Sport and Competition
Taking a Training Mindset to Climb Past Every Obstacle
Elite climber Sam MacIlwaine offers insight in a special Batman Day interview.
Updated September 18, 2026 Reviewed by Ekua Hagan
Key points
- Training is at the core of achievement.
- People can train to withstand great hardship in order to achieve their goals.
- Fictional characters like Batman can provide inspiration to help shape a resilient mindset.
The inmates chant, and a cauldron of bats roils around him as Bruce Wayne ditches the rope and finally climbs out of the pit where Bane imprisoned him in The Dark Knight Rises. It's a triumph heralding a return to Gotham City and imminent reckoning, leveraging training with an iron will.
While it works on screen, it's not exactly the way Sam MacIlwaine, elite climber, adventurer, and associate editor at Climbing magazine, would play it.
Fear of Failing and Falling
EPZ: You recently completed an epic “urban climb” at Autobahn in Germany. How does, or maybe doesn't, fear play a role in preparing for and then doing a challenging climb?
Sam MacIlwaine: Fear is definitely part of climbing. There's the basic fear of heights, which everyone has. I thought I didn't, but when I climbed El Capitan at about 2,000 feet, it kicked in, and I started thinking, I can't look down; I have to restrict myself and just stare at the wall. But there's a difference between fear and risk. In climbing, risk is very much acknowledged as something that is objective and something you can choose to take or not. Fear is a tool to alert you to risk, but it also can hold you back.
EPZ: I really like this idea of fear as a kind of early warning signal to acknowledge and use.
SM: Climbers have to work really hard to align their sense of comfort with their objective reality. Sometimes accepting that risk of big falls is necessary in order to send something that is truly very difficult, where you might not feel 100 percent secure, but you're going to do anyway.
Training, Training, Rinse, Repeat; It's All Mental
EPZ: What is your mental state when you are climbing?
SM: With Autobahn, that kind of climb is very hard but extremely predictable. There's nothing that you need to do that's different, and the weight actually gets easier. It becomes all about pain management and tolerance. But you can train for that.
EPZ: You have written about your climbs that "it’s all mental." Does this transfer into other aspects of your life?
SM: Yes. When I first started climbing, I wanted some sort of reassurance that what I'd done in the past meant I was going to be successful in the future. Now, after all this training and talking with professional athletes as a journalist, I don't believe that anything in your past guarantees future success. You just need to believe in yourself and decide, “I'm going to make this happen."
EPZ: That resonates because it fits with Batman taking a long time training to get somewhere and my own life in martial arts. The point is the process and purpose of training.
SM: Pursuing these big objectives is kind of a paradox: Sometimes you can't send the route until you let go of the need to do that. I am comfortable being the kind of person who's known as the girl who tried it for forever and never gave up.
About that scene in The Dark Knight Rises...
EPZ: You wrote “didn’t training mean training to go for it,” and it really resonated with me as a core principle of Batman and life in general.
SM: You need to be in the moment, with overwhelming desire, and it needs to be unacceptable for you to fall; to push yourself at that 98, 99 level of pain for so long, staying and staying and not quitting. It reminds me of The Dark Knight Rises, when Batman's trying to get out of that prison.
EPZ: What’s your take?
SM: For him to succeed on his last jump attempt, he takes out the rope, but I don't think that is necessary. I'm more likely to push harder and jump farther if I know I'm going to be protected, but I understand the mental effect of thinking I'm gonna die, and a reserve of strength comes in. Near the end of Autobahn, when I was over the concrete part, I knew I could not fall; I felt that. When you're climbing, and on the edge of pain and death, it kind of relaxes you a little bit, because you're not struggling to be like, should I… can I fall? Should I let go?
EPZ: That's where all of your preparation and training comes together—riffing on a line from Batman Begins, it’s not just training but having the "will to act"?
SM: Yes, training is nothing compared to the will to act. I think that's so relevant to many things, especially climbing.
EPZ: How do you think Batman and characters like that can fit in with motivation and inspiration?
SM: As an athlete trying to reach their limit, it's important to surround yourself with stories like superheroes. I read a lot of fantasy books, watch a lot of fantasy television, and am very specific about the kind of characters that I align myself with. If a character is passive and not smart, or not up against something that feels impossible, then it's just not the thing for me to read. I need to fill my mind with the attitude of someone charging headfirst into a situation that they might not succeed in, but doing it because it aligns with their values; they know who they are and how they need to respond. I want to have the strength or background of Batman, that courage. You do need to have that, especially if you're doing something that's scary, you know?
After my interview with Sam, I continued thinking more about Batman's mythology and how fictional characters can inspire. About how my mom’s interest in comics brought me to Batman, then into martial arts and to science. We all have the capacity to do more. We just have to have the determination to let go of the rope and put our bit of Batman to good use.
*Interview conducted Thursday, September 10, 2026.
© E. Paul Zehr (2026)