[Ally Smith]

2017 aims looked a lot like 2016 aims...

- Rehab injuries to the point they don't affect my 2017 climbing ambitions. Specifically: dodgy knees that object to torqueing heel-toes, crunchy neck/shoulder, and to some extent, my perma-fucked left ring finger
Knees are much better, neck still crunches, ring finger is currently complying with stresses of training
- Complete Kilnsey project I bolted last year (bonus of doing any of the other new routes/link-ups I've already scoped out/bolted/cleaned)
Fail - I screwed up another finger and couldn't pull hard until July, by which time the Kilnsey seepage clock was ticking - made some massive progress and did it in 3 before it got perma-wet
- Traverse of the Gods
Fail - see above - concentrated on Kilnsey post finger f*ckage
- Regain OS level of f8a
Fail - I got super fit (196 lattice moves) for my trip to Chulilla in January, but like Moose got caught out by torrential rain/seepage and only managed a single f7c OS
- Complete >16 f8a’s which takes me over x100 8a and above (currently on 84, or 93 if blatant soft touches are included)
Semi-fail - 10 8a's including soft touches, or 6 if i'm strict with myself. After a recount, this takes me to 101 soft-touches, or 89 proper ticks
- Milk current employment for all it’s worth in my remaining ~2 years without going crazy because of myopic mis-management
Still here; failed to get promotion
- Maintain a significant relationship whilst doing all above
YYFY - sod the rest of it, a big win here! We moved in together earlier in the year, and on Sunday she agreed to marry me

[Coops_13]

We moved in together earlier in the year, and on Sunday she agreed to marry me

Congrats mate! Have a wad point

[Wil]

2017 aims looked a lot like 2016 aims...

- ring finger is currently complying with stresses of training

...We moved in together earlier in the year, and on Sunday she agreed to marry me

Dedication. ;-)

[moose]

2017 aims looked a lot like 2016 aims...
YYFY - sod the rest of it, a big win here! We moved in together earlier in the year, and on Sunday she agreed to marry me

Good work, fella.... I suspect your 2018 aims will not look like your 2017 aims!

[Doylo]

Den 7c

Was looking promising for a few weeks but no.

[duncan]

Climbing

Onsight E5 (Ships That Pass in the Night, Wall of Prey, Get Some In, Darkness at Noon, Tales..., Supersonic*).
Failed again but at least I tried. Close on the last one!

Tempi Moderni and another big route in Italy/Switzerland. Chant du Cygne would be amazing but it's even harder to get in condition than Darkness at Noon and relies on a strong (i.e. better than me in every way) team so a bucket list item rather than year’s goal.
Focused on UK climbing.

RP 7b (Empire of the Sun, Still Waters Run Deep).
Chiming for You - great day at Uphill with Fiend. Very soft but I’m taking it!

At least one trip to Gogarth, Fairhead, Lundy or the equivalent with a good team.
Scuppered by injury. One enjoyable visit to Pembroke a decent substitute.


Means to the ends

A good base (>5) of 7a onsights/quick RPs.
Several, but changed focus to projecting, the better long term strategy.

Try harder, fail more often, specifically fall off more than one trad. route.
Several trad. falls and failures.

Benchmark finger strengths. Train finger strength in isolation (hangs and no-hangs) >50 times over the year.  I should have a specific goal here but still learning about all this.
42 sessions fingerboarding so far, and a reasonable amounts of try-hard bouldering.



Not really climbing

Be a good dad despite of all of the above.
The person who counts says yes. He’s also got quite into climbing this year which might mean less "despite" in future.

Discuss working part-time with the relevant parties.
Made changes at work. Feel better about this, although it’s been into the fire in the short-term due to staff off sick.

Address a couple of long-term unhelpful behaviors.
Forgot this was an aim. Fingers in ears and whistling loudly. Revisit for 2018.

Call out intolerance more often.
Yes.

Avoid pet ownership, particularly dogs.
Inherited two goldfish who died after a month. There have been no further requests, I'm calling that a yes!

Pretty happy with my year, despite only one of the four climbing goals ticked. A significant injury screwed carefully laid plans and meant nearly half the year was spent doing rehab. and catching-up. The best climbing development was cultivating the habit of trying harder - and failing - rather than saving or avoiding routes. Will do more of this in 2018.

[Fiend]

My aim for the remainder of 2017 is to be back at full "normal-for-Fiend" leg fitness following a muscle-pureeing falling in mid-November. Benchmarks to include 5 x pistol squats, 100kg squats, 1 mile run comfortably. Might not get them but will be pretty close.

Everything after the previous update went tits up due to weather then injury.

[Wood FT]

Routes:
A few in New Zealand (unlikely as I'll need more time given the grades but it's good to aim high)
No Country for Old Men 29/Collosus 27 - Little Babylon, Darrans
Adventurous hike up and impending bad weather meant I just had a look at them, climbed a fun 27 in Wanaka but it's not the same. I can't say I'm not gutted in respect of trip climbing goals but I've not been as awestruck as I was in the Darrans before. This is the view from Little Babylon


Protoplasm 29 - Hanging Rock (Bonjoy - how is it?)
Walked in to find it hotter than the sun and pretty frickin' esoteric

Something cool looking in castle hill area

Failed on the lung dyno and various other slopey things, crazy beautiful place but just not my bag climbing wise.

DWS in Ha Long Bay, drip sweat on belayer in Thailand and catch a fish.
Tides wrong for DWS but dripped sweat on belayer down  Butterly Valley, hot hot hot. Saw lots of fish in tiny tank, yikes.

Once back in the UK

Onsight UK 7b (fell off at the belay of 'dive dive dive' so am eager to achieve this)
Fail so far, close though so just need to keep plugging away
Climb 8a again, go back on Supercool
One, looking to get a solid one done soon. Haven't been up to Yorkshire yet
Onsight E5 (proper onsight, discounts quite a few due to the geek in me)
No trad
Boulder 7b
No boulder

Life

Have a bloody good time away
Had a bloody good time away, still away in my head
Apply for course
Coming up in October, prep work done
Get a temp job either Devon, Bristol or Sheffield
Just started in Devon, bit shit but whatever
Save up again
saving up for driving now
Get a van sorted out
Got our eyes open
Ride a horse
Gone off them, pretty grumpy and their heads are too solid.

Happy rest of your new year ukb

A good few climbing and life updates in the second half of the year:

Redpointed Leather Whip Mick 8a, deep water soloed Blue Planet and Gates of Greyskull 7b+, ground up'd Pacemaker and onsighted Wraith at Lower Sharpnose
Passed driving test
Bought a van
Got onto a course to start in Sheffield next year; I have really enjoyed the south-west but I miss my friends.

I'm not climbing much at the moment but we set off for a trip around Europe in February finishing in Ceuse, a shameful omission from my crag list. The best crag on the planet? We'll see, I've been to Snotterdale....

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year UKB, 2017 was a very different year for me.

[Murph]

1. One Arm Pull up
2. Close a #2 Captains of Crush
3. Palms flat on floor with legs straight
4. 1-4-7
5. +50kgs for 10s off the smallest BM1k
6. +20kgs koyamada test on rockrings
7. 50 7s
8. 8A
9. Nine hours in bed a night (ave, obvs)

Oh dear. Everything is red!

No sense going into the detail. Closest to any of them was just about touching toes, +40kgs, repeating a handful of sevens and injuring my shoulders, elbows, wrist repeatedly. Next year I'll make my aims list a bit more do-able. I don't know why but I think next year will be a really good one.

[tomtom]

I recon 8A is the easiest aim from that lot Murph

[Mike Tyson]

Mike Tyson

#71 Re: Aims for 2017

December 31, 2016, 10:06:25 pm

Quote

Get shoulder, elbow and back fixed. I haven't climbed since April, so just doing something would be absolutely fantastic. 

Continue the steady decline in drinking. Run two more half marathons, ideally the Keswick one and Lancaster so I can benchmark against previous. 

Manage to impregnate the Mrs. It's laughable really. I have two wonderful daughters, who both arrived unexpectedly and against many odds. Now I'm in a position where we chose to have kids, and so far no joy     

Get the mountain bike serviced and start using it again. The Yorkshire Dales are calling. 

Continue recent run of form with music. Managed to knock out a few mixes recently which have been getting played all over the world. If anyone fancies a listen, click link below 

 

 Shoulder needs surgery, which I'm having to defer for at least a year due to new work commitments.

Got a son now, so successful there!

Kept up with the mixing, got a resident place at a new night in Carlisle starting in February.

Mountain bike remains in garage unfortunately.

I still like beer as well, unfortunately.

[WillRobertson]

First and foremost, sort out my bloody wrists. Been suffering since March but through a series of differing physio opinions they're now at the point where I can climb almost as much as I want. But still having to avoid certain holds/moves. And I'm miles off being able to do push ups.

Would love to get up a 7C, but if not then at least start to consolidate at about 7B.

Double my number of 7's (boulders...), so putting me up to 60. Hoping for a good Font trip at Easter where I'll aim at climbing lots of low 7's, which would help.


In the real world:
Get some sort of plan together. 

Hmm tough year, wrists have got slightly worse from this time last year, but I can now throw in shoulder, elbow and knee pain as well. It’s been tough to stay psyched to climb at times.

Despite this (and the unavoidable drop in strength/fitness) I’ve had a pretty good year once I’ve made it onto rock. I did Ben’s roof in October so that’s a definite tick in the 7C box, and this was after a summer of sport climbing where I quickly redpointed 7b+ and made good links on Just Revenge at Ansteys.

I did about 25 new Font 7s - not bad considering.

Real world:
It’s coming slowly. Bit of a weird end to the year where my Masters in Sheffield lasted a handful of days, but only due to getting offered a great job with the Met Office.

[Fultonius]

I clearly wasn't inspired to make any goals for this year.

The spring started well but a month of trying to sand all the rust off the van gave me tennis elbow which plagued me until mid August!

I had a June trip to Mingulay which I should have sacked off but just smashed in E4s and Ibuprofen - bad combination!

No E5s this year which is disappointing.

Since recovering from the elbow doom, I've had a relatively good return to form with 7b in El Chorro and almost a 7c (couldn't have got closer, last route of the trip).

I'd normally getting into winter climbing mode at the point in the the year, but I'm doing a lot of Oncall on weekends, so I think I'm going to focus on upping my bouldering level. Would be good to finally nudge into the 7c level.

Good to see people hitting their goals.

[cheque]

Finish my film by the end of April whilst actually improving at climbing

  Oh God, I really, really underestimated how much work would be involved in finishing this fucker. Progress was also hampered by the second part of this goal- while I've worked on editing all year it took a bit of a back seat to regaining my climbing form for the first six months, something I don't regret as I'd have gone propely mad otherwise and may never have completed the film. On the plus side I'm so close now that only freak circumstances can prevent it being finished before the end of January.

Climb at a new grade in all three rock climbing disciplines

I got back to my previous best grades and climbed more of each in seven months than I'd done in my whole climbing "career" before and it felt great. If I hadn't had to prioritise the film again in the remainder in the year I'm sure I could have hit this target but it just wasn't to be.

Do a route at Raven Tor

Just. I did Super High Intensity Bodybuilding but fell off A Little Extra in stupid places. Then I completely lost all desire to go to Raven Tor.

Go and climb with my mate who moved to France

Complete fail. He's been injured, got into skiing and Mountain biking and and shows no desire for roped climbing. I also didn't have the time or money to go on trips.

[peewee]

Aims from 2016

1. Don't get injured again - Success up until I got back from Rocklands in July but nothing serious
2. Font 8B! - Tick! Fragile Steps in Rocklands, may be one that's soft and not in the UK but its my style and a funky low ball line, need to get trying some in the UK when they dry out.
3. Try sport climbing more.....      Didn't even tie in once

[nai]

CODE RED

Been planning this as a big year for a while with a significant birthday looming.  Looking to build on 2016 really but that does mean getting my neck sorted and cracking on with training, already six weeks behind where I started last year.

Do 6 hardish redpoints (=>7c) - Powerplant, Toys for the Boys, The Prow plus those on the WIP list (Aberration, Sissy, Arch Enemies, Raindogs)

Do an 8a+ - likely one of Anger Management, Nemesis or Chimes

Raise OS level again, aiming for 7c ultimately but would be happy to manage 7b+ this year.

OS E4 consistently &  Try E5 (hit list for both mostly involves stuff at High Tor, Chee Tor & Stoney)

HP/GU E6. e.g Masters of Reality, Mad Max.

Do a Fairly Long, Moderately Hard route somewhere abroad, e.g. Fiesta de los Biceps, Grand Wall, something in Alps/Dollies

Keep up yoga and antag/conditioning work, get into the practice of warming down better.

Starting from the beginning

Keep up yoga and antag/conditioning work, get into the practice of warming down better.


My kids swim/gym/dance classes changed in January which meant I couldn't attend my usual yoga class and unable to find a replacement fell out of the habit

Maybe due to this I had a back problem in early May that put me out for a month and set me right back. Shame as I'd managed eatswood Traverse in April which showed the fitness was there waiting to be used.  In the end I only managed any trad on a trip to Wales in August and tried very few onsights.

Did quite a few 7b+s but just one 7c (pretty much in a day, a day's worth of tie-ins anyway), came close to Aberration (past the point I thought it's be possible to fall off) and had one good day on Toys, could possibly have managed both with another visit.  Prow roof handed out spanking every time I ventured up there though, need some more burl for that.

Did manage two E4s in one afternoon on my only trad outing of the year, don't know that can be called consistent though?

[remus]

Kept up with the mixing, got a resident place at a new night in Carlisle starting in February.

Wadded. Been enjoying your stuff on soundcloud, always spruces up a dull day.

[kingholmesy]

Finish my film by the end of April whilst actually improving at climbing

  Oh God, I really, really underestimated how much work would be involved in finishing this fucker. ... On the plus side I'm so close now that only freak circumstances can prevent it being finished before the end of January.

Really looking forward to seeing this!  Wish I’d made the effort to get in touch while you were filming it.

[andy_e]

3. Try sport climbing more.....      Didn't even tie in once

[/quote]

This should be green really.

[Yossarian]

Return to some semblance of fighting weight. At least 20kg to go...
Lost quite a lot but then put half of it back on
Devise a training plan that is realistic, safe, fun, and mildly ambitious.
Ditto for cycling.
No real plan at all
Take the kids to Font and climb something to be proud of based on above.
Fail
Try to fit in some grit weekends, and tick some cool things I've not done, hopefully up to E3.
Fail
Something else on foreign soil later in the year - Morocco / Siurana / Provence?
Puntering in Switzerland and Italy
Ride SDW in a day.
Fail
US work trip / pick up new bike and do something fun, like Onion Valley Road or Highway 39.
Cingles du Ventoux.
This is getting boring now..
Sort out our disaster area of a house, including kitchen before the 2 year anniversary of my taking it out of action.
3 1/2 years and counting
Do a shitload of great work, inc 3 books minimum
1 3/4 books plus various bits of other ones

Must try harder...

[Mike Tyson]

Kept up with the mixing, got a resident place at a new night in Carlisle starting in February.

Wadded. Been enjoying your stuff on soundcloud, always spruces up a dull day.

  that's made my day! Chuffed you like it, been quiet for last few weeks due to arrival of baby, but I have nearly 60 new tunes lined up ready for the next few installments!

[cheque]

Really looking forward to seeing this!  Wish I’d made the effort to get in touch while you were filming it.

Cheers Luke! After a long time feeling pretty anxious about whether I'd produce something that was even worth watching I'm actually excited about showing it to people now.

That summer I was filming was a truly wild experience and the what, who and where happened largely at random despite my best efforts to control it! Rest assured that I'll be in touch when I next have a suitable project happening though...

[TobyD]

1 Regain at least pre injury climbing performance and cycling performance by the end of the year.
2 Get a complete skull back, recover from the operation (hopefully March- April)
3 overcome the hefty psychological burden of having nearly killed myself on an easy sport route.
4 Get my driving licence reissued.

Unfortunately 2 of these objectives rely on 2 of the most Byzantine organisations I can imagine having to deal with: the DVLA and the NHS....

1 total fail.
2 total success!
3 bit of a lofty goal this one, but well on the way. Feeling fine with leading sport and trad again.
4 tick.

Now I've got two months to get fierce before a month in Spain.

[Wood FT]

Good year Toby, keep it up

[Coops_13]

- Heal most recent injury Tick!
 - Don't get re-injured Tick!
 - Boulder 7C Might have been a bit ambitious with this. I have cemented grades a lot better
 - Train finger strength Did a little then injured them. Have been sat on the 50 for a while which seems to be helping
 - Go on some good trips Tick! Chironico/Magic Wood in Easter, Rocklands in summer, Lakes in Summer and a load more weekends in between, and two font trips 

Big year of bouldering for me, some good volume and some relatively big numbers. Pretty happy as my aim for 2016 was to get up to 100 7s total and this year alone I have done > 100.

UKC says this year I've done:
4 7B+
16 7B
34 7A+
64 7A

Bring on 2018!