the fear. I do look at myself and say, “Oh my gosh. I don’t think I can do this next climb.” I don’t understand how or why. I look at other people and they can do it and they seem so strong and well-collected in their brain and spirit and body. I then start whittling away at it, saying, “How can I become a little bit better in this one way?” or “How can I breathe more slowly or smile while I’m on a climb?” as opposed to sweating and things…swearing.

 

Neely Quinn: Swearing.

 

Ray Vachon: [laughs] Yeah, totally.

 

Neely Quinn: So, what’s your process with that? What have you found that helps you swear less and smile more?

 

Ray Vachon: I feel like the swearing part has actually upped. I feel like figuring out what conversations to have with yourself and what language works for you, or for me, is the best path to success for me. I think a little bit of hard love works for me. Like, if I show up to a climb and I’m not sure if I can do it and I look up at how long that route is, you’re looking through all these carabiners or you’re looking at all the strange ice and you say, “I don’t know how I can get to the top.” Well, chances are, you’re halfway up the climb when your hands are cold and you’re in pain. That feeling is only going to get worse.

I start asking myself questions like, “Why did I come here? Why did you show up at the bottom of the crag in the first place if you’re just going to look at it and say I don’t know if I can do it? Because earlier, you must have had a feeling that there was some hope that you could do it.” Then, I guess, I try to say, “Well, you’re here. Give it your all because in five minutes or five hours you’re going to be back in a bar and how are you going to look back on the next five minutes or five hours? As though you tried? Or you fell apart and you’re just going to be back here the next weekend anyway?”

I think that pragmatic conversations with myself, and really I drop the b-word about myself – with the ‘itch.’ I tend to call myself that when I get frustrated because I tend to think that that word speaks to me.

 

Neely Quinn: And does that help you, to call yourself that?

 

Ray Vachon: I think it’s calling a spade a spade, and I don’t think there’s any gender connection to that, I want to say. It’s just me saying I want to pick myself up by my bootstraps and be who I am, and I will be back the next weekend trying the exact same thing so why not own yourself and what you want to do? It’s not going to be any easier tomorrow.

 

Neely Quinn: Yes, very practical self talk.

 

Ray Vachon: Thank you.

 

Neely Quinn: It’s good. So let’s talk a little about what it is that you do. You are – would you describe yourself as a mixed climber? An ice climber? Both of those, simultaneously?

 

Ray Vachon: I think it’s a mood thing. No, seriously. Mixed is/the M-scale is so strange, in that you can be climbing ice or you can be climbing rock predominately and it’s still called mixed. I would say my background came in trad, rock, and ice climbing and ice climbing has this phenomenal history, this tradition, of just going into crazy, weird places and throwing yourself at this mixed medium of ice that changes from day to day. I think that that heritage of going into a space where you don’t know what you’re going to get molds your mind into a problem-solving space of being open to ice, rime, dust, dirt, rock, whatever might be <unclear> and trying to solve your problems that way, and being open to all of that.

I would say that I come from a place of trying to be open to whatever medium I’m on. Recently, I’ve been clipping too many bolts for my own comfort and I’d like to maybe set some more gear into stranger places/strange placements, putting some more of my insecurities on the line. So right now, I feel like my mix has been mostly rock, and climbing on very small rock features with ice tools. I don’t know what you would call that.

 

Neely Quinn: I have a question about that. So, obviously, well not obviously, but I’m not a mixed or ice climber but I was just watching videos to prepare myself for talking to you in a somewhat educated way, and I noticed that that was/a video I saw was of a guy almost entirely on what looked like could have been a sport climb, and he was using tools to get up it. How is that considered mixed climbing? Is it just that those climbs are impossible to do without dry tooling?

 

Ray Vachon: I think you’re right on the nose. I think that that’s where our culture is asking these exact same questions, where if you are going to be doing a route that has moderate ice leading to the biggest roof ever that’s just rock, but so steep that most people can’t climb it with their hands – they have to use tools – what sport does that become? I think that that sport right now is mostly called dry tooling because if you do a mixed substance of ice and rock and then you go straight onto rock in the most contorted positions, I think the true difficulty of the body comes almost exclusively when you’re on these, almost aid routes.

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah, that’s what it seems like, like it’s almost aid climbing.

 

Ray Vachon: Yeah, it’s a strange, strange sport that way and I feel like it’s almost an art form for people to be exploring how long they can hold onto an ice tool, because the handle of the ice tool doesn’t change at all. It’s just the duration that you’re on them but the pick could be on something slight so you’d have to use body tension to keep that tool in place as you move one tool or the other. A big challenge is to say, “Oh my gosh. This hand tool is not going to change that I’m on. It’s the pick that’s on something strange,” so it’s relaxing into your tools. That’s one of the mantras that I try to use when I’m on a climb.

 

Neely Quinn: So you have to have super awesome grip strength on that one thing that you’re holding, but you have to have nuanced body movements.

 

Ray Vachon: And hope. [laughs]

 

Neely Quinn: This is kind of veering off into an ethical conversation, but I just have one more question: what do purists say? Like, if they saw a climb that somebody was dry tooling up and they were like, or other people were like, “Look, if Chris Sharma was here, he would just do it without the tools, so why are you guys doing that?” Does that ever happen?

 

Ray Vachon: I think that’s a really good question. How do I address this other than to say that yes, that absolutely happens and people climb mixed routes with just their fingers as well. There’s a guy, Dave Retzl, who lives here in Colorado who likes to try climbs with both his fingers and his tools. He’s a fantastic climber in both ways.

But yeah, people will sit there and say, “Well, you’re putting your tools, these sharp picks, on a hold you could use with your fingers.” If you kind of run the math, the amount of force that you put/the pressure that you put on a hold is so much greater with a pick. Because it’s a tiny point, you could break the hold. You’re putting a huge amount of torque on them sometimes, so are you going to break a hold that could potentially be done by hand? I think that that’s a very valid question to ask.

I think, as a community, we try to avoid the climbs that people would choose to do with their hands. We go to chossier places, like nearby here in Colorado, there’s Vail. Vail’s this amphitheater that’s super steep and it’s made out of shale. We’re just hastening the geological process. We’re pulling rock off, sometimes every other time we go up or, if you go to the Bingo Cave in Bozeman or if you go over to Europe, it’s kind of the same idea. We try not to indignify the spaces that are made for this other art form called ‘rock climbing.’

 

Neely Quinn: I’m just going to stop here for just a moment and let you guys know a little bit more about Rab, which is a clothing and equipment company out of the UK. I have their Neutrino jacket, which is a big puffy jacket, and I have found that nothing even comes close to how comfortable and warm this jacket is. I’ve tried. I have bought other jackets and taken them back because they didn’t even come close. That’s the Neutrino jacket, and they have all kinds of other smaller jackets, rainproof jackets, windproof jackets, pants, shirts, shorts and, like I said, sleeping bags and tents. They’re kind of our one-stop shop for a lot of equipment and clothing for climbers.

They are being super generous with you guys, my faithful podcast listeners, and they’re giving you guys 20% off of everything, which is unprecedented for them. If you want to check out their stuff, go to www.trainingbeta.com/rab. I hope you enjoy their stuff as much as I do, and we’ll get back to the interview now.

 

Neely Quinn: I want to know about how you train and what it’s like to train for what you do, and how long you’ve been doing it, and how you sort of balance your life with training.

 

Ray Vachon: I think, if I can start with the beginning of your question, meaning how do I balance it. I work full time. I work really hard and there are other aspects of my life I try to fulfill outside of my climbing. I’ve worked with some people, including this great friend of mine who’s this triathlete coach, Eric Kenny, and he’s helped me realize that sometimes less is more. If you can save up for the days where it’s really supposed to count, make it count, and let the other days be fun, or challenge your mind. For me, training can come down to just a couple really exceptionally hard days a week that I’m trying to recover from for, let’s say two or three more days, and during those two or three other days I could work on body positioning or being more fluid, but I don’t have to really challenge my clock and also my body.

As a person who’s not really 20 anymore and also who’s really pretty darn busy, it’s amazing what you can fit into two hard days a week and feel completely satisfied. Then the other days are just cherries on top and it’s fantastic.

 

Neely Quinn: Quick question: how old are you?

 

Ray Vachon: 43.

 

Neely Quinn: Cool. And I’m interested in what you said, when you said you are practicing those nuances with your body instead of taxing your muscles on some training days. Can we talk a little about that? Like, how do you practice those things?

 

Ray Vachon: That’s another good question. I think at first you might sit there and – you being me – I might sit there and say, “How can I hold on for as long as possible?” because I have to have these bulk muscles in place to be able to last, let’s say on a roof that will take me 10 minutes, so you have to be able to kind of dead hang for a long period of time. Then, as you’re moving between holds, there’s even more force than a dead hang that you put on your hands, so you have to literally be able to sustain that with your arms and your shoulders and your core. But then after that, I feel like continual movement is something that mixed climbers in general might struggle with because from one position to another, you can hang out, whether you’re in an inverted move – which are figure fours or figure nines – or you can have your hands on, but you’re spending a lot of time figuring things out.

I feel like when you’re maybe advancing into the higher levels of mixed, you’ve got to keep going because your clock is ticking, so it’s about pacing yourself. I have this panel up in my backyard that’s about 10-feet tall by 12-feet wide and I set other rock holds and such that are made by myself and a few other great people, and I set-up handholds or even hangars for bolts and you set them at even distances apart, sometimes three feet, sometimes seven feet apart, and can you move from one to the other while continuing motion? Once you catch your tool on one, how do you keep it on that hold and at the same time, position yourself to get into the next hold? That might sound super logical, to say that that is exactly what climbing is, but I think that I can get caught up in celebrating one move. I’ll be like, “I did it!” and then I automatically drop into a rest position, as opposed to moving onto the next hold.

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah, and you guys have this really interesting thing because it’s not just your hands that are grabbing the holds. You have to have incredible aim, it seems like, and precision to get the tip of your tool on the hold.

 

Ray Vachon: Agreed. Some people are really good at it. I think I’m more of a thug.

 

Neely Quinn: You use that to get stuff.

 

Ray Vachon: Yeah. If there’s not a hold, make it, but I think that some people, like for example, Will Mayo, who lives here in town, absolutely precise with everything that he does. He’d be the first to admit that that’s his strength. Maybe he wouldn’t, I don’t know, but for me, that’s something that I’m working on because it is remote sensing. When you have your pick 18 inches from your knuckles and you’re supposed to feel what a hold feels like with that, you have to be super in tune with what that pick is communicating down the handle of your tool, down the handle to your hands. You might be able to say that your hands are holding onto this huge handle so it’s kind of a brutish thing, but also it’s that same brutish hand that has to feel the very delicate hold at 18 inches away. Some people are fantastic at that, and I’m working at that myself.

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah. There’s also, it seems like, a level of insecurity with it all. It seems like if you were to put your tool on something, it’s not like you put your hands on it and you know exactly what it feels like and how solid it is. You put your tool on something and you’re kind of trusting that you’re not going to fall off of it, or do you get to have a sense of that?

 

Ray Vachon: That’s a cool question. I’ve climbed with a lot of old schoolers that maybe grew up climbing ice in the ‘70s or early ‘80s and one thing I learned early on is if you’re looking for a hold that’s above your head, you don’t know how positive this hold is because it’s above your head and you can’t see the lip. You drag your tool up, as opposed to dragging it down over the hold, and if you feel it drop in, you get a sense of the geometry…

 

Neely Quinn: The depth of it.

 

Ray Vachon: Yeah, exactly. You can do that a few times and learn whether there’s a lip or your tool is going to slide off of one side. You’re kind of sensing things from afar and whatever way you can use your pick to determine that, that’s great.

The other thing is also just testing the hold. I feel like one thing that I like to do, if it’s a sketchy hold, is to have my lower hand tight and locked into a position, do that remote sensing drag, and then load it. Kind of shock load it a little to see if it would take a little bit more force than body weight would do. If it holds, trust it and go.

 

Neely Quinn: Oh…these are really newb questions, aren’t they? You must feel like you’re being interviewed by a fourth grader or something. [laughs]

 

Ray Vachon: I don’t think so at all! It’s actually pretty neat to formalize and to talk about what I do. You brought up earlier what do I do with my mind? I feel like there are – my mind is this strange, moody place and I wanted to say that there are a few other things that came to my mind about how I can speak to myself to make success happen. Success doesn’t always happen to me, but you’re forcing me into a position of formalizing my thoughts into words. It’s freaking great.

 

Neely Quinn: Good, good, I’m glad. Okay, here’s another newb question for you: what I think would be the hardest part, and what I’m interested in is how you train it. How much do the dry tools weigh? Like, the ice picks?

 

Ray Vachon: Gosh, those have to be about two pounds.

 

Neely Quinn: So that’s not that much but you’re doing so many reps above your head, it seems like something like shoulder presses even would be something you guys would have to get real good at.

 

Ray Vachon: I’m going to talk to the shoulder press part, but then also there’s something even worse than that. There are two elements that make it even worse. If you can sit there and practice with your arms above your head for as much time as possible, that’s fantastic. On top of your hands being really laden down by the weight, your head weighs so much when you’re on these steep angles, how the heck do you hold your head up for 20 minutes? In the end, your helmet’s falling off and blood’s in your head, and you want to fall over, so yes – you do train for stronger shoulders and stronger wrists. I do that quite a bit and my shoulders aren’t the best in the world, but I do work with them quite a bit.

On top of that, though, you get cold hands in the mixed terrain, so your hands become stupid. You get stupid hand, and then when you’re swinging at ice, sometimes you’re swinging again and again and again, either trying to break away ice to try to clear space for the good ice underneath, or to create just the right hole for your pick. The pick starts deflecting off sideways because you can’t maintain accuracy and because you’re so tired, you’re just yearning for the next good pick placement and when it comes, you can smile and say you got away with it. Sometimes, you’ve just got to train to that. There are a number of different techniques for how to swing your tool at different objects to practice being able to swing, swing, swing, get it right, over and over.

 

Neely Quinn: It seems like you would just sit there and watch tv and hold your pick over your head for an hour to train. Do you guys have a lot of shoulder issues? Because it seems like you would have more than even sport climbers or boulderers.

 

Ray Vachon: Yeah, I would say I have considerable shoulder issues. My rotator cuff on my left side is not happy but I do spend a lot of time doing physical therapy with it. That is the key to being able to do this sport and I’m not particularly young in this sport. I’m on into my 40s, so I would attribute physical therapy and just showing up on a regular basis to being able for longevity and being able to pull harder than I thought I could last year.

 

Neely Quinn: So tell me a little bit more about what you do for your shoulders. Like, what’s the daily or weekly regimen that you have?

Ray Vachon: So, I think the power and endurance is huge, and if you were to look up any way to strengthen and maintain your rotator cuffs, that’s the way to do it. Whether you’re talking about Therabands or weights, that is the beginning of it. I think that rock climbing is a great way to stabilize your shoulders, too, in a natural way, working balance and core into my shoulders. On top of that, though, I think that flexibility starts diminishing with the way that the shoulders develop when you’re in the mixed sport, so sometimes if you were to have just a six-foot long PVC pipe and just rotate that over your back, trying to open your chest, open up your shoulders as much as possible. It’s going to increase your flexibility, but also it’s going to help with the flexibility of your ligaments so that they don’t get injured, and so it’s twofold. You can do larger reaches behind your back but also you’re going to be able to show up because you’re not injured.

 

Neely Quinn: Got it. So how many days a week are you doing that?

 

Ray Vachon: Four to five.

 

Neely Quinn: And then what else are you doing to train? Can you go through your weekly training regimen? Or does it change all the time?

 

Ray Vachon: Can we talk about that? I’m kind of happy about it. Okay – yay.

 

Neely Quinn: Please.

 

Ray Vachon: I would say that one day a week, usually Tuesday or Wednesday – this is Devil Mode day. You’ve got to just show up and be ready for pain and I think that this starts off with me, let’s say going to a rock gym, and climbing for three hours. It would start off with a warm-up, and maybe do 3-4 sets of quads, repeating a climb wherever it is – maybe at your redpoint, and doing this four times. You’re really conditioning yourself not only to do a redpoint the first time, which might be your onsight on that route, but then do it again, so you’re now using your mind to take away/to make up for the fatigue that you’re feeling in that second go. Third try, you’re now using your mind even more and you’re finding the rests. Fourth try, you’re now overcoming your fear of failure, so that’s conditioning my mind. I think it’s a fantastic exercise.

Then, I try to go to the gym space, so it’s not a rock gym but more weights and where I can start to focus on specifics. I think when I’m starting to mix rock in I like to use the campus board or fingerboard, but I’ve worked on a couple exercises with a few friends. One is ‘30 minutes’ – do an exercise for 30 minutes and we’re talking about pull-ups, we’re talking about typewriters, and typewriters are where you pull-up on one arm, let’s say your left, and you bring your chin up to a ring with your left hand, and then you slide your weight over to the right, towards your right hand so your chin touches your right hand, which might be 2-3 feet over, and then drop down. Then repeat that in reverse. You have to figure out a way to do that for half an hour.

These are just torturous things, where 10 minutes into it you might not even know how you can go another minute but you find your way to do it for half an hour. I feel like that’s one of the most satisfying exercises I can have. I think it goes against a lot of coaching paradigms, but for me and a few others, I feel like that truly builds pain tolerance but also maybe a little bit more strength than doing it for five minutes.

Then, going and doing six sets of exercises and five or four minutes for each exercise. Core for five straight minutes. You don’t stop, and you do pull-ups, again, for five straight minutes. I get that someone might say, “Well I can’t do more than three pull-ups,” so do one, rest for one minute, do one, rest for one minute, do one, rest for one minute, until the 30 minutes or five minutes is up.

I’m doing all of these exercises at five-minute intervals and then, I think, enter into circuits where you can start to mingle climbing with the power.

 

Neely Quinn: So with that ab, going back to the core stuff, you were saying you were doing an ab exercise for five minutes, so you would just do one exercise for five minutes? Or would you do a bunch for five minutes for abs?

 

Ray Vachon: I think that that’s up to you. I try to limit it down to no more than three exercises, but yeah, if you’re doing something hugely powerful, then you again have to pace yourself. Or blow yourself out on that one exercise and then turn to another. For example, if you can do planks, you could do side planks then center planks and the other side plank, and back and forth. Sometimes you could start to approach the five-minute mark, and some people can go way over this, and I think that there’s some guy in the military who can do five hours or something.

I find that that’s a really good way of formalizing, making sure that I get exercise done. Then, when I’m doing the circuits, that’s when I can start to focus on maxes and minimums.

 

Neely Quinn: And what are your circuits like?

 

Ray Vachon: I usually include shoulders, curls, sometimes it can be on the fingerboard, sometimes it can even be on a bouldering move, but I think it’s practicing things more to the max, if that’s going to be a hard day, or to reach a certain number on an endurance day.

 

Neely Quinn: So, can you take me through a typical workout that you did maybe this week?

 

Ray Vachon: Yeah. This week, actually yesterday, we were limited on time, so we were at the climbing gym. We did a few hours at the climbing gym where we did the quads, that’s why I was bringing that up, and we did just seven sets of the five minutes and we weren’t able to do our half-hour challenge because we didn’t have time.

What did we do? We did one set of pull-ups for five minutes. We did one set of – we call these ‘The Tortures.’ What are those things called when you have a wheel with a handle on either side, and you hold onto the handles?

 

Neely Quinn: The Ab Roller? That thing is awful.

 

Ray Vachon: It’s awful. So that was the core thing that I did, then squats, then shoulders, and there was one other…

 

Neely Quinn: Shoulders as in shoulder presses?

 

Ray Vachon: Yes, shoulder presses.

 

Neely Quinn: And are you doing heavy weights on these things?

 

Ray Vachon: For five minutes? I have, like, paper clips in my hands for that. [laughs]

 

Neely Quinn: I feel like that was a really stupid question. [laughs]

 

Ray Vachon: No.

 

Neely Quinn: [laughs] Paper clips? Okay, keep going.

 

Ray Vachon: Okay, I had three paper clips in my hands, just for the numbers. There was one other exercise that we did, and then I went and did pull-ups and core again, and then I went to the fingerboard for 7-10 sets of fingerboards that are much like what the Anderson brothers talk about in their book, where you might hang on a hold for seven seconds, rest for three, back up for seven, and then you do that seven times and then a new exercise or a new hold. I was doing that and I was pretty gassed, but that wasn’t my max. I think if I did a half-hour challenge after that I’d be whimpering on the floor like I usually am.

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah, that’s really hard.

 

Ray Vachon: Yeah. Thank you. I think it is.

 

Neely Quinn: So five minutes and how much rest in between? None?

 

Ray Vachon: No, 10 seconds.

 

Neely Quinn: Five minutes, 10 seconds off, five minutes?

 

Ray Vachon: Yes.

 

Neely Quinn: [laughs] You guys are so brutal.

 

Ray Vachon: I think the thing that I’m talking about are my hard days, and then when I’m talking about the circuits, that’s when you have to force the rest. Or if you’re doing a power day, and you’re not doing these sets of five, that’s when you have to take these 3-4-5 minutes off between your sets of max. I just happen to be in an endurance phase right now. I’m happy with it, but power I find to be one of the greatest struggles of my training because I don’t like sitting for 3-4 minutes between exercises and I find that that’s probably the challenge for most people, to say, “How can I maximize my body to lift the most amount of weight? Or to do the hardest version of an exercise?” You want to do it a minute later. You’re sitting on the ground wondering. You look at Facebook or you’re looking at your texts and you’re like, “That must have been five minutes,” but it’s really only a minute and 20 and you want to just jump back on.

The truth is, you’ve got to stick to a regimen. You’ve got to show up to your hard days and do exactly what you planned, and you’ve got to trust it. You’ve got to trust in your training and deal with the boredom of four minutes. I don’t enjoy it, so I didn’t bring it up as my example.

 

Neely Quinn: Can you give me an example of one of those power days?

 

Ray Vachon: Sure. Gosh, I think that it depends on what phase you’re on, but if you’re trying to – I think that if you’re going through phaseology of training, the first one is to lay a foundation. Get your soft tissue ready for the exercises that you want to do. So let’s say that’s six weeks, say, of doing that. Take a few days off and then do an endurance phase for 4-6 weeks, and now you might go into a power phase. If you’re in a power phase, your body’s already accustomed to a lot of the exercises you want to do and so, for me, the power might be one arm pull-ups or assisted one arm pull-ups, or – I think that’s a fantastic example. What else do we do?

We have names. I could talk to Chris and my friend Susan and they get these names, but we have names like ‘Gordon’s’ and one of the examples is a core exercise that we do, and we’re sitting in, not a plank – what are they called when your legs are up horizontally?

 

Neely Quinn: A ‘v’?

 

Ray Vachon: No. Your entire body is horizontal but you’re holding them under rings.

 

Neely Quinn: Oh…

 

Ray Vachon: Yes! Those things! It’s almost where you’re lying on your back but you’re holding onto rings. Now we’re both just missing the name of it.

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah, we’re idiots.

 

Ray Vachon: Yay! That’s not a new concept to me, though. [laughs] So what I would say is, if you’re going to go into – let’s call those Zippers. I don’t know the name of it so let’s call them Zippers. You then lift your body up and see if you can touch your feet out to pieces of tape on a wall and see if you can touch with precision on those holds. Sometimes those holds are well above where you think your body can go and you flail up to that position, but the whole point of it is you try to even it out and try to turn it into something smooth so that six weeks later, you can actually do this with precision.

Sometimes you need to have assistance, but power needs deliberation and technique, so that’s one of the things you have to build slowly. Working with people is the best way to do that, to learn how can your body actually do this one thing. That’s what bouldering is, too, but I think that in mixed it’s a power issue, because sometimes – well, I mean it is for bouldering and all sorts of climbing, but if we’re talking about power and blending power exercises with mixed, that might be one example.

 

Neely Quinn: Okay, the word we were looking for is ‘levers’.

 

Ray Vachon: Levers! Not Zippers! There, see? We all learn something.

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah, we all forget things. Okay, do you have a trainer/do you have a coach that you work with?

 

Ray Vachon: I consult with my buddy from back in the day. His name is Eric Kenny and he is fantastic as a friend, because he calls a spade a spade, and he’s a triathlete coach, but he’s worked with me to own my weaknesses. I have several of them that I feel like I’ve been able to overcome and they’re quite obvious to him. He has a really good way of speaking to me and saying, “Okay, here’s what I suggest. If you don’t do it, why talk to me?” I give it a go and I try to understand that, by looking into my weaknesses, with time they might improve a lot or they might improve a little, but I’ve got to try because Eric is looking in from the side.

If I’m working with climbing friends, they’re sharing ideas about how they train and then I try to see how that fits into my own training regimen. So yes, between Eric and my friends and just sitting in the quiet office, not wanting to think about statistics anymore, well, there you go. Did that make sense?

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah. Does Eric actually help you create a program for yourself or do you just do that on your own?

 

Ray Vachon: I do that on my own. I think he’s more of the philosophy behind it.

 

Neely Quinn: So how do you know what to put together for yourself?

 

Ray Vachon: I think it’s to, again, talk to friends and see what they do for specific exercises. Coming up with a concept that you think is reasonable but hard and showing up and doing it. For the first time, explore! See if you can do it, but make it a reasonable exercise, something you know that you can do. Do it, and then two days later, see how it felt. You might be saying that, “I want an exercise that’s 5/5,” meaning intensity of five. Well, I’m sorry, you might only get up to a four on that exercise, but you’ve learned what your body can and can’t do, and you can then start to dial it in. It takes time, but I feel like the only way to really learn what a good exercise is is to know what’s too far and what’s too little. It’s just trying the exercises and then seeing what the results are.

 

Neely Quinn: Okay, so it’s just been trial and error. You haven’t really studied anybody?

 

Ray Vachon: Oh no! I think it’s, again, just talking to other people to see what they do and then seeing what’s reasonable to me. Definitely. There are a lot of really, really strong rock climbers and triathletes in town here that I try to listen to.

 

Neely Quinn: What about fitness? It seems like you guys are on these climbs for so long. I understand that you’re getting a lot of fitness with your endurance workouts, like making yourself do these things for five minutes straight, or 30 minutes straight, but do you do any sort of running or rowing or anything like that?

 

Ray Vachon: Yeah, I think my background is largely in endurance sports like cycling and running. I feel like, first of all, it’s great for the mind to be able to escape, even for, like, 20 minutes and go for a run. It’s also balancing muscles so I definitely try to run four days a week and then take one day off and then two hard days of climbing. I feel like that’s a great way to clear the mind.

 

Neely Quinn: How long do you go running for? Just those 20 minutes?

 

Ray Vachon: Ha. It depends on where I am. Right now I’m kind of doing 3-5 miles a day and I feel like that allows me to maintain my power. Anything above five miles a day and I feel like I quickly become less powerful. I’ve always had that as an issue, and maybe other people do, too, but above a certain level of endurance exercise and my climbing performance goes down.

 

Neely Quinn: Interesting. I think that’s something that a lot of people are finding. Everybody has their own threshold. I mean, some people couldn’t run four days a week and still maintain their power, so you must have a really good base level of fitness.

 

Ray Vachon: I think it’s okay. I think one other thing that I find is important is to keep doing something on a regular basis. If we’re talking about if you want to go do a large alpine climb, you have to be out there in the environment to know how your body and mind interact with that space. I haven’t done hard alpine in a couple years. I’ve been focusing more on the technical, steeper stuff, so go to the technical, steeper stuff and practice in that space so you’re familiar with your reactions to the space and to the pain, because the pain that you feel on a run is very different from the pain that you’ll feel hanging inverted, upside down for 20 minutes.

I would say, on the endurance side of things, sometimes it’s not even blowing yourself out on a hard day, but just get into the space of doing what you do, and being super familiar with that space.

 

Neely Quinn: The same thing is with sport climbing. I just realized this because we went to Vegas last week and I’ve been training a whole lot, and I felt strong, and then on some climbs I was fine and then I would get on some things that are supposedly easy for me and the terrain was a little different, and I was on holds that I hadn’t been training in the gym and I was like, “What do I do?” It is, I think, a lot about just going outside and doing your thing.

 

Ray Vachon: I think on top of that, there’s the climbing area here in town, Eldo, which is really well-known for being really hard, especially if you go into that space after not being there for a while. I feel like really disappointing performances in climbing – like, let’s say you go to Eldo for the first time in four months – can take a nick out of your ego and keep you from showing up and I think that more important than how you do that day, is what you do the next day. Make sure that you’re there to do what you’re supposed to do in your training and even though your ego might be telling you, “Man, I blow. Red Rock was so hard on me,” still show up. Still show up because eventually, you might have that success and you won’t have any success if you listen to the voice saying that, “Nah, I shouldn’t do it this time because I suck.”

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah, there’s a fine balance there between thinking that you need to train more and just going out and doing it more. I have a couple questions, and we don’t have too much time left, but how much do you work? I want to get a sense of how you balance your work and your climbing and your training, and when you do all these things.

 

Ray Vachon: So how much do I work on jobs outside of climbing?

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah.

 

Ray Vachon: So, I started my own consulting organization, or I restarted it up about 6-9 months ago. I feel like that takes an enormous amount of my emotional energy, and I’m probably doing a full time, 40 hours a week right now, which is small for starting a business. I also feel like I try to emphasize creative thinking and doing things when I’m energized. If I’m not energized, I’m just spinning my wheels, and then that gives me time to train, so I’d say 40 hours a week. Wow – that was long-winded.

 

Neely Quinn: That’s okay. And then, do you train in the mornings or in the evenings, or during work hours?

 

Ray Vachon: I blow at training really early in the mornings. [laughs] I feel like after 10:00, neurons start firing and my muscles are like, “Hey! Good morning!” I could go from 10-2 but I generally like to do something along like, start, at 3:30 and then go late, just because I have a huge workday ahead of me.

 

Neely Quinn: Okay, and I want to know, also, how all of your training has transferred to your actual climbing. We haven’t talked too much about your climbing and all your accomplishments, so you said that you didn’t really start climbing seriously until a few years ago. When you started training, what things did you notice about your actual climbing?

 

Ray Vachon: Hope. I felt like I was able to say that I’m trying something new, and I’m hopeful that it will work. I did a climb three years ago where it was a really, really long climb, and I remember sitting there saying, the first time I pulled up to the climb, “How in the heck can I make it through all of these clips? It’s so long, the moves are so big,” and then I went to training and I started training specifically for that climb and I made big moves for the duration that I thought it would take to do the climb.

I got to the base of that climb the second time and I said, “I know I physically can do this. I’ve trained right for it,” and because of that, I didn’t have any questions. I removed the doubt of giving the climb a try and, lo and behold, six minutes later I’m kind of easing towards the last clip, and I couldn’t believe it, that I was able to relax and remove the doubt and that’s what training did for me.

 

Neely Quinn: It gave you more confidence.

 

Ray Vachon: Yeah, I guess. Thank you for making that sound so simple. Yes.

 

Neely Quinn: [laughs] So you noticed that you were just more capable. Was your whole body stronger? Did you notice specific changes in your abilities?

 

Ray Vachon: Knowing my limits, so yes, I did become stronger and I knew that I could do certain moves, that I could do it from three minutes, four minutes, six minutes. I did it for nine minutes, and I only needed seven minutes to do it. For that, I believe that that brought up confidence and power, but also simply – yeah, that sounds about right – but simply I would just say that I immersed myself in the practice of it, and that allowed me to believe I could do it and meet my requirement.

 

Neely Quinn: And, like, where did your climbing go with that, if we’re talking numbers. Did you/what changed, in that department, from training?

 

Ray Vachon: I think I’ve never seen anything like it. I went from, if I were to bring up numbers, I went from M9 to M13 and that was a big difference. I will say that the mixed scale is a bit of a strange beast. What is an M9? That’s still insanely hard and M13 is very specific. I was very excited by that gain, though.

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah, I mean that’s a pretty big deal. So where do you see yourself going with all of this? Do you have goals for this year? Next year?

 

Ray Vachon: That’s a really good question. I feel like this year was a bit of a year of – I was going through a little identity crisis with climbing, where last year I felt like I reached a lot of goals, and this year I still felt like I reached a lot of really neat goals but I wasn’t challenging my mind in a way that I wanted to, so I’d like to seek out some climbs in a way that are technically challenging in a way that I haven’t been challenged before. I’m looking for crags that will allow me to try those things. Mostly at, let’s say, 45-degree overhanging. I’ve been working a lot of stuff that’s just 90-degree overhanging roofs, so I’m looking for that specifically in dry tooling, but I also want to spend more time in the mountains placing gear. A lot of heroes out there are doing extremely challenging climbs on gear, and I know that that brings really great fulfillment to myself, and I haven’t done it for awhile. I had a couple of bad experiences a couple of years ago and since then, I’ve been quite shy. I really want to get back to that, because those are my roots.

 

Neely Quinn: You feel like you’re ready.

 

Ray Vachon: [screams] I’ll find out when I’m there. Yeah, I’m ready.

 

Neely Quinn: And where are you going to go for that?

 

Ray Vachon: As close as Rocky Mountain National Park which is, for those people not in Colorado, that’s about an hour and a half away.

 

Neely Quinn: Okay, let’s talk about Ouray, because you won this year. You won the mixed competition, and you were the only climber to finish the route. Do you want to tell me about that? How hard was it for you? Do you think you could have done that five years ago? What was it like to do that?

 

Ray Vachon: Ooh, five years ago? No way. I think that the best thing that I had happen to me that day was someone who said, “Aren’t you here to have fun?” I’m generally not into competitions. They’re kind of a weird environment for me and I don’t like people watching me at all. So I was like, “Oh my gosh! I actually am supposed to enjoy this process,” and I remember I was halfway up the climb and there was a photographer right near one of the structures and he was maybe five feet away from me. I started talking to him and was like, “Oh my gosh! I’m enjoying myself,” and that got me to relax.

Then, the more technical moves started. There was this massive panel that stretches the last half of the route and that’s where the route is manufactured, and there are holds put on, much like in bouldering competitions. I pulled onto these holds and I was able to just relax a little bit more, but I felt like I was very/I was surrounded by some of the greatest people and greatest climbers that I know, and I was just ecstatic to be able to do alright against them. I was very happy. Everybody has their day in the sun and that was mine.

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah, you beat out some people who are a little bit younger than you.

 

Ray Vachon: Well, half my age.

 

Neely Quinn: [laughs] Well, good job!

 

Ray Vachon: Thank you. I would say, though, that I think on the upper panel I got to a space where I had to keep trying. I feel like on onsights I do better than second-sights, and I was able to tell myself that, “You’re not going to do it if you don’t try, so trust that it is the solution. It is the best thing to do,” and it just happened that what I did was a little bit different than other people, and they tried things and they trusted that their solution was going to be good, too, and I’m just really happy that my brain worked well that day.

 

Neely Quinn: It is sometimes just about your brain working well and you figuring out the puzzle.

 

Ray Vachon: Which is a struggle.

 

Neely Quinn: Cool. So I always ask people about diet. I would love to know a little bit about how you fuel yourself and if that’s a big part of your training.

 

Ray Vachon: B.K Broilers. No, I’m kidding. I feel like food is great. I would also say that I feel like a glass of wine is always really good for me, but let’s go to the diet. Specifically, I do eat much like the crossfit diet. I believe in protein and I try to stick to the vegetarian diet, but I’m lacto <unclear>, I like to have dairy and egg products. In the morning, I think the best meal I can have are a few eggs, stir-fried with vegetables, an avocado, and some salsa. Boom. I could eat that for the rest of my life, and then throughout the rest of the day, until the evening, I don’t try to really formalize my lunch. I try to eat regularly, to have a lot of nuts, and to have a lot of fruits and a lot of vegetables, and then when dinner comes, I, again, try to have a lot of protein. I like the tempehs and the tofus as my protein source, but mostly a lot of vegetables. There you go.

 

Neely Quinn: Do you feel like that helps keep you lean?

 

Ray Vachon: Uh…that’s a good question. I think it does. Also, sticking to – going way back – figuring out what exercises work for you and trying ones that you know you can do, means you are not going to injure yourself, so protecting myself from injury, and also doing exercises that aren’t going to blow my emotional state, meaning will I show up for the next time. Also, it means I’m going to have a higher metabolism and it keeps me pretty trim and fit.

 

Neely Quinn: Right, but it’s not like you’re/it doesn’t sound like you eat too many carbohydrates. Is that something that you do on purpose?

 

Ray Vachon: Yeah, I have some carbohydrates but not much at all. I feel like they just/they’re kind of empty calories.

 

Neely Quinn: Right, and obviously it’s treating you well. You don’t feel like you need more to do all of the work that you’re doing?

 

Ray Vachon: I think I’m at about 3,200 calories a day, so nothing insane but also nothing small. Just as a little anecdote, I was in Europe, climbing this winter, staying with some friends in northern Italy, and we made our stir fry breakfast. It was great, of egg and vegetables, and they were looking at us like we were crazy. They ate like an entire baguette and cheese, and that was it, and then they had the same thing for lunch, and then they had pasta for dinner and it was like, “How are you surviving?” I think that it works for me and it might not work for everybody.

 

Neely Quinn: Okay, I want to give you an opportunity to give a shout-out to any sponsors that you have, because I know that you do have sponsors.

 

Ray Vachon: I do. I guess the first one – there are four to speak of – Rab, they make awesome equipment for my wearing pleasure. Also, Hyperlite Mountain Gear, Bobo’s bars – and their maple pecan is my favorite – and Petzl has been really, really great to me as well. I also want to give a shout-out to the people who inspire me. I do the things that challenge my body and I know that there are going to be a lot of people coming along to do things that are far harder than anything I could ever imagine. I think it’s building upon friendships and partnerships, and that’s the only way to feel fulfilled in my mind, for me, is to build these strong partnerships. That’s also going to forward the sport and I just love the community, and that’s what really keeps me coming back for more.

 

Neely Quinn: Alright. Any parting words for everybody about training and climbing?

 

Ray Vachon: Just show up and do what you like to do. I’m not necessarily saying I’m the one doing the best job of doing that, so I should listen to my own words, but climbing is just a connection of body, mind, and spirit, and I absolutely dig it and I kind of wish I had jumped on board 25 years ago more seriously. There you go. Yay!

 

Neely Quinn: Well, thanks for sharing your wisdom with us.

 

Ray Vachon: Thank you so much, Neely.

 

Neely Quinn: I hope you enjoyed that interview with Ryan. I definitely did. He doesn’t have a website but he does do Instagram, so if you want to follow him, he’s @nerd_n_nature. It was cool, after the show Ryan and I talked quite a bit and we actually met after the show and talked about podcasting, because Ryan is, as we know, an avid scientist and he’s going to do podcasts all about science. I hope I’m not spilling the beans here, Ryan. If you guys want to follow or find out about that when it comes out, definitely follow him on Instagram @nerd_n_nature. Thanks again for the interview, Ryan.

Coming up on the podcast I have the one and only Lynn Hill. I just did my interview with her today. She’s my climbing idol, my climbing hero, and always has been. I mean, when I can’t do a move as a short woman, I say to myself, “What would Lynn do?” I’ve seen her climb and it’s just the most impressive thing. I got to ask her a lot of questions about gender inequality in climbing, how she trains, technique stuff, and hopefully you’ll like it.

I also interviewed my shoulder surgeon, Tom Hackett, out of Vail. He did all three of our shoulders between Seth and me, and he’s one of the best. We talked about the pros and cons of surgery, and what else works for fixing shoulders, and what is commonly seen among climbers. Hopefully that will be an educational one for you guys.

If you want any more help with your training, and more help than these podcasts and the blog posts can give you, we always have training programs on the website for you. We have a subscription program for both boulderers and route climbers, so our route climbing program and our bouldering strength and power program, they each give you three unique workouts every week. You go through six-week cycles of power endurance and strength and finger strength, and everything you need to be a better climber. It’s only $15 a month, so it’s super affordable and it’s very much like having your own trainer, except you don’t have to pay for the trainer. If you need a little help getting you some structure and very specific instructions about what to do in the gym, that’s your answer. You can find those at www.trainingbeta.com and at the top you’ll see the ‘Training Programs’ tab.

I think that’s all I’ve got for you today. I hope you enjoyed the show. Thanks, very much, for listening, and I will be back with another episode of ‘Ask Kris’ this week and then more episodes next week. Have a great week! Talk to you soon.

 

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