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Photo Credit

Thomasina Pidgeon took this photo of Isabelle Faus in the Happies.

Transcript

Neely Quinn: Welcome to the TrainingBeta podcast, where I talk to 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 35 with Isabelle Faus.

Isabelle is a 25-year old boulderer out of Boulder, Colorado and she has climbed V14, several V13s, one of which she did in a day (Nothing But Sunshine), but she’ll tell you all about that. I didn’t know who she was, unfortunately, until somebody told me about her recently and was like, “Look, you need to interview this girl; she’s crushing everything!” We talk about how she doesn’t have any sponsors, which is extremely surprising to me but we have a little discourse about that, and she talks about her training and her climbing and how she approaches things. I hope you like it.

Before we get into the interview I want to let you know that FrictionLabs and TrainingBeta have partnered and they have awesome chalk. I’ve told you about it before, but their chalk really works.I’m a huge believer in it and if you go to www.frictionlabs.com/trainingbeta you’re going to find some discounts so that you can try it out yourself.

Other than that, I will say that I know in the last podcast episode I told you that we were moving to Denver. I just wanted to make a public announcement about the fact that I bailed on moving to Denver at the, literally, last second. We had the U-haul, we were at our storage unit, we had signed a lease and, this is not my proudest moment but, we/I just couldn’t do it. Boulder is home and it’s where I want to be and it’s where all my friends are and I love it here. So, I/we just decided that we need to stay here for at least another year and maybe forever, who knows? So, that’s what’s going on with that in case you’re wondering and I think that’s it so here is Isabelle. Enjoy the interview  

 

Neely Quinn: Alright, welcome to the show Isabelle. Thanks for all your patience with all these technical difficulties and thanks for being with me.

 

Isabelle Faus: Yeah, no problem. Thanks for having me.

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah. For anybody who doesn’t know who you are, can you just give us a description of yourself?

 

Isabelle Faus: Yeah. I’m a climber. I was born in Wichita, Kansas and raised in Chicago. I came to Colorado when I was 17, about, and I’ve just been living here, climbing here and around for a few years now.

 

Neely Quinn: So you’re, I think you’re 22 or was that old?

 

Isabelle Faus: Yeah, I’m 22. Yeah.

 

Neely Quinn: Okay. So you’re pretty much in Boulder full time now unless you’re out travelling, climbing?

 

Isabelle Faus: Yeah, I’ve spent most of my time in Boulder, for sure.

 

Neely Quinn: Okay. So tell me about some of your climbing highlights.

 

Isabelle Faus: Well, I mean the most recent one is, like, the one that most people have heard about: La Mandala, in Africa. It was my first V14 so that was pretty cool and pretty exciting and really fun. Yeah, just really nice to be out in Africa and do something that’s really, like, people know about and is a classic boulder and a beautiful boulder.

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah, I mean that’s super impressive. How does it feel to be one of the few women on the planet who have climbed V14?

 

Isabelle Faus: Umm…a little weird I guess? I mean I’m kind of – it really doesn’t feel that much different to me. I guess I’m just climbing as hard as I can and trying to challenge myself and not really trying to compare myself to too many others that much, just because it makes it harder I think.

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah, I’m sure it does. I mean, do you/I know maybe this isn’t even a topic you want to talk about but I think it’s interesting. I was just reading from another, you know like, really high level female climber who says that every time she puts up an FA or does something hard, people ask her for video proof of it. They don’t believe her because she’s a woman. Sometimes she even gets death threats from men. Just because? I don’t know why that would happen. Maybe they’re jealous? Maybe – I don’t know. Do you ever have anything like that? Like any hostility from men about climbing so hard?

 

Isabelle Faus: Not at all.  Not really. Nothing like that. I mean, maybe, they seem a little like, ‘Oh man!’ but maybe for just a second. Nothing really very serious. I’ve felt very supported by the men in my life and the men around here. I don’t know. I think that, also, too, I kind of go out of my way to make it known that I’m very honest and I like uncut footage and all of that kind of stuff, so I think maybe people kind of have a perception of me that I’m pretty honest. I don’t know who you’re talking about specifically but sometimes people just get these reputations for, you know, being liars or something, which is not what I’m saying at all but, you know, sometimes people pick up on/people in the climbing community can definitely be very bombarding towards specific people.

 

Neely Quinn: Right, yeah. So, we don’t have to talk about that anymore.

 

Isabelle Faus: Yeah.

[laughs]

 

Neely Quinn: I’d rather focus on the positive here, so tell me more about some of your climbing highlights.

 

Isabelle Faus: Climbing around here has been amazing. Once/I feel like I got a lot stronger once I just started climbing outside and doing exactly what I wanted to do. Not really necessarily thinking too far ahead about the training for specific goals but just trying to do little goals to build up to bigger things. Just to really be a part of going outside and being a boulderer and being a sport climber now, too. I’m getting into that more these days. Just being a part of the whole process of doing new things and repeating people’s newer things and trying hard.

 

Neely Quinn: Are there any… Oh, go ahead.

 

Isabelle Faus: It’s like – yeah. I just feel like that kind of motivation has definitely helped me get stronger. I guess the harder boulders I’ve done, I did Nothing but Sunshine in a day at the beginning of the season, which I sure wasn’t expecting at all. I wasn’t even really planning on trying it that day, it just kind of worked out. Sometimes I think that when you put it out of your mind a little bit more and you’re just kind of focusing overall on getting better, that’s when I accomplish my biggest things. It’s when I’m just like, ‘Okay, no problem,’ just having fun with it and playing around.

 

Neely Quinn: Just no expectations.

 

Isabelle Faus: Yeah. Fewer expectations and not a plan, just take my opportunities as they come. Still being active but sometimes if I put boulders in a specific order or a specific list that I want to do, you just get caught up in it and you don’t have those random opportunities where something just works out and you get lucky.

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah, you have less pressure on yourself when you don’t have lists of boulders that you want to do in a certain order.

 

Isabelle Faus: Yeah, exactly.

 

Neely Quinn: That’s cool. So, you’ve done quite a few V13s, or at least a few, right?

 

Isabelle Faus: Yeah, a few. I think it’s three now? I did Apocalypse as my first one, on Flagstaff Mountain here in Boulder. I did it on Christmas eve. I just kind of went up there in my free time when it was too cold or I had a little bit of energy but I didn’t want to go very far but I wanted to try something. It’s just a little home project that worked out. Then I did The Shining a few months ago, which is a really high, probably at 10 or 11,000 feet or something – and it’s kind of a long boulder so you get out of breath really quickly. You hike so far to get there and that – the hiking and the trying hard really high up, I think that’s really helped the process of really trying a boulder like that. It definitely made me stronger.

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah, and did it make you more fit? I’m assuming.

 

Isabelle Faus: Yeah. I mean, when I first, like my very first time when I got to Colorado and really went climbing up at elevation every day and went hiking most days, I think that’s when I noticed the biggest change in my body and my strength. At least the quickest. The first month of being out here is crazy if you really commit to it and if you’re not already really skinny or something, you’re just – like, everybody comes here and just sheds weight their first month. Then it kind of goes slower after that. You don’t really notice it as much but the first month is pretty nice, that’s for sure.

 

Neely Quinn: Just because you’re so psyched to go out in the mountains and you’re hiking a lot.

 

Isabelle Faus: And you’re just expending so much energy. You’re doing a whole day of doing things, you know? It’s not like you’re just going and doing your hour or two workout. Even if it’s an intense workout it’s just not the same as going out to the mountains and doing a whole day out there. The elements are exhausting and just everything about it is more intense.

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah, that’s what Alex Puccio said, too, is that when she first started losing weight it was because she was hiking all the time.

 

Isabelle Faus: Yeah, exactly. I think the lifestyle of Colorado is way more. It’s real active, like you’re actually going out and doing things as opposed to just going into the gym and, you know, doing a workout.

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah. So what are you working on now?

 

Isabelle Faus: These days? I was going up to the park a lot and it just kind of snowed for a few days and it kind of ruined the whole Chaos season, so I’m down here now. I’m sport climbing a little bit. I did my first .14a the other day so I was pretty psyched about that.

 

Neely Quinn: Nice. That’s awesome.

 

Isabelle Faus: Thanks, yeah.

 

Neely Quinn: Which one was it?

 

Isabelle Faus: It’s Prime Evil. It’s in Clear Creek. I guess people say it’s a soft .14a or something but everybody logged it as .14a on their scorecard so I don’t really know what the deal is, but yeah. It’s an awesome climb. It’s power endurance. It’s probably shorter than some boulders I’ve done. It’s only 18 or 20 moves or something but it was nice to get a little higher off the ground and take some bigger falls.

Just the movement and the mode of sport climbing is different and I think it helps me improve my bouldering, and I’d like to be a really good sport climber, too. I don’t want to just focus on bouldering. I think now that I’ve really built up my power base it’s a really good time to try and apply that to hard sport climbs.

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah, so do you have plans to go sport climb in other areas?

 

Isabelle Faus: I have plans to try hard climbs around here and I want to go to the Frankenjura and I want to go to the place in Norway, Flatanger. I’ve just heard, I mean, there’s just all these classic sport climbing areas that I’ve never been to. I’ve never been to Ceuse, I’ve never been to many areas in Spain so yeah – it’s kind of always all on the list in my mind but specific plans to go somewhere abroad? Not really, not yet anyway.

 

Neely Quinn: Well, there’s plenty to do around here.

 

Isabelle Faus: Yeah, exactly. I’m trying to get into the groove first, maybe do some Colorado classics and then spread out a little more.

 

Neely Quinn: So, tell me about the history of your climbing career a little bit. Like, when did you start? Have you always been a boulderer mostly, I mean, until now?

 

Isabelle Faus: I’ve kind of/I started in Chicago when I was 10 at climbing gyms. I grew up in the city, I wasn’t in the suburbs or anything, so I kind of just climbed at these really small, hole in the wall climbing gyms and I had great coaches. I had one coach for a couple of years at a gym called EAC and then I moved to Hidden Peak in Chicago, and it’s – I don’t even know if it’s still running but Dave Hudson was my coach for, like, five years I want to say. I spent five years doing training in the gym for sport climbing season and the ABS season so I kind of split my years between bouldering and climbing, and sport climbing, probably until I was 16, 15 or 16.

Then, I kind of started just focusing on bouldering. I didn’t really/I traveled a lot. I started going to Chattanooga for months and months at a time. I started homeschooling, too, so I really dictated my own schedule from after freshman year through the rest of high school. I just climbed a lot of places and that’s when I started to focus on bouldering, then I’ve done a few sport climbing stints since then. I’d say like twice I’ve done sport routes for two months or something pretty seriously but mostly I started as a gym kid. I started in the gym for five years and I did a lot of different types of training and I learned a lot from it, too, and basically since I was 16 I have just been climbing outside and traveling and trying to do that more.

 

Neely Quinn: So how old were you when you started?

 

Isabelle Faus: I was 10.

 

Neely Quinn: Okay. That is pretty lucky, and I’m assuming you started homeschooling because you wanted to climb?

 

Isabelle Faus: Not really. I went to a private school in Chicago and I couldn’t really afford it second year and Chicago schools, it’s a brutal place to try to get into high school. You can’t go – it’s like college in Chicago. You have to apply to all the high schools and blah, blah, blah, and if you don’t apply after freshman year you’re not allowed to go to those schools. You have to go for all four years so I kind of was just like, ‘Well, I guess I’ll just focus on climbing if Chicago high schools won’t have me. I’ll just, you know, just go out and climb.’

 

Neely Quinn: So were you living by yourself in Chattanooga or did your parents come with you?

 

Isabelle Faus: I lived with Jimmy and Kasia. Jimmy Webb and Kasia Pietras. I spent, altogether, probably a year staying with them over the course of two or three years split up, and I spent my summers away. I spent very little time in Chicago, which was pretty cool, actually.

 

Neely Quinn: Okay, so this is a very colorful childhood, by the way. It’s interesting and I’m sure it helped you become the climber that you are now.

 

Isabelle Faus: Yeah.

 

Neely Quinn: But the other thing that made you become the climber that you are now is all the training that you’re talking about, so tell me about – you just said you learned a lot from the different kinds of training that you did as a kid and then probably through now. Do you want to talk about that?

 

Isabelle Faus: Yeah, I mean I basically went through five years of regimented training programs. Kasia came from that gym as well and Michaela Kiersch and Michael O’Rourke are also from that gym. Basically, there’s just so many different ways to train your body. Power endurance, there’s power and power endurance, there’s endurance, and basically just focusing on all those different types of things and learning, basically, hundreds of exercises because my coach was obsessed with it and incredibly creative and playful, so everyday we had different workouts. Really intense, really different, I mean every day was different. We never did the same thing twice. We always kind of got to dictate a little bit of what we did, I think.

It’s hard to be specific about it because I just acquired all these skills from him and now I just know all these things about how to work my body and how to rest and how to, you know, that cardio is important and that you have to do your opposite muscles so you don’t injure yourself and warming up. Basically, all these little routines of things that I can do to kind of supplement my outdoor climbing. I think – I don’t know, I’m really into supersets. I just make a whole list. I’ll decide what I want to do, like I want to do cardio and abs and a little bit of legs or something, and then I’ll make a huge workout or something and all of these things that I know how to do is from that education that I got from my coach. I was just lucky to get that.

 

Neely Quinn: So a superset, is that like a HIT workout or something? What does that look like?

 

Isabelle Faus: It’s like – I’ll make, like: I’m going to jump rope for three minutes and then I’m going to do 15 push-ups and then I’m going to do 20 squats and then I’m going to do five different shoulder exercises with the weights, you know, and then I’m going to do lunges and then I’m going to do, you know, just blah, blah, blah. I make huge lists and I go all the way through them. I don’t rest, it’s just like you go through it as fast as you can, kind of. I try not to – I want to do well on each exercise so I’ll take a breath or something, just a small little breather, but just something that kind of does cardio and gets you transitioning and moving around versus doing the same thing for an hour or something.

I’m not the kind of person who wants to go and run on the treadmill for 45 minutes. I’d rather do, if I have to be inside and do a workout I’d rather have my strength training and my cardio be at the same time, sort of. I’m getting a cardio workout but it’s because I’m working all of these big muscles and different muscles at the same time.

 

Neely Quinn: Right, so then you’ll go through this big list of exercises and then will you rest and then do it again? Or do you just do it once?

 

Isabelle Faus: It changes. It changes. I’m very, like, sometimes there’ll be a little bit of it and I’ll do 10 sets of it and I’ll rest for a little bit in between. Now I feel like, too, because of all the training that I’ve done, I don’t time things or really make it so specific because I know how to work my body and I know how to push it to failure and I know when it needs a few seconds rest and that kind of thing. It’s very, just not very regimented at all. I just kind of get energy to do something and I make a workout and I go through it, kind of, basically, differently every time. It’s never the same.

 

Neely Quinn: So it seems that you’re getting overall fitness and overall strength, and you’re not necessarily just working your climbing muscles specifically.

 

Isabelle Faus: Yeah, I mean I kind of do that when I go out climbing because I go climbing so much. I go climbing every day that I can take it, every day that I can grab onto the wall, I’ll go. I kind of feel like I get most of my workout just from doing that kind of thing. If I feel like I’m missing a little bit of something, I’ll do that, but some days I’ll just jump rope as much as I can, for like an hour, you know? I’ll just try it and I won’t do anything else, I’ll just jump rope because all I want to do is cardio. I’ve done something else for the rest of the day. I did all my pull-ups and my crimping and my abs kind of on the wall, you know?

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah.

 

Isabelle Faus: But I didn’t maybe hike very far that day or something, like the boulder was right out of the car so I felt like I needed to burn a little more energy or something so I’ll jump rope forever.

 

Neely Quinn: That’s funny. After a long day at the park or something – oh, no. Those are not long days at the park, those are short approaches.

 

Isabelle Faus: Yeah, those are short days when I go out and it’ll take me – it’s an out of the car kind of boulder. It’ll take two seconds to get there.

 

Neely Quinn: So, I have so many questions for you. When did you feel like you were – did you ever have really big leaps in your performance? Or did you do something in particular that made you really strong, or have you always just sort of gradually gotten stronger and stronger?

 

Isabelle Faus: I think it’s been pretty gradual, honestly. I think the thing, probably in the last few years, that has gotten me stronger and stronger to the point where I can climb 8B+ is just climbing outside and being really focused, and really wanting to do these kinds of things. Not just being motivated on getting strong in the number and stuff but improving on my abilities and my strengths and my technique and my style, just trying new things and doing it outside. I really haven’t focused, really at all, on any sort of regiment or plan or anything in the last couple of years. That’s the only thing I’ve really changed.

I always kind of had a little plan or structure in the back of my head as to how I wanted my weeks or my months to go or whatever, or my years, but kind of as soon as I dropped all that and just climbed outside and just focused on day to day, what I wanted to do. Like, what do I want to climb on today? I look at the weather and I kind of see or feel out what I want to do, personally, that day and just do that. That’s, I think, where I’ve gotten my most improvement from.

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah, it sounds like you’ve really had a change in, and we talked about this earlier, in your mental approach to things.

 

Isabelle Faus: Yeah, I think I just got the opportunity as well. I always wanted to climb outside and have that be a part of my everyday life but I kind of guess I didn’t with working and trying to just be a part of a normal scheduled life. It makes it weird, I think, as a climber. I think you have to have nothing dictating anything at all. You have to have total freedom to be able to really go for it. I think I’ve finally just been able to get into a position where I really just have the opportunity to do whatever I want and take advantage of the days, you know? Instead of just sitting in Chicago or wherever in the rain.

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah, so that’s what I was going to ask you, too. Do you have a job?

 

Isabelle Faus: Yeah, I clean houses. It’s an awesome job in Boulder. I work for myself, I make my own schedule, people I work for are amazing, it’s pretty nice, yeah.

 

Neely Quinn: That’s great. So, you can make it work, you just have to have your own business and your own schedule.

 

Isabelle Faus: Yeah, exactly. I just really wanted to be a climber. I don’t make any money from climbing. I make zero dollars from climbing.

 

Neely Quinn: How is that possible? Have you just not sought it out?

 

Isabelle Faus: I have. Most of the bigger companies won’t even respond most of the time, honestly.

 

Neely Quinn: What? Why?

 

Isabelle Faus: Some of the smaller companies that do just don’t have the money. I don’t know. I mean, I guess you’d have to ask them that. It’s probably the amount of Instagram followers I have and that I’m not your typical image on Instagram and Facebook and stuff like that.

 

Neely Quinn: What do you mean by that?

 

Isabelle Faus: I mean, I think everybody – I’m a little more creative. When I put pictures on Instagram the motivation is to share what I like and what I see and just through my eyes more. I think most people use Instagram to depict themselves, in ways to see/to look at them instead of them looking out, I guess. I don’t know.

 

Neely Quinn: That’s a big difference. You think that sponsors are not really into that?

 

Isabelle Faus: I can kind of understand it. I mean, when I go on Instagram and there’s, maybe not climbers, but some specific person I want to see on Instagram, most of the time I do want to see pictures of them on their Instagram. It’s not like there’s no pictures of me on my Instagram but it’s not dominated by it, by any means. It’s just different. It’s not a homepage for Isabelle, you know? It’s just a creative outlet for me.

 

Neely Quinn: Well, that is so surprising that you have no sponsors, or no sponsors giving you money. That’s just crazy to me. I feel like calling people right now and going, “Why aren’t you sponsoring this girl?” Is that something that you would take on if it was offered to you?

 

Isabelle Faus: Yeah, if it was offered to me with a structure. I would do things for companies if they wanted me to do things like, you know, they were more personal or more specific? I don’t know. I’m open to sponsorship, obviously, but I think what some people expect sometimes is maybe not what I’m into so it would just – yeah, be a little weird.

 

Neely Quinn: Right. Alright, so what about comps? I just saw a video of you at some comp and I was wondering how much you compete and what do you think about it?

 

Isabelle Faus: I stopped competing entirely in the past few years, basically since I’ve been living in Colorado permanently. I competed when I was younger because it was my opportunity to actually do something in climbing, because I lived in the city. Then I kind of did it on and off. I always kind of did it on and off, even when I was younger. I did it for my first year and then I didn’t really want to do it, honestly, just because of some weird – like, I got disqualified at divisionals and I didn’t want to go back because I was over it.

I competed kind of on and off always and then now, I kind of did pretty well, finally. A few years ago I won the Dark Horse and I got third at Nationals. I won some other comps too, I think. I don’t even remember at this point but I just wasn’t really having that much fun with it and I just don’t see – when I think about being older and looking back, I’d rather spend my time accomplishing things outside. There’s nothing wrong with the competitions, it’s just hard for me to commit all of my time to them. I think in order to do well at them you really do have to go into the gym and really train for them and really get prepared. I just have so many other goals it makes that hard.

 

Neely Quinn: Right. You don’t really like training in the gym much.

 

Isabelle Faus: It’s not that I don’t like it, it’s just that I did it for a really long time. I can do it occasionally and have fun but no, it would just be hard for me to live in Colorado and spend my days in the gym.

 

Neely Quinn: Yep. Alright, so let’s talk about your schedule. I think people would really love to know what a week in your life looks like, in terms of training and climbing and all the activities that you do. Can you tell me: how often are you in the gym? How often are you going outside? How does that correspond with your work schedule?

 

Isabelle Faus: Basically, I can work in the mornings so that leaves my days completely free. Basically, after 11 or noon I can do whatever I want. I will go climbing as many days as my – I’ll start, maybe I’ll rest on Monday but if it’s not a rest day that day, if I have energy that day I’ll probably climb for a few days. Maybe, if it’s to a far away place, that’s all I’ll do. I’ll just go climb and not really think about any other kind of cross training. I do yoga every morning. Every weekday I do a 20-minute routine which, with a little ab workout and a little push-ups, and it’s pretty light. It’s like one kind of hard set of abs or something but that’s it. That’s every single day.

Climbing, I’ll go to the gym these days probably once a week. I like campusing. That’s probably one of the more fun things I like about going to the gym is the campus board. You can do things like 1-4-7 or 1-5-8 or double-ups. There’s all these different ways you can play with a campus board and it’s a very standardized thing so it’s like a nice marker of how you feel that day or how – I don’t really know if campusing really helps that much. It just probably helps you get better at campusing but it’s a nice mark. It makes me feel good if I can go in and do 1-4-7 on both arms.

 

Neely Quinn: That’s pretty awesome. Wait – how tall are you?

 

Isabelle Faus: I am 5’ 4 ½”, not quite 5’5” but somewhere in between 5’4” and 5’5”.

 

Neely Quinn: Can you do 1-5-8?

 

Isabelle Faus: No, I can’t.

 

Neely Quinn: You mentioned that and I was like, ‘Oh my god.’

 

Isabelle Faus: Maybe one day. If I could get 1-5 I might be able to do 1-5-8 but I can hit up really high. I can even go up and hit 1-6 or 1-5 ½ but I can’t grab on for some reason. I can go far but I haven’t been able to grab on yet.

 

Neely Quinn: Do you have a positive ape?

 

Isabelle Faus: Yeah, I have a +2 or +3, maybe, yeah.

 

Neely Quinn: Okay, so you go into the gym, and do you climb and then go campus board?

 

Isabelle Faus: Yeah, sometimes I will. I’ll do a little warm-up. It just depends on my mood. Sometimes I just don’t want to put my climbing shoes on. I just want to go play around and do a little workout, like do some campusing and some – like, I’ll try and do, if I go to the gym for a session like that I’ll try and do some campus and I’ll try and do my one-arms and muscle-ups and handstands and levers, just different kind of party trick kind of things because even if they don’t help my climbing I think they’re fun. It’s a nice thing to be able to do. It’s just fun movement.

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah, so you really don’t know if it helps your climbing or not?

 

Isabelle Faus: I don’t know. I think you can get stronger but I think, always, the things that help me at climbing and doing things outside is just climbing outside and climbing all the boulders. There’s so many different elements of it.

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah, so do you take care of your shoulders? Do you do shoulder exercises?

 

Isabelle Faus: Yeah, I warm-up religiously when I go climbing outside. I do lots of arm swings and types of stuff, things like – I don’t even know what they’re called but I twist my arms forwards and backwards when they’re straight out, kind of with my body in a T. Those are really good. I do band work occasionally, and I’ll take the light weights and do two-pounders and do my front arm raises and my side arm raises. I try and cover every muscle that I can think of because I don’t want to get injured. It helps me a lot. I think warming up and making sure my shoulders feel good, I climb better. A lot better.

 

Neely Quinn: And have you ever suffered from any injuries?

 

Isabelle Faus: Nothing debilitating, no. I pulled my hamstring, really dumb/in a really dumb way probably in January or February, or last January. I kind of had this <unclear> all day, I was kind of doing stuff on the computer and I kind of got up and just – it was a rest day anyway and I wanted to do a light workout, just to wake up my body. I was just going to do a little bit and I kind of finished my workout and I was going to stretch out a little. I slipped on the floor and pulled my hamstring. [laughs]

 

Neely Quinn: Oh no. That sucks.

 

Isabelle Faus: So, yeah. Don’t stretch on a wood floor with socks on if you don’t want to pull your hamstring. [laughs] That’s basically – and I pulled my other hamstring a couple of years before, so that’s the only things I’ve really done. I’ve never had/I’ve never hurt my finger or my shoulder or my knee or anything.

 

Neely Quinn: Do you have any ideas about how to stay injury-free? Do you think it’s because you do all these different activities? Do you take supplements? Do you think it’s because you started climbing at a really early age?

 

Isabelle Faus: I think I really listen to my body and really try and just go through the basic steps of warming up and just doing the things that are annoying that you kind of don’t want to do. I kind of think it helps, but I think it helps more so that I listen to my body and I’m very careful, and I have a very strong understanding of how I move and what my muscles should feel like, you know? If it hurts, stop kind of thing. I don’t hurl myself at dangerous things. I really try and never lose focus.

 

Neely Quinn: I’m just going to interrupt here for a moment and let you know that FrictionLabs has sponsored this episode of the podcast, which I truly appreciate. I don’t solicit just any company to sponsor the podcast. I solicit companies that I actually use and whose products I really, really love like Armaid and FrictionLabs. FrictionLabs has a line of chalk – they have several different kinds – that I believe really, really works better than any other chalk I’ve ever used.

If you want to try it out yourself and see how the content of magnesium carbonate in their chalk is higher than other chalk companies you can do that by going to www.frictionlabs.com/trainingbeta and you’re going to find some really sweet discounts that they’re giving just to you guys. Hopefully you’ll enjoy it and hopefully you’ll love their chalk as much as I do. That’s it. Back to the interview now.

 

Neely Quinn: Another thing that I want to talk to you about is diet because, as a really strong climber, you must be doing something right. I would love to know your thoughts on diet and kind of what you eat.

 

Isabelle Faus: I think for climbers, we all kind of eat less than your typical American. We’re not eating three huge meals a day. We’re kind of just eating when we’re hungry and stopping when we’re full. I don’t really care if I eat a donut or a cookie or something because I know that I’m doing so much activity that it doesn’t really matter.

I try to get in all my nutrients. These days, if I want to eat pizza all day, it’s fine. I probably won’t gain that much weight but I’ll feel like crap so I try and just eat salads and try and not just eat bread and cheese all day and try and get in vegetables and fruits and natural sugars. I try and eat mostly healthy foods instead of getting my calories from refined foods and stuff. I try and do a variety as well.

I try not to overthink it or schedule it or something because sometimes I wake up in the morning and I’m starving and sometimes I wake up in the morning and I don’t want to have anything to do with food. I kind of just try and do the same thing with my climbing as I do with my eating, just do what kind of feels good and try not to feel guilty about anything or try and deprive myself because I feel guilty of anything. It’s really hard for me. I’ve never been the kind of person who can just starve myself because I like food a lot. For me, the hardest thing is trying not to just eat cookies because I know I can.

 

Neely Quinn: Right.

 

Isabelle Faus: So, yeah. Go ahead.

 

Neely Quinn: What are your thoughts on meat?

 

Isabelle Faus: I like meat. I eat – I try not to eat so much meat these days. I used to eat meat pretty regularly, like every other day or every day or something but now I just – for some reason, my body doesn’t really crave it as much for some reason and I feel like it almost makes me feel like a brick more than anything. If I eat meat, I like to eat a little meat every few days or something. It’s a more recent thing, within the past few months, even, that I’ve kind of just been turned off by a lot of red meat or any kind of meat just taste-wise, for some reason.

I think meat is good, protein is good, and I think we need all of the nutrients. I don’t think that we shouldn’t eat bread or something just because it’s carbs or whatever. I think if you’re a person who’s expending so much energy, you need all the types of nutrients: dairy, meat, grain, all of it.

 

Neely Quinn: So what kinds of food do you bring to climbing areas when you’re out on big days?

 

Isabelle Faus: Well, this is probably going to sound bad, but I probably will stop at a coffee shop and get a cookie and a ham and cheese croissant or something. [laughs] That’s, yeah – sometimes I’ll make sandwiches. A lot of times I’ll make a sandwich to bring with me, or fruits and stuff, but a lot of the time I won’t even eat during the climbing day. I’ll eat breakfast and then I’m just so focused on climbing and doing it that I’m not even really thinking about eating. I’ll eat – that’s why I bring a cookie with me or something, because I feel like I get more from that little bit of sugar because it’s doing something for me right away whereas I’ll eat a bowl of oatmeal or something in the morning so I’ll have my all day energy.

If I’m out in the park or something and we’re hiking for two hours before we get somewhere, I’ll bring something a little more substantial, but most of the time it’s pretty simple, like, just a little sugar rush.

 

Neely Quinn: Do you use any protein powders or bars or anything?

 

Isabelle Faus: No. I’m pretty/I like the taste of some protein powders, like in milkshakes and stuff, but I don’t really notice the difference. I think it’s better to just get your nutrients from food. For myself, I just notice it more instantaneously whereas I’ll experiment for long periods of time with vitamins and supplements or something but as soon as I’ll stop them – I’ll do them for six months or something and stop and feel no difference, whatsoever, so yeah. No, all the workout food, I’m not really into.

 

Neely Quinn: And then what about caffeine?

 

Isabelle Faus: I drink coffee. I try not to drink so much coffee. I got an extra-mini percolator so I don’t overdo it but yeah, I probably drink a couple shots of espresso every day with milk.

 

Neely Quinn: Do you notice any difference if you don’t have it versus if you do have it? In your climbing?

 

Isabelle Faus: I think most of the time I have it so it’s hard to say but no, not really. I feel like I kind of push through those things. I feel like I can kind of put my body into robot-mode if I’m feeling tired or something. Even if I drink my coffee I’ll have my days where I feel tired so sometimes I don’t know if it’s because I didn’t drink coffee that day or if it’s just because I’m tired that day. I kind of just always try and try hard. Sometimes, even when I feel crappy, I have my best days because I’m just trying hard anyway.

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah, it’s weird like that. What about water? How much water do you think you drink?

 

Isabelle Faus: I probably drink a couple, like, two liters of water a day, probably, or I try to. I try and drink a bunch of water in the morning and a bunch of water at night and I try and drink as much water throughout the day as I can remember to. It’s probably two glasses in the morning, two glasses at night, or probably like three glasses at night. Big glasses, you know, big cups of water and a bottle during the day or something.

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah. God, you have such a balanced approach to things. It seems like in every aspect of your life you just seem balanced and you listen to yourself on all things.

 

Isabelle Faus: Yeah, I try to. I think because of not being able to go to school when I – in high school. I tried to go to high school, too. I went to all the schools and was like, ‘You have to let me in. You can’t just let me not come to the neighborhood school,’ but I think it just kind of forced a different perspective on me. I’ve been really grateful for that perspective and just been really open to things. I don’t really take it so seriously because I’m just trying to have fun at the end of the day and be happy. I don’t think having the extra ab is going to make me feel that much happier, so…

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah, it seems like having that school situation might have humbled you a little bit, even.

 

Isabelle Faus: Yeah, I think a lot of things in my life have been atypical and I’ve kind of gotten used to that and liked it more than trying to fit into the normal box of things. It’s very relieving and it’s kind of hard sometimes, or it was. These days I don’t really think about it much but obviously there’s social status quos and everything, but it kind of gets a lot easier when you just let go of it all and don’t even think about any of it.

 

Neely Quinn: So this is going to be maybe a dumb question, because you’ve said to me over and over that you’re not focusing on anything in particular and you’re just kind of doing what feels good, but where do you see yourself in five or 10 years in terms of climbing and life in general?

 

Isabelle Faus: I, hopefully, will be climbing harder and getting stronger and going into different things. I don’t want to just be a boulderer. I want to have lots of different skills in the mountains. I don’t even know how to ski or snowboard. Like, that should be something I do just beyond climbing. I want to push my limits as hard as they can go. Climbing V15 and 5.15 would be really cool and obviously, that’s a nice goal to set for myself, so I hope in five years I’m still working towards that goal or have achieved that goal. I hope that I have found a way to kind of be a part of the climbing community in a business way and start my own business somehow in the climbing community. That would be pretty cool, too.

 

Neely Quinn: Do you know what that might look like? Just out of curiosity.

 

Isabelle Faus: I’ve had so many ideas. The first thing that comes to my mind always is I love clothing and I’m always complaining about clothes and really liking things about other clothes. I’ve always been drawing little outfits on drawings forever, so – I don’t know anything about it but trying to start a clothing company would be a really cool thing to do, but I also like the idea of: there’s nowhere to stay in Boulder. If you’re a climber, you have to know people to come here. It would be nice if that wasn’t the case, if people could have a place where they could come and not have to pay a lot of money to climb in Boulder. Just community-type things. That would be an amazing place to have all sorts of, not only a climber hostel but a climbing shop and a place for people to do lots of things, like a community-type place would be really cool.

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah. All those are great. Please do them.

 

Isabelle Faus: I will try, for sure.

 

Neely Quinn: Alright, I have a couple last questions for you. I get a lot of questions from people like, ‘How does so-and-so take care of their skin?’ like on your hands, and I’m wondering what you do for your skin because you climb outside a lot.

 

Isabelle Faus: I think I’m pretty lucky with my skin. It grows pretty quick and I’m light so I don’t put that much pressure, I think. I don’t rip my skin apart when I go out climbing. I don’t put any salves or anything on my hands. I mean, I’ve got lotion on my hands when I put lotion on my body but I don’t file my fingers if there’s weird bumps or flakes or skin peeling or something.

If I do get a split I’ll try and file it and take care of it and stuff, but I kind of just take my skin as it comes. If my skin feels good I’ll just try hard and not really think about it. If I get a split or some peeling I’ll try and take care of that as best as I can just by filing or putting on lotion or something but I’m not too obsessive.

 

Neely Quinn: So you’re not/you don’t wear gloves when you’re doing the dishes or taking a shower or anything like that?

 

Isabelle Faus: No, I don’t. I think some people/I think if your hands are drier, those are good things to do because water does/will dry your hands out. The more you wash your hands, it’ll get worse. My hands stay pretty moist, I guess, not super wet or anything but they’re constantly regenerating feeling. It’s not like anything’s just feeling like it’s sitting there and drying out.

 

Neely Quinn: Cool. That’s good. It sounds like you have some good genes for that but people will appreciate hearing that. One last question is about body weight. We sort of touched on it but it’s kind of a big deal in the climbing community to be super skinny and what are your thoughts on that? I know you said you’re not the kind of person who can starve yourself but is it something that you wish you could do? Is it something you think would make a big difference in your climbing?

 

Isabelle Faus: I think, sure, if I had a really regimented diet, and it would take really low calories for me to keep losing weight, and I would have to be really hungry to lose weight at this point, but I think it’s fine to a certain point. Climbing is a strength-to-weight ratio sport and I think we’re athletes. Most people, it’s not a body image thing, you’re motivated by certain goals and I think people will push themselves to that unhealthy point but they always crash and burn. I think the people that are more successful just try and hover that line of being healthy and being not healthy because you have to. It makes a difference. You can look at any of the World Cup climbers and the ones who are the most cut are the ones who are on top of the podium.

It’s not really something I think you can ignore as a climber and say, “It doesn’t matter,” because it does, a lot. Every little pound of fat is going to make a difference so I think it’s just dangerous in some people but I don’t see it as necessarily a bad thing. Like, some people will maybe not eat all day or something but I think if you’re just doing that a little bit, you’re not going to really hurt yourself.

I think we require way less food than people say we do. Most people who get talked about as being too skinny or something, I don’t get too worried about it because it seems so few and far in between that people actually, really hurt themselves by getting too skinny from climbing and the starvation thing.

 

Neely Quinn: When you first moved here, it seems like you said you did lose some weight.

 

Isabelle Faus: Yeah, for sure. I was losing weight before that, now that I think about it. At my heaviest I was probably 125 pounds and now I’m like 104 pounds but that wasn’t all at once. That was probably over, like, a year that I lost that weight. It kind of just came off naturally. I never really noticed. I was at school at Massachusetts for a few semesters and that’s more so when I started just coming down slightly, really steadily, for a long time. Then, when I came to Colorado I was probably down to 113/114 by the time I got back to Colorado a few summers ago, and then after that summer I’ve been hovering between 102 pounds and 104 pounds most of the time when I step on the scale. The climbing in Colorado really pushed that last little bit but in the last year I haven’t lost any weight, I would say.

 

Neely Quinn: Did you find that when you were losing that weight that you were – do you think it affected your climbing?

 

Isabelle Faus: Yeah, I mean obviously it does. I think it’s a huge part of why I’ve gotten stronger, because I’m lighter and I’m able. My muscles are getting bigger, too. I’m kind of converting all of that in my muscles and getting more ripped and getting skinnier. I have more muscles and I’m skinnier so I know that/I think that is more of the difference. I think that if I just lost weight I maybe wouldn’t have been as strong of a, like, I wouldn’t have gotten as better but I think it’s the mix of the muscles and the lightness.

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah, well it’s interesting to hear your take on that. I know it’s kind of a sensitive topic, so…

 

Isabelle Faus: Yeah, I think people are, just these days in general, it’s like everybody gets ridiculed about their weight no matter what weight they’re at, so… [laughs]

 

Neely Quinn: That’s true. Cool. I think that’s all my questions and that’s all the time I want to take from you but where can people find you online and social media and stuff?

 

Isabelle Faus: On Instagram I’m @fausey and Facebook I’m Isa Belle, no last name on there, but yeah, and at www.theisland.io I have an account on, which is probably the best website to use for climbing but nobody’s using it yet, so everyone should go start using that website.

 

Neely Quinn: I’ve never really understood what it was. Can you explain it really quick?

 

Isabelle Faus: Yeah. It’s a logging system and a media website. It’s similar to 8a in a way but it doesn’t have a scorecard, it’s not motivated – it’s a community website where you can come and share media and photos and you can add. They actually have this huge map and you can add boulders to the map. If you’ve done something new you can put boulders on the map or a route, too. It’s a place to kind of put all your climbing needs in one spot instead of using all the different climbing websites. You can kind of get all of your information from the same place.

 

Neely Quinn: Awesome. Cool. Well, maybe more people will go to it now.

 

Isabelle Faus: Yeah, that would be cool.

 

Neely Quinn: Well, thanks for your time and I really appreciate it. Good luck with all your, well, not your goals but your everyday climbing.

 

Isabelle Faus: Yeah, I have goals for sure but I just try and keep them kind of subtle, in my mind.

 

Neely Quinn: Yeah, in the back, there, hidden away.

 

Isabelle Faus: Exactly.

 

Neely Quinn: Well, best of luck to you. Thanks again.

 

Isabelle Faus: Yeah, thank you Neely. Bye.

 

Neely Quinn: Bye.

Alright, that’s it. That was Isabelle Faus and hopefully you’ll go follow her on Instagram and Facebook and maybe write a couple of letters to some companies in the climbing industry to tell them to sponsor this girl. I mean, she’s crushing it, she’s a super smart, cool girl, and I hate to see her go unsponsored but, alas.

Coming up on the podcast I have – you guys will be so excited. I have had no fewer than 25 requests for an interview with Tom Randall so I have him coming up, and then Steve McClure and hopefully Dave MacLeod, if I can finally get that to work. Sorry I’ve been promising an interview with him and it just never happens. Hopefully it’ll happen this time and some other awesome interviews. I’m trying to get one out every week now so you guys can get your training fix.

As far as training goes, also remember that we always have training programs for you guys, particularly for you right now it’s bouldering season here and a lot of other places. We have our bouldering strength and power program, which is a subscription program. You pay about $14, anywhere from $12-$15 a month, depending on how long you subscribe for. You get three unique workouts every week and those are created by Kris Peters, who is a trainer here in Boulder. He’s worked with a ton of different people and understands. He gets really creative with his workouts and keeps you on your toes and also keeps it efficient. Those workouts are pretty much no longer than two hours, ever, so that we can keep other things in our lives going like jobs and family. Check that out. Go to www.trainingbeta.com and at the top of the page you will see a tab for training programs. You will find it there along with all of our other programs.

So, that’s it for today. I will talk to you next week. In the meantime, climb hard, have fun out there, and train smart. I’ll talk to you soon.

 

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