John Barton

When I first saw the “liquefy” setting on the blender (at about age 7 or 8), I thought how cool it would be to put pizza in—you could drink pizza! Lo these many years have gone by, but I still haven’t done it. Someday!

It did require riding 45 miles on December 30th, but I hit the mark in the end. And I’m on track to do it again!

Some days when the job is getting me down, I remind myself of the times I’ve been halfway up some rock face and had things start going massively wrong. Hands sweating, running of out gear, pulling 30m of rope behind, and “the fear” grips you. (If it hasn’t happened, it will…) And then forcing yourself to control the situation instead of being controlled by it: you handle your emotions and then the rest is just something to be dealt with in order. You chalk up, run it out a little ways (“only a problem if you fall, so don’t fall”), get some slack from below, and you’ve finished another one. As long as I can lead trad, the likes of my coworkers aren’t anything to be afraid of.