Saturday: rock climbing competition

This morning Isaac had a rock climbing competition in Grand Rapids.  His coach said that Isaac should be in the beginner category.  He flashed (completed on the first try) nine of the ten beginner routes and took three tries on the last one.  The video below was the finish of the hard one; it is definitely better with sound.

Anyway, since that took less than half the time to do those routes, Isaac started to do the intermediate routes.  These were the routes that he had the most fun with.  There was one that everyone has falling off of on the third hold (left foot in picture below).  Then one person figured it out and apparently there was a foot twist that Isaac needed to do.  A few tries later, he got it!

Then there was about 30 seconds left, but if you were on the wall you could finish your attempt.  Isaac started a pink one that he had gotten half way up earlier.  Time was called when he was about half way up and he went on to finish it!  It was a great way to end the morning.

Later, we got this fun text:

We had discussed the possibility of this happening, but decided the drive would be too much for just standing on a podium.  Also, we didn't get the text until 3:55pm, which would make the 4pm arrival rather hard.  

In completely different news, I solved the Mini NYT crossword puzzle in a record time!  I think my previous record was 35 seconds and I'm not sure I'll ever be able to go much faster than 17 seconds.