The word back at home was like, oh my gosh, she's going to make finals.
And I was like, well, that was probably as best as I can do this season.
Like my husband and I were training lead in Czech Republic, and he actually decked me.
So I fell to the ground.
This past year, we weren't able to send a coach out to the IFSC
events with our athletes due to lack of funding.
I'm one of the more competitive competitors out there.
We were engaged quote unquote for two weeks and then we got married
and then we've been married ever since.
Welcome to another episode of the That's Not Real Climbing podcast.
I'm your host Jinni and I'm excited to introduce my guest, Madison Richardson.
Madison is a boulder for Team Canada and you may have seen her YouTube videos
with her husband, Zach, on their channel, Richardson's Climbing.
In this episode, we'll learn about the issues the Canadian climbing team
faces, such as not having a head coach, her loose streak when it comes to
Canadian nationals, YouTube and deleting social media, and we'll get her take on
getting married young and relationships among climbers.
I really appreciated her honesty when it comes to having such a
unique competitive mindset.
So I really hope you enjoy this episode with Madison.
Are you like training for any competitions coming up or do you have
any plans for the upcoming few weeks or months?
Yeah.
Well, because of the Olympics, there's a bit of a gap.
I'm only doing the world cup, like the bouldering season this year.
I'm a boulder specialist.
So I didn't go for the Olympics this past cycle.
So I have like a really spaced out season this year.
So yeah, all of August is completely free.
And then we're training for the like Prague and Seoul World
Cups at the end of the year.
Oh, is Prague also bouldering?
Yeah.
Prague and Seoul.
I think one of them is like speed as well.
I think it's Seoul has speed.
I guess it kind of threw me off that they were even having bouldering
at the end of the season this year.
So no, yeah, I'm super thrown off too.
Yeah.
It'll be exciting to watch.
Is it like different for you?
Like having to train for I guess the first few World Cups and then
you have a long break and then doing it again.
Yeah, it's honestly, it's a little bit difficult like mentally
just to be just on all season.
Usually the season is like April to June and it's a really short,
really quick, like super travel intensive couple of weeks.
Super travel intensive couple months, but this year it's like you
go to World Cup and you come home for a month.
You go to another World Cup and so having to like think about
performance all year basically from April to October is pretty
crazy and I'm definitely ready for it to be done.
I would have liked to be done like two months ago.
It's honestly really hard to maintain like you're thinking about
not getting injured and like I'm not getting better at climbing.
I'm just kind of staying level.
It's kind of just mentally.
I'm like ready to start like improving for next season, but I have
to finish this season.
So it's difficult.
So did this like August time well and also like most of July too.
Did that not really feel like a break or like a training season?
Yeah, it's I mean I had a bit of a heavier workload on in July just
because we had two months to prepare for or two and a half almost
three months to prepare between Innsbruck and Prague.
Innsbruck was like end of June and Prague is like end of September.
So there was a good couple months there to get some actual training
in opposed to just kind of really low volume stuff that I usually
do. So yeah, July was pretty intense on like working out, but it's
still nowhere near the intensity.
I have like coming right into like an off season.
So it's it definitely doesn't feel the same.
Yeah, I find it really interesting as like a non-athlete basically
that the competition season, I guess I've heard it's kind of like
you're just getting worse at climbing as the competition season
goes on.
Yeah, what's that like because I think a lot of people just like
don't realize that's that's what happens.
No, yeah, absolutely.
It was actually interesting.
The first World Cup of the season was like my like career best
result. It was like seventh place and I was like really psyched
but like seventh is like kind of close to finals.
So like the word back at home was like, oh my gosh, she's going
to make finals and I was like, well that was probably as best
as I can do this season.
Like the first one is like you're ready.
You're trained up.
You're like your mind is fresh.
You're like motivated you go and do it and then you know, you
have a month off and then okay another one.
Let's try again.
Okay, another month and yeah, it does it does go down.
So the expectation was really high like just in terms of my like
community around me and myself I guess but it's definitely really
hard to top the earlier season results.
Interesting.
I mean, I guess you would think that everyone else would also
be dealing with that same issue.
So in that way is it kind of just like who's better at maintaining
this state of awfulness like as a whole?
Sure.
Yeah, I mean this season was a bit of like an outlier.
I'm sure it'll be kind of like this going forward now that the
Olympics is a thing but not everyone was training for the same
thing all season.
Like I was just going for the circuit.
So every World Cup certain like World Cup was like my priority
whereas other people were trying to like peek in, you know, the
towards July and August for the Olympics and some people were
skipping World Cups and like trying to peek all over the place
and I was just trying to like peek and then stay there and I
guess there are a couple people in my boat, but I feel like a
lot of people were going for the OQS Olympic Series.
So I was a little bit alone.
There weren't many people doing exactly what I was doing, but
I'm just so not into lead that I just couldn't bring myself to
do it.
Okay, gotcha.
I actually had a question about lead.
Well, I'll get into it after.
So yeah, in general, how did you get into climbing and competing?
Yeah, it's probably a similar story to most people.
You know, you have a local climbing gym and then there's
like a kids program you get into that for me.
It was my my stepdad was the first person in the family to
get into climbing and he dragged, you know, the the stepchildren
out and the you know, the whole family he once he gets into
something he just like really gets into it.
So he brings everyone down with him trying to like get them
into his hobbies.
So it took me actually quite a few months to get to the gym.
I was not interested in it at all.
I mostly didn't like the idea of being like pretty bad at
something compared to him.
I was only 10 at the time, but I really liked being in my
comfort zone and things like I'm used to.
So he brought me out and I actually happened to be like
fairly decent at it, you know off the bat, you know, I joined
a local like climbing club.
It wasn't that the youth team.
It wasn't the comp team.
It was like a step below that was like a feeder youth program
that goes into the competition team, which I think is a
perfect way to get someone into the comp scene because it is
quite intimidating to go from like a hobby to now you're
competing at this which I feel like oftentimes people are
being pushed like kids are being pushed to kind of go compete
which I would definitely push kids to compete but like
definitely not right away.
It's pretty intimidating.
It can often like kind of do the opposite for your motivation
and love for the sport.
So it was a nice slow like transition into competitions.
I think it took me like three or four years to start competing.
Sounds good.
And you mostly you only do boulder then.
Yeah, I used to do lead a lot.
I used to I can't believe like something when I think about
my memories with lead.
I can't like I know that I used to love it.
I know it used to be like people would ask me like which
discipline do you like more?
I'm like, well, whatever season it is is the discipline.
I like more like in Ontario.
We do bouldering for like two months and then we do a lead
season and then we have like, you know, a combined Cup or
whatever whatever it was back then.
So it would always be a very harsh transition between boulder
and lead you do boulder for like two months and then completely
stop bouldering and then just focus on lead and I was fairly
decent at it.
I did make the youth national team one year.
I came in like third at Nationals and went to China.
I think was my youth world there and a couple like just a
couple years in I just started to lose my passion for a little
bit.
It was endurance.
I've just never been an endurance kind of person.
I don't go for runs.
I don't when I was in gym class, you know, I wouldn't like I
would always dread the the laps or whatever that kind of
endurance focus thing was.
I'm sure I'm sure many people can relate with that.
But yeah, I was definitely drawn towards the really quick
like powerful side of bouldering and I remember there was my
last youth Nationals in lead.
I remember I made finals like by the skin of my teeth and I
looked up at the final boulder right before I was about to
do it and the thought in my head was like, I don't want to
do this.
That looks really tiring.
This does not look like a good time.
I'm not excited to do this final and final week out.
Yeah, like the final route in the competition.
So yeah, that was like that was just like a very clear like
that can't be my mindset if I'm trying to do like compete like
I can't be dreading what I'm about to do.
So that was like a clear sign.
I need to probably stop doing lead and focus on what I am
actually still enjoying which was bouldering.
Yeah, so looking at the past competitions, you've been to
on the IFSU page.
I saw that was mostly boulder, but I think you actually did
do one lead competition in the Senior Circuit of
Yeah, what was the reason for that one?
Well, yeah, it's well, so I did actually when the Olympics
got announced for climbing I like for 2024 when it was lead
and boulder combined.
I did make the decision to start training for it and I hadn't
done lead in probably three or four years.
So I was definitely, you know doing a Hail Mary trying to
push for it.
See if my lead could even like stack up on the World Circuit
at that time.
My bouldering was pretty good.
I had made finally a semi and bouldering at the World Cup.
So I was like, okay, maybe I could do it.
You know, it'd be really cool.
If you know, if there's even a shot that I could make the
Olympics, I might as well go for it.
So I spent two years training for lead and of course, I had
to come I had to qualify for lead World Cups with the
national team in order to even like have a shot at doing lead
in the OQS.
So I made the lead team at the time.
It was like a combined thing.
So my boulder score actually happened to be good enough that
even though I had not very good lead scores because it was
a combined ranking.
I was able to actually make the combined team.
So I did qualify for some lead World Cups.
I actually qualified for three lead World Cups, but a week
before I think it was the Edinburgh lead World Cup my
husband and I were training lead in Czech Republic and he
actually decked me so I fell to the ground and so it was
only from second clip.
So it wasn't so bad, but it was one of those like cement.
There was just complete cement floor with like a thin carpet
and I basically essentially just jumped from the second clip
down landed flat on my feet.
I didn't roll my ankle or anything, but I fell so hard
that it bruised my bone on my heel.
So it was kind of stressful.
I had to go to like a hospital in like the Czech Republic
and then all this sort of stuff.
But long story short, I couldn't compete in two lead
World Cups because I had to completely not weight my heel
and then the only lead World Cup.
I was able to do was the last one of the season in Jakarta.
So I had to go all the way to Indonesia in order to qualify
for for future World Cups and it was my first lead World Cup.
It was like not I was literally not planning on doing that
one. I was going to just stick to the two European ones
because I was injured.
I had to do Jakarta and yeah, I clipped.
I think I miss miss clipped one of them on the first route.
Like I clipped the third clip before I clipped the second clip.
So I got disqualified on that route and then the other route
I just didn't do well enough at.
So it was quite the disastrous lead season for me.
And then I at that point I was like, okay, this is just not
happening. My my performance wasn't there and then I didn't
have enough, you know experience in World Cup.
So that was my sole lead adventure, but I am glad actually
I had the experience of doing a lead World Cup in the IFC
because it is extremely terrifying.
It's so like nerve-wracking.
Like I did not enjoy the process.
Like I thought I wouldn't like I thought maybe it would be
okay, but no that lead World Cups in the IFC are just like
the hardest thing you can do.
So I definitely look up to them.
Yeah terrifying because of the route or because of the crowd
or well, it's just well with lead you get like one shot.
So when you step up, you're like, okay, let's you know,
climb as tense as possible and as statically as possible to
not fall and it just makes for a very bad performance.
I find I've always wondered about that because I feel like
that's so much pressure to not be able to mess up at all.
Oh, yes, like this is probably like 50% of the reason I don't
do lead anymore.
Like I just I like having the security knowing you can try
again and that almost lets me perform better in boulderings.
I I'm more free to do the dynamic moves.
Yeah, that makes sense.
When you decked to do get injured like did you shatter your
heel or yeah, so from we had to get an like an x-ray to make
sure it wasn't a broken heel and I guess with a bone bruise
you technically are like breaking the bone but not enough.
Like it's just like small.
It was almost like a it was like porous.
Like if you look at the x-ray, it wasn't like all black or all
white whatever it's supposed to be.
It had like a little bit of like a different color at the bottom.
So it's like it's like you're almost like you're about to
break the bone.
Like if you're about if you landed like that again, it would
just be a complete shatter, you know, it's like this is like
the first the last and final warning if you're going to do
anything on your heel.
So I couldn't I you can't take the risk of putting any weight
on it after that interesting.
Okay.
So did that have any effect on your like mental side when it
came to lead?
I've never like decked so I don't know what that would feel like.
Yeah, I mean there's feather decking which is when you like fall
and but you kind of just graze the floor which I have done
before in a gym setting with really thick mat.
So it's like that's not very scary but my husband actually
was bold is Boulder only as well.
So when I started training lead, he actually learned how to
lead belay.
He had been climbing for like 10 years, but he never learned
how to belay.
Oh wow.
So yeah, he was fairly inexperienced and he definitely
it was the classic like a lot of slack waiting for me to like
clip.
So you just put all out but I hadn't even motion to clip yet
and then I got into a position but then I slipped and then I
fell and all the slack was just there is no time to bring it
in.
So his lack of experience I think was like the biggest issue
but since then he's gotten a lot better.
I trust him quite a bit more now and he learned a lot from
that mistake.
Yeah, the moral of the story is trust your belay partner and
not just as a person but like trust the ability like I trusted
him but I did not maybe necessarily trust his experience
level and belaying.
Yeah.
Okay.
So any interest in training lead climbing in the future or
you done forever?
Honestly, I didn't mind the training like it's it's actually
kind of interesting.
It's a good change of pace and I do still train endurance as
a boulder.
You do need a little bit of it.
So if my coach happens to put in like lead training as
endurance, I am all for that actually but that said it's
been probably a year now since my husband has belayed so we
probably have to do a quick refresher if we were to jump
back into it.
Yeah, makes sense.
Okay.
So then what does your training look like nowadays?
So I do have a coach his name is Libor Rosa.
People probably don't remember who he is.
He was a speed world champion back in the day.
He's from the Czech team and he lives in Canada.
Now.
He's a Canadian citizen and he's been involved with the
Canadian team for a while.
I met him actually through the Canadian team.
He was hired as our new like head coach and at the time he
was overseeing all three disciplines today.
He's just a speed coach.
So he's not technically my national team coach, but he is
just my personal coach now.
So I kind of stole him and just took him for myself when he
was hired and I just asked if he could do any because I was
looking for a coach at the time and as he sees that here's
a qualified coach and I said, can you do a little more for
me because I'm looking for some actual coaching.
So he does he does actually live across the country.
He lives in BC, which is the West Coast and I'm in Montreal,
which is like the Far East Coast.
We couldn't be further away.
So he does remote coaching for me.
We've been doing it since 2021 and he's really great at
programming. He's he just knows exactly what level to push
me at like where the cap is for like what I'm able to do and
he just like threads the line like so perfectly.
It's a lot of endurance.
I'd say like when it comes to the offseason like fitness is
like the the whole goal.
You basically don't climb as much as you do off off the wall
training and conditioning, which is great.
That's totally my mindset.
I think I've deprioritized climbing a lot in my training
just over the years.
I've kind of tried to build like a good base of strength
and conditioning and then I kind of flip to the performance
side during certain times of the year or kind of in certain
years of my whole climbing career.
It's kind of a long-term approach that I've had to it.
Just since I was a kid at the first thing was like you got
to get strong.
So I in the at the expense of my like climbing and technique
development.
I just got really strong and then I was able to flip the
switch and do more of the technique side with already a
good base of strength.
So my coach Lebor really has the same kind of philosophy.
So yeah offseason is all about getting strong and then on
season slash maybe like two three months out.
It's all about like climbing.
So we almost do like, you know 20 to 80 in the on season of
of off-the-wall conditioning to climbing.
I wonder if that's something I should try.
I've never tried like just getting strong and like not
climbing at all.
But interesting.
I think I would hate that though.
I don't know if I could handle doing that.
I was going to say this is kind of like the like pro athlete
side of it.
It's like taking the bit of the fun out of it in in exchange
for a little bit of performance enhancement.
I mean if it would work I would consider it.
Yeah, I mean I probably probably will.
Yeah, interesting.
Okay.
And so you and your husband Zach have been moving around a
little bit.
You lived in Germany last year and now you're both back in
Canada in Montreal.
What was the purpose of both of these moves?
Yeah, so we were from the Toronto area.
He's from Burlington.
I'm from my KW Kitchener.
So they're fairly smaller areas and in Ontario the climbing
scene is pretty I don't want to say bad.
It's a little bit underdeveloped.
Let's say that the gyms are pretty spaced out like few
and far between if you want to kind of go to a couple different
gyms in a day.
It's going to be quite the trek.
You'll have to have a car probably in denser cities like
Montreal.
For example, it's like all the gyms are really close to each
other.
So it does get it's a lot easier to get the volume in the
exposure to different kind of moves, which is pretty essential.
So back in Ontario, we were really struggling to get the
like get different moves in our diet and we were seeing just
kind of the same boulders day to day.
There's not a lot of emphasis on competition climbing in
Ontario either and we find that this seems like when you're
just looking at the you know on social media or you're looking
wherever you're looking it seems like other areas just have
it more together seems like they they know what they're doing.
You know, they have a nice community of competition climbing
and we just never had that growing up.
So around the time that I stopped doing lead climbing when
I stopped pushing for it.
We made the decision to move to Germany and we picked Germany
because first of all, there was a one-year visa that was only
available to I think it's like 30 year olds and under it's
like a youth mobility visa.
So you can only use it.
You can only apply for it once and so, you know, now's the
time or young, you know, we're we're able to do this.
We were under we were living with our families.
We had a lot of like family support and so we made the big
bold move to move to Frankfurt and Frankfurt is where we've
got like Studio Block, which is the gym that hosts Studio
Block Masters and it's an awesome gym is probably one of
our favorite gyms.
We've been there a couple times before and it's just it's a
it's just a playground of bouldering and it's very competition
focused.
It's a great community there.
There's a couple other gyms in the area as well, but just
being in Europe in general is just such a great place to be
for climbing.
It's like it's probably 10 years ahead of Canada.
So that was a great move.
We stayed there for I think it was 10 months in total.
I happen to speak German as well.
So that was a little bit of the draw from what like do you
have German family or yeah, my my dad's side of the family
is German and not fully like he's not a German citizen, but
his I think his parents were and you know the generations
before that.
So I went to German school as a kid and I've always like,
you know going to German school.
You're like, what am I doing this for?
I live in Canada like so my dream was always to go and use
it in Germany.
So when we had the opportunity, we're like, okay, it's a good
climate community in Germany. Should we move there?
I was like, I really want to do this.
That sounds like a great time.
So we had I had a great time in Germany.
I think my husband was a little bit more kind of fish out of
water didn't speak the language.
So he's kind of relying on me and it's just hard to feel
like a tourist every day when you're in a different country
like some countries are better than others.
Of course, Germany, there's lots of English spoken, but it's
definitely nowhere near being in your own country or being
in the States for example.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
So towards the end we were starting to get a little bit
like, okay, you know, this was cool.
The climbing was great, but it's probably time to move home.
There were a couple options in the air.
We could have gone to Britain.
We could have gone somewhere else, but we're like, you know
what?
We've never actually tried Montreal.
As when we were living in Ontario, we would make monthly
trips to Montreal because Montreal's gyms are just amazing
and there's so many of them very competition focused.
It's certainly one of the best cities I think in the world
for climbing and it happens to be, you know, six-hour drive
from our house.
So when we were done with Germany and we moved back to
Canada, the next step was to just move to Montreal we
thought so three months ago we moved to Montreal and that
is where we are now and we have absolutely no regrets.
I'll say in Montreal.
They do speak French which is we don't speak.
We don't speak French.
If you if you grow up anywhere outside of yeah, anywhere
outside of Quebec in on in Canada, you don't really know
French unless you take like French immersion in school, but
the normal public school education they give you a bit of
French but not nearly enough to be proficient at it.
And once you hit high school, you can now drop French
completely if you want to which I did.
So yeah, French is pretty bad, but it's quite anglophone in
Montreal.
I've heard that it's a little bit less.
There's a little bit less English outside of Montreal, but
we're just going to stay in Montreal.
So I think we'll be fine.
We'll probably have to learn a bit of French, but it's
definitely like a slight barrier when it comes to living
here despite being Canada.
I didn't know it was like so much more French than English
like French is the default.
It's actually so Quebec actually is the only province in
Canada that has French as its only official language.
It doesn't it the English isn't even official language in
Quebec.
Okay.
Yeah, I thought it was more English and then just like a
bit more French than most people are used to know like all
the signs like the road signs are all in French like sometimes
we'll be driving on the highway and they'll be like a sign
and we'll be like, I hope that's not something important
because I have no idea what that says.
So yeah, it's it's a little bit.
I'm not going to lie.
It's a little bit frustrating because it's like we we didn't
learn the French like we don't we just can't and it's it's
hard to like have a whole province that you're just a
little bit less almost welcoming, but I think they're
they're very like they were colonized by France is like
the Quebec thing and the rest of Canada was colonized by
Britain.
So they do try to keep those kind of French roots, which I
do respect.
It's just it just makes it hard and I now have to learn
another language to live in my own country, you know, yeah,
cheese.
That's that's rough.
But yeah, so let's get into Canada climbing in general.
You're the first Canadian climber I've had on I think in
general people don't know that much about climbing in Canada
since I guess the biggest stars have not come from Canada
recently.
There's just not that much info out there.
For now.
I think you mentioned that you were on the Athletes Commission
for the climbing Escalade Canada.
Yeah, I'm working on it.
Yeah, not yeah, not quite.
Okay, do you know like any like some of the issues that the
CC yeah, the CC many of like the issues that they're working
on at the moment.
Yeah, I think for the past probably ever like like forever.
We've just been working on funding.
I think that's our biggest thing.
We try to optimize as much as we can with our funding constraints.
But I think that's just that's just the elephant in the room
with any topic we ever have to talk about this past year.
We weren't able to send a coach out to the IFSC events with
our athletes due to lack of funding and I think potentially
lack of like just like we didn't maybe find an applicant.
I'm not sure if that's the case, but I know it was definitely
funding related and we don't pay our athletes.
We don't cover accommodation costs or flights and it's that's
just been the status quo forever and it's actually it's hard
to talk to other countries knowing that they're you know,
getting paid to go to the World Cups and I just feel like
that's the dream when in reality for a lot of countries.
It's like the status quo.
So it's definitely a bit of an uphill battle when it comes
to climbing in Canada.
It's just so underdeveloped and we don't have is like we don't
have a Canadian shoe brand.
We don't have as many Canadian based brands that are in the
climbing scene other than Arc'teryx.
But yeah, it's it's it's a definite struggle.
We've as the athletes.
I think we feel it the most but I can I'm sure the CEC would
say that like the climbing Escalade Canada would say that
you know, it's hard just for everyone.
We it's hard to like pay people to do the jobs in order to
get more funding.
It's just kind of an endless cycle and feel like the answer
is always funding funding funding and it's just so hard
to get it.
So you mentioned that you guys don't have a coach this year.
Is this just for the team in general?
Yeah, we had a coach last year, but I think we he resigned
towards the end of the year and then we haven't we just didn't
get a new one this year.
It was kind of announced at the beginning of the season that
we're not going to be sending a team or a coach to any of
the World Cups apart from the OQS events.
We were able to send one guy out there.
He wasn't actually an official coach.
He went to the Pan-Ems last year and that was his first event
and then he went straight to OQS.
So he's only done Pan-Ems and the two OQS events the biggest
ones. Yeah, that must be stressful for the coach as well.
Of course.
Yeah, I mean, he's a great guy too.
He's like a climbing coach.
Like it's not like he doesn't know how to coach and it would
be great if he was the like national coach.
I don't know what we're I don't think we have any plans kind
of in store for that.
But yeah, it was announced.
I remember I was selected to go to the China World Cup and then
they said, okay, there's also no coach and I accepted it and
then they told us that and I was like kind of second-guessing
it a little bit because it was you know, I haven't been to
China in like five years and I was actually the oldest person
going to China like all the other athletes teammates were a
year or two younger than me.
So I felt like I was kind of the the person in charge and I
didn't feel very competent at all going to China.
So it was a little bit stressful.
I had to do a lot of research and really kind of rely on
myself to get around and you know, it was quite the
responsibility and luckily we had the US national team coach
help us out in China.
He yeah, he grabbed our bibs.
He told us whatever from the technical meeting.
He like set me a boulder in the semi-qualification zone.
So that was great.
He was great.
But then I guess as the season went on, I think he was focusing
on OQS and then we kind of lost our US coach help and so some
athletes stepped up and started going to the technical meetings
for the team.
We had one athlete that was injured that was just showing
up to support his brother is Victor Bodrand and he went to
the technical meetings for us and he would like text us
updates and all that sort of stuff.
So he was amazing.
But it is kind of a we're almost it's almost like unifying
us as a team because we kind of have to step up for ourselves
and support each other a little bit more than when we had a
coach.
So I actually don't really mind it.
But at the same time it can be stressful when there's actually
like important appeals to be done or or things to really
navigate born.
It's like smooth sailing.
It's not so bad.
Okay.
Yeah, I guess I didn't realize like what kind of what kind of
rules the coach takes on like when I think about a coach.
I just think like oh someone who helps you with training or
someone who helps you with your technique or things like that
rather than all of the little logistical things that it sounds
like a coach was working through for the Canadian team.
Yeah, I'd say probably don't take the Canadian team definition
of a coach as like the general coach role in teams.
I'm not I don't have a great understanding of what other
teams are doing.
I know the US coach a little bit better and I know he's a
bit more involved in like the actual training part.
But for us in the Canadian team like as long as I've been on
the team our coach position has really just been he would run
kind of training camps in Canada and that would be all we'd
see of him other than the World Cups and then we wouldn't
get any programming specifically from the coach.
It would be kind of personal coaches are our own person like
our own coaching of ourselves.
But yeah, it is more of like an administrative task when it
comes to World Cups like going to the going to the technical
meeting getting the bibs hearing the rules asking questions
and then at the actual event like just going into ISO with
us making sure we're we know where we're going checking the
running order kind of list and then going out watching us
climb noting down our scores so that in case there's an
appeal he can he or she can go and file that with the IFSC.
So then does the Canada team train together much at all you
like maybe have some training camps, but not that much.
Yeah.
Well, so our funding is kind of taking a dip in the last
couple years.
So we used to do lots of training camps probably I think
we did like twice or three times a year.
We have our selection event and then we'd have a training
camp or two throughout the season in the past.
We've all we've also had training camps between World
Cups in certain countries because we're all just kind of
if it's the same kind of group of people going from one World
Cup to the other and then there's like a week between we'll
just throw a training camp in there.
So we've definitely done a lot more than we've done it this
past year because we've been so we just haven't had the
funding for it and the World Cups have also been really
spaced out.
So the in between World Cup training camps are like
nonexistent even if we had the funding for it.
It's like you can't we're not no one's sticking around after
a World Cup.
We just go home because it's expensive to have accommodation
costs, but they're also just so far apart that it's not
feasible.
But yeah, Canada is a really really big country and the
States is too, but I think the difference is the National
Training Center.
We don't really have one gym or one city that we kind of
call athletes to Montreal is obviously I think one of the
best gym cities in Canada and some people just naturally
live here.
But Zach and I my husband have been the only ones to really
make the move to Montreal for training.
There's been no other national team athletes that have done
that.
There's one there's been one Victor Bodrand who moved from
Salt Lake City to Montreal a couple years ago for school
and for climbing I'm assuming.
But yeah, it's it's really hard to get together with national
team athletes, especially when they live in BC and like the
cost to go from like a ticket to take a whole flight to get
over to train with them.
So unless the the CC could fund us more to to come together
for a training camp, it's really not in the cards unless they
live in the same city as you.
Yeah, because BC would be like the other place where there's
a lot of climbers right like that's where the outdoor
climbing is as well like exactly.
Yeah, so that's where Sean Atlanta lived and competed and
trained and then the McNamee twins are there as well.
And we have Becca Frangos at West.
There's a whole bunch of people out there and then it feels
like you're either in BC or you're in either Ontario or
Quebec. So so every once in a while someone from some
athletes from Ontario will drive up to Montreal, but it
won't be for more than a weekend and oftentimes just because
we've never really hung out together.
We don't really know each other that well either.
So oftentimes they'll come up but they'll just kind of do
their own thing or we happen to run into them in the gym.
We don't really climb together anyway.
So it's really tough.
It's we were starting to make friends.
I think in Montreal just me and Zach specifically which I've
never really made friends in the past on the national team
just because of the geography and just just naturally it
just hasn't really happened.
But when you just live in the same area as someone for a
couple months, you just start to see him more often then you
get to know them more and it just happens naturally and I
think in the past the CC has tried to almost like force it
a little bit not in like an aggressive way, but more like
hey, we're going to host like a friendship camp and they'll
call it friendship camp and then they'll say, okay make
friends and we just feel like this isn't really how friendship
works like you kind of need to like go about it naturally.
So I think for us I've now finally realized what natural
national team friendships are like and it's really awesome,
but it's hard to get everyone on board when we don't see
each other enough.
Yeah, I think proximity is like one of the pain drivers of
friendship just for sure.
Yeah, it's a shame that there's just so much like nothingness
in between in Canada.
I guess.
Yeah, there's actually so we've got 13 provinces and territories
in total and I think only like eight or seven of them are
actually registered provinces with the CEC.
So like Saskatchewan for example, I'm pretty sure Saskatchewan
is one of the ones in between there's I think there's
Alberta Saskatchewan and Manitoba are all between Ontario
and BC and Alberta is definitely a big player in the CEC,
but the Manitoba and Saskatchewan are very few athletes
there and it's a huge amount of area.
So like got to really jump all the way over those two provinces
if you want to go connect with some other athletes.
Yeah, that definitely makes it rough.
So makes a lot of sense.
So one of the discord questions that came in I think kind of
fit in here.
They asked with Alana and Sean retiring the season what
obstacles will the new generation of Canadian athletes
need to overcome to outperform their precursors?
Yeah, so I've actually thought about this a little bit.
I find I'm pretty competitive with Alana.
I think towards the end of her career when she was still
competing in the IFSC World Cups.
I was starting to be a little neck-and-neck with her and then
there was a point where I was like, oh my gosh, I'm starting
to like outperform her and it was like the craziest thing
considering all the semi she's made the final and the Olympics
like it's just a crazy kind of torch to try to hold and I
think climbing in general is also changing a lot and back
in the day it was I think we saw a lot more consistency in
our semi-finalist and finalists.
That's how we kind of created like almost like the old guard
which like like you kind of would be able to predict who's
in like almost every final and every semi-final.
And so Sean and Lana were like in a lot of the finals and
semis and as their careers got went on, of course, they got
stronger as well.
They kept making semis, but it would be a little like more
few and far between because the dynamic nature of boulders
and the low percentage moves and all that sort of new school
moves are really shaking it up a little bit.
And so it's almost like it's you almost try to now think of
it like I'm not directly comparing one-to-one with Alana
for example anymore because it is such it's not a different
sport, but it's pretty pretty different if we're comparing
2014 to 2024.
It's huge difference.
And so for that reason I try to try to not to like compare
my results exactly to hers and you know in the back of my
mind.
I'm like, okay, well she made this many semis.
Maybe I can try to like try to live up to that.
Maybe that's a number I can try to beat but it's just really
not the exact same.
So it's more just like I just want to you know, be like her
but not be who she was if that makes sense is I guess do you
feel like comparison is a big part of the competition for you
because I know some people try to like not have comparison
in the back of their mind.
It like depends on their how they like to mentally approach
it.
I guess.
Yeah, I mean, it's tough to to not you know, like especially
if you're one-to-one in a competition with someone and
you're on the exact same boulders.
It's like how can you how can you not compare everyone's
performance against each other?
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and sharing helps a great deal as well back to the show
especially climbing is an individual sport.
So it's like you are you're like it's just you like even
being on a national team doesn't mean quite as much as
it would on like a team sport where it is a team like the
national team in Canada is really just a bunch of Canadians
competing against each other now not in Canada, but in a
different country.
So yeah, you definitely compare against the Canadians more
like I compare against the Canadians more than anyone
else. There's a couple people.
I'm now like kind of chasing and kind of have my eye on in
the World Cup circuit as someone I think like athletes that
perform similarly to me like maybe someone I can kind of
chase and be motivated by but I find that the most difficult
competition is definitely the national level because we're
all kind of vying for the the like fame does the support
and admiration I guess of our country.
So you kind of want to be like the the country favorite.
I think is what we're all trying to to go for and yeah,
it's hard to have all this stuff flying around like I'm
trying to compete in World Cups and do my best there, but
I'm also trying to like do well nationally and like keep
going with the the people that I've grown up with competing
against. So yeah, like competition like it's good and it's
bad and it just is ever-present and it's hard to ignore and
I think just you kind of got to go day by day and case by
case like event by event like trying not to let it be the
negative over the positive.
So the comparison kind of fuels you in a way.
Yeah, as long as it doesn't get it doesn't go too far.
I find like with Nationals specifically national finals
like trying to win Nationals is very difficult task and I
think it has the most pressure of any competition I go to
like World Cups are great and I've seen lots of success in
World Cups, but Nationals I've never actually won Nationals
and I've made finals seven years in a row now and I've
made the podium six years in a row and it's starting to be
very frustrating and like I said, like we're all kind of
vying for the the best in Canada like the title and I just
feel like you know my World Cup results aside.
I feel like I've never really punched that ticket.
I've never really like found that success and I think for
a lot of athletes now it's like at the national team level
that is like a tech box.
You have to like check off at some point in your career.
And so the pressure when it comes down to finals at
Nationals is humongous and it's yeah, it's become kind of
a competition.
I dread a little bit at times, especially given my history
at the event, but this year it's in Montreal, which is
awesome because it's a bit more comfortable know the gym
know the community but at the same time it could be more
pressure because you know, my whole peer group is there
and the community is there but I don't know how I'm going
to to approach Nationals this year, but I know my mindset
has been way too hyper comparison focused and competition
focused at Nationals and I need to find a way to put that
aside and just focus on climbing itself.
Okay.
Well best of luck to you at that Nationals and hopefully
you can find maybe like a I don't know one of those mental
coaches.
Maybe that can help you push through honestly.
I think that is probably the next step.
Yeah.
Well, good luck to you there.
So moving on to I guess like your social media and YouTube
side of things.
Well, I guess lack of social media.
You mentioned that you've been off of social media since
you were 18 to focus on training.
Did you have social media before then like you or like
did you super have social media where you were on it all
the time and you like found it super distracting?
Yeah, I was a super social media kind of person.
It's actually the more years that go by the like less the
more I start to forget what it really was like.
I remember when I first quit it was a big it was a big
change in my life because it was all consuming.
It was it was in my head.
It was like in my in the training room.
Like it was it was everywhere.
Yeah, so I you know, I was on social media kind of as a
kid would be you know social media Instagram specifically
came about just as I was about I think like 14 or 13.
So it was right like right exactly when I should have
joined it and that's when it became a thing.
So it was like all the rage everyone that's everyone
joined it.
So I did as well and it was only when I started seeing
some success in climbing that it started turning into a
bigger thing in my life.
It never used to be it was always just you know chatting
with friends posting random photos that no one cares about
and then all of a sudden I was like winning youth nationals
and I was like going to World Cups and it became very
important to me and it felt like it was becoming part of
the the how to be how to make a career in climbing.
So I was on it a lot and I definitely got carried away
with it and I think I got carried away kind of not because
of my own not because of me.
It was more because of the the platform.
It's just made to be addictive I find and as a competitor
I feel like I'm one of the more competitive competitors
out there.
And so just seeing other athletes other teammates on
social media doing what they're doing, you know looking
strong.
They sent that boulder.
I was just at that gym.
I didn't send that boulder.
They're sending hard outside.
I don't climb outside.
So it's like I don't know if I would even like ever be
able to do that kind of thing, you know seeing their
results seeing what they're eating like it just was way
too much for me and I only realized that probably two or
three years in when I saw it was starting to kind of
impact my my performance and my mindset and my mental
health. So when I was 18, I was doing a lot of reading
about ego and philosophy and all that sort of stuff and
I realized that I think social media was kind of at the
heart of some of the negativity I found in my mental
state and so it was I right before one of the open
national championships that I decided to completely get
rid of the app get rid of my account and just leave
social media permanently and it to this day.
I think it's one of the most important decisions I've
made as a person.
I did it for the training side.
I think mostly sure there were some pretty compelling
mental health reasons behind it as well.
But the benefit it had to my training immediately was
just it was unparalleled all of a sudden.
I would go to the gym and my mind would just be quiet.
Like I wasn't I didn't know what other people were doing.
I was just like I had my head down and I was just like
focusing on myself and my training and my climbing and
when Nationals rolled around it ended up being one of
the best Nationals of my life.
I almost beat a Lana as I said like my lifelong competitor
and at the time I had no business being beating a Lana.
It was not definitely I was not in my prime.
I was she was definitely the best in Canada at the time,
but I came very close and it shocked me and it really
motivated me and it was I think largely due to my departure
from social media just a few months earlier.
And yeah to this day I am still off of Instagram.
I don't have any social media platforms other than YouTube.
And so yeah, it's a pretty quiet life.
My phone is very quiet.
Like I don't get very many notifications.
If people want to message me, they typically message my
husband and they kind of speak to him as if they're
speaking to me, which is a little bit strange, but I do
have a phone number so that people could text me but for
whatever reason Instagram is still the platform of choice
for instant messaging.
Yeah, that's a big one.
Yeah.
So yeah, there are absolutely drawbacks.
Like I don't get as many messages.
I don't get maybe as many opportunities for hanging out
with people or going to events whatever it happens to be.
But I think I've at least for me.
I think I've made a pretty fair trade-off in terms of the
mental health side benefits from it.
So yeah, a bit of FOMO, but I think my husband he does
have a social media account.
He did delete it for a while when we first started dating.
I convinced him to delete it of course and but he got it
back probably a year later and I think like I'm okay with
it. I think one of us I think it's good to have us kind
of more out there.
It is hard to make a career in Canada in climbing when you
have no, you know online presence.
So he helps a lot with that and then the YouTube I think
does the rest of the legwork.
You mentioned that for a lot of climbers.
It kind of seems like social media is partially how you
fund your pro climber journey.
Have you found it hurts like sponsorship prospects without
having social media?
Yeah, it probably did for the first few years.
Luckily, I had a couple sponsors at the time and they
did not they didn't care that I left social media and I
think that's that's a good it was almost like it's kind of
like a data point.
I use when I'm kind of saying this other people that people
are afraid of losing the sponsorship side and you know of
all the sponsors I've spoken to you.
There's a couple outliers, but most of them say like we
don't really care about the social media side.
We don't care how many followers you have.
It's more about who you are and what you represent and
what you're doing.
And of course it does help to show more people what you're
doing, but I think a lot of people have Instagram and
it's not as much of a unique thing anymore.
I think what's unique is kind of putting yourself out
there in different ways.
And for me we found I found like a blog.
I've been blogging this whole time.
I've never stopped blogging since leading social media.
I probably blogged more to be honest and it's it's a more
I feel like high quality just more more thinking goes into
my blogs more more attention and I think I'm putting out
something that I really am proud of on my blog and same
with YouTube.
You know, we're putting together really, you know difficult
to put together videos and it's not quite as easy as just
posting a photo.
I think there's there's some inherent extra value when it
comes to sponsors in that and yeah, so but yeah for the
first two years it probably did hurt because I didn't have
the YouTube and my blog was it was okay, but it definitely
wasn't very popular.
So it wasn't until we started YouTube that the sponsorship
started coming and it is is kind of when I joined forces
with Zach to when we got married that we started to kind
of have a combined almost not celebrity status, but we had
more supporters together and we were together.
We kind of almost advertise ourselves together. And so in
this past year, we've seen I've seen more sponsors and I've
seen in the last five years and it's been without Instagram.
I think our Instagram has nothing to do with it.
His Instagram is not super popular.
He only started it like a year ago or so and it's more just
about what we're doing and how we're involved in our Montreal
community right now.
Yeah, do you have any plans or interests of getting back on
social media in the future? Maybe when you're done competing
or yeah, it absolutely crosses my mind probably like once
every six months or so I start thinking.
Okay, am I really am I really hurting myself here?
But I think the further away I get from my time on social
media the more I forget how much I didn't enjoy my headspace
when I was on social media.
So I have a blog post on like an article on my blog that
kind of tells my whole story about how I went from social
media to deleting it and it was actually pretty popular got
picked up by another blog like a really big blog and it
started kind of getting like semi-viral and it kind of really
like all the comments on the other blog like the people who
saw this article it went pretty big and like so many people
like messaged me after saying after reading your blog I
deleted social media or you know, this really like made me
think harder about what I'm doing online.
It really gave me some positive reinforcement for what I
was doing.
So every once in a while I'll go back and read that article
because I just I don't want to ever forget the headspace
I was in because it is really easy to forget about it because
I've lived so long as I do now which is like without tons
of notifications on my phone and like there'll be days
where I leave the house and I forget to bring my phone because
it's just not a thing in my life.
It's not like an important thing.
I don't have a YouTube.
I don't even have YouTube on my phone.
It's really just for texting and for checking maybe the YouTube
studio app which is the the app you use to just check all your
comments and stuff on YouTube.
So yeah, I you know the FOMO kind of gets you thinking maybe
I should go back to it.
But then I just always try to bring myself back to why I did
it in the first place and I think just long-term not even
about training anymore.
Like it like when I started it was because of training.
I was like I want a better headspace to do better in competitions.
That was it.
And today I think it's a lot more than that.
I think it's more about how I want my my my mind to be, you
know going forward.
I don't want to be cluttered with notifications and and thoughts
and I don't want to see everyone's lives, you know, it seems
a little bit cliche perhaps but you know, we weren't meant to
see all this stuff, you know, like, you know 20 years ago.
This wasn't here at all.
You know, we would have to go talk to people in person.
If we wanted to hear about their lives and I think that's just
a more high-quality way of interacting with people in your
life and it's something I try to straight stay true to as much
as possible and sure.
Maybe I don't talk to as many people as other people do.
I don't have as many friends or as many relationships.
But again, I think we weren't meant to have the huge network
of people in our lives as we do today.
So I try to stay pretty I try to stay close-knit and have just
the people I want to really stay my life in my life.
I will definitely link that blog post in the description so
people can take a look and the blog in general as well.
But yeah, you mentioned that you did I guess YouTube is kind
of social media and you sort of made exception for that even
though video making is like way more time-consuming.
Sure.
Like so much effort.
I guess why did you decide to make the exception for YouTube?
Yeah, so of course this this crossed my mind too, and it
actually wasn't me that started the YouTube channel is my
husband and he also wasn't completely sold on it at first.
It was to be honest.
It all goes back to my stepdad.
He was the one who really pushed us to do social to do YouTube
because again, it's hard to know.
I know.
Yeah, but yeah in Canadian climbing again, like we were very
poorly funded.
So, you know that goes down to athlete sponsorships as well.
Like it's not just that the national team doesn't pay us is
that the there's not as many people and companies out there
that are looking to support Canadian athletes.
So the dream of just being a professional athlete and having
that fund our entire livelihood is just not a thing in Canada
and we there has to be something else.
So either we get like a part-time job or we do something
online or something like YouTube and I think YouTube was the
best option because we just have we have somewhat I'd say
interesting lives.
You know, we're going to World Cups.
We're traveling around.
We're training full-time for climbing.
It's an interesting story.
We're married.
We're really young.
We're both on the national team.
We're both bouldering only athletes.
Like it was just a good kind of hook story that I think lended
itself very well to YouTube.
So my stepdad convinced my husband to start YouTube and at
first his plan was to record every single training session.
He does like just film it all and then kind of voice it over
kind of like a YouTube like like a video game streaming kind
of like Twitch but for climbing training.
So true to his word.
He did exactly that.
I think he spent like two months preparing for a North American
Cup and he filmed every single training session he did and
he talked about it and he posted it every single day.
We did daily videos back then and it was crazy and it was
really high quality because he had some really insightful
things to say about climbing and very specific kind of beta
advice and like very just like climbing tips and knowledge
that just really isn't out there on the internet.
And I think that really struck a chord with a lot of people
and he got some great feedback from it and he started kind
of developing a bit of community around his his journey
as a competition climber.
And so it reached a certain point where I was like at first
I didn't really want to do it because of the social media
element.
I was like, I don't want to see the comments.
I don't want to have to do have to think about filming myself.
Like I don't want to I just want to focus on training.
But then it got to a point where I was like, okay, like I
watched him do this for six months now and it doesn't look
that invasive and the comments you don't know who's making
them.
You're not watching other people on YouTube.
You're just watching YouTube like, you know, the experience
on YouTube.
It's not you're not seeing your friends everywhere because
not your friends don't have YouTube channels.
Generally you're seeing kind of strangers or you're watching
tutorial videos and all that sort of stuff.
So I realized that the I didn't think it would actually be
that harmful and to like true to my word like it really isn't
it's a lot more detached than you think it is sure you're
checking comments and maybe you're stressing a little bit
over how many views of videos going to get or something
like that, but it never goes down to like your core like
self-worth.
It doesn't go down to like I posted like a like a picture
and it only got five likes or 10 likes to people not like
me.
Like it's very personal.
I find on social media like Instagram or whatever but on
YouTube, you know, you put out a video and it's like it's
actually about the video.
It's not about you.
It's about how good was your video and what was your content
like so for that reason I really took to YouTube at first.
I was trying to maybe copy what he was doing.
But then over time I try to kind of developed my own little
niche within our Channel and now I do more educational style
kind of beginner intermediate focused just purely climbing
tips and technique kind of stuff and I think that does really
well in our Channel and my whole philosophy with the Channel
is that it isn't about me.
So I don't introduce myself typically in my videos.
I just get straight to the content.
I you know, there was one video that did really well.
It was just me going through almost every footwork kind of
technique I could think of.
So I took it.
I took a notebook because I'm a I like being analog.
So I took a notebook and I just wrote down every single footwork
thing I could think of like switching feet, you know, stemming
all that sort of stuff and then I made a video about it and
I didn't introduce myself.
It was just strike within 10 seconds.
We're already talking about footwork and it did really well
and I was able to stay really far away from it.
The comments were about the content not me.
Whereas Zach has a bit more personality in his because he's
talking about his day.
He's talking about how he feels on the wall.
And so comments are very like, you know, great job Zach.
Like you can do it all that sort of stuff or like asking him
questions about his life.
The questions on mine are about the content and I and I love it.
But yeah, it is it we're at the point now where it does feel
like a job like kind of a side thing and it's great because
it's we're starting to get income from it and we're starting
to fuel our pro climbing adventures.
You know, it's not what I thought of when I thought of being
a professional climber.
I thought I would be just climbing and I didn't have to worry
about anything else.
But you know, the realities of just life say that, you know,
there has to be that's just not how it works.
So I'm actually really happy on YouTube and I think this is
something that I'll be able to sustain like we will be able
to sustain like soon as we're done competing when our careers
over we just have this like waiting for us.
So yeah, it's been a really awesome journey and I would
definitely recommend YouTube like creating on YouTube to
everyone.
Like I think it's just a great way to give out more high
quality just like down to Earth better content.
I find yeah, that's a really interesting perspective on it
because I feel like you hear a lot of youtubers talk about
how emotionally invested they get in the numbers and the
comments and stuff like that and I definitely wouldn't say
that I'm not invested in that way.
So it's interesting to hear that it doesn't really affect
you.
Well, I'll say it used to affect me for sure.
Like when I didn't really know how YouTube worked because it
does it is a learning curve.
Like it's not just about making videos.
It's about optimizing the first 10 seconds and the thumbnail
and all this sort of stuff.
Like it's definitely a different ball game.
And yeah, at first when I didn't know what I was doing,
I thought I was putting that genius content like 24 7 and
then when it only had whatever amount of use I was like very
destroyed.
But then it only took me a few months to realize that it's
it's almost like competing, you know, you go to a comp and
you don't do well and you don't just take that as like I tried
my best and that's just it and like no you to go back to the
gym you try and train and you figure out a different approach.
So that's exactly what I did with YouTube.
I would just take a badly performing video and say, okay,
what didn't work?
What do I need to learn?
What is the next step?
What's the next video?
Okay, so getting into your personal life a little bit.
You mentioned that you got married super young and I think
some people in the discord are also familiar with that one
person said that it still feels illegal for anyone born after
the year 2000 to be married, which I totally agree with.
I mean, I'm not that old.
I'm just I'm not surrounded by many people who are married
and I was born before 2000.
So yeah, tell me about how your relationship started and I
guess why you decided to get married young.
Right.
Yeah.
So Zach and I Zach was always on the national team like, you
know, you're a youth climber you make the national team for
the first year and then you've got all your little youth
national teammates and he was one of them and he was a little
bit more I'd say like standoff ish than most people on the
youth team. He didn't really like just being around people
who's pretty competitive at the time.
He didn't like lead.
He was always bolder only like from the start, which I found
interesting, but we didn't really talk for many many years
until there was a Pan American Championship in 2018.
This is now three or four years after we had met for the
first time and that was when we first actually talked to
each other because there were only four athletes sent to
that event like only four people wanted to go to Ecuador
for that event and he and I were one of the word two of them.
So right when we first spoke and we first had a conversation
I was like, okay, he's really like nice.
He's just a nice person.
Like this is great.
But then it took us another I guess four years to actually
like become friends.
Like like I said, like it's hard on the national team to
be friends with each other because we're all competitive.
We're all living all over the place and it just doesn't
happen naturally.
And so there was a flight we so Zach and I think we were
really alike because we were the ones that went to the
events that no one else went to.
So we went to the Ecuador event.
We would always kind of see each other at events, but we
know we never happened to talk and then there was an event
in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 2021 and we both were two
of the only Canadians to go to that event again and I saw
him at the airport and I noticed he was like really early
for his flight.
Like it was like 6 a.m.
I had to get up at like 4 a.m.
for my flight and I got to the airport and I see him there
and he's like already at the gate.
I'm like, okay, that's kind of weird.
And then I got on my flight and I realized he's not getting
on the flight.
He's just sitting there still and his flight was actually
an hour later than mine.
So he got there earlier to get to a later flight and it was
just like he probably had to get up at like 3 in the morning
to like go to this flight and I thought it was crazy.
But then I happened to see him at my connecting flight.
We both connected in Denver and so I saw him sitting like
there and I went over and I basically just confronted him
and said, why were you so early to that flight?
That was ridiculous.
And how did you end up here?
Your flight was like later than mine and that was the day
I think we became friends.
I don't know.
I don't know why like it was just I just have a problem.
I like to be like exactly on time or like late for things.
He's like an hour early kind of person. His mom was in the
military.
So he's like born to be like really rigid about timing and
I just was not so I found that really fascinating to be honest
and yeah, so we became friends.
I think it like we were friends for like a year that time
and we would actually train together.
Like I thought it was the coolest thing to like train with
someone on the national team.
Like I hadn't even climbed with any like female national
team athletes.
He was like basically the first like national team person
I climbed with so I thought it was the coolest thing and then
he was super fun and nice and and then we just turned into
relationship and I think when we went to so we went to World
Cups together and we you know traveled Europe together and
it was just like the craziest like like almost like fairytale
kind of thing.
Like it seemed like the perfect relationship.
I was like it can't get any better than this.
Like this is he's like just he's perfect basically and I
was like if I really if that's really true then like seems
like marriage is like the next step, right?
So there was there was a day where I kind of just we were
just like lounging around sitting on the couch or whatever
and I turned to him.
I was like, do you think we should get married and he's
like, yeah, sure.
Why not?
And that was basically it.
It just yeah, it just seemed like too perfect to ignore and
if we really were like that literally can't get any better
than this we're like, okay, this is it then and might as
well tie a knot on it.
I guess so was that like the proposal or it was actually
we had planned to move to Germany actually a month later
just like as boyfriend girlfriend and so a couple weeks
before we were supposed to fly out.
We had the proposal conversation, I guess and we decided
to delay our flight by a couple weeks in order to get married
right before we left because it would either be it would
either get married before or after there was no getting
married abroad because that was just too common.
We looked into it.
We're like, that's way too complicated.
So we were engaged quote unquote for two weeks and then
we got married and then we've been married ever since.
Wow, that's a more wild story than I was expecting.
Yeah, trust me our family definitely thought it was a
bit wild as well.
If we I was 21 and he was 22 at the time and you know,
we're born after 2000 and we're from Ontario and now that
we've moved moved to Montreal.
It's even weirder because people from Montreal are very
I'd say hipster is what is the vibe.
I'm trying to I'm starting to get here and so very very
uncommon and so people actually assume we're siblings before
we are married because I did I took his last name.
So yeah, we're we're the Richardson's but like it's very
unclear if you don't like really pay attention is to
whether we're siblings or not and on YouTube it looks very
similar.
So I know like it could be step siblings.
It could be, you know, different parent whatever I was
like a charitable.
Yes, I guess there could be a situation but it was starting
to be a little bit weird on YouTube because like the whole
premise was that we're married pro climbers.
So it was kind of we didn't want to be known as as siblings.
So there was actually a couple weeks ago where we decided
to make a video called married pro climbers versus block shop
and we just did like a vlog saying hey, we just got to clear
the air here.
We're married actually not siblings and so many comments
said like from long-term subscribers saying I totally
thought you guys were siblings and we were just like that's
really weird.
Just saying I don't think I ever got that because I actually
I saw your guys's YouTube channel like close to when it
first started.
I think I was very involved in the climbing YouTube scene.
I don't think I ever got the idea that you guys were siblings.
I'm not sure where people got that.
I feel like I appreciate that.
Yeah, no, I was super confused too because we you know, we
were living together.
We're like, okay, we're going to move to Montreal now.
We're going to move to Frankfurt now.
He's talking about me in his videos and our profile picture
is together and we're talking as like we it's just like we
either are like the super like very very close family like
the point where we move across the world with each other or
married and I guess it was just like the weirdness of being
this young and married and taking the last name to you is
just like definitely not known these days.
So I guess I charitably I think that's where they were came
coming from personally.
I'm like you I thought it was very obvious that we were
married.
Yeah, I mean I swear it was like in a bio or something but
I guess not everyone reads that I was going to say.
Yeah, we definitely like we say it places we say all over
the place but apparently it's not known enough.
So we're clearing the air once again.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, so something I've always been kind of curious about is
relationships between climbers in the circuit.
Like I mean people always say like oh don't shit where you
eat.
So have what's your take on relationships within the
climbing community and the in the World Cup circuit and you
mean like friendships or actual relationships.
I meant like actual relationships, but well, I mean
friendships are actual relationships, right?
But I mean, yeah also friendships because I'm sure
that gets hard as well with like competitiveness.
Yeah, I mean so Zach actually when we first started dating
he was on the national team and he was going to World Cups
but then there was a year where they took the quota down from
five per country to two and that's to kind of with an
asterisk. I guess if you if you have a number of athletes in
like the top 10 and top 40 you get extra quota for the country
at the time though.
We didn't have any men in the top 40.
So it was just to to each country and he was essentially
kind of like kicked off the team.
I think he was like ranked third or fourth like something
just under the quota and because people just want it like
people like Canadians always say yes to World Cups.
Like we always fill up our quota.
Typically.
We just didn't he just didn't have an opportunity for a year
and a bit so it was actually a little bit tough when I was
going to World Cups and he wasn't because it was the first
time in his career that he'd not been selected to a World
Cup and if it were in reverse and I was not going to World
Cups and he was I can tell you I would be upset.
You know, I wouldn't want to go.
I wouldn't really want to go with him.
I'd probably go and watch him or whatever and cheer him on
just to be supportive but in the back of my mind, I'm like
dreading being there.
I don't want to I don't want to be there.
But I you know, again, you have to ask him but I'm fairly
certain he is just such a good guy that he doesn't it doesn't
he's just supportive like like straight up.
But yeah, it can be tricky when there are some World Cups
that are really far away like China where it's just like not
feasible all to come with me and I have to just go by myself
and it's tough to just be kind of doing the long distance for
even just like a couple weeks.
It's just kind of tough when you're doing something so intense
like a World Cup where you really kind of need that that
like family support and you know, the team is great.
I've got lots of friends on the national team the Canadian
team, but we don't see each other very often.
So it does feel a little bit lonely being on the World Cup
circuit without a coach with just a few teammates and then
because he wasn't on the national team.
There was a point where he had to do qualifying events in
the States which are North American Cups that qualify you
for the national team in Canada and then I was doing World
Cups at the same time.
So last year we didn't see each other for a whole month and
I did two World Cups in that time and he did a couple events
and it was pretty crazy and not very enjoyable.
So I you know, just even a month of not seeing him was pretty
bad, but I know that you know, if you're in a relationship
with someone that is on a different national team than you
it's probably even worse and I commend those people for going
through that but I don't wish it on on myself.
Like it just it sounds like just difficult.
It just sounds difficult.
But you know, if there is someone that's just like really
like you really stick it out for this person then definitely
go for it.
But yeah, no not my cup of tea for sure.
Were you ever concerned about like, oh if we broke up we'll
see each other at the national team and like competitions.
Yeah, you know breaking up really has never crossed my mind.
You know, like we got married immediately because I was like
this is definitely it.
So yeah, I I wish I like that isn't I've actually never
thought about that before.
Okay, that's awesome.
Yeah, I I you know, I like to think that I would just be
I'm always just so focused on the climbing that I'm sure it
would be fine.
But yeah, no, this is the first time totally considering that
so it doesn't sound very nice.
Don't think about it.
You don't need to think about it.
Okay.
Have you ever like felt competitive against Zach?
I mean you said you're a very competitive person.
Yeah, no, absolutely.
He's won Nationals twice and so that's just like that's like
for me.
That's like enough said like it's like man.
I I've done a lot on the World Cup circuit, but I haven't
done what I really want to do which is win Nationals and he's
done it twice and he did it last year and last year I actually
came in third which was which was a little bit harder like I
I typically come in second to be honest and then I came in
third even and it's like, okay, I'm getting further away
from this and he came in first that year and it was like
really like we're really it's also added pressure because
we're trying to do like a double win like we've never
double won something and so we're like, okay, we're going
to Nationals.
We're both in finals.
We've both got really good odds.
This is it and then he wins and I don't win and then it's
just like that was really rough. I'd say it probably added
to the like the sting of that competition a little bit that
he did win it.
But at the same time, you know, he's in the men's side.
So it's like it's not we're not directly competing against
each other ever.
So it's not that bad that said though.
I do train with him from time to time and he is a lot stronger
than me and not maybe not even just stronger but just like
he's just really good at rock climbing and sure.
I'm better at him than a few things like I'm probably a
little better at slab.
There's a couple technical things like here and there but
as a whole it's hard to train with him because he is he is
quite a bit better than me probably like a grade or two
higher. So I am constantly chasing him.
I'm constantly comparing myself against him when I really
shouldn't be and I should kind of like just take it as like
this really good climber.
I have the opportunity to climb with and just learn from him
and watch him and just be all that but I I'm still working
on letting go of that a little bit and it's it's difficult.
It's because we are just so we're doing the same thing.
We're going for the same goals and we're both trying to be
really good at competition climbing and he's just a little
bit better at the thing.
I'm really trying hard to be really good at and yeah, so
it's I I'm getting better.
I'd say like a year ago was probably way worse than it is
today, but it's nowhere near how I want it to be like I'd
love to just walk into the gym and have like absolutely no
ego when it comes to climbing with him.
But yeah, he's just sending way too many boulders like it's
like I can't keep up with it.
I mean at least with general climbing you can just justify
it as like oh, he's a lot stronger.
So it's a bit different between like men and women.
But yeah, how do you manage those feelings like when like
what happened at Nationals?
It's honestly Nationals was the first time it like the first
most recent competition that really hit me poorly.
I'm typically pretty level-headed when it comes to competition
results.
But like I said Nationals is just really it's about it's not
even about qualifying for the national team anymore.
These days with national team qualifications for Canada, you
actually can qualify via World Cups or North American Cups
and those are worth a little bit more points than a national
would be.
So there's actually nothing really on the line when it comes
to Nationals except for the glory I'd say so for me to
enter Nationals, you know, I'm looking to win it and to not
win it is like just I what did I even do like I didn't get
any points.
I did nothing.
I just wasted a bunch of skin is basically what happened.
So yeah, when when Zach's winning it sure.
I'm happy for him for sure.
Like I like I really want to see him succeed at the time.
He hadn't even qualified yet.
Like hadn't been qualified for World Cups any for a while.
So I'm definitely rooting for him to go to World Cups.
That's absolutely I would never want him to not make the team.
That's just that's terrible.
But yeah Nationals honestly is just a different story than
everything.
Like I feel like I'm super supportive and it's not like
I'm not supportive of Nationals.
It's just like it's Nationals is like it's like about me.
I guess like it's just like I'm really concerned about myself
when it comes to Nationals because I'm really trying to
prove something to myself and the the kind of thing that
kind of stuff that's going on around me like like Zach Zach's
performance at Nationals is just like it doesn't really factor
in as much and it's hard for me to to see him achieve what
I've always wanted to achieve.
But then at the same time he's kind of seeing me achieve what
he wants to achieve.
So it's like he seems to be dealing with it.
Well, whereas I'm like just really focused on like one
specific placement at one comp and it's like super stressful.
So Nationals aside I'd say I'm I'm very supportive of his
career and his successes are my successes and I think we we
both know what we're like, we both know how much we're putting
into this kind of the training and all that but Nationals is
just is a whole nother thing.
Well, geez I seven years it is it is hard to deal with.
It's too much.
It's too many.
Yeah, I mean I love Atlanta too.
So it's it's hard but yeah, it would be great to see you break
that streak.
It sounds like it surely weighs on you.
Yeah, it's funny though.
Like it seems like people don't actually know like I obviously
know my placements at all the past seven Nationals, but who
else is actually like knows the stats and knows exactly how
many Nationals I've lost right like I was talking to a setter
at Beta Block the other day and actually no he was talking
to someone else and then that girl told me what they were
talking about and he said, oh yeah, it's so nice that Maddie
shows up to Nationals every year and like and she's always
winning and then my friend because she knows my you know,
I've been like venting about Nationals for however long.
She's like, oh well like you know Maddie's never actually
won.
He actually didn't know that he actually like didn't assume
that and I think that conversation really I think about
it from time to time.
She told me about this like a month ago or maybe two months
ago and I think about it a lot because it makes me feel a lot
better because it's like I do feel like I'm almost like
failing publicly like I'm I'm like not I'm losing Nationals
in front of everyone in front of the country when in fact,
you know making the podium is not a bad result like that is
very hard to achieve in and of itself and I think I I really
need to step back and realize.
Okay.
I'm I'm on the podium every year like come on like this is
not I'm not failing at Nationals every year and it does
still look like success because that is success like there's
a reason for second and third are all up on a little podium.
You know, it's like it's these are all great results.
Yeah, I mean I was I was going to say like it's not really
losing to get on the podium like I'm pretty sure as a win.
Yeah, so yeah, I yeah, it's definitely better.
He but the only said this I wish he said this to me like
four years ago, you know, and then I could really take the
the stress off of it and realize that I'm doing great and
I just need to like keep doing me.
But yeah, it's it's it's interesting for sure.
Yeah, I mean, I definitely get like the competitive vibe.
Does does a lot of know that you kind of have this like
mortal enemy type going on, you know, she definitely does.
I yeah, so we actually we never really spoke like friend
to friend like personal kind of her entire career.
I was always looking up to her and then one day I started
performing well in World Cups and then all of a sudden
it was like kind of a peer-to-peer relationship that my
at least from my perspective it kind of turned into and
just the whole while we just never really connected and
I think it's because like I am very competitive.
So I was never looking to like make friends I guess and
it was always about just like, you know, she's someone to
look up to and to like strive to be and you know, I always
had the most respect for her.
And I never, you know, I don't think she ever knew that
maybe or maybe I never said it and maybe didn't come across
and just the way I present myself, you know, I'm very I
don't smile when I compete, you know, I'm like very focused
and that's just how I am.
I I wish I was one of the people like Elena that just
like smiles all the time and is like super psyched to
stand the boulder but in my mind, you know sending one
boulder doesn't mean you win.
So I'm like, I'm not going to celebrate yet, you know,
but recently actually she spent some time in Montreal.
Like I randomly showed up to the gym to climb with Babette
one of the other national team members and she was just
there and we ended up spending the net we climbed together
that day and then the next day and this is the first time
we'd ever climbed together and this was right before her
final IFC event, which was a little bit unfortunate.
Like I wish this kind of happened maybe three years ago.
But we finally I think we we talked about it a little bit
before the event and I think it was like the first time
we finally I think we we talked a little bit more and I
feel a lot better about our relationship and I think the
problem was definitely just communication.
Like we just never really clicked and we never tried to
be friends or or you know, just be anything close to just
like chummy.
We were just kind of on the same team and she does her
thing and she has her friends and I've got mine but we
finally connected and it was really nice and I told her
like I remember I hugged her goodbye because I probably
wouldn't see her for a while because she was about to
retire and I was like I wish I said to her I'm like I wish
we did this three years ago, but I'm glad we had the
chance to like hang out finally and she was like coaching
me through a boulder and like it was all good.
But yeah, it was it was pretty tense for a few years
there and there was nothing there's never like we never
said anything to each other or did anything like bean.
It was just kind of like a vibe and so I'm really happy
with the way well we left it off at least.
Awesome.
Well, that's really great to hear.
Yeah, so I think that is a good place to end those we
can get into a couple of the discord questions and then
I think that'll be a good place to end it.
So the first discord question, what do you think about
the current field of Canadian comp climbing women compared
to other nations that you could train with?
Yeah, I mean I don't like we're super strong.
We are strong.
I love compete like I love climbing with the Canadian
women.
They really push me and it might not look like they are
neck-and-neck with me if you look at World Cup results,
but they absolutely are and I think World Cups are just
very difficult and I think mentally above all else.
They are just mentally like hard to compete at your absolute
best dad and I think that's the main separator between me
and the Canadian female team is like I just have learned
how to be confident and calm at World Cups and it is I
almost found it by accident and I can't really explain why
and why I feel like more at ease at World Cups, but I feel
like I'm able to perform like at my peak at these events
and they don't quite have that mindset but the field I think
we've got a great team that we have going to World Cups
and it's just a matter of like when they're able to like
prove to themselves that they can compete and do as well
as I am doing and not to say that I'm like a perfect World
Cup climber, but we definitely are all very very good at
climbing.
It's honestly it's part of the reason I haven't won nationals
like it is actually a difficult field and I guess other
national teams.
It's hard to say I think it like from the outside team
Germany, for example, looks like they've got a really great
group of girls that are just crushing it and same with
you know, Japan like like most countries it looks like
they've got a couple people in Canada.
It's typically always been just like one outlier will like
like make it through like we've had Sean was the outlier
in the men's and we had Atlanta for a few years and then
now we've got Oscar doing really well on the men's side
and then we've got me doing so it's like we it doesn't
look like we've got like a good strong like base of teams
behind us, but I think we really do and it's just a matter
of like us not training together.
I think if if they if we all train together more and they
saw like their level is like the same as my level.
I think that would give a lot of confidence and I think other
national teams probably have that every day they see each
other and then they see one person going and doing whatever
at the World Cup and they're like, okay, I just was doing
way better at her in that training session.
Of course I can go to the World Cup and do the same as
she's doing.
I was I was assumed that's that's part of the mindset at
least. Yeah, that definitely makes sense.
I think like competition just breeds greatness in general
that also kind of touches on like the next discord question.
So let me know if you have like more to expand on this one
says in your latest video.
I think this was maybe like a couple weeks ago though.
Zach mentions that you mostly climb alone.
Would there be a benefit to making Team Canada a bit more
of an institution with dedicated team training programs
and infrastructures?
Yeah, I mean that would be the dream with a little bit of
funding for sure.
We did actually establish a national training center in
the Richmond Oval in Vancouver a couple years ago, but we
kind of just said that it was a national training center
and then we didn't really do anything about it.
I think everyone in the national team probably has like
like entrance to that gym, but it's not really a good
bouldering gym.
I'd say it's a great lead gym.
It's probably the best lead gym in the country, but the
bouldering is not really where it needs to be.
So yeah, that would be nice, but we are such a big country.
So you're asking you'd have to move.
We would have to move to that location and without funding,
you know, it's just really hard to justify something like
that to like uproot your life to just go be with other national
team athletes when you know down to its core.
We don't even have like a really good national program.
Like we don't have training camps.
We don't have a coach like it's like a lot of stars need
to align for this to happen.
But I think it is the absolute next best step for Canada in
terms of like upping the level of our national team.
I think, you know funding aside, you know organization aside
like when we are talking about like how do we improve the
national team? I think that's absolutely what needs to happen
and we're almost starting to do it organically in Montreal.
We're missing a few Ontario people and a couple BC people,
but for the most part, we've got a good chunk of the national
team here in Montreal.
So it would be great like very cost-effective if we just kind
of if CEC just said, all right Montreal is it, you know, try
to be here as much as possible.
And you know, if in the future we're like, okay, we can give
you housing when you're here.
That would be amazing and with the array of climbing gyms and
just climbing together all the time.
I think the confidence will go up for the whole team and it
would just be like amazing.
I think we'd see huge results on the World Cup circuit, but
we're it seems like we're a few years away from that for sure.
Yeah, it seems like getting all the climbers together would
probably help a whole bunch.
I know like for me at least when I'm climbing with people
who climb harder than me or like just as hard as me it feels
me a lot more than if I'm just by myself or if I'm already
like doing the best because I'm just like, I don't know.
Maybe I have no like internal motivation.
Okay, cool.
I think that's all the questions I had.
Is there any like last words that you want to get out there?
Like drama aside and like funding aside.
I love being in Canada.
You know, I like I like representing Canada.
I don't want you to think that like I hate the CEC or whatever
else or I don't like Atlanta.
Like I enjoy I enjoy everything.
I love that Montreal's got a great scene.
I'm only here to kind of prop up Canada and like push us to
get even further and I think you know, I think just leading
by example and and just being more involved in the community
and like really getting the athletes together and like proving
that we are all really a solid country for climbing and we
can really push this and achieve our dreams.
I think that's the way to look at it.
Awesome.
And that's a great statement to end on.
So yeah, thank you so much for joining me.
Oh anything you want to shout out or let people know where
they can find you if they have more questions.
Yeah, so our YouTube channel is just Richardson's climbing.
Our website is also Richardson's climbing and my husband's
Instagram account is Richardson's climbing.
So you can just check out any of those things.
Yeah, like those all in the description.
Cool.
Thank you so much for joining me and it was amazing to talk to you.
All right.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for making it to the end of the podcast.
Don't forget to like and subscribe if you enjoyed otherwise
you are a super fake climber.
If you're listening on a podcasting platform, I'd appreciate
if you rate it five stars and you can continue the discussion
on the free competition climbing discord linked in the description.
Thanks again for listening.