[laughs]. So I’ll keep you posted on that.

Second of all, this weekend is ropes Nationals, what do they call it? Lead and Sport- no. Sport and Speed Nationals, sorry, tongue twister there. That’s in Denver at Movement. I’m going to be commentating again. LT11 does the production of that, so there will be a live feed if you want to check it out. Qualifiers are on Friday, and then semis and finals are on Saturday, and that is this week. Hopefully you will check it out. If you don’t listen when it’s happening, there will be a recording of it so you can hear it whenever you want. I’m not as nervous this time, I will say that. Last time I was super nervous to do it, and this time I know I am going to mess up and it’s okay, and I know it’ll be fun too.

I think those are all my announcements, and now I will tell you about Madaleine. Madaleine Sorkin is a sponsored climber. She makes her living as a guide, she does clinics for climbing, and she also has money from sponsorships, and she’s been doing that for over a decade now. She is most well known for her ascents on El Cap, and she does a lot of big wall climbing. She is a hard trad climber- she just did a 13c trad climb in Rocky Mountain National Park, it was way out in the back country, way high up, so it was very notable. I remember talking to Jonathan Siegrist about it when she was doing it, and he was like “If she does that, that is super badass”. Then she did it, so she’s going to talk about that, how she trains, what she eats on big walls, and when she’s out on big days, which I think is really interesting. I think a lot of people have those questions, like “What do we eat when I’m doing big long days out there?”. Here is Madaleine without further adieu, I hope you enjoy this interview.

Neely Quinn: Alright, welcome to the show Madaleine, thanks very much for being with me today.

Madaleine Sorkin: Thanks for having me Neely.

Neely Quinn: So, for anybody who doesn’t know who you are, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Madaleine Sorkin: Sure. My name is Madaleine Sorkin, I just turned 35, solidly middle aged. I started climbing when I was 15, I grew up in the suburbs of DC and started going to Colorado in the summers, went to climbing camp, and I think began climbing in a fairly traditional sense of climbing. More mountains, and really crack climbs were my focus for a while, and learning how to get myself up peaks that I wanted to climb. I always like climbing hard, and pushing myself so that was a pretty constant thread in the beginning.

I’ve lived in Colorado since I was 18 years old, more or less. I’m fairly restless and travel a lot. I’ve lived in Boulder since 2007, and I am a sponsored climber. I’m a AMGA rock guide, and coach, mainly all outside.

Neely Quinn: Mainly all outside- so you don’t work in gyms with people?

Madaleine Sorkin: I certainly will, all with the focus of getting outside with them. In terms of efficiency I will work inside.

Neely Quinn: So you have been a sponsored rock climber for a while now?

Madaleine Sorkin: Yeah, I think since 2006.

Neely Quinn: Have you made your living as a sponsored rock climber, or what else do you do?

Madaleine Sorkin: No, it’s really helpful, and my goal- I think at this point, climbers, there’s a lot of opportunity, potentially for that, or at least making a substantial amount your living from climbing. My goal has always been to have climbing pay for itself. If it can be more than that, it’s a bonus for me, but I’ve kind of hovered around there. I work mainly with Outdoor Research, and then other companies, but Outdoor Research really helps me the most. Otherwise, guiding and coaching and random other work is what I’ve done.

Neely Quinn: Got it. So in any case, whatever you are doing, it’s climbing based.

Madaleine Sorkin: Yeah, very climbing focused. I’ve tried other career paths, and really I’m pretty one dimensional with my interests.

[laughter]

Neely Quinn: Well that’s fair, you must really love it.

Madaleine Sorkin: I do- I think it’s such a gift to have a passion in life, and to keep finding your way with that, and what makes the most sense for, I guess your excitement level, and what your goals are with the rest of your life too. I think a passion for climbing can continue through your whole life if you’re so lucky.

Neely Quinn: Is that kind of what you plan on doing, climbing through your whole life?

Madaleine Sorkin: I do, yeah. I would love for that.

Neely Quinn: So tell me a little bit about what you’ve done so far in your life. What have been some of your highlight moments of climbing?

Madaleine Sorkin: I think the first one that was a benchmark highlight and set the stage for what was possible for me was freeing Moonlight Buttress in 2006 with my good friend Kate Rutherford, and that just kind of opening up this world of… I loved climbing longer routes, and I’d never really projected a route before, and in a fashion that has always been fitting to my climbing. I’d redpointed a route as hard as I’d ever rock climbed before way off the ground, and it’s not necessarily the way a lot of people do it. But that was really my path into climbing harder, because I was so inspired by that style of climbing.

Neely Quinn: Can you actually tell people what Moonlight Buttress is?

Madaleine Sorkin: Moonlight Buttress is a relatively big route. It’s 1200 feet tall, it’s an iconic crack climb in Zion National Park. After the first 300 feet, you’re really climbing this one single crack to the top, and it has been a classic aid climb to learn how to aid climb, and it’s become a classic hard free climb. It has a number of hard pitches that are up to 12+. At the time, for Kate and I, that was as hard as either of us were climbing, and we employed all kinds of strategy that we hadn’t before, to see if it was possible for us. We rappelled in from the top and previewed the pitches, and everyone had heard of doing that before. Then we spent two days on the route- we climbed the first half, stayed on a portal edge, and it was my first time on a ledge- the portable ledge that you sleep on. And then we climbed the rest of it. It’s largely crack climbing, but it’s fairly straightforward gear placement of crack climbing.

Neely Quinn: Did that kind of break you out, sort of? Was that your breakout moment for getting sponsors and stuff?

Madaleine Sorkin: Yes, for that. Sure. And sponsorship, I wasn’t as aware or wanting relationships with sponsors at that point, but I wasn’t as aware of what was possible then. It certainly started the “Oh I can get some free gear” kind of understanding of the sponsorship. In terms of what it means to have actual relationships with the people that work at companies and care about their product, and having them support your trips or do video projects with them, or what have you- it still took me a while to understand that process. But yeah, that was the start of taking climbing in that direction.

Neely Quinn: And then tell me about a couple other of your highlights from your career so far?

Madaleine Sorkin: Yosemite has been a major focus for me. I haven’t focused there in the last two years too much, but I’d had an individual project in 2009 and climbed the Leaning Tower, which is 13-, about the same length as Moonlight Buttress. Kate and I freed the Half Dome in 2007, and Freerider on El Cap, which is a 12+ I think really, more like 13- route. Then I really started pushing myself with free climbing more after 2011 I would say. I freed El Corazon on El Capitan, which is 35 pitches, 13b. It goes into the upper crux pitches of Golden Gate and has some harder climbing below. Then I climbed the PreMuir Route, which is Justen Sjong and Rob Miller’s free variation of the Muir, and freed it up through the crux 13c pitch, and that was a big deal for me. Unfortunately I didn’t climb the last 800 feet, but that was great.

A number of more remote trips focused on putting up new routes up to 12+ up in the Northwest Territories of Canada. Kate and I went down to Patagonia, that was a big highlight. I’ve been down there once and got to climb Fitz Roy. I don’t really like the cold weather that much [laughs]. That was a huge gift to get to go up that. It took us three days to climb it, and I thought it was quite cold even though it was supposedly a warm spell.

I’ve felt like I’ve had a pretty blessed climbing life this past summer. I climbed the Honeymoon is Over, up the middle of the Diamond, which is a major 14,000ft peak in our backyard in Rocky Mountain National Park. I climbed it in decent enough style to call it a redpoint, but I’d still like to go back and climb it in a better style. But that was an amazing project, and I hadn’t had a goal like that that I’d gotten to focus on, as big and inspiring as that route. It has four really challenging pitches for me, and it was close to home, and that was a unique experience of getting to be at home, train at home, and try and integrate it more into life here.

Neely Quinn: How hard is the Honeymoon is Over?

Madaleine Sorkin: It’s 13c.

Neely Quinn: Yeah so I remember seeing you somewhere when you were working on it in town, and you were like “Yeah, I’m working on this thing, it takes me 7 hours to get there”, or something ridiculous [laughs], and “It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done that high”. I was like “Oh my god, that sounds like something I would never ever even attempt!”. So good job on that!

Madaleine Sorkin: Thanks. It’s one of those things that’s difficult to convey. I like choosing these bigger challenges, and they’re as hard as I can climb, and then there are all these other variables. It takes forever to get there, and the weather, and partners… that one is close to 14,000ft so you have to really acclimate to be able to climb hard up there. The pressure that you start feeling to send, once you realize you can do it, but then there’s only a handful of days that you are going to get an opportunity to try it.

Neely Quinn: Yeah, yeah.

Madaleine Sorkin: I seem to like that- I don’t know, be oriented towards that kind of pressure. It’s the same as big wall climbing, where you put in five endless days of work, and you’re staring down that one really last hard pitch and you just give it everything you can to finish it.

Neely Quinn: Yeah it’s a completely different kind of climbing- uh oh. I am echoing for some reason. Hang out one sec.

Madaleine Sorkin: Okay.

Neely Quinn: Okay I just had to write that down. Did you change anything about your microphone situation?

Madaleine Sorkin: I don’t think so…

Neely Quinn: And now I’m not echoing so that’s weird. I’ll just start again. Yeah it’s a really unique kind of climbing that you enjoy, and it’s not something that I think a lot of climbers enjoy. A lot of us are sport climbers or boulderers, and you tend to go up these huge mountain with potentially bad weather, where you need a lot of endurance to get you to the start, and also to get you up the thousands of feet you’re going up. How have you prepared yourself for that, and why do you think that is what you’re drawn to?

Madaleine Sorkin: I mean I think I pause on the word “enjoy”. I do deeply love it, I think my draw to it is that I search for meaning in life, and I like going through things that bring out all of the facets of experience, from joy to pain, or discomfort, and really learning to deal with my emotional body, and being embodied during that time. To learn to be a conscious being while not super psyched about where I am.

And then also, in the same regard, having these profoundly joyful experiences, because of all of that. Because of really being vulnerable in this process, of doubt, whether or not it’s going to happen for various reasons, the insecurity of being in a less stable environment. It really reminds you of your humanness. Just like any process can- but these ones do it for me on a deeper level. On the same regard, they’re not always healthy processes to be in, or where I thrive, and I have to take a step back from being in them as much, because they’re a bit too much for me.

Neely Quinn: Do you think that you’ll do fewer of them now, then?

Madaleine Sorkin: I think I’ve become more selective about them. Coming out of that, wanting to be more balanced throughout life, and throughout the year. Respecting more what a focus those goals take, and loving that, and wanting to be realistic about how much of that I can do.

Neely Quinn: Yeah. Is it just emotionally and physically exhausting for you?

Madaleine Sorkin: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the Diamond goal was really this experiment for me of “Can I do a better job, am I doing a better job, of staying embodied in the process?”. Not sort of abandoning a feeling that I don’t like having for the sake of a goal. The reality is is that I’m really goal focused, and at some point, the goal often becomes the priority. That totally has an effect on our psyche and wellbeing, and I would say the month following that goal throughout September into October, I felt pretty lost- really couldn’t find myself very easily. I didn’t want to be where I was. I had a lot of trouble connecting with where that was, and felt quite depleted without that much resource to be there. I think there are consequences to goals in which you really, really push yourself.

Neely Quinn: Yeah. So do you feel- what are your current goals?

Madaleine Sorkin: Well, I’ve had a pretty open field, which is somewhat intentional and intuitive to knowing that I am going to be pushing myself a lot more in the spring and fall. I have an endurance goal for the Black Canyon that I’ve wanted to do for a while, and I’d like to try it this spring. It’s to link up a hard route on the north side of the Black Canyon, and a hard route on the south side of the Black Canyon, which would be 40 pitches of climbing. I would like to climb the Honeymoon is Over in better style, possibly, this summer, and do more up there. Those are more specific goals that I definitely have in my head of how I’m beginning to get more fit towards them. My training is often a hilarious thing to talk about, but we can talk about it more later.

Neely Quinn: Yeah I’d love to know how you do this to yourself.

[laughter]

Madaleine Sorkin: I just had a goal that is a bit less of a performance goal, that I went to Wadi Rum, Jordan. It was a project. I went to this climbing area in Jordan where we did a film project about what it’s like to be a westerner traveling there, and we put up a fourteen pitch route that just got freed actually two days ago, at 13+. It went free at 5.13, and it was heartbreaking- I couldn’t free the fourth pitch in our situation of time and other things. I’m really excited to see that somebody just freed it, and in a good style. Our goal with the whole trip was to really promote positive tourism to the area, and there were people excited about the area, so maybe it’s already happening, which is neat.

Neely Quinn: It’s pretty cool to see you as a female putting up new routes. It’s not something that many females do. Do you have any thoughts on that?

Madaleine Sorkin: Um… yeah. I mean, I think since more men have done it, then more men get into it. That just sort of is a self-fulfilling cycle. As women enter putting up new routes and enter that world, other women kind of realize that they think that’s cool and they might be interested in it as well. I struggle to think that it’s anything less than simply who does it, who your role models are, and what your opportunities are, but those things are then incredibly difficult to change. I mean, it’s a welcoming environment, putting up routes with people who are already doing it. Those people are really excited to teach and pass the torch, a lot of them. I haven’t explored putting up new routes as much as I would like to, and part of that is that it’s incredibly time consuming and a lot of labor.

Neely Quinn: Mhm.

Madaleine Sorkin: It makes sense to pair up- like in my situation, I’m going to this area in a short period of time, and a friend has been working on this route already for the previous season. There was a fairly predictable amount of labor left in it before the focus could go into cleaning it up and making it something that we could figure out how to free. I don’t know- it takes a lot of time, that’s probably the other major barrier, and why often you see people who are older doing it is because they are shifting their focus in their climbing.

Neely Quinn: Right, giving back more.

Madaleine Sorkin: Yeah.

Neely Quinn: Yeah, and we don’t have to focus on that, I just wanted to get your quick thoughts on that, because it’s something that women, including myself, should be more encouraged to do. It’s just inspiration to see you doing it.

Madaleine Sorkin: Yeah, and it’s inspirational for me to see women doing it in the sport arena too. That’s just rarely something that I get involved in. And in the Front Range, there’s only so much rock to put up new routes on. But I have friends who are squeezing in new routes and putting up good lines in Eldo or in the Flat Irons- and they’re all men.

Neely Quinn: Right, yeah. So one of us should change that some day [laughs].

Madaleine Sorkin: Maybe it’s just that we need a good name for ourselves and that will motivate us.

Neely Quinn: We’ll work on that. I really want to talk about your training, if that’s okay? You have to be in such good shape to do a lot of the things that you are doing. Can you tell me about how you’ve prepared for some of these big wall events, and how you prepared yourself to do what you did- the Honeymoon is Over- last summer?

Madaleine Sorkin: I think I should back up and what my path has been, and so then what I keep trying to introduce gently into my normal regiment. My path has been the traditional, kind of classic- like you go to the mountains and you get fit. It’s great, and it works. It does work on a level, and I’ll keep coming back to how that does work. I think there is a important meeting ground there in which you take that gym strength, and you apply it, and whether you think you are ready or not, you just go and try.

A lot of it is that I’ve just climbed a lot, and I know how to turn an outdoor climbing day into more of a training day. I focus on power, and then I tired myself out towards the end of the day on more mileage. Or just focus on power, and then go into the gym later in the day. I’ve done things such as, for bigger routes, I’ve thrown a long rope down the north face of the Bastille, which is a 300 and something foot formation in Eldo, and done a rope solo lap up the north face of that, with climbing that has 5.12 sections on it. And then I’ll run up the other side of the canyon, and then rope soloing, mini-tracking, whatever people want to call it, back up that face. Rappel down, run up the other side of the canyon, it’s like a cross training endurance tiring kind of thing. I try to do outside things because that’s where I’m the most motivated, but in the gym, more and more now, I do boulder in the gym, and I do try to actual employ some systems of strength training. I know I could be a lot stronger if I actually stuck with any of that stuff.

Neely Quinn: It’s hard for you to stick with it?

Madaleine Sorkin: Um, yeah. I tend to orient towards an irregular schedule, so it’s hard to stick with that. And more than that, if the weather is nice, I just would always rather be going rock climbing, whether or not if it’s making me stronger, always. That’s shifted some- now I’m more incisive with my climbing, and I will lean towards more training instead of just overall fatiguing. I know where my weaknesses are, and they’re in power and strength.

Neely Quinn: And speaking of that- earlier you said that you go outside and focus on power on outdoor climbs. Can you describe what you mean by that?

Madaleine Sorkin: Sure. So I pick climbs that I want to climb that have powerful cruxes to them. I will do climbs that I wouldn’t necessarily gravitate towards, because that’s an area that I need so much improvement. And that’s a way for me to be outside and actually be doing a real rock climb, but be working on a weakness. I just have entrenched biases in my climbing that I have to work with. And yeah, I just keep asking friends for advice. They’ve stopped giving me advice because they say I won’t follow it, so…

[laughter]

Madaleine Sorkin: I would say I generally follow an intuitive training plan. What have I achieved outside that day, and then balancing that out in the gym with what I didn’t get.

Neely Quinn: Right. So when you go into the gym, if you were to go into the gym and prepare for a long route, or something, what would you do?

Madaleine Sorkin: Um… I don’t know.

Neely Quinn: You just don’t do it?

[laughter]

Neely Quinn: Okay, so when you were in Yosemite, and-

Madaleine Sorkin: I mean, 4x4s, that’s what I’ve done effectively. 4×4 type things, power endurance climbing.

Neely Quinn: Okay, so you will do it, you have done it at least once.

Madaleine Sorkin: Yeah I have done it. I think it’s unfair to say that I haven’t. I’ve done that, and I’ve seen gains with that, absolutely. It’s helpful to do that stuff with a group or with another person, to use yourself a little bit more, or have goals to make me reach a little bit more. Instead of just saying “Okay, I’m gonna go in and try hard”, I’ll be like “I’m going to do X number of sets of four boulder problems in a row”- that kind of things.

Neely Quinn: I’m just going to pause here for a moment and let you know about a few things that are new on TrainingBeta- or fairly new- in the last couple of months. We try to give you guys as many resources for training for climbing as possible, and we like to make them easy to use, really simple to follow, so that you don’t have any questions about what you’re going to do when you go into the gym to climb or train. So this past month, we put out three new finger training programs by Kris Peters. They’re e-books, and they’re five week programs, and there are three. One is beginners, one is for intermediate, and one is for advanced climbers. The beginner and intermediate give you two finger workouts per week, and the advanced gives you three workouts per week. They all give you supplemental core workouts which will crush you, and they’ll definitely make your fingers stronger.

The other thing is that Mercedes Pollmeier is our new trainer for TrainingBeta, and she’ll do online personal training for you. You can get a month from her for your particular situation, no matter what your equipment is. She will work with you if you have injuries, and if you’re at any level of climbing, and any kind of climbing. She works with all kinds of athletes. You can find that at trainingbeta.com/mercedes, just like the car is spelled.

I hope those resources help you train better, harder, so that you can get stronger and reach your climbing goals.

Now we’ll go back to the interview.

Neely Quinn: So I’m thinking of Hans Floreine right now. Do you know him?

Madaleine Sorkin: Mhm.

Neely Quinn: So I interviewed him about how he trained for speed climbing up the nose, and he said that he will go into the gym and he’ll do, I don’t know how many boulder problems, and then he’ll do a bunch of sit-ups, pull-ups, push-ups, and then he’ll do another 50 boulder problems, and then he’ll do sit-ups, push-ups, pull-ups [laughs], so that he’s always doing something the same amount of time as he would be actually climbing. Is that something that you take into consideration? Because a 4×4 is only going to get you so far up a 2000ft wall. How do you prepare your skin, and feet, and all of those things?

Madaleine Sorkin: We’ll we’re talking about very different things, you know? Climbing the Nose in a day fast, versus climbing a difficult route on El Cap, those are very different in the sense of if I’m training to climb a difficult route, it’s still a similar thing of each one of those pitches has a hard spot or two, or three. You kind of break down that pitch, and where your stances are. And you get generally fatigued over the time of putting those pitches on top of one another, but you might be taking five days on that route. You’re still conserving energy throughout that entire climb, and it’s a different approach.

I’m trying to have as much power as I can, work on my resistance training, endurance, and you’re doing everything, in a way. I would say you need more power, and strength than you do for climbing the Nose. Climbing the Nose you need just general ballistic endurance.

Madaleine Sorkin: Right.

Neely Quinn: So, I’m actually curious about… so you would stay on the wall for five days. Like the Leaning Tower, were you up there for five days?

Madaleine Sorkin: No, that was a day on route. That was a ten pitch route, so that’s climbed in a day. But El Corazon, we were on El Corazon for four days, and the Premier Wall, I was on it for five and a half days.

Neely Quinn: Were all of those days climbing? Did you climb every day or did you rest?

Madaleine Sorkin: Well the Premier Wall, we planned to rest. But we were in this epic heat wave and we didn’t get as far as we wanted to on one of the days. Our rest day was kind of a half day, and we were absolutely exhausted by the fifth day. You need a rest day with that many climbing days. But you have to be very strategic, yeah. If you’re going to climb three days in a row, you’re going to be at a level of fatigue that you can’t really train for.

Neely Quinn: Well that’s what I’m wondering- can you train to climb three days in a row, and then rest? Can you mimic it in any way to train?

Madaleine Sorkin: I’d be curious what other people say. I think at that point… yes you could. For example, you could go to Rifle, and climb three days in a row there. It’s not going to be great for your body I don’t think. Any of these experiences that I’ve had on bigger routes where you’re climbing for that many days in a row, or are on the wall for that many days in a row, you’re worked for ten days after. I think it’s still around that people have questions about how much fatigue do you train. I think I could see people doing that kind of training at Rifle, maybe three days in a row every once in a while, and that being actually a good place. For me, with my skill set, that’s actually a good place for climbing on El Cap, just because it’s general fitness that I gain there. Then I can get my technical skills that are required for granite back up to snap- but those are already more ready for me to dispatch, I guess. They’re just more readily available for me- I’ve spent so much time on granite.

Neely Quinn: But so, when you did Half Dome, or Freerider, were you just there for a while, so you got your skills back up and you were just used to being out all day, because you had been climbing there for so long? How did you prepare for those?

Madaleine Sorkin: With the Premier Wall, I prepared with gym training then. That was what I could be doing. I was gym training and climbing outside around here. Justen Sjong had the Team of Two group that I was doing, and I was climbing on my own in the gym and outside. I was probably overtraining. Then I went to Yosemite and I was there for two weeks before trying it. That got me comfortable moving on that rock again, and my body was just a little more in the groove of “Okay, these are going to be long days that I’m going to have to get accustomed to”. I climbed a couple of long day routes before then, and I also hiked to the top of El Cap and rapped in a day on my own and stashed- Joe Mills was going to be my partner- I stashed my gear and previewed the stem crux corner. Those things- I mean that previewing is really helpful, but just getting big days before and then resting. Endurance comes quite quickly, I find. But that’s a lot of self-awareness. I’ve climbed for a long time now. I find endurance comes a lot quicker than strength.

Neely Quinn: Yeah for sure. So you’ve prepared in several different ways. And how much do you climb now? How many days a week do you climb in general?

Madaleine Sorkin: When I’m in Boulder, I climb four days a week, I would say, on average.

Neely Quinn: Do you give yourself ample rest?

Madaleine Sorkin: Yeah. I think so.

Neely Quinn: How many of those days are outside?

Madaleine Sorkin: Really depends on the weather. I mean, it could be four of them are outside, and then I will go in the gym to balance out what that was outside.

Neely Quinn: So you spend a lot of time… like if you had a full-time job somewhere, do you feel like you could do this?

Madaleine Sorkin: No. I would have to climb in the gym more, absolutely. Could I get as much effective training in? Yes, I think you can. But it would be hard.

Neely Quinn: Yeah. And are you employing any training tools? Do you ever fingerboard, do you campus, do you lift weights? Do you do anything?

Madaleine Sorkin: I lift weights. A lot of things, too, just to keep myself from getting injured, in terms of how I use the weight room. I do hangboard, and I am trying to learn how to do that in  a way that think actually has any gains. It seems like other people benefit from it [laughs].

Neely Quinn: It does. Can you tell me a little bit more about the weightlifting? What do you do in a session?

Madaleine Sorkin: I’ll do deadlifts and shoulder presses. I’ll do squats, I’ll do bicep curls. Opposing muscle, a lot of push-ups and core. A lot of core. Leg lifts, um, planks. Mix that stuff up.

Neely Quinn: Is this stuff that you’ve always done or did you just start doing it?

Madaleine Sorkin: I’ve always done core and push-up kind of stuff. I’ve been doing deadlifts for a while. I think those really help. They make me feel like I’m more aligned and just like I might not injure my back. I guess they work out your core, right?

Neely Quinn: Mhm. And then the shoulder presses. Did you have a shoulder injury or did you just start doing that for prevention?

Madaleine Sorkin: Um, I had a shoulder impingement a long time ago, 2009. I’ve been pretty healthy since, but my shoulders will roll- they do. I try to be aware of them. I’ve just started doing some shoulder exercises that are I think pretty common climber shoulder health exercises.

Neely Quinn: How long will you spend in the weight room?

Madaleine Sorkin: No more than an hour?

Neely Quinn: Oh so you’ll do all that in an hour?

Madaleine Sorkin: Well those are all the different things that I might do [laughs].

Neely Quinn: Okay you don’t do all of them.

Madaleine Sorkin: No. I might focus on core and do a fingerboard workout in the gym, or I’ll do deadlifts and shoulder presses, and that’s it. I could really use more of a routine, to be honest.

Neely Quinn: And then what have you been finding that works for the hang board?

Madaleine Sorkin: Well, repeaters are just really simple for me, so I want to do more of the taking weight off and putting weight on. But I’ve pretty much just experimented with bigger grips or smaller grips for about a minute and a half repeaters. I’m really- I mean- what I do on the hangboard is like intermediate hangboard things. Trying not to injure myself, and often it’s just to regain or maintain finger strength when I’m climbing. I would like to be doing more that’s actually- I’m often using a hangboard when I haven’t been climbing for a little while. I had this trip to Jordan and climbing was really irregular, and I came back notably weaker. One of my first days in was just getting my forearms used to working out again. It’s honestly not even fair to say that I have a system with my hangboarding yet, I’m just trying repeaters and trying not to do them too often.

Neely Quinn: If you were to have a coach, who would you want to coach you?

Madaleine Sorkin: For me it would be a straight strength and power coach. I think the other aspects of the sport, I have a pretty fine mastery of. Like, which person in the world?

Neely Quinn: I guess, yeah. Because it sounds to me like you want to train more, but you don’t have a good plan? Or good guidance? I’m just wondering, is that something that you want to pursue, and if so with who?

Madaleine Sorkin: It would have to be somebody that can call me on my crap and actually make me stick to a plan, so they would have to know me well enough to do that [laughs]. I mean, I’m taking applications. Jonathan Siegrist would be great, I could talk to him more in terms of making a plan for me, because he’s so strength oriented. But otherwise, I work out at the Boulder Rock Club for the most part, and there are a couple good strength trainers there that have certainly offered me suggestions. I think the trick is actually having an accountable system with them.

Neely Quinn: Yeah, I think that that’s something that a lot of people struggle with, including myself honestly. For various reasons, I don’t really stick with one plan for very long either. What do you think it would take for you to do that?

Madaleine Sorkin: Probably the recipe would be either a small group, and it could even be you, or one other person who’s psyched to train. But more of an accountability system, whatever that is, to set up for myself. I mean, it takes goals for me to really begin to focus. It can have that farther, loftier goal, but I need to have some other performance goals that get me into gym training, and that are logical, realistic enough.

Neely Quinn: Like what?

Madaleine Sorkin: I’ve always found that different sport climbs on the Front Range are really good motivators. So some sort of building block sport climbs.

Neely Quinn: Little projects, not far away. Things that you can go to on the weekends or during the week?

Madaleine Sorkin: Yeah. I just started trying this one in Clear Creek that’s got this very vicious, sharp, long, powerful move on it. Like here’s a motivator for me- becoming more powerful. So something like that, that I can then touch back into, like “Well how am I doing with my progress?”. I usually need that kind of stuff.

Neely Quinn: It seems like having a coach- like it really helped me to have- I was actually training in person with Kris Peters for a while, and to have somebody in my face, and somebody who I was accountable for going to see every week, that helped. But it’s really expensive, and it’s hard to come by a good coach. Is that something that you could see yourself doing?

Madaleine Sorkin: Yeah, and I just had a conversation with somebody about doing an exchange of inside and outside coaching, because we have different strengths to offer one another. I think, yeah. I think that the finances for a coach is certainly one hurdle, and then seeing that as better than a system that I’ve already employed with success, you know, is another part of it. There’s a lot of resistance to learning new ways that are uncomfortable, even if I’m aware that my system plateaus in certain areas, I know what to expect. So really having some sort of reminder system of growth around that, and that this is what my priority is, and what I want to be doing is seeing how to improve power and where that could take my climbing.

Neely Quinn: Yeah. But I mean, you’ve had a lot of success outside. You’ve climbed 13c, on a big wall [laughs], and at almost 14,000 feet. When I ask you about your goals, you didn’t say, “Oh I want to climb 14a outside, I want to climb 14whatever”. It seems like you’re just trying to tweak the little bits, and be a little bit better. And so it seems like it might not even be, I don’t know. It doesn’t seem like you even have that much motivation to spend that much time in the gym to create more power. You’ve already got basically what you need to get to your goals. Am I wrong?

Madaleine Sorkin: I don’t think I have quite what I need, but you’re right in the sense that what I am most motivated for is also the more whole spectrum experience. I want that adventure as much as I want to climb hard. And so I have to balance those things. As much as I like the idea of going to Rifle and projecting 14b, I would struggle to not do something else during that time as well. In terms of what my goals are coming up, I do need a little bit more of X Y or Z, but generally speaking, I’m not trying to climb 14+ this summer, you know?

Neely Quinn: Right. So if you don’t mind, I’d love to change gears a little bit and talk about diet. I think a lot of people struggle with what to eat on big walls, and you seem to have quite a bit of experience with that. Do you want to share some wisdom?

Madaleine Sorkin: Sure. What to eat on big walls, or like big day climbing?

Neely Quinn: Yeah big days, and on the wall. When you were going out to the Diamond this summer and you were hiking for hours and hours and then climbing, what did you eat?

Madaleine Sorkin: When I started that project, I would hike up to the Diamond, and then rappel in. I could bring things like sandwiches quite easily. I’m a pretty big advocate of real food when possible, and I’m definitely, probably, too food focused and constantly snacking, maybe too much. I think maintaining your calories through these big days is really important. I mean, it’s not super technical, but I think about things in terms of salt, quick sugar, fat, and protein.

Neely Quinn: Meaning that  you want all of those things?

Madaleine Sorkin: I want all of those things, and I want to make sure that I’ve covered all my bases with those. So I’ll have quick sugar things, like Shot Block type things. Then I will really try to pack a sandwich or two.

Neely Quinn: What kind of sandwich would you say?

Madaleine Sorkin: It’ll have avocado, um, maybe some sort of protein that’s easy to digest, maybe a fried egg in it or two, and that’s really it. Mayonnaise perhaps, in there, to hold it all together. Just a lot of fats and protein in it. Maybe salami. So like, avocado and salami. Those things are really good, especially for those high exertion days. And then, yeah. In bread of some sort.

On El Cap, in the morning I’d have a tortilla, like a massive tortilla, with goat cheese, salami, avocado, apple slices [laughs], and honey. And I’d make two huge sandwiches and I’d have one for breakfast and save one for lunch, and then I’d have bars and quick sugar type things, and maybe some salted cashews, a little dried fruit. You need to be really careful with that stuff and having enough water so that you don’t get a stomachache. And then in the evening, I would immediately have powdered miso soup. I’d pour a packet of that in hot water and rehydrate with that, while I made some sort of dinner.

Neely Quinn: This was on the wall?

Madaleine Sorkin: That was on the wall, yeah. A lot of hydrating, with sugar in it. I have experimented with some protein and fat in my water during activity, because you’re climbing long routes and there is so much sitting and stopping. You’re belaying and there are these long periods where you’re not actually active. I’ve recently just gone back to sugar in my water. I don’t know, I think it’s worth experimenting with those things, and how that can, especially if you are doing multiple days in a row, really getting enough protein throughout the day that’s easy to digest.

Neely Quinn: Would you ever do protein powder up there?

Madaleine Sorkin: Mhm, yeah.

Neely Quinn: But you wouldn’t do that now, you’ve abandoned that?

Madaleine Sorkin: I’ll do it, if I have an early morning workout, I’ll do it after that, and I’ll do it if I’m doing back to back climbing days. I’ll bring it sometimes to the crag for after that workout. I’m not as systematic about it as I used to be, and I think that it did help with my recovery, how I felt the day after, I’m ready to go. So… I’ve been thinking about that again or being more conscious of that this year.

Neely Quinn: Two questions: one you said that you put sugar in your water. What do you use?

Madaleine Sorkin: I use Nuun. I used to have these guys, I have to go look. These Primal guys who are out of Denver but they stopped making the protein powder and the sugary drinks. That was the sugar plus protein. Really I’ve just been doing ones that are tablets because of the ease of it, and I’ll actually do it.

Neely Quinn: So the Nuun is easy for that?

Madaleine Sorkin: Yeah.

Neely Quinn: And then you were talking about dinners while you are up on big walls. What kinds of dinners would you make?

Madaleine Sorkin: I was trying to remember and I couldn’t off the top of my head- my go-tos. I swore off Tasty Bites, so I’m trying to remember what I put in their place. If it was just like more tortilla action, or what.

Neely Quinn: Salami, and…

Madaleine Sorkin: Yeah there was definitely more meat. I did a lot of canned fish and plantain chips, salt fat protein. But otherwise I’m blanking on what else I would do.

Neely Quinn: Are you a cheese person? Did you bring cheese and chocolate?

Madaleine Sorkin: Yeah, some. I put goat cheese as my cream cheese kind of spreader on the tortilla. I would get those packets that you just squeeze out. It was just a clean… you’re always thinking about trash and waste and such. Having small packets of things- you’re producing a lot of trash on a big wall, because it’s nice to have small containers of things that then won’t rot, or be opened.

Neely Quinn: Then with water, are you trying to conserve because of weight or do you make sure that you bring enough?

Madaleine Sorkin: On a route like that you make sure that you bring enough. That’s not an area that I skimp on.

Neely Quinn: It seems like that would be a bad idea.

Madaleine Sorkin: Yeah of all the areas. Because I mean, in some ways you are trying to conserve in case things take you longer than anticipated, so you’ll go heavy on your anticipated number of days, with possibly enough for an extra half day or even day.

Neely Quinn: Mhm. Okay as far as calories go, and weight, you’re pretty fit. You’re a very fit person, and I’m wondering if you count calories, or if you pay any attention to that? And what you think your weight has to do with your climbing performance.

Madaleine Sorkin: I don’t count calories. I mean, I do pay attention to what I eat. I think it’s a tricky subject, and I mean, I’m certainly not light for a climber. I think my leg strength has often been helpful for a lot of the climbs that I’ve done, but it’s also- there’s a difference. The difference between my performance with five pounds is notable, so I do pay attention to it. Counting calories just isn’t, personality wise, a good choice for me.

Neely Quinn: But you pay attention in that you will eat a little bit less if you feel like you want to lose five pounds?

Madaleine Sorkin: Yeah, I mean, I would do the typical things. Eat less carbs that turn into immediate sugar later in the day, kind of things. I don’t really do anything drastic, but I definitely pay attention more if I come back from a trip heavier. After climbing in Yosemite I’m usually not very strong. It’s ironic, but I’ve usually come back my weakest. I’m pretty used to having these returning periods that take some work for me to gain my fitness back. I try to use food as an aid to recover, and enjoy it, and not overeat. Those usually are enough. Restricting too much usually just backlashes in me overeating, so I try not to- I just try to have a loving relationship with food, enjoy cooking it, and I think preparing your own food is a big deal. Just for me, it gives me a healthier relationship with it.

Neely Quinn: Yeah, that’s a lovely way of saying things. That’s good. Okay so I have one last question. I know that you are working with Justen Sjong on some performance camps. Can you talk to me a little bit about those?

Madaleine Sorkin: Yeah, so Justen Sjong, who’s a long time indoor coach in particular, he and I have created these performance camps we are called “Mad Sensei Performance Camps”. They’re really focused on becoming more confident leading sport or trad, with less mental stress. They’re mental fitness camps for experienced climbers who want to meet their performance edge by gaining confidence in their redpoint and onsight abilities. We spend time just refining onsight skills and refining redpoint skills. Really the guidance is going to be in person, with personal strategies, depending on who those people are. We are doing a trad camp for three and a half days, and a sport camp for two and a half days, with six participants and the two of us- really low ratios. I think there’s a lot of focus on strength training, which I think is great, and as we’ve talked about, I’m not the person to come to for strength training. But how to maintain your mental energy on a climb is absolutely essential, and that’s the focus.

Neely Quinn: So where are these camps?

Madaleine Sorkin: They’re in Boulder, and I can give you the information to list with the interview. The sport one is April 7th, and the trad one is May 4th. We will begin at the gym, the Boulder Rock Club, and then depending on who the participants are, we will be in either Boulder Canyon or Eldorado Canyon, or even Clear Creek.

Neely Quinn: Do you think you’ll do more of these around the country?

Madaleine Sorkin: Yeah that’s our goal. I think it will be fun to be the first participants in them, because you’ll really help us shape them more. I think around here, other places in Colorado, we would certainly travel if it makes sense.

Neely Quinn: And how can- is there a website that people can go to?

Madaleine Sorkin: Yeah, the page is on the Colorado Mountain School website, and there’s a page there we can direct people to. You can get in touch with me directly.

Neely Quinn: And you’ve done this with other people too? You worked with Arno Ilner on mental training.

Madaleine Sorkin: Sure, yeah. I’ve done falling clinics, yeah. I’m not longer doing those, but I’ll be doing more mental fitness clinics through the Colorado Mountain School this summer, and a women’s lead confidence course as well.

Neely Quinn: Do you feel like there is a difference between women’s lead confidence and men’s lead confidence?

Madaleine Sorkin: No, not necessarily. I think there’s just a difference in the amount of space a woman is willing to take up in an all women’s group than a co-ed one, so it’s good to offer those courses.

Neely Quinn: I think that’s totally true. That’s cool, I’m glad you guys are doing those.

Madaleine Sorkin: Yeah we are excited about them.

Neely Quinn: Yeah maybe I will take one, that would be fun.

Madaleine Sorkin: That would be really fun, you should take the trad one.

Neely Quinn: Uh, nope [laughter]! Okay so any final words on this topic for people who are wanting to do this kind of climbing that you do that takes a lot of mental strength? Any words of wisdom for people?

Madaleine Sorkin: I think the farther I’ve done into this path of climbing these big challenging routes, the more I’ve tried to kind of bring all of myself to them. That’s all of my perceived strengths and weaknesses. I think that’s what keeps bringing me back to the bigger goals, is that you have to kind of face all of yourself more, or at least I do. I think for people wanting that kind of place for themselves in life, like just to a) a reminder for me that all of yourself is welcome in any goal that you have, and to really go in with that kind of loving mindset to a goal, is something that I keep learning the older I get. It just makes the big goals more fun, which I’ve been hearing from people is what climbing is for years, but I’ve always found it to be a combination of many things [laughs].

Neely Quinn: I guess what I am hearing from you is allow yourself to have all of the emotions and all of the feelings and all of the thoughts and it’s okay.

Madaleine Sorkin: Yeah, and that’s going to really let you be there, and experience where you are, and that’s really what you’re going for anyway.

Neely Quinn: Cool.

Madaleine Sorkin: Yeah, thanks.

Neely Quinn: Yeah, well thank you very much for your wisdom, and I hope that those clinics go really well for you guys.

Madaleine Sorkin: Thanks so much, hopefully we’ll get to offer more in the future. Alright.

Neely Quinn: Alright thanks!

I hope you enjoyed that interview with Madaleine Sorkin. You can find more about her on her website at madaleinesorkin.com, and then on Instagram at @madaleinesorkin. Those classes she was talking about, the Mad Sensei courses with Justen Sjong, those are at coloradomountainschool.com, and there is a special featured link on the left side of that page.

Coming up on the podcast, I’m actually talking with Bobbi Bensman. If you don’t know who she is, you haven’t studied your climbing history. She was- she still is a crusher- but she was one of the first lady crushers out there, coming up with Lynn Hill and Robyn Erbesfeld. We talk about how she is still climbing v8 and 5.13s in her 50s, with kids and a full time job. She’s a fun lady, it’ll be fun to talk to her.

Also I am doing my third interview this week with Esther Smith, and we are going to be talking about fingers, which is great because both of us just went through finger injuries. She’ll tell you about common finger injuries, and how she really quickly healed hers and other people’s.

Other than that, if you just got really psyched to train and do things in the gym a little different than you’ve been doing them, and you want a little guidance, we have a ton of training programs on the site now. We’ve been doing this four years, and during those four years we have collected and created a bunch of really easy to use training programs. That is what helps support this podcast and the blog and everything that we do. So if you go to trainingbeta.com, you’ll see a tab at the top for all of our training programs. We have stuff for boulderers, and for route climbers, for beginner climbers, for advanced climbers and everything in between. If you are thinking about doing a finger training program and you don’t know where to start, we have three of those like I told you in this episode. You can find those at trainingbeta.com/fingers. If you want a personal trainer, like I told you earlier, you can train with Mercedes Pollmeier from anywhere in the world, and she will make you a four week or three month program if you want. You will get continuos support from her via the Trainerize app, which she uses, which is super easy to use on your phone or whatever device you want. You can find that at trainingbeta.com/mercedes.

So I think that’s it for today. If you want to listen to me more, you can hear me on lt11.com on the live stream for Nationals this weekend. Thanks very much for listening all the way to the end, I’ll talk to you next week!