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Some welcome News
23 September 2011, 6:44 pm

The reason for being a little quiet of late is down to another shoulder injury!

Fortunately it hasn't been anywhere near as bad as the ones that I had to fix for 2-3 months at the end of last year/start of this.

I spent a few days resting and then got straight on to the usual routine of assisted movement, stretching and then gradual strengthening with the theraband whilst trying not to get too down about all the oh so near projects that would have to wait a bit longer than anticipated.

Looking at my activity diary, it was quite clear I had been overloading a bit in terms of climbing/weights at the gym but I am pretty certain I caused it during the comp on the grim corner mantle presses. I quite enjoy comps now and again but this is about the 3rd time I've picked up an injury in the last year directly from comp style pressing.

Once fixed, it's tempting to pack it in and stick to climbing on more basic stuff which doesn't involve contortionism, relates more directly to what I want to do outside and is less likely to cause further anguish!

Rehab Day 1

After about 8 days of rest/theraband I had a great day out in Wales with Laura and a poorly Dexter the dog who nearly spewed all over the floor in V12! We started off at RAC bumping into Shauna and Skyner Weeks.

It was the ideal place to do a bit of volume as well as ticking off guidebook gaps in my lifelong quest to tick the North Wales Bouldering guide (Sadly minus roadrunner cave!).

The highlight was managing to drag my unfit corpse across the Pump Traverse sans cracks at the mighty grade of 7a. Laura flashed a load of the easy minor classics and we drove over to the pass.

Rather than get bored on the roadside face, I suggested we go check out the highball stuff at Pont Y Cromlech where I had ticked off the Seam and a quality V2 a few years back.

Laura made a casual flash of The Seam and then flashed all of the other stuf up to V3. I ticked off the up lines apart from the high and scary V4(E2?) rounded arete, where I found myself stood up on the undercut and unable to reach the hanging crack high up. The fall trajectory would have been super sketchy with the 3 small pads, so I bailed off left and saved it for a big balls day!

We finished off at the roadside where we met Rich and Bertie and Laura agonisingly dropped the top of Johnny's problem from the sitter several times, before we went to Pizza and a Pint which seems to have an exponential price creep of late!

Indoor Rock Scaling and Cake!



Since that day out I've just been circuiting indoors at the Hangar and only tested the creaking joints on some slightly harder stuff yesterday, including winning a brownie for getting the first ascent of the grim vertical traverse (problem 21) on the blue 4-6 circuit.

Next week brings 3 days off work and hopefully a chance to get out on some real stones if I can find a willing crew to share the petty costs! I'm really keen to go try and finish off XXXX at the Bowderstone and Ferrino with no pockets in the cave but they could both prove a tad ambitious/burly in terms of rehab problems!

Ater all this chatting shit, I re-read the title of this blog and realised I didn't actually expand upon it!

The welcome news (with my usual situation of a new injury being just around the next pressy corner) is that the Hangar has drafted in a physio who will be down there every Tuesday evening to help cure us of our ailments and hopefully put us on the road to normal human posture! I am obviously excited by this and looking forward to getting a sports massage having had a perma stiff back for quite some time. It may be £20 well spent which would otherwise be splashed out on 2 bottles of red from my current local shop of choice.

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You know you're getting old when...
30 September 2011, 4:28 pm

You hike uphill for 20 mins, warm up at the crag on some easy solo's and then pull your back whilst pulling on the loops of your sending shoes!

It seems I only blog about injuries and rehab these days and sure to form after vastly improving on the shoulder front, my lower back went yesterday in the most frustrating of ways. Right at the start of the session after driving up there solo and hauling 4 pads up to Warton.

Monday 26th

I went up to the South lakes with Mike and Sam on a Woodwell mission. Sadly it was pretty minging at O'ert Road and Tom's roof but pulling on with a towel and skipping holds allowed us to warm up on Angel Deelite. Mike did it after a bit of trouble with the top section and Sam didn't quite manage it. I worked on the Flying Finish going rightwards from the flat jug but couldn't work it out. I tried spanning across the lip but it felt wrong and then attempted it using the undercut on Backhand Roof, a left heel to hand and then throwing wildly over the top for a distant hold but kept spinning off with the angle feeling weird.

We moved over to Tom's and there wasn't much dry for Mike and Sam to try but I hadn't attempted the Footless Marathon before today, so thought it would be a fun thing to do, which wasn't quite true as it was sharp and wet but I got through it and just about held on to the last big slap for the flash.

We headed to where we knew would be dry and the Shelterstone face didn't let us down. Mike and Sam took turns trying the Pit Problem and I almost did The Buccaneer in a couple of tries only to hold the swing and then fall off matching the lip. About 45 mins of sweating off, swearing and nearly giving up ... I managed to hold the swing again and made no mistakes on the 4b top out!

Thursday 29th

After a trip up to Warton the day before with Laura and J Railton. I headed back up the M6 on my billy no mates in White Beauty. Rather than leave Ebenezer Goode till another time with yesterday's afternoon heat being draining, I got there a little earlier before the sun could come around on to the buttress.

As you may have read at the beginning of this post, I hauled up several mats and arrived feeling good. A few Solo's and a strained back later. I was prone on the mat trying to stretch it out and it didn't feel too bad immediately, just a bit stiff. I was a bit angry at the prospect of the petrol cost and pad hauling being all for nothing, so did the clever thing and got on my project anyway to show it who's boss!

It wasn't looking good 2 goes later as I felt a bit achey and had fired off the lip dish twice. The next go I somehow scraped through panting and grunting to the sidepull at the end but couldnt summon the energy to get the kneebar in and slid off. I knew it would go in colder temps and the sun was starting to shine on the hold so I swore a bit, brushed the holds and gave it my all.

I battled through to the same position and managed to get the kneebar in just as my fingers were uncurling from the painful handswap hold. I shook like a shitting dog laybacking the crack without being able to feel much through the pump and was mightily relieved to reach the break and lean into the corner to take a 2 minute rest before topping out!

I hobbled back down gingerly and dragged myself and pads back down the hill feeling every single step shooting up my back.

The drive home was uncomfortable and I could barely move when arriving back in Merseyside!

I wisely dosed up on various creams and pills and went to a BBQ at a friends where copious amounts of red wine and food seemed to ease the pain. It was a lot better this morning once I got moving and had a hot shower but has started to feel bad in the shop bending up and down to get shoes for customers!

A cocktail of Naproxen, Diclofenac, Ibuprofen gel and Paracetemol should hopefully help... I can't wait to see the physio next Tuesday!

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Physio trip
5 October 2011, 4:00 pm

After having a horrible re-occurance of my back spasm whilst serving a customer on Sunday, I made the effort to get Tuesday evening off and I went to see the recently installed Tuesday night physio Hannah down at the Hangar. Luckily she was able to help me out with some stretching/ROM exercises focussing on getting my lower back working again and then strengthened.

I've been given homework to do 3-4 times daily to help speed up the process and have also purchased a rather fetching hot water bottle from the evil Tesco empire to help warm the old lower back up before I do any gentle stretching. I road tested it before whilst driving to the Hangar this afternoon and it was pretty damn amazing!

Hopefully with careful dedication to these specific exercises, things will be on the mend by next Tuesday and I can maybe have my upper back looked at which was been dodgy (bit of a locked up and tender bruised feeling either side of my spine) for the last 2 months. She didn't want to touch that for now as the lower back isn't yet strong enough for my upper back to receive some un-knotting, it is unsuprisingly a bit of a mess from years of training and never having anything done to ease it up!

I then have a 5 day window from Thursday till Monday to get out and do some rock scaling with my good friend mr Skyner Weeks. We are both quite keen to do a bit of grit volume at the moment so we will probably hit both the Peak and Yorkshire. There are lots of high classics I am keen on but these will likely have to be postponed till normal back strength/mobility is restored. Fingers crossed for a cold and dry October :)

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Build up to font
2 November 2011, 6:08 pm

After my physio sessions and a lot of fairly boring but ultimately back rewarding exercise, I have managed to rebuild my creaking carcass into something approaching a climbing adoni... healthy human being.

OUTSIDE

There have been many visits out on the grit and a welcome return to cave sieging which has been a lot less frequent than in the previous 2 years.

A need to try and broaden my skill base and volume of climbing on different rock has been suggested by others, so I have been giving it a crack and thoroughly enjoyed it so far, even if the warm weather and my recovering back has meant staying away from hard climbing.

I have had a great few days out in the Peak and Yorkshire with the best being a trip to the Cliff after finding midgies and grease at Caley. Andi E put together a good little clip with a classic soundtrack and some nice imagery from home:



Back in the Cave I've gotten back to the same point as I had just before the wobbly block was pulled out of the roof, falling off with both hands on Left Wall on In Life.

Hopefully it will go soon when temps drop ever so slightly and strength endurance improves!

INSIDE

It has been a fun start to the winter bouldering rounds and I've done ok so far in the Hangar and Awesome Walls ones coming provisionally 2nd in one and 1st in the other. Admittedly the strength of the fields is quite low so the real challenge will be doing well in the first round of the NIBL in a couple weeks time.

There is also a coaching session coming up this weekend with Nige Callendar so I'm hoping to pick up some tips and see what can be improved upon the most to help achieve my goals both immediate and in the future.

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My current mantra is not to push too hard before we head off to font on the 18th November for a week of *fingers crossed* cold and dry weather. It should be both inspiring and dismaying watching Web Parsons/Puccio/Coxsey and Garden warming up on personal projects but I'm just looking forward to being there and getting some classics done. Amazingly, I haven't written up a detailed list of problems for a change... and I'll see how going with the flow works out when we get there.

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A rare day of success!
5 November 2011, 12:38 pm

Cave in the afternoon

On a whim, I decided to go to the cave Friday day time before the Stoke bouldering competition even though the forecast was for humidity, rain and no wind.

My psyche clearly rubbed off on Laura who decided to come along for moral support after finishing uni early.

We found the cave quite greasy but fairly busy with a small group of die hard locals and visitors playing on various things.

After warming up slowly I had a decent first go on In Life getting to the two slopers and taking my feet off very easily totally killing any swing but locking off too hard and not being able to rotate my feet round! I hung this position for several seconds before letting go bemused.

After a couple of close attempts Laura managed to get into the high sidepull and then to the glorious high finishing jug on Bust Lip for her first non slab/vert 7A+ tick! It was great to see her trying hard and being seemingly unaware of the possibility of a foot lock staying in above head height should she have failed to grasp the sidepull :)

The second redpoint on In Life saw me grasp the pinch on Left wall but then fall trying to go through to the fingerjug with the holds not feeling very dry. I feared the worst so had a longer rest than usual and fanned air on to them as well as chalk.

Laura tried to get Parisella's original done but couldn't quite hold the foot swing from releasing the heel-toe. Her efforts inspired me to pull my finger out and on the 3rd redpoint I managed to fall into the fingerjug screaming and slap out to the sloper. I scrambled across to the low flake almost falling at every move as my fingers unravelled and arms lost all feeling but thankfully the sanctity of the kneebar rest came just in time!

I didn't hang about too long and got the job done not feeling too bad on the end section and letting out a sigh of relief that I wouldn't have to crawl into the dirt any longer! Joy.

The sending spree gathered momentum and shortly after, Ducko breezed across Rockatrocity making the end look piss and not suffering the fate of many others on that horrid last hand move :)

Comp in the evening

We went directly from the cave to Stoke wall to see Youngy and have a play at the winter bouldering league. I always love going to new indoor walls almost as much as new outdoor venues as change is always a good thing and keeps things interesting.

After feeling pretty heavy on the warm ups I gradually got into things and had managed to flash 21/25 by about 8.30. With an hour left to try the last 4 I had to start resting for long periods of time just to summon the energy to pull on and make more than a couple of moves! I clawed my way to a couple of the bonus holds but fell off a couple I am sure would have been flashed had it not been such a long double day session.

The atmosphere at the comp was really nice and the locals friendly. There was a good bit of banter with the fellow comp hustlers from Stockport and even though I had puntered up at the end, I managed to sneak victory by about 10 points from one of the Stockport crew.

Needless to say after a victory beer, I slept like a corpse!

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Anticipation off the scale!
18 November 2011, 9:03 am

It's less than 24 hours until we will be heading down the motorway en route to the magical world of fontaineberry. The anticipation of climbing on cold, crisp and dry wonderful sloping grips is high!

I had a couple of days out this week to tune up, with a trip to the Roaches on Monday and a cave session yesterday.

Monday 14th

I headed over to the Roaches with Pete and Tom from the Hangar. The skies were grey when we arrived but crucially the green looking rock was bone dry. We pottered around the lower tier boulders and I enjoyed repeating the classics with the only downside being scraping my face up the wall getting a bit too close in on the undercuts dyno! It was dispached a couple goes later and I got stretch and mantle first try of the day, what an ace problem.

After doing the Ascent of Man start, we popped up the steps and I got the guys to do the brilliant Joe's Arete. Some geezer was on the block behind doing the cool looking Nadin's traverse, I whored the beta then flashed it. Pete got real close but kept losing it just before the right flake sidepulls.

We wandered up over the hill on a bit of a mision but found our way to Staffs Flyer. I'd wanted to get up here for so long with it being one of the classic peak roof problems. The ground was proper gopping, but we fashioned a rock patio of sorts and I layed down a survival bag upon which, the PoD pad was sacrificed! It looked like it could be spicy for 6b but after pulling on and crossing to the good crimp, I found I could build my feet high and lock static to the hold over the lip, I matched this then cut my feet and campussed up to the top. What a splendid problem!

Tom got it shortly after with a more dynamic sequence and I did the arete on the block to the right, another good problem.

It was getting very grim in the cold mist, so we returned to the Joe's arete area and I did the flakes and nose problems on the big block. I felt too tired to try Higginsons's roof traverse, so opted to go look at Mean Ol' Bastard. I found the pull on weird and then it was really hard to get my foot in the hole after getting the gaston. As soon as I realised I could lock into it and match the opposing gaston the problem went down in 2 goes. I briefly tried Apocalypse now but couldn't reach the top, it felt ridiculous for 7a+ so we bailed to the pub and had a well earned pint!

Being the idiot I am, I joined in a max intensity 'trying problems beyond your limit' session at the Hangar and found a few spicy pink problems to work on over the next couple of sessions. We finished off with 10 mins of core thanks to Laura's request and I went Ma Hoppo's for an amazing curry.

Friday 17th

Me, Laura and J headed over for a late session at the cave and found it to be fairly busy with strong Dan (a recently arrived local who has moved over from Leeds) there trying Louis Armstrong and looking pretty strong on those undercuts as well as Rich, Duncan and Alex (whom i mistook for Bertie from Beris in my fatigued state!).

I felt shattered warming up on right wall traverse but after a few more problems things felt better. My first go on Pilgrim was ok just failing to get my foot across to the spike. I rested up and then watched Laura almost crush the Right wall reverse into bust lip, falling off going into the last sidepull before the finishing jug!

Go 2 on Pilgrim was an improvement, getting to two pockets and throwing for the flake on R.A. I hoped I could get a bit further today than last session as it now felt steady to there but I was lacking a bit of endurance/strength maybe.

After a proper rest, go number 3 felt much better, I cruised through to the pockets without any mishaps and had something left going for the flake. Sadly I caught it terribly with two fingertips but clung on with a scream, I got my right foot through and left across into the first pocket, I matched the flake block and tried bumping my left hand on properly. My fingers were killing being half on-half off so I just threw out to the sidepull anyway and held on, I stepped my left foot through but the pain on the left fingers was too great and I had to let go.

It was a bit gutting to drop it there as I was quite confident of getting to the last move if I caught the flake but I forgot how much it hurts to not get it properly. It was marked progress from my last session on it, so hopefully it will go soon.

We finished the day off with another Hangar session going around the circuit set for the military comp on Wednesday and the recovery meal of Large fries with large lamb&chicken kebab from the Nile was immense! It will no doubt help me put on a layer of fat to survive a chilly font trip.

It would be nice to get a few things ticked off this trip as I feel in decent shape and have few injuries to speak of. The video camera shutter is currently not opening but hopefully this can be remedied with a stick to hold it open and we can get enough footage to make a short film of all our puntering :)

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A new year.
11 February 2012, 12:18 am

I decided to be fashionably late with this years first blog (due to the fact there has been nothing of note to report). I had a couple of good trips to font at the end of 2011 whilst staying at The House which Andy and Roo have done a good job with. The first trip was with mark, psyche, Peter, Shauna, James, Alex and Chris but unfortunately we experienced very damp and humid conditions which made for a frustrating few days out (especially so for Chris who was hobbling around after an altercation on a parisian ring road).

Despite the shit conditions it was nice to finish off some old nemesis' in the form of eclipse and l'arrache coeur and also a brilliant and slightly worrying highball in Cuvier, the name of which escapes me!

The second trip over there was more enjoyable as it was just me and Laura and we had the whole gite to ourselves with it being mid December, where the weather is a bit of a lottery. It did prove to be overcast, damp and a bit showery but we still climbed for 4 days out of 5, the best day being the one which looked the least promising, -1 degrees but absolutely perfect!

The highlights of trip 2 were Laura walking up duroxmanie  before a Huthwaite style top out and a rapid spotter less ascent of some 6c+ slab with 1 little pad far below. I finally found friction and got 2 of the big 4 with the big boss in a couple of tries this trip and likewise fourmis rouges which felt like climbing with Velcro on my hands! Fantastic stuff.

Instead of my usual early trip abroad to go climbing, I am currently across the world in Melbourne staying at an old friends. It has been a bit of a winter break from climbing with a couple of trips to the local wall in a whole month. I've enjoyed going swimming quite a few times in 50m pools which were a bit of a killer, right down to the 15m one in the apartment I am in. I've not swam regularly since I was in a team at the age of 10 and I think it is something I could get into doing again of a morning.

I'm here for 1 more day  before visiting holger in the blue mountains for the last few days of my trip and hopefully we will get out on some real rock , so I can wake the corpse up from this binge of beer, cocktails, coffee and many bbq's.

I am looking forward to getting back and seeing Laura again and cracking on with this years goals of unfinished business. Then it is time to get strong as hell for Louis Armstrong. I am sure Lore's visit will give me the necessary inspiration :)

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Renewed Psyche
1 March 2012, 4:33 pm

It has been a wet old time since I returned from Australia but thanks to the recent visit of a man from Italy chiselled from pure 100% psyche, I have managed to get back to the cave and recommenced battle on several fronts.

Monday 20th Feb

I decided to test the waters after not much recent climbing and managed to surprise myself by firing off laps of Rockatrocity, lou Ferrino (with wet holds) and also the starts of Pilgrim into RA and In Hell into RA. It seems taking time out to rest can help rather than hinder and strength seems to return rather rapidly.

I felt a bit tired on Pilgrim so didn't go for any serious attempts and opted for just pulling on to moves trying to remember stuff.

Luckily for me, local strongman Nodder has rediscovered his cave mojo and was on hand to give me some amazing new beta for Halfway House and I can now get into the start of Trigger Cut a lot more consistently. Coupled with the revelation that is the 5.10 stealth kneebar pad, Halfway House has gone back on to the agenda for this year!

Wednesday 22nd Feb

I returned on a day of utterly shocking conditions with the Italian Stallion on board and we found the Cave to be a gopping mess. I couldn't recall attempting to climb in worse conditions but after a lot of towelling and chalking, we managed to salvage rockatrocity and commenced lap training! Lore crushed the wobbly block moves and linked to the last move on R.A. only to fire off the finish slot locking to the wrong place and missing it. I attempted Pilgrim on condensed slopers and realised it would be a fruitless task today. I turned my attention to R.A. and just did laps on it until I could no longer pull on. It was quite satisfying to be able to pull on pumped and still climb R.A. which bodes well for Pilgrim when good conditions return.

We had a great meal later that evening with Tom, Hayley and Laura back in Liverpool and a pint in the Phil to finish off a productive day.

Sat 25th Feb

The weather was pretty glorious outside but instead of making the most of decent grit conditions, I had a lie in and went to the last round of the AWCC Stoke Winter league with Youngy and Hoppo. I had managed to scrape a victory in round 1 after a heavy cave session so felt confident of taking home the top prize after 2 rest days.

It started off well with me and Hoppo getting round rapidly whilst it was quiet and flashing the first 16 or so problems. I then managed to grease off a couple of not so hard ones and started to fret, so left them alone and went upstairs to the steeper stuff. Back on more familiar terrain, I flashed 6 of the 7 up there. On more of a roll, I finished off everything downstairs, cursing my overly sweaty skin which caused so many mistakes earlier on.

When the dust had settled I had taken 2nd place on the day but crucially finished 1st overall ahead of the Stockport lads and got my hands on a nice 100 quid voucher to spend in my own shop courtesy of Mammut! :) Hoppo did well and came 2nd in the U18's from only 1 round!

We had a few burgers and beers/wines to celebrate then headed back late.

Since Saturday I have just been in the shop every day with a couple of pre-work sessions at the wall to keep my fingers ticking over before font on Saturday. I'm hoping it's as nice there as it is in Liverpool today with a cool breeze and the sun beaming down. I've got no real goals in mind for the trip other than checking out some new areas and making sure Laura has a good time too after her week of exam stress!

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Font & Later wanderings
18 March 2012, 2:06 pm



I came back from font about 1 week ago and it was a great trip with just me and Laura representing the scouse contingent in the wonderful forest of bleau.

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I went without a ticklist for the first time in a long time and it panned out rather nicely visiting some new areas as well as places I wouldn't have bothered with otherwise.

The trip highlights included a couple of days at J.A. Martin ticking off some classic 6's and 7's such as l'Etrave, Oeil de cymbale and Vandale and a long day early in the trip where we met up with Steve, Roger and Pete at Rocher Fin, crushed a load of good 7's and then went to Potala to carry on the spree with a last go ascent of Etrange Etrave, a burly little roof into a wild slap and nice techy finish.

Laura struggled on some of the reachy and steep 7's but made short work of Science Friction and la Nescafe when we did another double venue day (which was meant to be a day of rest but I got drawn in to trying Noir Desir and Big Golden with a bit of progress on the former but no send due to weakness/thin skin/sweaty rock).

The penultimate day was quite successful as I banged out a load of volume at Manoury with a fast ascent of Rababoum and a flash of Oasis and a nice high grease off, off of Irreversible. I went and tried Angle Parfait and got shut down hard. Psyche was a bit lacking with the rude Frenchman trying it being less than welcoming. I returned to Manoury and got up a few more quality 7's including the brilliant Movement Activated. Our time in the small 2 person chalet/upmarket shed had come to an end but Roo let us stay over at the House for a night which was really kind of him and certainly more comfortable than a cold night in white beauty.

The last day of the trip was spent at a surprisingly damp Franchard Cuisiniere (as it hadn't rained for 2 days). We found the warmups a bit taxing but I soon snapped awake with a satisfying flash of le Magnifique. We moved down the hill and got stuck into the techy slab arete of Retrofriction. I recalled Jennings getting up it a few years ago and I managed it 2nd try using a lanky flexible persons method. Laura made good progress trying several methods before getting slightly irate and we wandered back over the hill so I could have a go of Pensees Caches. With the rare experience of having no beta I had several goes with whack sequences involving non existent holds and poor foothold spotting. I eventually twigged to jump my right foot up high and into the pocket and it went down that go! Roo then appeared and told me what I had just taken 20 minutes to work out :(

We all walked down and past the classic pathside arete of tranche de l'art. I managed to fall off like a true footwork punter then snaked up it 2nd try. Laura managed to get to the good holds, rock over her foot and then amazingly fall off the 3+ top out! It was a bit devastating to watch but can be put down to sheer fatigue/lack of basic brain function! ;)

I walked past Beatlejuce and found some scandinavians had already padded it out. I offered an additional pad and recalled trying the crux about 4+ years ago with Millso. Several years of climbing in the crypt and Parisellas had finally paid off and I felt overly strong as I cruised along for the amnesia retro flash ;)

UK

After getting back from font I just pottered indoors last week getting a bit of crypt time in before popping to the Orme with Laura and Hoppo yesterday.

We warmed up in a ridiculously busy cave and me and Laura felt terrible on Pilgrim and RWT-Bust Lip respectively, so we moved next door to a peaceful Shit Infinity. I decided to finally pull my finger out and try Bellpig for more than 10 minutes and after dropping the end once, I fought my way with wet hands all the way to glory and the end of a 5 year battle! laura floated elegantly up both The Argument and Pillar Finish but somehow failed to do the v3 traverse.

Hoppo came running around from next door, covered in mud (as he had just taken a show stopping slide across the wet grass) to announce he had crushed Broken Heart, a fine effort!

Moving back around the corner and it was still heaving, so we sacked it off and went up the hill to Breck Road. I had done the problems on the right a few years ago with Mills and Huthwaite but hadn't tried the trickier lines to the left.

We rewarmed up going from right to left and it was nice to flash Texas Karaoke and The Breck Road. The first go on Swing of Fire went as expected flying on to the pads but I switched hand positions for attempt 2 and with a bit of a scream held it and campussed up left to what I assumed was a jug only to get it badly... and unable to match, I dropped off. Attempt 3 felt a lot easier to hold and this time I campussed up to the rh crimp, got my toe on and got the good bit of the finishing hold before a bomber heel allowed the match. A nice way to finish the day.

I later presented Hoppo with his no1 chest trophy for achievement earlier in the day before we bailed back to Liverpool, tired and in need of a decent sleep after 4 days on!

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Fookin roastin Lerd!
26 March 2012, 3:45 pm

It has been quite a rare treat having an entirely rain free week and weekend and I was lucky to be able to get out on rock for 3 of those days.

Local Puntering

I popped out early in the week to meet up with some lads from the Hangar and whilst waiting for them to turn up I quickly climbed all the up lines on the Bluebell Wall bar Faint lightning crack which took a few tries cleaning as I went! I didn't bother with the pumpy looking sandbag traverse of the whole wall at British 6a(chin).

Moving across to Granny's rock, things were a bit more urban, having to scour the floor inch by inch to discover the source of the ghastly odours that were assaulting my nose! Tip toeing past the multitude of dog shit brought me to the base of the wall where I carefully laid a pad underneath the classic 1 move 7C of 'V Poor'. The pull on holds are probably the worst combination of holds I have ever managed to pull on to and progress was measured in milliseconds of time hung as opposed to inches gained. I eventually had 1 decent effort as I started to scum my left foot up and slap a couple inches below the break jug. My skin was trashed, so I went over to have a look at the Haston Dyno but after getting a couple of moves in my hands were firing off big holds. The wall was still very damp in comparison to the rest of the Breck, so I made my excuses and bailed to work a bit late!

Weekend of Sun

Me and Laura had a lazy Saturday morning and headed up the Lakes a bit late to avoid the queues of northbound traffic.

We went to Langdale where we both ticked a nice crimpy v7 traverse on the lower block. We then moved around the corner and I managed to flash the burly slap to lip and mantle problem. I was and still am utterly confused by the Triple Dyno. I jumped off the low crimp rail to the ledge and thought yeah stout V2. Laura did this also. I then had about 5-6 attempts jumping from the same low crimp rail to the distant nose which is supposed to by v5?! I've done many easier v8+ dyno's so don't really get it as jumping to the top of the wall from the same start would be more v13 than v8! Confused, we moved back to the top boulder and Laura flashed the crack, the overhang, the sloping arete and eventually got the pocket problem with a bit more of an effort. A good little ticklist!

I did the sitter to the overhang in a couple of goes using a burly right shoulder and walk feet high method. It doesn't say on the topos but I assumed the sidepull in the crack to the right was out near the start? I tried Stefan Grossman but it was truly pointless in such direct sun and heat. I couldn't get near to getting my let foot on to the far hold past the wall but could do the sitter moves into the holds. Most frustrating!

We had a good meal in Ambleside with a few glasses of red and stayed over in a layby near to the Bowderstone.

Needless to say it was pretty fucking roasting at the Bowderstone in the sun. We warmed up on the Ramp and then the sloping lip just around the corner. I continued the warmup with Crack Direct and Superdirect/Power Pinch/Picnic Sarcastic which all went down ok with a few gurns and worryingly greasy pulls.

Laura didn't really have a project in mind so just attempted a few of the things above making ok progress on Crack Superdirect but struggling to hold on in the sun.

I put forward the idea to bail to the South Lakes and do easy shit but with a pep talk off Ms Hudson, I managed to find motivation to try XXXX.

The moves felt desperate on the warmup goes until I realised I was holding the left hand wrong and it started to click into place. To cut it short I failed but made progress from last time as I had more than enough reach on 1 go only to catch my left knee in the roof and get knocked off course! A go later and my fingertips were actually on the hold but my right hand ripped out the sharp roof jug. I ran out of steam and skin and had to call it quits.

The day was not over however as we popped into the S Lakes to check out Hutton Crag thanks to Grimer's inspiring photo of someone on Cyclops in Boulder Britain.

It was a lovely little venue and we ticked off pretty much everything in the low roofs to the far right and finished off with me sketching up Cyclops and then after a bit of a fight The Scoop. It was so nice and peaceful soloing easy stuff in the sun after the early afternoon of brutal pulling in the heat!

Not to be deterred, I am determined to get back and finish of XXXX asap as it feels so close and just requires a few more stars to align such as colder temps and non ruined skin from climbing on rough granite the day before :)

Here is a gallery of failure...



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Getting Specific
16 April 2012, 10:10 pm

Recent Trips

I planned to go back to the Bowderstone to get XXXX done about 2 weeks ago and instead wound up with man flu for about 8 days, having to get cover in work for the majority of that time.

Fri 13th

After a couple of getting back into the swing of things sessions down at the Hangar I visited the cave with Hoppo. I had gone pretty far backwards on Pilgrim from getting to near the end of R.A. from not even getting into it. This was a combination of shit skin and weakness but mainly the latter. I turned my attention to Louis Armstrong and immediately started to enjoy myself having to try hard on every move instead of failing due to the pump. I can't remember the last time I tried really really hard on an individual move... it has been too long! The highlight of the day was not getting a new problem done but almost sticking the crux slap on LA, having hit the lip and kept my feet on for maybe 0.5 seconds. This was minute progress but progress all the same.

Sun 15th

A few days later and I found myself in the pass with Laura, Millso and Hoppo. We had just been to the Braichmelyn boulder and climbed a few horrendously painful problems which resulted in a split left index. Realising Diesel Power was in the best condition I had ever seen and with the persuasive psyche of Mr T Mills... the opportunity was too good to pass up to see if I could get anywhere on it.

With fresh beta to try, I finally linked the first couple of moves together and worked out a sequence for the end but I just couldn't work out the go-again right hand move at all. I could hit the hold but instantly collapse on to the mats with a throbbingly painful left index finger bearing down with all my might on that horrible flat crimp. I tried many foot placements but they all felt pretty off balance and I never once held the move.

I could easily blame poor skin/fatigue and climbing on tape but I think after this session and the cave one a couple of days earlier, I am lacking in several areas.

I need more body tension on steep ground, a stronger core/back/fingers/arms. Pretty much everything! I haven't trained properly in a very long time, spending time flitting between short problems below my limit both indoors and out and infrequently redpointing long power endurance lines with no really hard moves.

Mon 16th

Today I decided to try something different and went the gym with Hoppo. We worked on sets of bicep curls till failure - aimed at improving on undercuts for LA. We later moved on to deadlifts aimed at improving body strength for both LA and DP. I'm going to make an effort to try and train these weaknesses for the next few weeks and see if I can make any progress on the two aforementioned problems that have spanked me so hard.

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Trips Up North
25 May 2012, 6:29 pm

Over the last few weeks I've been fortunate enough to get weekends free of work and made the most of it with 2 trips up North.

Shelterstone & Bowderstone

I went to the Bowderstone a few months earlier to try and climb XXXX on the back of this amazing supersized pebble but came away empty handed not quite managing to hold the final dynamic leap to the lip. With batteries recharged, a dry forecast and plenty of motivation to start getting things done on the ever evolving goals for 2012 list, we sped up North stopping off at Trowbarrow to break up the journey and for Laura to try Shallow Grave.

Needless to say, this slightly leaning wall of crimps proved to be within her skillset with a brief warmup, a few false starts, moans and then an impressively static lock to the high finishing jug!

Upon reaching the Shelterstone we met Tom 'the nicest man in climbing' Sugden and keen to do something new, he pointed me at Vitruvian Man RH. Instead of my desperate face-on, no toe hook method, I gave the toehook a shot and the move went down first go! Surprised... I kind of forgot what I was doing and fell off. Attempt 2 saw it go down for a nice bonus tick.

I had watched a couple of videos of Iron Man and realised my old beta was whack. I got into the starting holds of Vitruvian first attempt but managed to punter the footswap to get the toe hook in and fell here twice before calling a stop to it to save some gas.

This early halt to action seemed to help the next day as I warmed up repeating a few things on the ladder face feeling very fresh, whilst Laura ran between Picnic, Statstick and the Crack Superdirect not being sure which she was closest to doing.

I warmed up on the moves on XXXX and then dropped the lip twice on redpoint due to messing about with my feet and hence losing the flow I needed to set up and hit the jump with more power and efficiency.

I had a good rest and then pulled on as a group of tourists brandishing cameras and no doubt armed with 'witty' 1 liners closed in from the side about to walk right under me, Laura gave them a death glance of which I was totally unawares as I was already completely absorbed in the amazing reachy sequence. This time everything just seemed to stick and needed little readjustment. I caught the lip a bit lower than I had been hoping for but a trademark yelp seemed to both help stay in contact and squeeze the core into action. I went into autopilot again, rotating to get the toe hooks on and bounce the hand on to what is a massive hold and effectively the problem in the bag! I took my time topping out making sure not to be a total punter and had finally done something worth writing about this year!

Northumberland

I went up a couple of weekends ago with Mark and Helen and despite mixed weather we had a great few days ticking through lots of volume and exploring some new venues.

The trip highlight was definitely climbing A Northern Soul at Hepburn. It really is a king line by UK standards and would not be out of place in Cuvier Rempart. The rock is immaculate, the line both aesthetic and obvious, with the crux at the top and a nice flat landing far below!

I didn't manage or attempt anything hard all trip but it was nice to be out getting a lot of mileage in and a few fun problems at the same time such as Thundering Apoplexy at Back Bowden and The Flying Scotsman at Kyloe In.

Sorry for a lack of photos, there are a couple on Youngy's blog I think. I can however, promise a bit of footage covering both trips as well as some South Lakes action which will all be bunged on to an early summer puntering video in the near future.



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Swizzy, again!
9 July 2012, 8:00 pm

It is but a mere week until the bags are packed and I sack off these disappointing shores for pastures green and sunny.  Last years trip to magic wood with Sam and Laura was a great laugh and it was good to make new friends, meeting up with operation beastmaker and andy and watching people push hard to break new grade boundaries.  I haven't really got in a great amount of outdoor volume leading up to this latest trip but managed a few decent ticks just before the weather went totally west.  South Lakes hits  I made a few short trips to the south lakes with Laura, youngy and hoppo, meeting up with Paul craven a few times. With the superb craven beta machine I rattled off a lot of the class 7c's such as turbulence, paroxysm, Ronald Raygun, griddle groove and finished off with a great session getting backhand roof and the flying finish variant done one after another.  Jay's birthday  A few of us from the hangar had a lovely 2 day trip up to the lakes where we stopped off at a damp and humid kentmere to be eaten alive and for me to do a bit of bodywork alteration on white beauty courtesy of a poorly placed wall!  After getting chased off by midges and horrible yellow flies, we fled over the very entertaining hard knott pass and past eskdale to st bees south. We did some class highballs and techy slabs and followed it up with a trip to st bees north.  I finally laid clash of the titans to rest in a couple of goes using a ridiculously high foothold to pull on. I then ran over to dark side of the moon and got it done just before it became engulfed by the sea. I was stumped by the finish on captain pugwash but after viewing the vid of ned, realised my right foot was in the wrong place when I had the left heel on over my arm. One to go back for. I then had a go on kiss kiss bang bang and managed to nearly pop a tendon! This took a week of rest and some careful rehab sessions to feel ok.  The indoor grind  I've been purely indoor climbing for the last 2 weeks and hope to get out this coming weekend to get some sort of feel for moving on rock before we head over to Switzerland. It's going to be a hard task keeping up with shauna and mike psyche if he pulls his finger out and starts to achieve numbers worthy of those fingers!

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Accepting Weakness
19 December 2012, 6:08 pm

I don't want to start off with a long rant/moan about how shit I am... so I'll begin with a roundup of the last 6 months.

I've had a fun time climbing this year and visited many new venues as well as the familiar old places both at home and abroad. There hasn't really been a great focus on achieving anything or breaking into a new level of personal performance and nearly all my time has been spent just trying to tick off lots of problems.

Trips Abroad

July and September were the most productive months where I went on a 2 week trip to Magic Wood with Ged, Mike and Shauna and a later 1 month trip with Laura to Chironico, Cresciano, Magic and Font. The first trip was a case of trying lots of things but not getting up anything until the last day of the trip where I managed to finish off Voigas and then did Right Hand of Darkness in about 15 minutes effort. The highlight of this trip was finishing off Piranja, a nemesis of mine that had been repelling attempts since 2007!

Left Hand of Darkness

The second trip with Laura was a more relaxed affair as the first week was spent in hot temps pottering about Chironico and Cresciano, chilling in the van near the river at Schattental and then on the more luxurious campsite complete with swimming pool :) I rediscovered my love of Ice Cream in Bellinzona and we then moved on to Magic Wood.

The weather in the first week was good but we struggled to get much done. It wasn't until week 2 where I decided to start trying a muerte on Left Hand of Darkness, a problem I kept getting to the end of and punting up. It wasn't until session 5 on it, that I discovered a subtle trick to the left foot toe scum which allowed me to get the go again move and complete the problem complete with damp topout in the rain. Sadly the weather stayed both wet and humid and we left for font.

We lucked out with the weather in font and managed to climb every day.. good for me but not so much for Laura after she split several tips on some of those glassy patina edges which I always avoid. It was good to check out a few new venues and get a load of new 7s done. I especially enjoyed the steep stuff (surprise!) with the highlights being Gargantoit assis, Satan m'Habite assis and Symbiose.

Gargantwat

I've got most of the problems above on my youtbue channel, so go have a look if it is o any interest! I apologise for the minimum level of editing that has gone into these efforts. I still quite enjoy watching things unedited without a soundtrack on and abhor the pointless driving to the crag/putting on shoes/slo-mo blowing chalk clouds scenes, that can be found in so much climbing media today!

Crouch Punting

Back in the UK

I have had maybe 3-4 trips to the cave all year, the last of which was way back in April and haven't really had the motivation to go back, which is strange seeing as my number 1 goal for the year was to put time in on Louis Armstrong.

I had a decent first half to the year of attempting shorter blocs in the Lakes in order to gain strength that may come in use on LA for later in the year but I never really followed it up. It was a combination of not being ready to dedicate the amount of time which would likely be required to bring success and being more keen to get out and get some new stuff done which was satisying up to a point but has left me feeling pretty weak and a million miles away from achieving the 8B pipe dream.

The straw(s) that broke the camels back was the last month of failing on multiple 7A's outside on the shitstone and getting beaten in a round at the hangar by someone I would consider to be very weak!

Winter Training

?

Albert Beckles best watch out!

Today I took it back to the good old days of 2007/8 and began super basic strength training of slow pull and lowers, 1 arm pullups, 1 arm lockoffs, pressups, leg raises..etc.

I'm going to mix it up with some heavy low rep weights and systems style steep board training and aim for 4 sessions a week to 1 outdoor day. If I can keep this up over 4-6 weeks, I'll hopefully start to see strength gains and move on to campussing and project specificity in training on undercuts with poor feet on the 45 and barrel cave.

Hopefully I can snap out of this lull and get on track to boulder hard in the UK instead of swanning off to Switzerland to get ticks!

The love of my life (on the left I think! ;))

A Final Thanks

To Laura for being the most patient girlfriend in the world. I know I'm hard work most of the time with my obsessive climbing habits and I will aim to be less selfish in future! Sorry for being a pleb xx



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4 Weeks in
24 January 2013, 7:00 pm

Anti Punt Training

I think I stated something about training properly at the end of my last post?

I am glad to say it has been a fairly well structured start to 2013 and I have just begun week 5 of a 12 week cycle of training that I made up whilst momentarily unoccupied in the shop.

The first 4 weeks involved Basic strength training:

- 1-2 days a week in the gym doing Lat pull downs/seated rows/Dumbell bench press/1 leg squat/Bicep Curl and Deadlift, always followed by a 10 min core routine.

- 1-2 days a week of weighted pullups on medium and small edges using a sandbag and weightbelt respectively. This was usually followed by weighted full lock offs on a bar and 90 deg locks on the good BM2k slots.

- 1 day of climbing on the board each week, working on decent holds and hard moves using screw ons for feet... I did crack however and with a good forecast, I headed off for a 2 day trip to the Lakes with Youngy.

A Brief Foray to the Lakes

 We spent a damp day at Carrock Fell sketching across a wet boulder field and performing horrific wet slab top outs whilst achieving a few 6C to 7As. The highlight for Mark and Sam was undoubtedly my firing horizontally off Badger Attack off the lip jugs whilst bringing my right hand through and hitting every bit of rock available!

After a night of a few sneaky real ales from Booths, a good sleep and a hearty 3 course breakfast, we made our way to the Bowderstone and found it in good nick! I warmed up on the usual and then got involved in trying Special Cases.

It took a fair while to work out how to get through the bunched up starting positions and I eventually worked out a nice sequence involving a kneebar to get both of the crimpy sidepulls, then some nifty footwork to get out and set up for the slap. Unortunately the lip was a bit too damp to hold on to and I failed to get my right heel next to my hand (even in isolation) as the rock would turn black where my hand was, slowly sliding off every time. I hope it was a dampness/skin issue and that it doesnt usually feel this glassy or it may take a few more sessions than envisaged!

Happy with the progress, I walked around the corner and watched Youngy float up Picnic Sarcastic... followed by the sitter at the first attempt. He almost got Power Pinch too only to find the top holds too wet to match.

Back to the schedule

This week and the next 3 I'll be hitting the weighted deadhang scene in a semi Lopez style of short hang times, heavy weights and long rests. I'll supplement it with some core and pressups and try to sneak in a gym session once a week as I really enjoy the marked and measurable progress in pushing and pulling weight around.

I've got a trip to a Hotel and Spa retreat with Laura booked in for the start of Feb and am keen to get my body as wrecked as possible to earn the pampering! With no climbing holidays on the horizon, I'll continue to see this training plan through to the end and see if it will translate on the stone once things warms up a bit.

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Après training
22 July 2013, 9:11 am

I woke up too early today and have already ran out of things to do before work, so what better a time to write down some goings on and tales of achievement!

I've spent the first half of this year getting out to lots of new venues thanks to a remarkable run of good weather that coincided with the end of my 12 week training Period. Some times things do go according to plan.



May

I went to new venues(!) and ticked off some great problems such as Baby Buddha roof, Limehouse and Flick of the Wrist. I also ventured back to the cave of justice after a long break, feeling well and truly rejuvenated. Quick ticks of Left Wall high, Hatch Life and Hatchatrocity followed and I felt stronger than ever on Louis Armstrong getting the start wired into the slap and the finish from the lip sorted again.

June

I enjoyed a nice trip to Cyprus with Laura which involved little in the way of training apart from a days play in the amazing and extortionately priced Paphos waterpark!



Just before Cyprus, another 2 new venues and another 2 great problems were ticked off in the shape of Nazgul's traverse at Rhiw Goch and Cosmic Wheels up on the Mallory Boulder. I can't wait for it to get a bit cooler and get back for Lightweight and Will at the respective venues.

July

A quiet start to the month just climbing indoors to get back some strength and it was back to redpoint last move failure in the cave. I had 3-4 sessions dropping the end of Pilgrim battling sweaty conditions as we went through a miraculous 3 week+ heat wave (Which may last a bit longer still?!).

Yesterday things seemed to settle well and it wasnt as oppressively hot as on the previous few trips down to N Wales. A stress free drive down the A55 and we were once again on the wonderful sunny Orme. Instead of climbing in the midday heat, we ventured down to Sea View Walls. Laura and I did the good warmups to the right and then the main event of Flashpoint was padded out. Mike was ever the gentleman and allowed me to try first, which put the pressure on to give it a decent attempt. Luckily I had screwed on my strong arms this day and before I knew what was going on, I was carefully mantling the lip up out of the gloom and into glorious sunshine. A bonefide 3* welsh classic. Mike came up with an alternative beast method and quickly followed me up. I shook my way up from the sitter pumped out of my mind by the extra 3 hand movements and Mike then made it look piss again :)

The uphill scramble in the heat nearly finished us off but by the time we reached the cars, we were ready for a bit more action. A quick lap over the top of the Orme and back around through the toll and we were back once again sat in the dirt at the back of a dusty cave.

For some reason unbenownst to me, I had brought inappropriate H&M low slung hipster shorts that were a bit tight on the thighs and could have proved a crucial error if Laura hadn't pulled some stretchy ladies prana shorts out of the bag. I stripped down to me bills, leaving my teams on and the breeze between my legs felt exquisite. Realising I wouldn't be able to hold chalk patches on my sweaty thighs, I squeezed into the ladies shorts and they were the perfect fit!

I set off on Pilgrim without a rewarm-up and felt fresh as a daisy by the time I got into Rockatrocity. A quick chalk and shake and it was business time. I caught the flake like a spacker but managed to take my hand off and grab it properly once matched. I climbed on fast forward to the end and crucially grabbed the finish slot in the right place. A quick leg clamp and a desperate match followed which finally felt acceptable! Relief.

Needless to say, inspired by seeing a lanky punter achieve, Mike Psyche walked along it, got the finish hold and then hung on 1 arm for a good 10 seconds waving to the crowds and hustling before a match ;)

The highlight of July however, was going to Laura's graduation day last Tuesday, which was blessed with perfect sunshine. I was so proud to see her finish off her 5 years of proper hard work and come out of it with a 1st, a distinction and a short term contract to get her started! :)



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Pilgrim video
1 August 2013, 6:36 pm

After my last post there was a bit of banter about dodgy matching... So I went back the following Friday and did another first go of the session lap!

Sadly the camera is being a chode at the moment and only records in a strange night vision green tinge. Hopefully the match time will be accepted by the cave elders.

Tuesday 30th June

I had a quick solo session at the cave after my voluntary RSPCA work earlier in the day.

After a decent warm up, I was keen to get back on Bonnie but the high humidity and grease shut me down on the bit I thought would be easy and I got a bit despondent. I shifted the pads under Louis Armstrong and with a bit of motivation started to feel awake again. I managed to climb into the undercuts from the start a couple of times and did the post crux section to the finish first try.

Determined to make the most of the sweaty conditions, I decided to just work the crux slap with proper rests and got very very close to holding it on 3/10 attempts after a couple of warming up/recruitment goes. I have only ever held it once, so feeling so close several times is minor progress considering the heat.

I think I'll get straight on Louis again next week if I am on my own and leave Bonnie until I can get someone else keen on it.

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Forever Punting, Never Executing.
9 September 2013, 6:59 pm

Since August I have been on a trip to Magic Wood and out in N Wales a few times.

Magic Wood

The trip to Switzerland was fun in terms of gorging on pastries, refreshing dips in the river, reading and sunbathing but the climbing was frustrating with high temps and humidity. I basically did nothing other than a couple of 7Cs which i got on as consolation ticks after getting Dark Sakai in overlapping halves in the first 2 days and thinking it was on... only to have a combination of poor temps and thin/split skin for the whole week.

Wales

Back in the UK the weather had cooled slightly and I had a great session on Louis Armstrong managing the crux slap twice in a row and keeping my feet on both times. I could climb into the slap and hit the lip every go from the start and just required a bit more power to stick the move on link. It's wired from here to the finish, so maybe it could be achievable by the end of the year?

In order to build some momentum towards the goal of Louis, I was keen to try and tick off some shorter problems in the hills. The obvious one to start with was Diesel Power as it has a great walk in, similar to that of Sellas.  I had tried the first move briefly a year or so ago with some weird heel/toe beta and found it hard. After watching a couple of videos, I went with the left foot, face on method and managed to stick it this way. I managed all the moves in the first session back on it, including a rather fun jump move to the lip as opposed to the walking your feet leftwards to the lip method.

Here is the method:

I returned 3 weeks later and climbed into falling off the match move again and again, until I changed from dragging to crimping on my right hand and locking as hard as possible. I managed to drop the last move a couple of times and my skin was about to split, so decided to come back in better conditions. They arrived a week later (last Tuesday) as I could pull on and do the last move with ease every time but on the link I dropped it 6-7 times until I split my left middle on the horrid crimp.

I returned 3 days later (last Friday) with a gaskins o clock start due to it looking like the only good weather window for a while and had 1 good go before splitting the left index and middle wide open. Frustrated, I packed up and got off annoyed at how my shit skin had been the limiting factor as temps were perfect on Friday morning at 9-11am. I wish for once I could learn the art of executing and stop being a total fucking punter on a problem that doesn't feel that hard anymore and was meant to be a quick tick to build some momentum for the autumn/winter!

Here is a video of Friday's effort just before the bloodshed:

?



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Going backwards and Knowing when to train
19 September 2013, 9:54 am

Due to the weather sucking and having not climbed since my last session on Diesel Power, I decided to try another early session, this time at the cave.

I got there for 9.15am and managed to climb until 12 before shooting back to work.

I think I can safely say it will be the last time I'll bother trying to climb at/past my limits in the morning. It took at least 2 hours for my body to wake up as I was getting shut down on the start of Louis hard. My left heel would keep popping off the R.A. Flake and when I did get the undercut, it felt desperate getting the right hand one.

The end felt shaky but I could still do that bit ok. It was however, slightly depressing that I could no longer stick the crux slap in isolation. It felt like a big step back from last time. Despondent, I sat outside in the sun and read for a bit. This seemed to help, as slightly rejuvenated, I managed to finally climb through the start again, get set up on the undercuts and slapped the lip. Sticking the crux from the start still feels really hard, so I don't know how enthusiastic to get just yet!

I'd love to climb this problem so much and scream the cave down but I don't know if I am over reaching myself and would be better off training indoors for a period of time. I dont even know what to train as its hard to create a replica problem. If I manage to climb it, it will be down to luck and persistence as opposed to any ability/strength. I see so many videos of others making things look piss and always executing and imagine they have put a lot more effort in to getting strong and capable of crushing the big numbers. I would be by far the weakest person to climb 8B if I ever manage to get Louis done.

I guess it's hard to find motivation sometimes when you feel like you are going backwards and forever plateaud but I'll keep plugging away at it and quit the whining for now.

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Lack of structure can lead to surprising results
16 December 2013, 10:56 am

No signs of improvement...

Since my last semi depressed blog entry there has been no real structure to my climbing or training and I have mainly just pottered at the hangar for the last few months after getting a years pass. There have been a few days out in Wales with little achieved bar a good session at tremeirchion with Alec getting 36 chambers and 22 chambers done. It took a return visit to the GOP to finish off a mere 7B+ called Smoke a bloke and I figured it was best to write off this year early having ticked a meagre 2 new 8th grade problems (both in the cave and long, so they don't really count for much).

A chilled end to 2013

I took last week off from climbing and had a lovely trip to Shropshire to visit Laura's parents and go to the German night market in Birmingham which featured great food, ale and live music. Me and Laura then went on to Carden park Spa in Cheshire for a decadent overnight stay of spa treatments, sauna, jacuzzi, fine dining, luxurious accommodation and a nice walk in the woods near to Beeston and bulkley.

We popped to Cheshire oaks to make inroads into the Christmas shopping when I received a somber text from Ian that the shop had been broken into and lots of gear had been taken. Gaz cleared the rest out back to beris and I popped over the next day to help take a new stock take and get some web based work for the meantime.

So after 7 rest days I arrived at Fatnecks ysgo bash. It was treacherous reaching the boulders and surprisingly dry for the first 2 hours or so before the squall came and engulfed us. We beat a retreat and went the pub. Day 2 was a write off with regular blasts of rain coming from sea mist/wind/the heavens.

Parisellas saves the day

Determined to climb on some dry rock, Mark and myself shunned the beacon and headed to Parisellas to find it in mint condition! After a brief warmup I thought it would be fun to see how much harder Louis Armstrong felt after basically no effort to get stronger in the last 9 months.

It took only 3 attempts on the crux move to stick on to it and breeze to the finish. I was rather surprised and decided the start will feel brutal still surely...

First go on the start and I got into the crux and hit the lip. I had another go on the start and got to the crux again only to mess around with the left undercut and tire myself out so holding the lip felt hard again.

I thought it would be good to see if the crux was still super low percentage, so pulled on again... And crushed the move, carrying on to the finish again.

It makes little sense to me, that I have my best ever session on Louis after no real training effort or progression in my outdoor climbing for what seems like a long time. Maybe there was something magical in that performance enhancing pre massage salt & oil scrub at Carden Park, or it could have been my body reacting to a punishing few sets of bicep busting preacher curls in the gym last week with some kind of super hypertrophy as the undercut moves felt piss compared to last time in the cave.

To see if it was some strange fluke, I'll be popping back down tomorrow to do battle once again and see if I can force this gangly, weak carcass into achieving what I was beginning to feel way beyond it.

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Testing the waters
18 December 2013, 9:52 pm

With the dreaded feeling of Sunday's Louis session being a big fluke, I returned to the cave via new Bizzle picking up Monsieur psyche and Hatch of Hatchatrocity fame up along the way.

We got there for a casual 2.15pm and warmed up feeling a bit shoddy whilst Hatch went in search of some big game hunting atop of the Orme.

I did the post crux to finish feeling sketchy as anything but it took only a mere 3 attempts to stick the crux again and climb to the finish.

I then set about just going for the redpoints but something would always go a tiny bit wrong, mostly matching the left undercut poorly, which meant a lot of energy sapping adjustments before I could position the feet and make an attempt at the crux slap to the lip.

I had 5 tries always hitting the lip but not having the beans to keep my right foot on. A brief rest and then the litmus test of seeing if the crux still felt possible with some fatigue. To my relief, I managed to catch it 2nd go and get to the finish yet again.

I went for a final attempt to see if I could go one better than last time, but I had ran out of steam and had to concede defeat for the day. It felt hard on the back and arms and I clearly could have done with more than 1 day of rest since my last session on it.

Mike managed to look really weak on hatchatrocity and ferrino, then with a bit of goading, he joined me on Louis and absolutely rinsed the start getting a French blow in on the 2nd move before getting confused with the crux, which he realised would involve some dynamic effort on his part.

We left just as the light faded and went back to the Hangar to join Matty D, Youngy and Laura in trying the black comp set from Friday. I was completely spent after managing 28.5 of them.

Looking forwards...

I had a brief chat with Dan and he agreed it would be a good tactic to try and link matching in to the undercuts, through the crux and to the finish, rather going for the redpoint every time, as I can do it fine in separate halves but have yet to stick the crux from the start.

Regardless of if I succeed or not this year, I am feeling a massive surge of motivation just at the right time and I know for sure, that I am capable of climbing something difficult at long last. Time to knuckle down and put the effort in and not accept underachievement... aka climbing for joy! In the words of a wise man, "success is temporary, failure is forever".

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Inspired
8 January 2014, 9:54 pm

I'm currently sat on the couch after a gourmet meal at the ivory, enjoying a rather delectable 04 Rioja that Laura's parents got me for Christmas. I was saving bottles such as this for performance related prizes in 2014 but seeing as I currently have no idea whether I will be able to function near to 100% in the next few months, I thought what the hell!

I have spannered my left knee and to cut a long story short, the x-ray was clear and it is still swelled and not functioning 3 weeks later. The MRI I got a referral for today won't be until 25th Feb (the week after fish heads stag do in Font).

I had a look at going private today and got the eye watering quote of 3.2 grand. Not the kind of money I can fritter away on bionic knee operations!

Rather than becoming demotivated I have found being crocked a great motivator for getting down to the wall 4-5 times a week and doing intensive amounts of pull-ups, chin-ups, weighted hangs, 1 arm hangs, pressups..etc and I'm starting to see some gains already: I.e. Getting bigger if not necessarily better at climbing! The new goal by Font is to tip the scales at 73kg+ and not have the appearance of a skinny fingered, malnourished, hollow eyed aspirational crusher!

Watching World's strongest man always gets me more motivated than watching most climbing media and I have had a few sessions back down the gym too, obviously having to steer well clear of the deadlift and squat but getting back into the pressing exercises and the lat pull downs.

Sadly I am never going to be 6"8 and 180kg, so I'll have to stick with the climbing for now.

You can keep Sharma and Ondra and marvel at Brian Shaw crushing a 442.5kg deadlift:



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North Wales boyo
23 April 2014, 9:31 am

There has been a fair bit of upheaval since my last post in early January.

I've moved over to North Wales with Laura as we were both offered full time work and thought it would be a good change of scene, being closer to the sea, hills and fresh air!

We are currently living above the veterinary surgery awaiting a completion date on a house we made an offer for way back in early Feb. Sadly, the finishing line still isn't in sight due to the chain of pensioners not being in any hurry to move or respond to their solicitors information requests.

Fingers crossed that it won't be too much longer as there is only so long that you can function with the use of a microwave and takeaways alone!

In other news, my left knee is healing up really well. Thanks to Laura pushing me a bit; A combination of ignoring the tame physio rehab and doing more intensive exercise (more advanced than the pensioners handout I was given) as well as cycling on the turbo trainer has seen it strengthen well and regain a good range of motion.

I've been back on rock several times over the last week in the pass, maes Newyddion, Craig y llyn and of course the hallowed cave.

I was still a bit wary of cranking hard on the left knee during the first few sessions back on rock... but after doing the finish section of Louis last Week, I gave the heel move at the start a go and to my utter relief everything was perfectly fine. If anything, it felt easier than before the injury and I'll hopefully be able to make use of the marginal strength gains from the couple of months deadhanging, pull-ups and campussing.

Aside from the climbing goal for this year being back on track, it has been an amazing season to be a Liverpool fan and I pray that we can finish it off with a long awaited premiership title!

A Liverpool title and a 3rd victory for Woolton wanderers in the UKB fantasy football league would put the icing on the cake after a successful knee rehab and relocation to N Wales :D

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A great summer
26 September 2014, 6:17 pm

Little Lamb near Aber Falls

Since I last posted back in April, Laura and myself were fortunate enough to move into the house we were waiting on and have been doing little bits and pieces to it since to try and make it feel like our own home.

The never ending summer of June/July meant lots of time spent in the garden and sneaky sessions down the Orme and occasionally into the hills. A lot of ice cream has been eaten and the only time I had to go indoors was to pop back over to Liverpool for the BOSS comps which went ok considering I'm old and decrepit. I was very grateful to Pete staying in South Africa long enough for me to turn up and look strong in a weakened field! ;)

Tricky hanging Arete at Cae Du

Commuting to Llanberis from Glan Conwy isn't as bad as I expected (due to zero traffic and motorways, it is a nice chilled start to the day), and I got in a few decent after work sessions which culminated in finally clawing my way up Diesel Power. I thought Corridors of power, the most in vogue 8A in N Wales would go down in similar fashion but it merely resulted in split tips and holes in my palms! I'm hoping to finish it off this weekend as the weather has picked up over the last 2 days and the temps are slowly dropping.

There can be only one (1KG egg)

I've had a dabble on Louis a few times but need to get on it when it's colder to stand a chance as I tend to slide around on the undercuts too much at the moment, making the setup not ideal for the crux. Oh to be strong!

9/10/14

Updated with some pics! :)

Giant Egg & Belgian beer, the diet of champions

Dolphins off the coast @ Cae Du

A lovely day out to Bodnant Gardens with Laura

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Post Summer Scaling Adventures
9 October 2014, 11:55 am

I've managed to get outside a couple of times in the last 2 weeks just before the turd weather arrived.

Crafnant

Mills & Jack @ Chez Hudssion

A couple of weekends ago, Millso and 8c Jee were over in N Wales, so we got together and hit up Crafnant along with O and Alec.

We were blessed with dry weather and grips, with the lightest of breezes making it bearable and friction-filled-fun!

We started off climbing out of a dank hole, which featured a funky right hand dish and pop to sloper move, then moved over to Grasswind, where Jee and I managed to scramble our way up to the top. The face on go again move is really good.

Some lanky ginge topping out Asswind

After this, it was a short hop, contouring across the sketchy slope to arrive at the main boulder.

Return of The Upton Crimp!

Jee managed a rapid ascent of Wonderwall and I bailed off the top-out after a scream of fearful desperation in failing to turn my right palm as the sun beat down on the slippery top! I slid off into the hands of ace spotter/groper T Mills esq. and survived.

Whilst taking a long rest and waiting for the sun to go behind the hills, Jee did a tour of the boulder ticking off Riley's, Cruella and Special K before departing with Ruby.

O, Alec and Tom all made good progress on Cruella but had to give in with sore skin and dodgy knees/joints. I managed to drag my arse up Wonderwall next go, after a 30 min rest and no rewarm up, which was savage on the fingers and I felt wrecked on the top! We were a right old bunch of semi injured semi veterans.

Maes Newyddion

Louis Start

I was blessed with a dry day off work last Friday and managed to sneak up Maes Newyddion late morning, making the now very familiar treck up the winding road to arrive out of breath as always.

I was determined to crush Grey House into atoms and not have to face that walk again and set about warming up on budha roof until I could feel the blood return to my fingertips from pulling on the sharpness.

To cut a long story short I had lots of shit attempts, then 3 good ones on the house, swinging out and back in only to fall off and finally clung on after about 15 attempts... miraculously without splitting any fingers open (just a hole in my right palm from the top!).

The undercut resting station

I thought it might be 8A after my previous visit but slightly better conditions made it feel more like stout 7C+. I think Buddha Roof in comparison may only be hard 7C but who knows?

I sadly didn't get any footage as I have been a bit lazy in not searching for my dodgy old predator vision camcorder since moving over to Wales. I'll make sure to dust it off and start recording Louis sessions in case I fluke it. I've put some pics up on here so you can see my sneaky weak mans methods!

Comps

Spicy Times

With the inclement weather arriving, I've had a go at the Indy and Beacon winter comps. The setting at both has been good and doing this amount of volume (30-40 problems a session) should be good fitness training for when it stops raining and I can get outside. I've got 1 problem left to do at each but don't fancy I'll finish the Blue 8A/+ at the Indy unless the weather stays shit and I'm forced indoors!

Some House View Pics

I've just realised there has been a lack of new house photos on the blog so far. So here are the views from our living room/kitchen/balcony areas :)

The Conwy Estuary and a distant West Shore

Looking out over the river and into the hills

A sunny back garden!

Conwy Castle from the kitchen window :)

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