My friend and cohost at The RunOut podcast Chris Kalous turned 50 earlier this year. We discussed the possibility of him doing a “birthday challenge” to celebrate the turn of a new decade on one of our episodes. That’s because when he turned 40, he did 40 pitches at Indian Creek.

“Fifty seems like a lot though,” he grumbled.

It occurred to me that if someone were to establish some birthday challenge ground rules, it might make sense to impose an inverse relationship such that you would climb 50 pitches when you turn 30, 40 at 40, 30 at 50, 20 at 60, and 10 at 70. But if there is anything that we know about life, it’s that people are often unwilling to go along with “things that make more sense.” This explains **gestures at everything.**

This past weekend, at the behest of Chris’ partner Steph Bergner, a bunch of friends gathered at Indian Creek for a kind of “Kalous-a-palooza” to support him in doing 50 pitches in a day. I don’t want to steal his thunder, since I’m sure he’ll have a lot of great insights to share in his own voice, but the spoiler alert is that he actually sent the 50 at 50 challenge! Wahoo.

One observation I’d like to share about this objectively impressive achievement is that … it didn’t even look hard. Chris Kalous unintentionally put on an absolute master class in good crack-climbing technique. He didn’t prepare except for looking at the guidebook and making a loose game plan. He didn’t train. And he in no way is “in the best shape of his life.” Instead he relied on pure skill honed over 30 years of climbing cracks to see him through the day without falling on any of the 50 pitches he counted. (There is one asterisks here, as the crowd encouraged him to get on a sandbagged 5.11 he’d never done before, and he fell. However, he didn’t count this in his 50, but I’m counting it as a half pitch, meaning he did 50.5 pitches which is even more perfect since he is 50.5 years old.)

After the 40th pitch, by his own admission, he was too tired to hang off a jug. And yet, for pitch 41, Chris Kalous floated up Coyne Crack (5.11+), as smoothly and flawlessly as any ascent that route has ever seen.

If there was ever proof that good technique is more valuable than strength and fitness—at least when it comes to climbing cracks—this is certainly it. This echoes the advice of one of my most read articles, “Don’t Get Strong, Get Good.” I have a feeling that Chris’s 50 at 50 will be one of those inspiring things that people talk about and invoke in conversations for years to come.

Congrats, Chris! I’m sure we’ll be talking about it at some point on The RunOut, so make sure you subscribe to the feed wherever you get your podcasts.

Photo by Steph Davis