[duncan]

M - Westway aerocap/ long endurance. 42 easy routes, ~500m, total about an hour on and an hour off. A good session.
T - 
W - Shoulders, elbows, hips and knees conditioning. Still a bit tired.
T - Alpine start to meet Simon at High Tor at 9am for what were great conditions. Simon tried Supersonic but didn't commit to the move out of the groove. I got on Perseus which I’d done ten years ago with IainAM but couldn't remember anything about the climbing. The grey-point went pretty smoothly, it’s a very good E3 with no polish. Then tried Robert Brown, another repeat from the same era. I could remember a long step right and, combined with the guidebook warning not to stray left, perhaps encouraged me to misread the line and go too far right too low. More importantly, my tolerance for risk has probably reduced. I don’t mind going for it above solid gear but the crucial runners on Robert Brown are in a slightly expanding flake. If this blows my next piece was a cam in crumbly rock beneath Ariadne. If that pulls you’ll be close to or on the ground. I scuttled back to the ledge several times and eventually handed over to Simon who dispatched it without fuss.  I then made a bit of a meal of leading the top pitch. I think I was just tired.
F - Tired. Sore fingers. Some half-hearted shoulder conditioning: side planks, hand-stands, press-ups.
S - Legs conditioning: single leg squats, frog squats, heel raises. Westway with the lad. He enjoyed himself, I top-roped a couple of 6b+/6cs and falls were held.
S - Brief fingerboard session: 20mm and 14mm four and three finger drags.


I’d been a bit nervous about climbing at High Tor as my last time ended with a helicopter ride to the Northern General so it was great to have an enjoyable and not too stressful day. After Uphill 7b+ crimps, High Tor pockets felt quite positive. Would like a day or two more of sport to sharpen my fitness before stepping up a grade on the trad.

[shark]

11.11

M. AM Tor with Mina. Connies! 14 degrees with a breeze. AM headwall. Holds felt amazing. Played on the moves. Tried to link from hole but got distracted. Second tie in jugged back up and top roped from Prow hole to overshooting last hold (a gaston) before the break ie move 1-11. Then did move 6-12 and carried on to the Crucifixion rest and fell off trying to get established over the roof. Climbed to crux but then too boxed to dog through crux. Quick play on Bens established that I was too spent to do anything more

T

W Out to High Tor with John on an ok forecast. Got to Starkholmes and started spitting with rain and was super clammy. Headed to Moat which was also clammy so I just did a stint of belaying to save myself for the following day.

T Home warm up. High Tor Duncan. Great conditions. Jumped straight on Supersonic then jumped straight off after the low crux as couldn’t commit to swinging up onto the rib just like last week. Arghh. Duncan led Perseus E3 in fine style. I followed with strangely sore forearms. Back on the deck I went to retrieve my gear on Supersonic and thought I’d have a go at the moves and pissed through the crux. Duncan was encouraging me to gear up and have a proper go but with the sun coming round which would have been in my eyes decided to strip it. Duncan keen for a repeat of Robert Brown E3 and crucially happy to lead the serious first pitch as that was something I wasn’t up for. However after a lengthy and thorough risk assessment at the bulge Duncan lowered off. Retrieving the gear would have been a pain and having got bored belaying I gave it a go. Determined not to have a second ignominious retreat of the day I committed straight away over the bulge though it was more runout and had more questionable rock than I remember but fortunately all went ok. Second pitch for Duncan then home.

F Lazy start. Home warm up. Bens. Drizzly humid but ok temps with a breeze. Felt strong. Cross through at 3rd attempt Throw at 2nd. Toe hook into kick 3 attempts just failing to get right foot on pinch. Couple of abortive attempts at starting moves. Worked on getting toe on pinch. Home Ergo Edge HC. BW x 10 secs +7.5kg x 10 secs +15kg x 10 secs +20kg x 7 secs and 10 secs +22.5kg 6 and 6 secs
Drive to Devon

S

S Drive back from Devon


I’ve only ever linked the Anger Management headwall once post foot breakage so psyched to almost get the link again especially after going backwards the previous week. The last and only time I got the full link was Sept 2021 after 19 sessions! over 4 months although most of them were in frustratingly shit conditions and I resolved not to take that approach again. Currently only! 7 sessions in with plenty of the year left though cool breezy conditions was the key for me on the crux section on Monday. Lot to think about. Will see how I get on tomorrow and think about my strategy.

Frustrated with my mental block on Supersonic as it feels like a general blocker to my longer term trad aspirations though did get my shit together on Robert Brown.

Surprised at how much extra weight I could deadhang after bouldering on Bens so will experiment with doing this more after climbing even though it’s about the last thing I want to do after getting home

[Duma]

M - eve, Cheddar  More from the 7a list. Mate had got ahead of me and I couldn't let that stand. Mir, Gather the People, and 2001, all OS. Had time to do more but police had closed the gorge lower down because of an accident.
T - eve, run, 6k hilly, trail, 28 min. Not so hot so went a little harder. Stoke Park looking pretty sun bleached now, more like late July than late June.
W - lunch, Flashpoint, 1 hr. Reds and Blacks (6A+ to 7A ish). Did all the new ones since I was last here a month or so ago, 20 problems, flashed 18, 1 careless heel slipped, 1 was actually 7A and took a few goes.
T -  eve, Cheddar, penultimate day before the south side largely shuts for the next 2 months (and it's due to rain tomorrow). More from the 7a list: Shaking Like A Leaf (brilliant), Dada (ok), and Chavs Can Stall At Any Time (good name, appalling route). OS the first and last, Dada was first go today but I fell off it last year in the rain. Had to be very careful with some of the rock on the last one, and dig out the belay from a fair amount of ivy while showering belayer in dirt and gravel. Not recommended... Repeated it to get draws back as mate had run out of beans. GF did her proj too. Excellent evening.
F - exhausted, poor sleep and busy week. Straight to bed after work.
S - am TCA, bit of a lacklustre session. All the oranges upstairs to warm up, fell off last move of the black I always fall off the last move of, then made some progress on one of the steeper blues, dropping the last move a couple of times. Out for a mates birthday after.
S - hungover. Pm gentle run, 6k hilly trail.

71kg

4 Cheddar 7a's left now (out of 24), sadly 3 are now out of bounds until September. The ultimate aim of doing them in a day is juuust about possible I think.

[Will Hunt]

Scratchy eye bullshit early in the week so missed my Tuesday evening sesh.

Sa - Malham. Great connies and only 3 pairs on the crag. First crack at Baboo a bit rubbish. Felt clunky and hesitant out of the rest so dropped the 2nd of the 3 hard moves.
Next go better and fell off the 3rd of the 3 move crux. Possibly could have done it but need to better know how to climb this move when tired.

[Aussiegav]

Power Club
Starting a new 12 week cycle, putting Power & strength in to it. Lost some oomph as I’ve been doing routes & lower intensity bouldering.

Monday -

Half Crimp Finger Strength assessment
Beefed up to 89.6kg. Poor diet & discipline.
 Managed 25kg.    total weight 115kg. 126% body weight.

Tried to repeat but only managed around 5sec.


Tuesday
Celebrated getting a new job by taking a day off for rebolting & crag maintenance. Giving  back to the system.

Wednesday
Rest

Thursday

3 finger open hand strength assessment

Body Weight 89.6kg. Managed 30kg.  Could have done 33kg, but rang out of weight. total weight 118kg. 133% body weight.

Pleased with both assessments. Heaviest I’ve been & heaviest additional weight added.


Friday
Rest

Saturday
Went to the Depot. Campus on medium rungs.
2 sets each way.
2-4-5.5
2-4-6
2-5-5.5 did leading left. not Right

Conditioning
5sets of 3 jumping pull ups
6 sets 10kg. Single arm overhead press
6 sets 20kg. Lawn mower starts


Sunday
Two Tier, Cleaned up the route, Tippers, on a fixed line. Graded 6c+ or 7a depending on your source. Last recorded ascent on UKC back in 2014 & 2010 before that.
After cleaning it, started working the line.  Did all the moves except a small section getting through the bulge.
Looks like there’s a loss of hold. There’s a sequence of 2 moves I couldn’t figure out. I think the route is significantly harder that 7a now.

Did a peloton ride in the evening.

[Dingdong]

A week of lattice assessments for me. Coming up to the end of my 3 month training block which means it was time to reassess and see what gains have been made/lost over the last 3 months.

Monday - rest day

Tuesday - climbed at depot and tried to do the whole comp wall. Managed all but 1 boulder in a sesh.

Wednesday - test 1:

Max hangs: managed to hit my old pb of +45kg at 70kg BW so 164% BW - not terrible but not really made any further gains here

Box splits/: 153cm -> 157cm - actual gains here, box splits is a slow game of attrition. I’ve been doing a lot of mobility work over the last 5 months which has definitely paid off, mostly pancake work

Press-ups max reps: 36 -> 40 - again some gains here in the endurance end, managed to squeak out an extra 4 push-ups, I did them in as strict of form as possible too

Aerobic/anaerobic profiling at 50% (10kg taken off) - 240 seconds which is the same as last time so all good on that front as I’ve not been training endurance (boulderer)

Low Row - still the same no changes there - harder to test as depots dumbells only go up to 30kg


Friday - Test 2 -

Two arm, half crimp on 10mm edge - 20kg added - I did a little small edge training a few months back, when starting I could only hang BW so nice to see I can hang with 20kg added now

Anaerobic/aerobic profiling - 70% (10kg added on) - 110 seconds, actually a little worse than when I last tested by 20 seconds but not end of the world as I was a little tired

Pull-up two rep max - this was a big one for me, been training pull-ups a lot and managed to hit a PB of +55kg added on so chuffed with that!

After testing I went and met my friend who was visiting from London at rubicon, we did bigger splash direct and I found out I can the pull on of The Press fully static and could hit the crimp, next project opened!

Saturday - met my friend at burbage south and we got on the rib and thick end of the wedge. Did thick end from the proper sit off one pad to the left hand pebble sloper so not bad considering it was 18 degrees and blustery

Sunday - Test 3 -

Anaerobic/aerobic profiling 60% (at BW this time) - managed 170 seconds which is around the same as last time. Glad to be done with these tests haha

Pull-ups max reps - managed 20 pull-ups in a row with the last 2/3 being quite hard but still a pb from 17 before and 14 when I first tested

All in all some good results.

[SA Chris]

M - grabbed good tides, god partner and good weather to get a lunchtime boulder in on the coast. Actually a bit too warm, redid both the probs on the wall and they felt hard, Rich added a new one in the corner and then put some work in on the traverse to the arete. Refined beta with some input from Rich, and can now do it in two overlapping halves, just brutally hard pulling right hand crimp power needed. Need to get stronger.8k run in evening surprised it stayed dry.
T - Mostly cutting grass. Think i did some fingerboarding.
W - hill reps - 8.5km / 150 vert.
T - tides crap, lunchtime session at Boltsheugh. Did a few of the classics then put a few burns in on the last section of the low traverse. powering out on the big pull to gain height. Evening - first woody session in ages, all felt hard.
F - 10.5km in evening. Pleasantly cooler.
S - not much, daughters party. Does a hard Just Dance session count?
S - first wall session in a while. Kyle climbed well, I was unispired.

[Duma]

Tuesday
Celebrated getting a new job by taking a day off for rebolting & crag maintenance. Giving  back to the system.

wadded

[Nibile]

Power Club

Mon - high pulls. 30°...
Tue - board climbing, links and static on current project. 28° with A/C on.
Wed - good mornings, heavy. 5x10 100/105 kg.
Thu - double volume AM session.
Fri - boxing bag.
Sat - double volume AM session.
Sun - double volume AM session.
Second half of the week of drinking too much, eating too bad and training too little.

[Duncan Disorderly]

Ontime but feeling shite... club:

M: Ill
T: Ill
W: Still ill but dragged myself to the Sheaf boulder - Sacked it off after not long and went for a pint.
T: Back to the boulder - Worked on the easier parts of my new traverse then surprised myself by doing the my biggest link yet - might actually go this year!
F: MB @ AW (2019 @ 25) - Went for mileage - 10 x 5+ to 6B then had a go at latest 6C proj, did it but dabbed going for the penultimate hold (big footswing into a jug while moving which I really think helped) so couldn't take the tick....
S: Up early to help setup @ Claghanger then watched Le Tour.... Still feeling shite!
S: MB @ AW (2019 @ 25) - Another mileage warmup 10 x 5+ to 6A+ then rinsed 6C proj first try - Piss! Worked on a 6C+, close but no cigar... Next go! Watched bouldering in town with blocked up ears and fuzzy head...Got soaked cycling home.

Horrible cold/flu thing - doesn't seem to be affecting short MB or boulder sessions but really can't face any PE or Aero work... Bit better today so hopefully it's on the wane....