I’m too old!  In my infinite fortune, I have survived to the age of 30.  I’m obviously too old to be a great climber – just look at the SCS Finals this year, the oldest female to make finals was a whopping 22 years old.  The greatest female boulderer and current media darling Ashima Shirashi is half my age.  The “Old Man” next to me in Finals last October was 6 years my junior.

Except Chris Sharma was nearly 32 when he sent La Dura Dura. Steve Haston has sent multiple 9a sport routes in his 50s, and has crushed every style from the Eiger, to a flash of Greenspit (8b roof crack featured in “First Ascent”), to mixed, grit, the list goes on. Lee Sheftel is clipping the chains on 5.13b just two years short of 70!

I’m too fat! Have you seen these folks at the top of this game? At 5’7″ and 155lbs, you’d have to be looking at World Cup competitors in the 6′ region before you’d come across someone I could play on a see-saw with.  Well, that would be my excuse, if John ‘Largo’ Long didn’t crush way harder than I ever have. Ok, he’s more jacked than fat. Exhibit B – John Dunne, also climbs harder than me, and is honest to god fat.

I’m too short! We all know athletes are tall. Lebron James – tall. Usain Bolt – tall. Jan Hojer – tall.  At 5’7″, what hope do I have? Except… polite Canadian crusher Sean McColl is 5’6″.  One of the most prolific hard route climbers, with 47 routes 9a or harder to his name, Ramón Julian Puigblanque, checks in at 5’3″. I can even (just barely) look down on Daniel Woods, who has cranked 20+ V15s.

I’m too tall! Well, you know if I can’t be too short, I can be too tall.  Except, Jan Hojer and James Litz both seem to clock in north of 6 foot tall.  And I’ve stood next to Adam Henry – fairly certain the crown of my head doesn’t even make it to his shoulder.

I’m a dude! Ashima is a girl!  Legend Lynn Hill is a woman!  Maybe what I’m missing is another X chromosome!  Yea…. I’m not even gonna bother trying to use this one.

I’m not really a climber! Bear with me here, we’re about to partake in some Nastia Lukin level mental gymnastics.  I’m not really a climber.  I get into the gym for a few hours once a week most weeks, which is 3 days a week less than Reddit tells me I should be going.  Even outside the gym,I do core once a week, hangboard once every other week, and get in “cardio” once a month or so.  I’ve got other hobbies.  I don’t work for a climbing gym, or an outdoor store, or live in a van – I work a white collar job in a building without windows. I can totally accept that I don’t climb at the highest level, because I’m obviously not that committed to this climbing thing… Except I’ve owned at least one pair of climbing shoes for the last dozen plus years, the majority of my vacation time is spent climbing, I own close to 100 climbing films, and here I am writing for a climbing blog.

My godfather, a military man, once asked me “What is the maximum effective range of an excuse?”

The answer?  Zero Meters.

We all have things about ourselves that are less than ideal for the hobbies we’ve chosen. Some we can change (our motivation, our time commitment), some we can’t (genetics). I encourage you to own those things, never let them be excuses. If you aren’t putting as much time in as you could be, because its not that important to you, there’s no shame in that.  And if you ever hear me start a sentence with “I didn’t send because….”  and the next two words aren’t “I suck” – you have full permission to punch me. In the leg – I might have another go in me!

Justin Meserve – is an old, short, fat, tired, genetic freak thrashing violently to stay relevant in a sport that he denies he cares about.