I blame you, Steve Edwards...

Steve Edwards, you jerk. Right as I am falling back into one of my post-climbing trip "I need to recover a bit" phases, I stumble across your P90X bit on Facebook, and the fire is kindled once more. That spirit of what got me off my can during my early married life in Madison, WI and back onto vertical rock haunts me once more.

The Ruth Glacier was a horrible wakeup call, as I well expected it to be. As always, I felt as though I had not even brought a knife to that gunfight where technical preparation was concerned, but vigorous cardio and every last bit of rock I could get my hands and tools on paid off, landing me into some of the greatest climbing and ski touring I have seen in years.

But now its time for the truth that even I am not wanting to read back tonight when I stumble back to see this again: the vertical preparation was lacking, and it affected how aggressive I climbed.

So on that note, I start Flatland Vertical Landscape, a blog for creating the ultimate flatland alpinism training strategies for some of us poor souls bound to the midwest.

Treadmills on max incline (mine does 50% so I'll be a moment), pull-up bars in position, wallets out for the rock gyms, and get me the number for those guys selling the hypoxic training get-ups: its time to climb.