Two Thumps Up!!

Great big shout out and thanks for all the donations that were made to this blog!! Lee has recieved the cash and has expressed his deepest appreciation for everyones' help and prayers!

Lee is still recovering and feels a little bit stronger each day but he still needs our support. There will be a benefit for Lee on December 11 at Outdoor Chattanooga. Below is a link to his official page. If anyone needs more details or still wants to donate money they can get more info there. I have removed the paypal link and will be shutting down the email. If anyone wants info Lee is available himself now.
Lee is still accepting donations at the official Give Forward donation site: http://www.giveforward.com/2thumpsup
Lee wishes to thank everyone for the support. Please keep him in your thoughts and consider attending the event at Outdoor Chattanooga. We'll see you there!


EZ

Update

Hey guys, I haven't posted any updates because I assume most of you are getting info from Lee's facebook, but for the ones who aren't:

Lee's home in Birmingham with his mom. I talked to him Saturday and he said he is feeling much better but is still week from being posted up for two weeks. He said everytime he eats he gets more energy.

On another note thanks for all the donations, I think last time I check we had well over $600.00 thats's just awesome!

If anything changes I'll let everyone know.

Peace,
Ben

Whoa

Over $500.00 keep it coming peeps, I'd love to present Lee with a $1000.00 check at his fundraiser!!

Lee may be getting out of the hospital today!

Thanks for the contributions

Guys thanks for the contributions!! We have almost $600 in his paypal.

Some of you are wondering why you can't see the money. I am waiting to verify the account info and this takes up to a week. Once I get the account verified I will be able to accept the contributions.

I just got off the phone with paypal and she confirmed that the 7th of Sept will be when I can confirm the account.

Thanks, and Keep it coming!!

UPDATE:
I know a lot of you has seen Lee's messages on facebook, but for the ones that haven't here whats going on.

After a minor set back on Sunday, Lee is doing better. He was moved on Monday to another floor and out of ICU!! He had his permanent pacemaker put in yesterday and his in great spirits. The man really fought his ass off and for sure my hero!

If you have any questions again you can email me at leemeansisourhero@gmail.com

Peace!!

Ben

It's time to start helping out!!

ok guys, so here's a bit of other bad news.

When this tragedy happened Lee was in transition to a new job. This left Lee without health insurance. I'm sure everyone knows just how expensive medical bills can be. Lee has been in the hospital now since Saturday 08/21/2010 with several procedures and had to fly in a helicopter to Vanderbilt. This as you might imagine is going to be super pricey.

I am right now setting up a paypal account and a facebook page for Lee so that we can start donating any money we can to help our friend and brother out.

Also, we are planning a fundraiser in Chatty for sometime around the end of September. This is gonna be a blowout with live music and drink ect. I'll let everyone know more as we work out the details. Please try and remember to check back in for updates as we really need to make this thing big. Lee needs our help!

If anyone has any questions or wants to start helping out you can email me at LeeMeansIsOurHero@gmail.com

Thanks

Irene Means

Irene (Lee's mom) has called me to express her deepest appreciation for all the love you guys are spreading about Lee. She asked me to let everyone know that she is incredbly touched by the each and everyone of you, and is amazed and extremely proud of the type of people Lee has chosen to call his friends.

Guys and Gals, please keep these messages coming via Facebook, this blog, text if you want I can pass word along, which I've been doing, just keep them coming until he is home and chillin.

Thanks,

Ben

Still Fighting

So after a few minor set backs yesterday, it appears Lee is doing better!

This just in from Julie:

"I am in the room with him right now and they say his heart is doing GREAT! They are going to keep him intubated today so his heart can heal as much as possible. The doctors sound very promising :) he looks good! They said 'you have a fighter on your hands, you better watch out'. Ha! It's True. Love this Kid!"

Keep the good vibes and prayers coming his way!!

Stay Tuned,
Ben

PS Keep sending him positive messages on his facebook, he is getting them it's keeping him syked to fight!!

Good News!!

This just in from Julie:

Julie has talked to Lee's mom and she said Lee is off the machines and working to get healthy on his own. The kids got more heart than Rocky when he knocked the Russian out the ring!

More to come!!

Update 08/24/2010

Morning everyone, This just in from Lee's mom:

"They took his breathing tube out! He is alert and talking still a long way to go but in the right direction. You would not believe the difference since yesterday!"

Mista Lee Means aka Soldier Boy!

Hey everybody, A lot of you probably do not know me. My name is Ben Henson and I've considered Lee one of my best friends for many many years now. Not only is Lee my friend but he is also one of my main climbing partners and for you climbers reading this, you know the type of bond that is developed over years of amazing climbing adventures together.

I know theres a lot of you wondering what in the hell is going on with our great friend Lee. I cannot log on Facebook at work, so I'll do my best to keep everyone updated on this blog as I get more info from his mom and from Julie.

WHAT HAPPENED: (I'm no doctor this is the information I got from Irene-Lee's mom)

Several days ago Lee began feeling sick.  He had a tightness in his chest and was running a fever. He assumed he was coming down with Pneumonia. Like any straight G would do he pretty much shrugged it off and figured he'd get better in a few days,(something most of us have done a million times) but instead of getting better he continued getting worse. Finally Julie stepped in and convinced Lee to go to the hospital (thank God for Julie) in which the doctors decided to run some last minutes checks which included an EKG. Irene said the docs were blown away by what they discovered. Lee had some sort of infection to develop in his heart muscle otherwise known as Myocardidtis. This was causing Lee's heart muscle to barely pump blood into his body. They rushed him into surgery and placed a balloon in his heart to help it pump blood. This worked but the Balloon has an expiration of 24 hours. After the balloon expired Lee went into cardiac arrest and coded but thanks to the amazing hospital staff and Lee's strength he pulled through and his heart started back again. The Chatty hospital knew it was time for Lee to leave their wonderful care and make the journey to a better suited hospital. Vanderbilt was contacted and a Helicopter dispatched immediately to come get Lee. He arrived yesterday(Sunday) at Vanderbilt and the doctors there began immediately working on Lee. The began by placing a stint in his heart and hooking it up to electrodes to help it beat while it was recovering. This was working fine, but at 4:15am, this morning, he went back into cardiac arrest. Again thanks to the amazing hospital staff they were able to revive him. At this time the doctors called in the transplant team to decided if Lee needed to undergo an emergency heart transplant.  The doctors decided they were going to try one more thing and immediately placed a Pace Maker in Lee's heart. At this time Irene told me she whispered to Lee that he was to fight his ass off and beat this.  She said he was able to move his eyes and squeeze her hand, and Lee has done just that he has been fighting his ass off all day today.

I got to the hospital today along with another great friend and this was what happened:

Paul and I got in his room where he was heavily sedated. His mom said he was doing a lot better and I could tell that was the truth. He had all his color back and his hands were warm. After a few minutes of talking to him he woke from sedation. He was able to scribble us a message which read in true Mista Lee fashion, 'THANKS FOR COMING.."MEANS" ALOT'. We talked to him full of confidence that he was going to return to us all and we were going to continue this amazing party we call life. We told him his only job was to fight his ass off and he nodded his head. I'll be honest I've known Lee a very long time and he has been one of my main climbing partners and not until today did I realize just how damn strong Lee really is. So after a few minutes we knew he needed to get back to sleep and as we left he squeezed my hand, through a peace sign and a thumbs up  and though he couldn't raise his arm gave Paul and me knuckles!

As for Lee's mom she is very optimistic and appears to be doing well. It is still imperative that we continue to pray for Lee as much as we can until he is back to chillin with us. He's not out of the water by any means but as I said before he is doing better and is fighting his ass off.

I really want to thanks Julie for being so positive and keeping us updated through this hard times. I know this is hard but hang in there Julie and keep sending our boy all that positive energy.


Thanks
 
Ben

Dedication to Courtney

Thanks babe for putting up with all my shit due to my perpetual love for climbing up rock! I love you!!!

All Natural

Done no more shit in my system!! Maybe My head will quit spinning sometime soon!

Bout to get surious biotches

love

Routes

It's been a crazy long time since I've been on a rope. Here in da souf the bouldering game in the winter is just too damn fantastic to worry about lactic acid, however this doesn't mean I don't love route climbing cause I do. When I first started climbing in 01 Sandrock was the place of choice; there were access issues a this place called Horsepens and you had to sneak in, plus there was always this tall blond headed dude and his posse staring you down, I mean who wanted that? Now fast forward almost 10 years later I still love Sandrock, the routes are awesome, I spend most my days at Horsepens and that tall blond dude is now the kingpin and a pretty nice dude. I love climbing!

OK, so I went to Sandrock yesterday after being out of the route game since early last fall. As usual I got my ass kicked climbed a couple moderates and after about 2 hours felt like I could lay down and sleep about 20 hours. It's easy to forget just how taxing route climbing is. First you have to load this heavy pack full of gear and walk, then unload your shit, strap your nuts in a vice which coincidentally is a key piece of gear for protecting your life, then you boulder like 5-10 boulder problems back to back, come down stare up for 10 minutes until your neck feels like its breaking, pack up and start all over. No wonder route climbers are usually such skinny fucks!

So this sounds like a terrible time but alas it's amazing, and I love it! I just wish I could climb full time so I could really dedicate more time to getting better at it before it gets really cold and boulders begin to shimmer with friction.

So the moral of this story is damn I need to train more I'm such a puss!

Love you all,

EZ

Ps, Tyler and Katie killed it as usual with some new hard sends! Oh what it must be like to be a young prodigy with no body fat and all the time in the world!

174 and dropping!

That's right the first time since August of 09 I'm under 175 biotches!

So I challenged myself to a 100 day of running. I have to run at least 1 mile although I always try for more for at least 100 days. I'm on day 25 I've lost 8lbs since I started! Also I'm eating as close to Paleo as possible with a few cheats like brown rice. Haven't had a slice of bread in two weeks either, most of my carb intake has been coming from bananas and apples and the brown rice. Oh yeah and I pretty much cut alcohol out of my diet too. I know what you might be saying...EZ just aint EZ without his nalgene full of vodka and redbull, but fear not as soon as I hit my goals I'll be back running round the boulders drink in hand get my send on!

Last week was a rest week for training I finished my 12 weeks of initial power to try and regain some of what I had lost over the last year. This week started a Power Endurance cycle which will last 3 weeks. Basically I run circuit laps on the bouldering wall until I can't hold on any more and do this over and over. I was able to hold on for a little over 3 minutes which is shit if you're a route climber. My goal is 10 minutes by the end if this cycle. Then I'll start another 6 week power cycle to start gearing up for the season.

Oh yeah and I'm planning on adding some p90 to my workouts too. I've done p90 in the past and it definitely works, however this time I'm planning on altering the plan to eliminate and leg exercises and replace those days for the core synergictics. If you know me then you know legs are the last thing I need to work on since I'm built more like an MMA fighter than a rock climber--F U GENETICS I WILL OVERCOME! haha just kidding

Now on to some goals for the next 6 months:

Routes               Boulders
4-12a's                5-v6's
3-12b's                4-v7's
2-12c's                3-v8's
1-12d                  v9

If I send anything harder awesome if I complete my goals awesome if I dont still awesome that I am still healthy to climb and I'll work harder!

Peacers
EZ

Training Journal

So I moved to Birmingham in March with the worst fitness I've ever had. I was fat, weak, tired but that had to change!! I got determined, syked, pissed off what ever you wanna call it but in short I got motivated to get stronger than I've ever been. The scene in Birmingham has really exploded in the last year with the opening of First Ave http://firstaverocks.com/. The place is rad! Dedicated pretty much to training the FAR hosts several sick angle boulder walls along with a School Room Moon wall, two system walls, a campus board, hangboard station with my favorite hangboard (the Moon Board) as well as full fledged crossfit area. It was time to get to business. Now I'm no stranger to training as a matter of fact several years ago I was known for my intensity during sessions, if I wasn't screaming I wasn't trying hard enough, but where'd it all go. Well it's back and more syked than ever to push through the weakness and pain and help me get my shit back together.
So here's a short summary of each week from my journal entry to get you guys syked, not gonna post everything this biotch would be too long.

Week 1:  Went to the bldrfields twice felt fucking weak v2s were hard couldn't make the 2nd move on pile. A good friend came in town from NC and I took the rest of the week off drank beer shit! gotta get more syked. Weight - 185lbs BF 25%

Week 2: Jogged 4 days, Went to the bldrfields Monday-Wed and the climbing gym (FAR) on Thursday still feel very week and heavy. Did a good set of deadhangs on the Moonboard top edges 5 sets of 10 seconds and killed a core work out. Rested the weekend.

Week 3: Jogged 1.5 miles Monday-Friday. Mon. & Tues. went to the bldrfields starting to feel a bit stronger sent a couple v4s and made it to the end of a Pile v6 but no send. Wed. went to the FAR did a sick deadhang workout crimps, slopes pinches, campus brd w/ feet on, also did chest, shoulders, tri's and core!!  Thurs. went back to bldrfields sent a v4 that I work on Tues. tried a bunch other problems! Gettin stronger so syked!

Week 4: Jogged everyday but Tues. Monday FAR - 5 sets 4x4's; System training, fingerboard, forearm curls. Tues. played bball did some pullups at the playground, chest/tris/shoulders. Wed. bldrfields feeling stronger. Thurs. bldrfields sent Pile v6. Sat FAR fingerboard, weighted pullups, core, forearm curls. 178lbs-24.5bf

Week 5: Mon. bldrfields worked Trip v5 and The Tree v7. Tues ran before work and at lunch went to the FAR bouldered 1 hour, fingerboard, forearm and core. Wed. jogged 2 miles played bball 45 minutes pullups on the monkey bars. Thurs. Super tired took a nap after work, went to the gym bouldered v4-v5 problems, 3 sets of 4x4's feeling pumped, fingerboard, core and pushups. Friday ran. Sat ran, pushups, arm burn out: bi's/tris/shoulders- 176.4lbs 21.9%bf

Week 6: Mon- Fri ran 2 miles ran twice on Tues and Fri. Mon FAR strength weight pullups, one arm locks, frenchies. Tues bball pushups and dips. Wed bldrfields feeling stronger work the Tree. Thurs FAR climbed 1 hour worked the fingerbrd. Fri FAR fingerbrd, pullups, core. Sat pushups.

Week 7: Super tired, No running ate bad, Tues went to bldrfields tired, Wed FAR tired, rested rest of the week

Week 8: Off week, did go to the bldrfields on Wed but felt tired. no motivation ate bad. Figured out why I have been so tired I'm allergic to b12 I started taking 500mcg 2 weeks ago stopped on Thurs of this week felt almost 100% by Sat.

Week 9: Mon feeling better FAR bouldered 1 hour v3-v5, system wall lockoffs, down campus, one arm locks big rubber band, killed core, fingerboard. Bldrfields worked Reignition v9 hard barely made the 2nd and 3rd moves, left went to climbing gym bouldered some more, chest and shoulders. Wed rest. Thurs. bldrfields climbed for fun.

Week 10: Ran every day this week. Mon FAR power, 10 hard boulder problem attempts, followed by 3 PE laps, 3x10 system wall deadpoints, deadpoints right and left hand grabs, 5x6 explosive pullups, 10 feet cuts. Tues. 10 hard boulders, 3 sets system locks-weak, 5 campus to lockoff-weak, 3 x system walls (slopers, gaston, undercling, pinches)-weak,  core. Wed-antagonists, Thurs bldrfields Reiginition made 5 moves feeling stronger v3/4 circuit

Week 11: Ran everyday. Mon rest, Tues. ADD-ON Barrel wall 45 minutes, 3 system lock off, frenchies-weak,  3x4 lockoffs medium band, core. Wed - antagonists, Thurs - Boulderfields reignition rained out.

Week 12: Ran everyday. Mon bldrfields stuck crimp pinch for the first time and held on Reignition that rig is gonna go first cool day. Tues. FAR climbed 1 hour, 3 system campus-weak, 5 square lock offs on crimp system, Killed core! Wed- antagonists. Thurs. climbed 30 minutes elbow starting to hurt need a rest week.

Week 13: This week will be a rest week for climbing plan on running a ton and killing my core. Starting Power endurance next week.

OK well this was longer than I planned hope you were able to sort through it. It's been a successful 12 weeks of power and strength. I feel I improved on both a good bit. Still not pleased got a long way to go. Holler if you have any questions!

Peace,
EZ

Moving Sucks

nuff said!!

Second Go

So here it is, I quit this rig already once. Figured why would I post a blog, I'm a nobody and with so many interesting peeps out there doing the same thing it was pointless. But then I realized this bloggy blog is to pay homage to my true homeboys that I kick it with on the regular trying to succeed in this pointless yet obsessive sport we call rock climbing, for my homies that I've met in travels that may stumble across this site and wonder what in the hell that crazy ass kid from Bamer has been up to, and most importantly for me. I love going back and looking at my post from a year ago. Seeing what I was up to, what I looked like and how I've changed. So I've changed this blog up a bit gave it a new name, new look, and dusted the cob webs off. The goal is to start posting more on my training in my ever long quest to obtain fitness, my conquests on the rock, what my boys have been doing, and maybe some personal thoughts followed by lots of pics.

OK so I think my last post was in October sometime, I was living in Huntsville and probably incredibly syked about the season coming. However by the time October rolled around I had gained to my all time heaviest which was due to work, beer, and borderline depression from living in Huntsville. Gaining weight is a funny thing, because you don't really realize you are gaining until it's too late. In December I crimped too hard for a fat boy and popped a tendon. BOOM POP done for the season, major depression set in, but also a new determination fire was lit in my belly and fuck it I was gonna get back in shape, as a matter of fact my "New Year's Resolution" was to be in the best physical climbing shape ever for the season 2010! I've had a long standing goal of accomplishing v10 by my 30th birthday, this leaves one more season!

Fast forward several months and a lot of shit has changed. So here I am I quit my job at NASA and took a job in Birmingham working with an environmental engineering company so that I could be closer to a "real climbing scene" and so that I could start to get my train on to accomplish my goals. This is where I'm gonna leave you. Up next will be some posts from my training journal and what I've accomplished these last two months.

Hope this finds everyone well and in good spirits!

~EZ