[duncan]

Hello everyone.

M - Fingerboard max. hangs (7s x15).
T - Fingerboard max. hangs. Very brief session, mainly for the benefit of the elbows. Bodyweight stuff for shoulder strength: handstands etc.
W - 5km run in the rain.
T - Portland with csl. We wondered about going to Anstey’s but didn't have a clear indication the Empire wall would be dry after the previous day’s downpour. Even on the east side of Portland it was very windy with a big sea running. There was some dampness from spray to start with, this burned off but it was then pretty hot in the sun. Warmed-up on Cruise Control and had two sessions on Road Rage. Worked out a good sequence from the ground to the shake and revisited the crux but didn’t do it all the moves this time. Ran out of gas and the tennis elbow was a bit tweaky so didn’t push my luck. A one hang ascent is very plausible but doing it all in one go feels another question entirely. Will need some more work to get the sequence wired and some focused PE training.  csl got very close a couple of times in non-ideal conditions. A lad who I’d seen working Pandemonium (7c+) in February turned up as we were winding down and sealed the deal. He’d clearly got us tactics better and waited til the conditions were better later in the day. 30 mins. in a tailback to get off the island followed by a slow drive home.
F - Battered in a good way. Walked 10km.
S - Fingerboard: repeaters at 50% max. for two minutes (‘power endurance’ / aerobic power?) x 4 sets. Pumped stupid, elbow a little tweaky. Shoulder strength.
S - 5km run. Walk around Epping Forest. Shoulder strength.

Family issues meant I could only get away once this week. It was fun to get back on Road Rage. It’s excellent climbing and a good step-up from my usual level. I’m enjoying trying the moves even though I’m not sure it will go anytime soon. Felt a little stronger on it than in January despite not having done much climbing: the fingerboarding seems to be working. I still have something of a mental block about trying really hard with a rope on. 40 years of ledge shuffling is a long established habit to break I guess and my injury history probably doesn’t help my ‘central governor’ either. Any ideas on how to speed up the process of learning to switch on try hard?

Plan: block of power endurance, watching the elbows as this is often the kind of thing that sets them off. Climbing when family matters allow. Staying in Stockport for the first part of the week to look at houses, might be able to sneak out for half a day if anyone is around.

[shark]

Hello duncan

11.3-4 Average 157.6 (down 1.0 lbs)

M.

T. Afternoon. Malham with Guy VG. Only one other team on Catwalk. Cloudy, mid teens temp, on-crag breeze. Exceptional connies for Aug. F&EE twice for warm ups. AIM was to do throw to top. Didn’t get it but deconstructed the top traverse and came away with two body position tweaks that takes the sting out of the two hardest moves on the top traverse which was pretty exciting I’m sure you’ll agree..

W. Felt broken in morning but much better during course of afternoon so did a fingerboard session in Evening - Recruitment and Speed pulls

T.

F. Afternoon. Malham with VG, Eva and Steve. No one else at crag. Warm but being blown around by the gales made it feel hardcore. Wierd conditions - rock felt soft - no bite. 3 x Cons. First tie in went up to top traverse to try and engrain new position micro beta. Got a bit confused as everything felt so much easier than before that I kept forgetting where I was. Next go got the link I was after - 3rd bolt to top. 30 mins later did it again :-) but was tired especially towards top (vid of this link below). Longer rest belaying Steve upstairs. Back on and did the same link but smoother than the second time. Upstairs again and then down again to put in a big final effort on the link again. Made a lot of trumpet noises and got as far as middle of traverse coming in to sidepull.

S. Broken

S. Still tired

Good to be back in the zone climbing well on the Oak again. Top traverse is getting slicker and did the throw move every time I tried it on Friday. Encouraging and enjoyable sessions but still a long way to go.

Looks like we were lucky with state of rock on Friday as rock reportedly seepage gushed through the following day. Probably the on-crag gale kept the seepage at bay for us. Photos from today look awful. Still going to chance it tomorrow as Ewa is keen. Worst case I can cobble together an AnPower session on upper part of Raindogs and AeroCap on Consenting

[Will Hunt]

The martins are still on Raindogs I believe.

[shark]

The martins are still on Raindogs I believe.

 

[Nibile]

Power club.

Mon - rest.
Tue - weights.
Wed - rest.
Thu - rest.
Fri - lunchtime swimming, 10 lengths, 2x5 at max speed. Evening TB DL finisher 70 kg.
Sat - weights, legs.
Sun - rest.

Little volume and low intensity are not keys of success. Lots of food, lots of wine and lots of twisty roads are.

[Nutty]

Mon: Ancap session on the board. Some stretching and 20 pullups.

Tues: Another exploratory run around the local woods and footpaths, ~1hr15min at a steady pace.

Wed-Thurs: Rest.

Fri: Put a few smaller crimps on the board then had a board session. 10 warm-up problems then tried a couple of problems around the new crimps and a few problems I'd been trying previously. Finished off a couple of problems (left and right hand version of same problem) and made some progress on another. Some stretching and 20 pullups. Good session.

Sat-Sun: Visited my parents, so mostly rest and eating too much. Squeezed some pullups and things in on a visit to the park.

Ok week. Could have done with fitting in a fingerboard session, will have to do one this week. Visiting the in-laws this coming weekend now so will need to get the climbing training in beforehand.

[Will Hunt]

Th - Almscliff evening. Had a go on Wall of Horrors. Did the boulder problem and put some gear in the steep crack. Then up to the horizontal break and spent ages getting the gear in in a very strenuous position. Tired but then had a bit of a shake. Climbed up and did the slab crux (not as hard as going up the first steep bit and getting the gear in IMO) and arrived at a resting position. Got very pumped figuring out what gear to put in and, try as I might, I couldn't shake off a deep deep pump. Made a start of the slopey zig-zag to the top but couldn't figure out any more gear or find any holds that I was still able to pull on. I was so pumped! Started to downclimb to the rest and fell off completely spent.
Looking forward to a hopefully successful return visit. Getting the gear in fast should make it a bit smoother.


No kids or wife for the weekend. Had grand designs on a weekend in the mountains but weather put paid to that.

S - Malham. Would have liked to look at New Dawn but it was running with water so we just got stuck into onsighting stuff we hadn't done before. Free and Even Easier, Something Stupid, Bolt Revolt. Very annoyingly had a foot slip off the start of Bongo Fury but did everything above that first try. Went to finish on Appetite but didn't figure out the sequence on the moves left so had to settle for a dogged ascent. A grand day out. Went home for an enormous Persian takeaway and beers.

S - Toyed with the idea of a Lakes hit but the forecast was quite uncertain so we played it safe and headed back to Malham. Started off by falling off the utterly vile Afterburn, then did a warm up recommended by Jim of Extra Prospects. Then upstairs and looked at The Toad of Beck Hall. Flashed to the pseudo ledge at half height but missed the locations of the crimps and fell off. It went 1st RP. Then downstairs and finished with Sycophants (desperate!) and Frankenstein (piss!).

8 new routes at Malham over the weekend, which actually doubles the number of sport routes I've successfully led there. It feels like a good haul.

[spidermonkey09]

M - rest.

T - max hangs. Realised early doors that I was feeling pretty weak so dialled back the weight to -7.5kg and completed the set with few dramas. Was nowhere near anything less though. Some pressups and TRX.

W - rest.

T - Anderson hangs. Really good session, starting to feel like I'm getting back into these. Completed sets with +3.75kg base weight on bottom outside and the battery edge half crimped, and base +5kg battery edge 3 finger drag. Was very pleased with this as lockdown PB is base weight +6.25. Did a set of repeaters on the slopers to finish which felt plausible again. Some assisted one armers down to 1.25kg and pullup/pressups to finish.

F - rest.

S - first of two days at Malham. Utterly dire weather. Arrived to find left wall totally soaked after the seepage ran through which kiboshed my plans for Straightened. Went to the Upper Tier instead which I have never actually climbed on. Dogged up Obsession and did it first RP; great route. Decided to have a look at Free and Easy, stage one of the long term ambition of doing Totally Free II. Somehow scraped up it after dogging it first go despite being brutally pumped on the upper wall, good finish to the day.

S - back to Malham with no real agenda. Opted for Mighty Fine Ass as it was miraculously dry bar one hold. Really enjoyed working it out and got through the crux last go of the day only to bin it on the crimps right at the end when I forgot the sequence. Fuck sake. On the plus side, I would like to think this will be a relatively speedy tick at some point. 3 stars for anyone who hasn't done it.

Good week but was irrationally annoyed at dropping MFA for a while despite having enjoyed obscene luck in recent weeks.  Mood wasnt helped by neighbour playing music at half midnight necessitating moving to the spare room when my banging on the door didn't work...

[mr chaz]

2 weeks for me. Real busy with work and MSc thesis deadline = not very productive on the climbing/exercise front.

M - F. Nowt
S. Fingerboard - 2 arm hangs on new micros (10mm - 8mm - 6mm).
S. 3km run with savage hill climb finish.

M - F. Nowt
S. Fingerboard - 2 arm hangs. Held the 8mm for about 10 seconds, can't get off the ground on the 6 mm but I think I've placed them too low to the floor.
S. Had hoped to climb but everywhere was covered in dense clag. Went to the Roaches for a walk instead.

[gollum]

A bit of a different week ahead with a few days away with the family so some juggling of days needing to be done.

M - Deadlifts today are 8x3 reps for speed with good tests between. Definitely getting used to this type of lift which felt a bit alien at first.
Weather looks dodgy again, so head to Depot. Good session ticking off half a dozen or so more purples and doing some of the comp problems. Pleased as we thought we have done all the purples we could in the last few weeks, so good that we are ticking more of them off. Finish off doing a couple of circuits, get very pumped, been a long time since I’ve done any circuits at all.
Weights are a tricep session with overhead plate press, close grip presses, Tate presses and dips to finish.
A bit of core in the evening while watching TV as Mrs B is at running club.

T - Deadlift 10 singles. Start off at 130 for two sets, then 135 for two sets , 140 for two sets, 142.5 for two sets and finish back at 130 for two. A long way off the heaviest I’ve lifted but feels like a reasonable weight and certainly the heaviest I lifted in 2020. Next move on to weighted pull ups for five reps. Start with body weight and add 5k each set, struggling by the time I get to +20. Offset pull-ups on bars next for three sets.
Go to City Bloc for a bit of training. Campus board coming along nicely and safe to say it’s my arms rather than fingers that are weak as can do same exercises regardless of hold size.
Then do some bench press for singles up to 95k. Do like this set up.
Max hangs on the Lattice rung for 6 sets of 5 seconds with 40k added. Repeat the 10mm campus moves, to check I can. 8mm is still a world away. Do some leg raises, feet to bar and windscreen wipers for core. Ten minute play on the Kilter board at 45° before home time.

W - Day relaxing and chilling with family,

T - Kettlebell swings for 20x20, always unpleasant but made much more tolerable as doing them next to the van early on a sunny morning whilst camping in the Dales.
Some easy board hangs just for a bit of relaxing.
Quick session of a range of different bicep curls using bands. Lots of isometric work gets a good burn going, but still not as useful as using weights.
Rest of day spent lazing by the Wharfe at Burnsall with family. Good couple of relaxing days, although a lot of eating and drinking was done.

F - Drive back home in pouring rain, sort stuff out and on to a quick weights session. Paused deadlifts for 6 sets of 5 at 75%.
Move on to shoulder work. Go back to basics this week, with multiple presses being done. Start with 3x8 shoulder pressing in the Smith Machine. Follow this up with 5x5 with rising weights each set, with the last set being 7 reps at 28k(clearly I wanted 8, but failed). Then on to 3x10 Arnold presses and finish off with 3 sets of half and half presses to failure as a drop set.
Core today is lever raises for 3 sets of 5.

S- Programme back where it should be, so today is the dreaded one rep every 30 seconds for ten minutes day. Weight is 120k which is marginally heavier than previous weeks. Feels steady enough today. Break a sweat but feels like significantly less of a battle for last few sets.
Go on to do a bit more bicep work for the week, as think Thursday was a bit too light. Dumbbell bench curls to start, followed by E-z preacher curls both for 3x8. Then on to incline curls for 3x10, although go to failure on last set. Finish with standing alternate curls for volume which gets a good pump going.

S - Forecast looks dodgy, so head to wall in the morning. Good session racking up lots of volume on reds and purples, including a couple of new ones on steep territory, plus sussing all the moves for two more that will require fresh arms but think I can do. Finish off with a few circuits, including trying to work out whether the easy circuit would be possible  to do twice using half of the holds each time. Think we have a sequence, but the challenge may be one of remembering which holds to use on each version. Fingers and feet feel tired by the end of play.
Levers with one leg tucked in the evening.

A good, if somewhat different, week, although beer and lots of food has put weight going in wrong direction, fortunately not by much though.

[Coops_13]

M: Physio happy with progress - starting more fingerboarding and hopefully back to bouldering soon!
Repeaters 7 on 3 off X5 *5sets. 1 set 40mm, 4 sets 22mm (40 - AAA). Wrist and finger feeling worked towards ends of sets 4 and 5. Pullups - 5 EMOM 10 mins = 50 pull-ups. Suprisingly tough

T: Density Hangs - 40mm 30s *3sets. Push day. Bench press up to +160lb (with bar = roughly BW). Rotator cuff exercises. Bicep curl 40lb X6*3sets, shoulder press 40lb X6*3sets, lateral and front raise 20lb X6*3sets. Some core to finish

W: Density Hangs - 40mm 30s *3sets. Squat up to 90lb (added) X10 *3sets. Knee durability exercises from physio - 5 exercises *3 sets

T: Repeaters 7 on 3 off X5 *5sets. 1 set 40mm, 4 sets 22mm (40 - AAA). Wrist feeling a bit better, finger feeling worked. Pullups - 5 EMOM 10 mins = 50 pull-ups. Lattice H-Core. Massaged finger too hard in evening and tweaked it

F: Density Hangs - 40mm 30s *3sets.

S: Chief Mountain hike. 3 miles, 1000ft gain

S: Lover's Leap trad. 3-pitch 5.7. Two stars, good climbing with ledges in between up nice Gneiss rock. I led pitch 1 and 3 including top crux (5.7+). Got a bit pumped but was good to get out. Wrist fine on all, a small bit of pain once

Weighed in at heaviest ever this morning (85.1kg) so need to fix that. Been drinking a lot of strong IPAs recently (and just found out that a pint of 10% IPA is c.400 calories  Wrist is feeling good at least - feels back to normal. Psyched to keep making it stronger

[nai]

a pint of 10% IPA is c.400 calories 

Never mind how many calories it has. A 10% beer 

[nai]

Missed 3-4 weeks. Got home from a 3.5 week holiday last Sunday, did quite a lot of walking, some cycling, bit of canoeing and messing about in the sea but only one day of doing anything you could call a work out.  Amazingly, despite sampling many ice creams and local beers I didn't put any weight on although I'm sure my biceps have shrunk.

M. 15minutes LI climbing in garage
T same
W light conditioning circuit
Th -early morning Trackside circuit before the rain. Ridiculously pleased to manage Strawberries.  There may have been a fist pump.
Stretch PM
F -  met Lagers and tomtom at Apparent North. More mileage
S - legs and hips stretch
S - shoulder and calf massage and stretch. Ouch

[Fiend]

a pint of 10% IPA is c.400 calories 

Never mind how many calories it has. A 10% beer 

I've had a couple, even Duvels come in at 8.6% or something. Generally pretty vile, too rich and sickly.

I've got a Thomas Hardy's Ale that matures in the bottle over 25 years and clocks in at 14% or something. 1994 vintage. No way I'm even tasting that fucker now with my guts. Will sell it on for a couple of hundred if you like.

[Coops_13]

a pint of 10% IPA is c.400 calories 

Never mind how many calories it has. A 10% beer 

I've had a couple, even Duvels come in at 8.6% or something. Generally pretty vile, too rich and sickly.

I've got a Thomas Hardy's Ale that matures in the bottle over 25 years and clocks in at 14% or something. 1994 vintage. No way I'm even tasting that fucker now with my guts. Will sell it on for a couple of hundred if you like.

I'll pass on that thanks the problem with these Hazy IPAs is they manage to make 10% taste like 5% so they're actually really good

[teestub]

I'll pass on that thanks the problem with these Hazy IPAs is they manage to make 10% taste like 5% so they're actually really good

100%! Same with a nice porter. Although I guess you’re unlikely to drink more than a couple of 10% whereas a pint of Landlord is 200cals and easier to drink a lot more!

[moose]

a pint of 10% IPA is c.400 calories 

Never mind how many calories it has. A 10% beer 

I've had a couple, even Duvels come in at 8.6% or something. Generally pretty vile, too rich and sickly.

I've got a Thomas Hardy's Ale that matures in the bottle over 25 years and clocks in at 14% or something. 1994 vintage. No way I'm even tasting that fucker now with my guts. Will sell it on for a couple of hundred if you like.

I had a 10 year collection of the Thomas Hardy's vintages, and the Fullers Vintage Ale (8.5% abv) and J.W. Lees equivalents (11.5% barley wines), plus other oddities like Brewdog Tokyo (18% abv) and various Imperial Russian Stouts / Imperial IPAs, strong ales (Brooklyn Imperial Chocolate Stout, Durham Temptation, Stone Double Bastard, Titan IPA, lots of Belgian quads etc).  I drank the lot during an apocalyptic fortnight with the intention of curbing my drinking in the future.  I figured that draining my reserves would remove temptation... I reckoned without the persistence of shops where I might purchase more booze!

[nai]

I drank the lot during an apocalyptic fortnight with the intention of curbing my drinking in the future.  I figured that draining my reserves would remove temptation... I reckoned without the persistence of shops where I might purchase more booze!

I've tested this logic many times and found the same flaw in the plan.

[SA Chris]

Th - Almscliff evening. Had a go on Wall of Horrors. Did the boulder problem and put some gear in the steep crack. Then up to the horizontal break and spent ages getting the gear in in a very strenuous position. Tired but then had a bit of a shake. Climbed up and did the slab crux (not as hard as going up the first steep bit and getting the gear in IMO) and arrived at a resting position. Got very pumped figuring out what gear to put in and, try as I might, I couldn't shake off a deep deep pump. Made a start of the slopey zig-zag to the top but couldn't figure out any more gear or find any holds that I was still able to pull on. I was so pumped! Started to downclimb to the rest and fell off completely spent.
Looking forward to a hopefully successful return visit. Getting the gear in fast should make it a bit smoother.

Good effort, one I totally psyched myself out of ever getting on.

[Fiend]

Thomas Hardy's Ale only 12% sorry. Will give a discount for that if you're still keen, nai?

[Dolly]

M shed power
T local gravel biking circuit
W shed power. Managed 48 minutes which is my longest since starting again
T
F Willersley for bouldering ! Good fun really. 7 problems including Stop it which is given 7a , so I was quite pleased with that 2nd time out since starting again (even if it’s not quite 7a)
S
S Riding Monsal [size=78%] trail with girls. Went early evening and it was almost deserted[/size]

[tommytwotone]

I drank the lot during an apocalyptic fortnight with the intention of curbing my drinking in the future.  I figured that draining my reserves would remove temptation... I reckoned without the persistence of shops where I might purchase more booze!

I've tested this logic many times and found the same flaw in the plan.

+1

Update for last week - up in Northumberland on family holiday

(Prev week) Sun - out on a speculative jaunt to Bowden Doors, had a good one - found stuff for the kids over to the left (I think it's Goat Crag?), then we headed over to Bowden proper. Did a few very easy things but we all climbed, everyone had a good time and we went for fish and chips and a walk on the beach at Seahouse after. Even the f-ing lotttery etc.

Weds - took kids off for a climb while other half went to Alnwick. Made terrible choice of Corby's Crag, which while roadside, was totally overgrown, sweltering in the heat, no breeze. Lasted about 10 mins before I lost patience.

[nai]

Thomas Hardy's Ale only 12% sorry. Will give a discount for that if you're still keen, nai?

Throw in a bottle of lemonade and you've got a deal

[SA Chris]

Made terrible choice of Corby's Crag, which while roadside, was totally overgrown, sweltering in the heat, no breeze. Lasted about 10 mins before I lost patience.

Which parts are overgrown? I've got it earmarked as an option for taking kids, as it has a mix of easier stuff, short harder stuff and a bit of bouldering, but if it's become a jungle I'll take it off the list. I've not been in about 8 years, but had a good couple of hours soloing and bouldering then, and some bits were green but it was mostly OK.

[tommytwotone]

So we (me, 3.5 year old and 6.5 year old if that helps!) found our way down to Fingertip Flake area to start with  OK. There is some juggy lowball traverse stuff, a minging mantle and Fingertip Flake itself there.

We couldn't move on anywhere from there - waist-high ferns and bramble on a bit of a slope. Probably would've been fine on my tod but the kids were struggling.

From my experience, if I were you I'd take kids to Bowden Doors car park and quest off leftwards. The first load of stuff you hit isn't in the guide but there was plenty of stuff for both of mine to do at, all good landings and proper topouts.