[Andy F]

Sport: Something in the 8a/+ region in Yorkshire. Zoolook is the obvious one I've not yet done.
More in the Peak. An 8 at the Tor would be great.
Bouldering: try and get back up to 7b/+. Not fussed what.
Trad: yeah, whatever...

Epic fail on all fronts. A weird wrist injury meant no real training for the first 6 months of the year. Did (admittedly very soft) 7c in a session but no harder routes this year. Got stuck on a 7c+ which I know I can do, but it was a great learning process in the redpointing art.
Barely bouldered outside, more due to injury and routes than anything else.
More importantly I'm winning my fight with the mental demons, so if I can stay physically fit next year should be better.

[TobyD]

* climb any one of my top 3 ongoing challenges err, obviously i mean routes that spanked me in 2018: L'adrecador, Flix flax at Terradets or Los Incredulos at Chulilla.
* Finish the Yorkshire Triple Crown
* Do some remaining routes in Gordale, Pierrepoint, Perfect Mirage (?)
* The Big Apple (or failing that find another decent Peak 8a)
* Climb some trad: nothing at all in 2018, so realistically getting a couple of E4/5 classics done would be ideal, but the more the better - plenty to do in the lakes or pembroke

Massive failure of all of them, unfortunately.  Raging carpal tunnel syndrome and a subsequent operation screwed up most of the summer. Operation success but have managed to acquire a really odd finger injury shortly after starting climbing again. 
Best 2019 is getting quite a few 7cs done quickly,  in the peak and spain. Praying for an injury free 2020.

[Ged]

Do tell...

[Fiend]

1. Move south - YES! Very positive step. Even in this ultra-wank autumn/winter, I'm constantly relieved to be here instead of Glasgow

2. Climb / travel more - No. Took me months before I even got to Wales properly. Trad head mostly mediocre, too much redpointing on lime, not enough exploring. Except Welsh bouldering exploration went ace.

3. Keep healing / improve health - Partial. Healed my tennis elbows reasonably well. But digestive system is STILL broken, some minor improvement but nowhere near normal. Still looking into this...

Fucking rivetting eh.

MEH. Whatfuckingever.

[Wood FT]

Do tell...

Wall left of strawberry seal on BH, potentially holdless

[Ged]

Decent tide this week, I'll go for a look

[Coops_13]

Training Goals

Get below 80kg for March trip
10-second front lever
Complete McColl's silly 10-10-10 challenge
Complete at least three 6-week phases of max-hangs over the year

Didn't do or try any of these...

Climbing Goals

Boulder 7C in Macedonia
Boulder 7C+

Macedonia aim didn't happen, only climbed up to 7A+. If I hadn't had two major injuries this year, maybe 7C+...

Life Goals

Move to the States

YYFY, managed this one. Much closer to amazing climbing and skiing!

[Wood FT]

Decent tide this week, I'll go for a look

Just you and Ken there in wet suits, the frogmen of Torbay.

[Wil]

- Redpoint another 7c, probably at Ban-Y-Gor, Brean is also an option. I'd love to get New Dawn done but it's a long way from home, worth a couple of weekends if I'm feeling fit.
Didn't do any real redpointing at all this year. I fact, I hardly did any UK sport climbing.

- Mileage on 7a and 7b on Spain trip in February. It would be great to flash a 7b, but I'd settle for second or third go. Flashing a few 7as would be a good trip.
Great trip to Siurana. Fantastic weather and temps, good company and loads of good routes done. Got lots of 7a mileage and did a few harder things quite quickly. Got spanked by a 7a+ at Sirunella Central but returned and got it.

- the one that goes in every year. Onsighting some of the big E5s, Pembroke, Right Wall, Pacemaker etc. I didn't quite get to this fitness last year.
Did quite a few, and several others second go/after seconding them. Onsighting Black Magic at Pentire was probably the highlight of the year. Went down to do Darkinbad, got a bit scared of breaking my legs on the start so had a speculative look at Black Magic, fully expecting to get shut down. Didn't read the description carefully which helped. Also did Ships That Pass in the Night, Head Hunter, Get Some In, Mean Streak and a sneaky headpoint of Orange Robe burning. Messed up the gear on Right Wall and bailed, but will return.

- Support SO into fulfilling employment. WIP already.
Employment is suffering from some teething problems, but basically a win and will improve further with time.

- Lose a few kg, stay under 75.
Mostly, I think I might have put on some weight the last couple of months though!

- Regular running (min 5km per week) and min 1 session fingerboarding per week.
Hardly any running, and not regular enough with the fingerboarding.

[andy popp]

- Redpoint another 7c, probably at Ban-Y-Gor, Brean is also an option. I'd love to get New Dawn done but it's a long way from home, worth a couple of weekends if I'm feeling fit.
Didn't do any real redpointing at all this year. I fact, I hardly did any UK sport climbing.

- Mileage on 7a and 7b on Spain trip in February. It would be great to flash a 7b, but I'd settle for second or third go. Flashing a few 7as would be a good trip.
Great trip to Siurana. Fantastic weather and temps, good company and loads of good routes done. Got lots of 7a mileage and did a few harder things quite quickly. Got spanked by a 7a+ at Sirunella Central but returned and got it.

- the one that goes in every year. Onsighting some of the big E5s, Pembroke, Right Wall, Pacemaker etc. I didn't quite get to this fitness last year.
Did quite a few, and several others second go/after seconding them. Onsighting Black Magic at Pentire was probably the highlight of the year. Went down to do Darkinbad, got a bit scared of breaking my legs on the start so had a speculative look at Black Magic, fully expecting to get shut down. Didn't read the description carefully which helped. Also did Ships That Pass in the Night, Head Hunter, Get Some In, Mean Streak and a sneaky headpoint of Orange Robe burning. Messed up the gear on Right Wall and bailed, but will return.

- Support SO into fulfilling employment. WIP already.
Employment is suffering from some teething problems, but basically a win and will improve further with time.

- Lose a few kg, stay under 75.
Mostly, I think I might have put on some weight the last couple of months though!

- Regular running (min 5km per week) and min 1 session fingerboarding per week.
Hardly any running, and not regular enough with the fingerboarding.

Nice season.

[spidermonkey09]

Enjoyed reading these so far!

- complete Yorkshire Triple Crown, weather permitting. Rolling this over to next year as I didn't even try Urgent or The Groove.

- fill in a few gaps on the long term goal of ticking the left wall at Malham. GBH and Baboo would be nice. Just about sneak into acceptable levels of effort here. Did Space Invaders and had a few sessions playing on Baboo.

- investigate Cry Freedom or Bat Route. Taking the tick on this. Cry Freedom will have to wait a few years though!

- go trad climbing a bit more to keep my hand in. Go to the Lakes especially for this. A few days in the Lakes and a few on the grit. Main trad partner these days is VS climbing girlfriend which makes doing E's impossible. Did some great routes though and it was nice to change it up from the bolt clipping.

- sort out work to hopefully allow significantly more flexible working and/or some part time, remote work for a set amount per year. Equally perfectly willing to sack it off so hopefully a half reasonable negotiating position! Starting remote working in January so will see how that goes. Any tips from people to ensure I remain at least halfway productive would be appreciated...

- get plans in place for a long Spain trip towards the end of the year. Having just returned from said trip, I think this counts as a success. A great few months filling out the pyramid and generally avoiding redpointing like the plague. Its fucking cold back in the UK though.
[/quote]

[nai]

Not sure setting annual goals while slightly ill, slightly injured and very under-exercised is the best time but equally maybe it is:

Really would like to do more trad, the wish list is long and dreams are of long wall pitches on sunny mountain days (but not of faffing with gear and route finding and constantly shitting it and painful feet, none of that reality thank you very much).  I'm sure if I could get slick with gear again then E5 is possible, but it always comes down to availability of partners and using your time effectively so convenient sport wins too often.  Realistically, say, 10 trad days.

2/3 UK mountain/coast long weekends would no doubt help the above

Knock a couple off the Peak Sport WIPs list, will no doubt add some too but aim to finish the year with a net loss.

Complete a Kilnsey route - always fee like the kid in a sweet shop when I go, always use bad tactics and always get spanked meaning I have an unfinished route at every grade from 7a+ to 7c+.  Maybe I should employ some logic and work up rather than down

Perhaps I should put New Dawn on if it's so good, always thought the Peak had the 7c jewel in Too Old Too Be Bold but I'm prepared to be proved wrong

As Sammy Hagar said

Red! I want red, there's no substitute for red.
Red! Paint it red, green ain't mean compared to red.

Not to say the year was a complete write off, early in the year I realised I couldn't be good at everything simulatenaupsly at the same time and decided to concentrate on bouldering which I was enjoying at the time.
Didn't quite achieve my revised goal of 7C but made a dent in it, feell like I'm prepping well to manage it next year.

[tomtom]

I think you’ve been bouldering really well this year Nai. The few times I’ve been out with you (apart from Rubicon 😂) you’ve been climbing really well. Powerful, directed and getting some good ticks!

[nai]

Oh dear that half hour really did leave an impression 

I was powerful and direct later at The Tor, though.  That was first dabble on Cave Problem which subsequently became high point of the year grade wise.

[gollum]

Well after pretty much a twelve year lay off, with a short return six years ago, I am now properly back on it and going into my second year bouldering again, so in no particular order, except the first one, I should record my goals so I can be pilloried when I fail to achieve them.

Still be bouldering this time next year, not having let life get in the way. Most definitely still bouldering and loving it.

Get solid on the Campus Board at 1-4-7 on small holds and 1-5-8 on the large and medium holds or even 1-5-8.5 if going well. Got reasonably close over the summer but then it all went to rats and couldn’t campus at any of my benchmarks, which led to me not really being bothered. On the list for next year I reckon.

Hang bodyweight on Lattice Rung by March (achieved 19/2/19 for 5 seconds per arm) and plus 5 kilos on each arm by end of year. Didn’t get this but fingers remained there or thereabouts. Need more discipline and maybe a bit more prioritisation.

Hang bodyweight on BM2K small edges on each arm. Fair way off yet.

Sort left shoulder out so that I can get OAP plus 5 kilo on left arm as well as on right. Shoulder is definitely much better, not quite but close enough. Seem to have developed a whole new set of bits that don’t work so well.

Crack 8A again on Yorkshire Grit with Zoo York being a likely candidate of something that I haven’t done before. Massively overestimated my potential. Back to the drawing board. Closest I got was the Depot 50 replica a couple of times, which although a good problem is a world away.

Have another crack at Cherry Falls forgetting about the dozens of sessions that I spent not doing out twelve years ago. I couldn’t do it 15 years ago, so have no doubt I won’t do it now.Stupid to ever think I could

Get back on the Bowderstone and repeat the classics that I’ve done before, specifically Inaudible Vaudeville, Grand Opera and Improper Opera. Paid a visit, it was wet……still there next year.
 
Climb in Parisella’s or elsewhere in North Wales at least twice in the year. Fail

Get onto Peak Lime bouldering with sessions at Rubicon and Tor as a minimum. Do things I haven’t done before at both of 7C or harder. Fail

Get familiar with some of the harder stuff on the Depot 50 Board. Started to get into it in the summer and was started to progress but then lack of effort led to stalling. Being able to do all/some/any of the moves on Lobster Claw would be good. Some, maybe two moves I couldn't do at some point in the year but lots of moves I only managed once.

Move house, build a board to rival my old one. Decided to stay put so no board but do have the time to get on a board whenever I want.

Find new off piste in Mayrhofen in January to ride. (The snow was so deep we didn’t need to go off piste but found some fabulous waist deep stuff on the run down to the new lift) Shouldn’t be a problem in Tignes in February as first trip there so everything will be new. (Conditions not the best but find some really good stuff but also end up on a hard steep face not really knowing where we were going)  As an aside to this: don’t trash base of new snowboard. (A couple of minor scratches but no more)

Finish Transvulcania Half Marathon within an hour of Mrs B. Did manage to finish within an hour, in fact manage to finish nearly an hour ahead of her, although she did fall twice and came round the corner to the finish holding her bleeding chin that then needed stitches.

Plan post retirement trip. Had a few trips; Scotland, Albarracin but most spectacular back to Whistler with Mrs B, throwing in a couple of days in Vancouver. Awesome. Have also booked Barcelona Marathon next year and if Mrs B doesn’t get a place in the NY Marathon, the plan is Nepal for three weeks. Reckon that's just about ticked

Have fun……………actually that one should be up there as one not to miss. Had loads and loads of fun and been a great year although the black dog still comes around occasionally.

Let’s see what the year brings.

Overall enjoyed the year but really do need to make the effort and get outside much much more. Think I only managed a few days in Albarracín and a couple of days in Yorkshire.

[moose]

Being able to do all/some/any of the moves on Lobster Claw would be good. Some, maybe two moves I couldn't do at some point in the year but lots of moves I only managed once.

I dream of one day doing a move, any move, no matter how easily lanked, that Tim Palmerstrong would rate as "steady".

[tomtom]

Gollum - cherry falls seems mega conditions dependant. I was there (working the keel) in the snow when Martin Smith did it.. and had been there previously when he was trying it in good but less good connies...

[gollum]

Gollum - cherry falls seems mega conditions dependant. I was there (working the keel) in the snow when Martin Smith did it.. and had been there previously when he was trying it in good but less good connies...

Cheers TT.

I must have tried it hundreds of times, both before Tim did it and after. I got close, hit the break quite a lot but never held it.

Think it’s in the “ones that got away” category these days.

[Bradders]

Great to read everyone else's posts. Getting psyched for the Best of thread! Congratulations and commiserations for all your respective wins/fails.

Good year! 

-- >8hrs sleep every night

Having it. Couple of nights a week with less but definitely an overall improvement.

-- tick off more from This is Yorkshire

Managed one, maybe the best of them; Treebeard (contender for best boulder I've ever done...seriously, go do it). Only half a tick though as I put a lot of time into several others and came up short.

-- go sport climbing at least once

Hahahahaha

-- 3x nemesis problems; Iron Man, Lager3 and Ribtickler

- Great big tick on Iron Man. A good run of conditions, psyche and fitness brought it all together.
- Three sessions on Lager. Fuck this thing. I just can't do it. Have now done The Flakes Sit, again almost out of pure frustration from a session on Lager.
- Left Ribtickler until the end of September for fear of too warm connies, after 2018's mid-heatwave and inevitable failure/injury fiasco. Felt good on it, doing the crux more easily than I've ever done, and then it chucked it down and never got a chance to go back and finish it off.

-- better 2018 tally of 86 new problems 7A and up

107 as of today. Pretty chuffed with that, best ever year for volume. As a side-tick, managed 102 days climbing outside (with a few days still to go hopefully), on 7 different rock types, which is totally arbitrary but great to look back on; particularly as I can see such freedom being curtailed in the not so distant future. Very lucky to live in the age of flexible working.

-- >25% of the above to be 7C and up

Did 30, so 28%. Even more chuffed with that. Only a couple of link ups as well, otherwise all good independent lines.

-- 7C on the Depot 50

Not even close, despite going about as well as I ever have at various points of the year. One day.

[Coops_13]

I think you’ve been bouldering really well this year Nai. The few times I’ve been out with you (apart from Rubicon 😂) you’ve been climbing really well. Powerful, directed and getting some good ticks!

hope you made sure he brushed them off after! 

[Ged]

Decent tide this week, I'll go for a look

Wetsuits? What's the matter with you. I saw Ken at Berry head this summer. He told me to buy a canoe. Not sure what that says about his view of my climbing.

Just you and Ken there in wet suits, the frogmen of Torbay.

[Murph]

2019 goals
.......
remember that it's all a bit of a laugh and doesn't matter anyway.

Pretty much gave up climbing in May. I could blame this injury and that but really the weakest muscle in the body is in the mind. Someone got in my head that climbing is bullshit and grades and experience does or doesn’t matter (I forget which) and that’s all very well but if you lose your grade chasing performance metric mojo and don’t replace it with something then what are you left with? Not being jazzed for climbing that’s what.

Maybe I’ll get back into it next year but it seems a mountain to climb just to get back where I was hanging out before.

Merry Christmas all and keep up the good work.

[measles23]

Pretty much gave up climbing in May. I could blame this injury and that but really the weakest muscle in the body is in the mind. Someone got in my head that climbing is bullshit and grades and experience does or doesn’t matter (I forget which) and that’s all very well but if you lose your grade chasing performance metric mojo and don’t replace it with something then what are you left with? Not being jazzed for climbing that’s what.

The fuck I’ll let you get away with that horse cock!

I’ll be coming for you in the new year, you’d better be ready

Merry Christmas 

[csl]

One of: 7C/8a/E5 or anything off my unfinished business list

Failed on all of these. Not a good year for climbing, lots of injuries and a lack of trips.

[36chambers]

Effectively halfway there now.

- tick 5 problems off the “why have you still not done these yet?” list [2 down]
- put in 5 sessions on a good 8A+/B [A big fat tick! although the problem actually took 4 sessions...]
- tick 5 problems off the board list [only one down, close on 3 others]
- climb something at Malham [hasn't really crossed my mind since writing it...]
- 5 sec one arm hang the BM 10’s [zero deadhanging this year, still time though]

Having managed my main aim for the year, anything else just feels like a victory lap really.

- tick 5 problems off the “why have you still not done these yet?” list [Tick, kinda easy when the list is so big]
- put in 5 sessions on a good 8A+/B [A big fat tick! managed a mint 8A+ and laid the groundwork on various other hard stuff. Big psyche]
- tick 5 problems off the board list [two down, and very close on about 4 others, relatively little board climbing this year due to injuries]
- climb something at Malham [Finally made it to Malham. Dogged two easy sevens and one notorious 8b... didn't even bother trying anything clean]
- 5 sec one arm hang the BM 10’s [Not tried recently but I doubt it. Picked up two bad finger injuries in June which I've only recently properly recovered from, so no dedicated fingerboarding this year... Surprisingly managed RH 6+ secs on the BM2K small edges a few weeks ago though, which is promising]

omitting injury time, I felt like I was climbing better than ever this year, looking forward to seeing how 2020 goes.