[Potash]

Gordale? (no)

I take it you have not done Darkness then? That's a significant hole in an esoteric ledge shufflers CV.

[Dingdong]

Magical changes and miraculous gains? Sounds like you want steroids<sup>1


1: while I was initially writing this as a light hearted joke, it occurred to me that on the basis you've been suffering chronic injuries and mental health issues, perhaps consideration of testosterone/hormone levels and potential TRT if needed is not such a terrible idea? Note: as I am not a doctor, I have absolutely no idea what i'm talking about. Stay well.</sup> 

Doctors should be able to test levels and prescribe if necessary, I would say not a terrible idea once TRT levels drop as you get older

[slab_happy]

^{1: while I was initially writing this as a light hearted joke, it occurred to me that on the basis you've been suffering chronic injuries and mental health issues, perhaps consideration of testosterone/hormone levels and potential TRT if needed is not such a terrible idea? Note: as I am not a doctor, I have absolutely no idea what i'm talking about. Stay well.} 

I am also not a doctor, but if you're having an especially bad patch without an obvious cause, it's not a terrible idea to see if your GP might be willing to run a bunch of blood tests, just on the off-chance -- vitamin B and D levels are some other things worth looking at, for example. Test anything they'll let you test!

And I speak as someone with an amazing gift for producing negative test results, so, you know, 99% of the time it'll say "everything's fine, your brain's just fucked because your brain is fucked."

But the 1% is invaluable.

[Wellsy]

Magical changes and miraculous gains? Sounds like you want steroids<sup>1


1: while I was initially writing this as a light hearted joke, it occurred to me that on the basis you've been suffering chronic injuries and mental health issues, perhaps consideration of testosterone/hormone levels and potential TRT if needed is not such a terrible idea? Note: as I am not a doctor, I have absolutely no idea what i'm talking about. Stay well.</sup> 

All jokes aside Fiend its time to get on the Tren

[GazM]

While its probably not what you want to hear when thinkng about the future, I'll echo the sentiments of Kingholmesy and HoseyB. You should be proud of what you have achieved. I'm well jealous of all the 'proper' climbing you've done.

[Fiend]

I know, what a moany cunt!!

Kingholmsey - there is a really good belay ledge on Andromeda Strain. It's the one you'd break your legs from if you fell off the crux slab, before realising there's no chance of rescue.

(And yeah, for you and GazM, thanks. I know I've done some great stuff in the past, but I'm a bit wary of past glories though. And the general point - not just for me - is I'd still stand a chance of doing that sort of stuff now if I'd been doing the proper stuff of being miserable, training hard on a wooden board or hanging off a redpoint rope earlier in life).

Potash - good point, I shall have to do that. And that big E2 corner at Kilsney.

Liamhutch - I like your disclaimer . I will take hormones into consideration. I am possibly going through the manopause.

Slab_happy - already done, tested for those plus iron, thyroid and inflammation. Result: "everything's fine, you're just a disintegrating punter because you're a disintegrating punter".

[slab_happy]

Slab_happy - already done, tested for those plus iron, thyroid and inflammation. Result: "everything's fine, you're just a disintegrating punter because you're a disintegrating punter".

Oh well, worth a shot. Have another fistbump of useless negative test results solidarity!

[webbo]

Thank fuck you’ve got youth on your side Matt. Just wait till you start getting old.

[mrjonathanr]

Thank fuck you’ve got youth on your side Matt. Just wait till you start getting old.

I don’t always agree with webbo’s posts but that’s a corker.

You’ve got a lot more time on your side than you think, Matt.

[kingholmesy]

Kingholmsey - there is a really good belay ledge on Andromeda Strain. It's the one you'd break your legs from if you fell off the crux slab, before realising there's no chance of rescue.

  well put! Strangely I still want to do this route.  Mind you, I keep putting it off …

I know I've done some great stuff in the past, but I'm a bit wary of past glories though. And the general point - not just for me - is I'd still stand a chance of doing that sort of stuff now if I'd been doing the proper stuff of being miserable, training hard on a wooden board or hanging off a redpoint rope earlier in life).

Yeah I get what you’re saying, and I realise that looking backwards at cool stuff you’ve done in the past doesn’t really help when you’re feeling shit about the prospect of doing any cool stuff in the future. I think though a lot of people end up being so focused on hanging off bits of wood getting strong that it becomes the goal and they never end up going on those adventures at all. Surely there’s still a few adventures to be had?

Potash - good point, I shall have to do that. And that big E2 corner at Kilsney.

The Diedre at Kilnsey is ace.  Proper good trad route, with the added bonus of a crag full of sports climbers looking at you like you’re a pervert for turning up with a rack.

[Fiend]

Thank fuck you’ve got youth on your side Matt. Just wait till you start getting old.

Thank for the moral support webbo 

At least I can look forward to being even more of a miserable git AS WELL as everything getting worse.


Kingholmsey: AS is bloody amazing. 2 star E3 into 3 star E4 in a serious overall situation. The climbing is genuinely great as is the overall situation - finishing up the top of Mercury with 50m of rope drag 

I take what you mean about the myopic training droids never actually putting anything into practise, but at least theyr getting strong doing it. As for further adventures, there's some, but it's always good to have a reasonable buffer of strength/fitness - which I've never had, and now it's even smaller! Is board training good for Llyn choss?? Of course it is. No-one has been left hanging around on the two small vaguely-attached holds in a sea of crumbling rubbish thinking "I wish I was a lot weaker here so I couldn't hang around for ages nor crank my way through this bit comfortably".

P.S. I got laughed at by Shark for taking my rack down to LPT, before finding out that some cunt had retro-bolted the good trad routes I'd wanted to do 

[webbo]

Thank fuck you’ve got youth on your side Matt. Just wait till you start getting old.

Thank for the moral support webbo 

At least I can look forward to being even more of a miserable git AS WELL as everything getting worse.

I thought you might appreciate that rather than me offering to meet up to give you a hug.
My time these days  is spent talking to mates about what body parts they have just had repaired and what is the next thing that will need fixing. That and groaning and sighing every time I move.

[andy moles]

Is board training good for Llyn choss?? Of course it is. No-one has been left hanging around on the two small vaguely-attached holds in a sea of crumbling rubbish thinking "I wish I was a lot weaker here so I couldn't hang around for ages nor crank my way through this bit comfortably".

As long as you can maintain the brain skills needed to climb choss when loads of your time is spent on a board... I don't climb choss but I find even 'normal' UK trad (i.e. the sort that involves a bit of boldness and fiddling) requires doing quite a bit of it to be any good at it. Maybe you're just a gifted chosswomble?

Sorry to hear you're having a hard time Fiend. Not being able to identify the exact nature of an issue is rubbish.

[T_B]

Hmm good discussion to what extent board skills can make up for trad shuffle deficiency? I’ve always relied on a bit of bouldering power to make up for a lack of shuffle technique, but I do reckon it’s a case of if you have it you default to it. Head still trumps power and no amount of power will make up for a poor head. You can get a long way with head/technique/stamina, so if the body’s falling apart I wouldn’t assume that being stronger would be the answer. Even Ned reckons fingers and flexibility are the two main things to work on and he’s talking about bouldering. Well one of those doesn’t tend to break you.

Having had a break from trad I think it’s useful to acknowledge that bringing all those skills/experience together to push yourself on a hard (for you) trad lead is pretty incredible. There is so much more to it than sport climbing and the risks involved should not be brushed over. So give yourself a pat on the back even if you’re dropping a few grades just applying your craft, something which cannot be learnt quickly. A lot of climbers step away from on-sight trad because it’s hard and scary!

[petejh]

You haven't run out of stuff to do Matt you need to keep going west - you have the whole of Ireland to adventure chossaneering around in, it's just like England/Wales/Scotland. Don't have to do mainstream stuff you can be as esoteric as you like - Luggala not Glendalough, Donegal inland granite not Fairhead, Kerry seacliffs not the Burren, Fermanagh limestone trad, Antrim coastal conglomerate weirdness etc. etc.  There's a lifetime of adventures to do out there. Flog car, get cheap van, go tradding for a week or two at a time to make the ferry trip worth it, simple. Until you die aged 100 (still a moaning cunt), having still not got anywhere close to doing it all at your grade but having had a life of good adventures and not having had to touch a board.

[Fiend]

I thought you might appreciate that rather than me offering to meet up to give you a hug.

Definitely! Give that moany twat what he deserves.

As long as you can maintain the brain skills needed to climb choss when loads of your time is spent on a board...

Of course yes. Strength / fitness in itself is definitely nowhere near sufficient in challenging trad. But I think the trad skills tend to come with age (and wisdom) rather than fade away with age.

I don't climb choss but I find even 'normal' UK trad (i.e. the sort that involves a bit of boldness and fiddling) requires doing quite a bit of it to be any good at it. Maybe you're just a gifted chosswomble?

Yeah the "normal" trad with the aspects you mentioned is really what I mean. According to Will Hunt I can't be a gifted chosswomble because I sometimes climb dynamically instead of wasting many seconds of energy doing delicate balletic footwork. But yeah I guess chosswombling suits my weakness - but more importantly my passion for it.

I think I had reasonable chosswombling skills within a decade of climbing - I did Blue Peter, Hysteresis, Cannibal, Godzilla, The Mermaid Who Shed Her Glove (for example) in 2006/7. Retrospectively it would have been more beneficial to mix in a lot more training and get straight down the Tor then (actually, come to think of it, I *did* get straight down the Tor in 2009, did Another Choadside Attraction, and a fortnight later was in hospital with DVTs), and mix in a lot more trying hard physically and training for the future. Then by now I'd have a couple of sport grades in hand AND still have plenty of non-Irish chosswombling to do (and might need to brush up on my wombling skills but they're a lot easier to get back, having had a history of it).

Hmm good discussion to what extent board skills can make up for trad shuffle deficiency? I’ve always relied on a bit of bouldering power to make up for a lack of shuffle technique, but I do reckon it’s a case of if you have it you default to it. Head still trumps power and no amount of power will make up for a poor head. You can get a long way with head/technique/stamina, so if the body’s falling apart I wouldn’t assume that being stronger would be the answer. Even Ned reckons fingers and flexibility are the two main things to work on and he’s talking about bouldering. Well one of those doesn’t tend to break you.

Cheers T_B, I do think the general point is perhaps of interest, hence my blog post exhortations to "Be Less Johnny Brown, Be More Wellsy"  Obviously I might be hamming this up a bit (and hamming up my general moaning about, as people point out, I've had a lot of pleasure chosswombling) but I do think there is something to be said for future-proofing oneself physically....

[James Malloch]

 but I do think there is something to be said for future-proofing oneself physically....

A physio I saw said about this as a general thing. So many of his elderly patients are there due to some weakness or muscle deterioration.

It’s not your XYZ causing the problem, it’s that as you got older you stopped walking as fast, or stopped walking up hills and therefore your glutes (or whatever) got into a downward spiral and are now causing problems elsewhere.

So future-proofing sounds sensible, but also keeping things going as your get older and things get harder.

Edit - obviously he is talking about inactive people but the same must apply to climbing i guess.

[Wellsy]

If be more like Wellsy you mean

- Start climbing and indeed basically all physical activity at the age of 30
- Desperately train to try and build some athletic strength before it's too late
- Be afraid of heights and be held back in your climbing for it more than probably anything else
- manage at your best to scrape your way up a score of 7As and half a dozen 7A+s during the same time that Fiend, while injured and miserable, is getting more done
- Get a knee injury that seemingly will never fully be fixed, and feel like you'll never reach your lofty goals due to that and all the above

Well I think it's not a great idea

However you should definitely go on the board more

[duncan]

Fiend, you've encouraged some good discussion. More importantly, you've have made me revisit my mis-spent 1990s again which I always enjoy (the rest of you can stop reading now). Training was mucking around at Mile End, climbing was weekends in N Cornwall, Pembroke and Gogarth. I rarely sport climbed and, when I did, it was strictly ‘trad. climbing on bolts’. I’m not sure if this was due to taste, aptitude, or some weird self-imposed morality. Sound familiar?

Like you, I sometimes think I should have spent more time trying hard on sport routes and training. I might have managed 7b+ or 7c if I’d embraced the siege. As you suggest, this might have set me up for climbing later in life or harder trad. routes at the time. On reflection now, I’m still happy to have chosen The Long Run over, hypothetically, New Dawn. I suppose the imponderable is whether choosing New Dawn would have enabled me to get up steeper E5s. It’s more likely I would have just knackered my shoulders/elbows and this is what happened when I tried to train more systematically at the end of the 90s.

30 years later, 7c is highly unlikely but 7b+ might still be on the cards. However, no mental or physical training, cheating, new shoes,  or moving to Roy Bridge will get me anywhere near anything like The Purr-Spire ever again. My sport fitness has held up much better than my trad. boldness! The being bold bit of trad. skills fades with age for nearly everyone who isn't Nick Dixon. Be happy with the harder trad. onsighting you've done. As T_B says, it’s difficult to get all your ducks in a row for this and this seems to get harder as we get older.

I think I did the right thing for me at the time and I hope you will feel the same later in life.

[Fiend]

Good empathic reply duncan, oh fellow shuffly one.

On reflection now, I’m still happy to have chosen The Long Run over, hypothetically, New Dawn. I suppose the imponderable is whether choosing New Dawn would have enabled me to get up steeper E5s.

The Long Run is one of the very top climbing experiences of my life. If I'd not bothered with that and dicked around sieging New Dawn, then I'd still have more than enough of a buffer to do The Long Run now. But having wasted time focusing on amazing experiences like The Long Run, I doubt I'll ever be able to get up New Dawn (that's one of the hard-ish things at Malham, right??) AND I don't have enough of a buffer to keep doing TLR-type shuffles.

(The above might be overexaggerating things a bit of course...)

[Potash]

I think we met once on the Old Man of Hoy. You were heading up South Face if I recall which I'm sure provided excellent ledge shuffling and vomit showers.

Anyway... I had very similar thoughts to you regarding training and ledge shuffling a few years ago. This was provoked by Michaela Tracy coming back from a few weekends worth of dabbling at trad climbing having basically ticked my lifetime best trad routes list.

Maybe if I'd not spent 100% of my time choss bothering I'd have managed to climb more awesome routes.

But if I'd trained my aspirations would have just got bigger, leaving me in a net neutral position.

Sport climbing is best left until ones dotage as demonstrated by the likes of Steve Haston et al. as boldness seems to drop off faster than ability. I think it far more likely that I climber harder sport than at my previous peak in the next few years than harder trad. Most of my current trad focuses upon routes "suitable for a married man with a large rack of wires".

[Fiend]

I think we met once on the Old Man of Hoy. You were heading up South Face if I recall which I'm sure provided excellent ledge shuffling and vomit showers.

Not sure what you mean...

Since reeve is reeve and you're not reeve, then you must be the other chap  Which means, if my guesstimating is right, that Double D the most unsung F7a+ gem in the Peak is yours, cheers 

Yes South Face route was pleasingly dire  I did have to wait for a gull chick to barf itself inside out before tentatively scuttling past it.

Good post. One needs to maintain the physicality for harder sport though.

[Duncan campbell]

It’s an interesting dilemma all this, isn’t it, Fiend??

You wish you hadn’t done so much of the stuff you love doing when you were more physically able to do the stuff you don’t love as much, so that you could have the hypothetical situation where you could do a lot of the stuff you have done, but now and *maybe* some other bits.

I think Potash hit a very pertinent point;

But if I'd trained my aspirations would have just got bigger, leaving me in a net neutral position.

There is always more things to do.

Who’s to say if you’d done more redpointing and board climbing you’d have lost your taste for trad (especially loose trad) as there is nothing like being used to pulling hard on hard redpoints or boards that destroys the taste for looseness is there!?

Or maybe you’d still be struggling with injury but lamenting all that extra strength and power you had, with no head for choss, wishing you had done the long run, black magic, etc.

You lived that period of your life true to yourself and your passion. All this rumination is based on “what ifs” that may or may not be true.

I don’t envy your position, and i do feel for you.

In fact I spend much of my time pondering whether I should try and get my trad goals done sooner or my sport goals, which will fade first? Body or mind? - no one knows and you could find examples of either probably.

I don’t really know much about you, but you do seem to have a wide range of interests… is this the time to try something you have always thought “I’d love to do x/y/z” but never had time because you were wombling up choss?

I empathise with how easy it can be to spend too much time looking back at the past and wishing for something different or forward to the future hoping for something. But it’s never helped me much.

The Long Run is one of the very top climbing experiences of my life. If I'd not bothered with that and dicked around sieging New Dawn, then I'd still have more than enough of a buffer to do The Long Run now. But having wasted time focusing on amazing experiences like The Long Run, I doubt I'll ever be able to get up New Dawn (that's one of the hard-ish things at Malham, right??) AND I don't have enough of a buffer to keep doing TLR-type shuffles.

You didn’t waste time on an amazing experience!! You can’t say for sure you’d be doing TLR now, and there isn’t much point thinking about that as it’s done.

What can be done in the now?
Is there any light at the end of the injury tunnel?

Hope you find some light at the end of this tunnel. 

Edit: sorry if this came across as condescending- not my intention… just recognise some similar thought patterns to myself at my worse times

[Johnny Brown]

Be Less Johnny Brown, Be More Wellsy

No offence Wellsy, but this sounds like a shit idea. Johnny Brown was never me. He was an imaginary ideal alter ego I would attempt to summon when in extremis, to possess me with the talent of Dawes and the effortless karate-trained cool of Ian Brown (remember this is the nineties, time is cruel etc), and allow me to swagger through the crux to victory.

When it worked it was great, and proved that wishful thinking and believing in your (alter ego possessed) self could be a valid alternative to fitness or strength, which in my experience tend to inflate your expectations while mainly providing the tools for bad sequences and grindingly slow climbing.
 
It wasn’t infallible though, all too often my pre-crux ritual would result in the disappointing appearance of a man I came to know as Ian Dawes. He was a cunt, frankly, his only talent being embarrassing post-failure paddies. So tread with caution.

[Wellsy]

No offence taken