[tomtom]

Hello and Good times! (as an Iranian student always starts his emails to me..)

M:
T: Almscliff. Felt as tottery as a wobbly thing... But surprised myself. Managed to repeat Underhand in full with a skim off the pad (honest Guv - thanks to Tom and Charlotte for the spot - hello!) and had some more warm fun up at DWR area etc.. Felt nearly back to my best. Excellent - psyche high as I left
W:
T:
F: Went to check out Harmers & Helsby - still damp. Grr.. couldnt face a wall on a sweaty hot day, so went home and mullahed myself on the BM
Sa:
Su: Burbizzle valley with my 9 yr old God daughter in law (eh?).. A good few hours - lots of great easy mileage and had some fun on some of the trickier SS additiosn... though sweaty coarse gritstone... mmmm my hands feel nice now.. not.

So a good week. Its a shame I'm off on Hols to Norfolk now, as theres Norfolking place to go climbing there... anywhere. Looks like its deadhangs off the door frames for a few days! I've spent 3 weeks getting back in shape after two weeks off, so want to try and keep some of the momentum..

[csl]

Goals for August
Get out of Cambridge permanently - good headway, job applications and some ideas in the pipeline. Off to alps on sunday for a month, depending on outcome of a job interview.

mon - nothing
tue - 1500m - 5.30, just wanted to get a feel back for old 5k pace.
wed - Stanage - 15 routes mainly soloing classic VS and FBD and Tippler
thur - Millstone - only did 2 HVS before rained off. Then Foundry - good endurance session, 4x4's. Felt good to train again at a proper wall!
fri - nothing
sat - nothing
sun - was meant to be cycling but terrible weather

Nice couple of days puntering in the peak, glad i took the risk of driving up on a bad forecast. Mainly needed volume to prepare me for alpine rock next week!

tomtom, don't let the flat lands of Norfolk get you down like they have me, enjoy your holiday!

[Nibile]

Week off. Very hard, boiling hot, lots of work, very low psyche.
Mon - Fri: nothing.
Sat: test. Max added weight for 5" on a 1,5 cm flat edge. Up to 63 kg. Psyched. Vol 8. Int 9.
Sun: bouldering. Nice day, not too hot with a little breeze. Repeated an old problem that is still quite hard and painful. Today I crushed it. Close to the sitter. Vol 4. Int 8.

Happy to start a new week with less work and more time to train and climb.

[Duma]

Aims:
fix wrist
run

M - AM: finish nights, sleep. PM: run, 6m, grass, flat, 48min. Wrist rehab stuff.
T - Wrist rehab stuff
W - AM: physio - allowed to climb again "take it easy avoid big slopers and anything that hurts". PM: run, 6m, grass, flat, 50min, then watch wiggo win. Wrist rehab stuff
T - TCA with 3 yr old daughter: very easy and low volume session, as dictated by child... Very weak and wrist a bit tweaky but good to climb again. Gonna be a slow road back after no climbing since mid May though. Continued shameless bribery campaign by buying pizza and ice cream for lunch every time me and Chloe go to the climbing wall.
F, S, S - night shifts, wrist rehab stuff.

68kg ish

[cheque]

physio - allowed to climb again

 

M- Hot and sweaty Nottingham wall. Felt like a good fingery training session was required- did boulder problems of ascending difficulty 'til they became too skin-unfriendly then got on the campus board. Turns out climbing has made me better at training for climbing as my ability to use it footless has improved. Lots of one-arm hanging-  improved at this too.
T- Rest.
W- Surprisingly not so hot and sweaty Nottingham wall. Routes- cleaned up one I didn't manage last time and worked a few I still haven't managed. Max 6c. (there's only one route harder than 6c in the whole place).
T- Rest.
F- Rest.
S- Malham. Met TobyD, Reeve and Moose  Working Rose Coronary- for some reason I find this harder than Consenting. None of the moves felt that bad (bit of a YYFY I suppose as even the ones I could do back in March felt nails) but after four demoralisingly bodged top-ropes I only got on the lead for the sake of it- climbed it fine and fell right next to the chains as I'd neglected to find a place I could clip from!
S- Froggatt. Not psyched for hot grit or hard climbing but made concessions to a partner who didn't even turn up! Did Valkyrie and encouraged mates on their routes. Returned home with sunburn and shoes full of sand as if I'd been to the seaside.

Any week with a trip to Malham in is a good one for me- not bothered about missing out on the redpoint as I'll do it next time and I learnt masses from the process.
Chatting with TobyD took the shine of my campus pride as it turns out that despite being significantly poorer than him at rock climbing I'm actually slightly stronger on the campus board! Gonna focus on the safer but duller fingerboard (and obviously actually climbing) now.

[reeve]

Chatting with TobyD took the shine of my campus pride as it turns out that despite being significantly poorer than him at rock climbing I'm actually slightly stronger on the campus board!

Don't worry, I know of VS climbers who are stronger than Toby on a campus board.

[shark]

11.5-7

M.
T. PM. Malham. Cons x 2 and F&E to warm up. Oak dry - good temps. Craig (Mathieson?) and dad on it to begin with but they cleared off. Felt good on moves on upper section partic getting sloper. Tried leading from bottom but didnt get to undercut. Did moves into throw and throw to half way across traverse then foot slipped. Did Raindogs in sections on TR then led F&E to retrieve Tommys gear. He was very close to redpointing it.
W.
T.AM. Weighted hangs 4x10secs with 7.5kg added.Another PB ! Evening. AeroCap 20:10 2sets = 288 moves
F.
S.Malham. Hot when arrived. Warmed up on Cons but felt crap - lacking burl. Oak undercut wet. Tommy redpointed F&EE  Tried throw moves but was hopeless felt massively demoralised. Felt old and useless - bad thoughts "who am I kidding" etc. Sunbathed a bit and fell asleep until Tommy woke me up for a belay.Cooled a bit. Dogged up Raindogs so Tom could TR it. Managed the throw on the Oak. Tom linked ground to undercut pocket on Raindogs. Did an OK link of throw to halfway cross traverse at the end. Discovered that Toby can only do 1-3-4. I think this usurps weakest for the grade accolade from Keefe and me.
S. Felt broken when I woke up but more positive as day wore on.

[shark]

instead feeling old and tired 

Me too

[tomtom]

instead feeling old and tired 

Me too

Come on cup half empty IO's... suck it up and enjoy!

[fried]

Week one - Childrens white circuits at Apremont Bizons, Rocher aux Sabots and Rocher Canon. Yellow (F) at Buthiers Piscine. Crushed them all. Great fun.

Week two - Monday at Mont d'Olivet, managed to sneak in a couple of blues around childcare duties. Rest of the week - light hiking and chilling in the Cevennes.

I'll be in exile in Albi until Friday when I'm having an unplanned week in Targasonne. I'll mostly be eating a lot and drinking to excess this week.

[iain]

physio - allowed to climb again

That's great Duma


Didn't post last week. Been trying to get the climbing back in a groove after the break.

2 weeks ago:
Was aiming for lots of climbing.  A wall session and Avon trad on the weekend both felt weak and clumsy. Dispiriting sessions on BM.
Finished the week unpsyched but tried to keep in mind that it was inevitable and keep on keeping on.

Last week:
M: BM. Assisted one-armers, and poor max hangs on the slopers
T: 6x6 pull-ups felt really hard. 2x3min repeater sets on 35s.
W: Bouldering at Reading, still felt weak and clumsy
T: 6x6 pull-ups didn't feel quite as hard.
F: Portland sport, felt ok. Not many routes but a 6c+ onsight that felt easy and a 7a+ that I took so long on I could have been placing gear. Endurance was encouraging, route reading was not.
S: Rest
S: 10x6 pull-ups. 2x3min repeater sets on half crimp. After 3 weeks back this is the first session that I've felt I could pull a bit again.
(and so much for sticking to slopers in on the BM. Too hard to regulate the PE hang session intensity on the slopers, and the half crimp felt ok on the joints so will just be careful.)

It's been disappointing that it's taken so long to start getting some good climbing feelings back again. Slightly worrying as this weekend I should get down to Blackers and I really wanted to be climbing better than I am. Ah well, gotta do it sometime.

[duncan]

STG: recover from shoulder tweak
MTG: 7b, E5 by end 2012
LTG: various heroic LH&F objectives

Week 128:
M - Run
T
W - Run
T
F
S - Drove to Font.  Run.
S - Rocher aux Sabots: some of the yellow circuit, offspring mildly interested and scrambled on the kid's whites.

Week 129
M - Damp, greasy and shitty Bas Cuiver: about 7 of the Orange circuit.  Desperate!
T - l'elephant: 5-6 problems including a couple of 6as.  Shoulder not too bad. Good run.
W - Drove back to UK
T - Eating, drinking, shooting the shit with IO2
F - Wedding (Figaro's): eating, drinking.
S - Family day: eating, drinking. Run. Fingerboard micro-session
S - Watched women's marathon, eating, drinking...

First visit to Font. since 1980! (it's good isn't it?)  Enjoyable and a success in that both non-climbing partner and offspring want to return.  Grez-sur-Loing campsite judged "very clean" (ultimate complement from obsessively clean and tidy partner), offspring loved the trampoline and little train.

Still recovering from shoulder tweak and 1kg heavier than before Swiss trip.  Also feeling a bit old and under-motivated: every trip this year has been affected by poor weather and injury and it's starting to wear me down a little.  Tempting to rest shoulder some more but I know it will recover better and more quickly if I do something (not too much but not too little either). Time to MTFU a little - that goes for all of you lot!   

[nai]

instead feeling old and tired 

Me too

there's something about this week is seems, Me Too

M - Stoney Trad - got on a route called Easy Action to warm up, turned out to be slightly loose, slightly dirty, quite pumpy, quite scary and probably undergraded.  Took over two hours faffing on the lead, with the belay, finding the ab, etc.  Mate led Jasper (my original aim for the day) then it was time to go 
t
W ELo plan day 3 - warm up on board, 3xreaches, hangs: 1xBW 2x10s + 4.3kg 2x10s + 8kg 3x10s + 13.3kg (Eflev=7/8)
t,f,s - injury from Font in April flared up again, unable to make a LH fist without discomfort in index finger
S - did 30 minutes on the boards/bar, basically a warmup, felt heavy and clunky.

Hard to spin this week, I guess the only positive was digging in on the lead on Monday and refusing to fail when it looked most likely that would be the outcome, it was also a good exercise in gear improvisation after setting off with a woefully inadequate rack for a 30m pitch.

[Fiend]

STG: Get into good habits of regular exercise / training; climb lots of routes, get lots of full days out.

MTG: Regain some fitness and climbing fitness; regain trad confidence, climb near to limit in Scotland.

LTG: Attain consistent climber's lifestyle; lose 1 stone weight.

M - Rest.
T - Swim 1km - fine, tired before tho.
W - Nothing - suck.
T - Evening trad @ The Whangie, 1 easy route, 1+ hour trekking - okay, rubbish climbing but good walk.
F - Outdoor trad @ Rhue sea-cliffs, 3 steady routes - okay, managed to slip off a harder route on VS terrain, how??
S - Outdoor trad @ Gruinard crag, 2 tricky routes - good, did some tricky moves and a big classic pitch.
S - Outdoor trad @ Kenaculish crags, 4 steepish routes -  good, good mileage day on a variety of terrain.


Weight - 12 bolloxing stone.

Decent week. Almost no training apart from the swim, but some good trad mileage at the end on a variety of routes. Also the stomp up to the Whangie felt surprisingly less desperate than usual, maybe the squatting is helping a bit hehe. Going to try to get out more and get more climbing fit from now on.

[richdraws]

STG (before Sept) - Boulder 7a
MTG (Jan/Feb2013) - Boulder 7c
LTG lets see how we go

Mon - Ill, a few gentle hangs on FB - stretching
Tue - Ill,  a few gentle hangs on FB - stretching
Wed - Ill,  a few gentle hangs on FB - stretching
Thurs - Ill plus Climbing works - ill and grumpy.
Fri - Ill,  a few gentle hangs on FB - stretching
Sat nearly better - Works did a circuit
Sunday - Well again mostly, rested and walked dogs for a few hours.

A poor week in all but managed to improve flexibility and get fingers used to the fingerboard. I have another week of drawing silly hours to get the comic done then  should be able to pop outside and try some bouldering.

[James Yeah]

Boulder + sport 7a.  Aesthetics.

Mon- Starting strength Workout A + abs.
Tues - p90x Chest and back.
Wed - rest.
Thur - Starting Strength workout A.
Fri - Rest
Sat - Starting strength workout A + abs.
Sun - Rest

Starting strength is alright, might switch to a hyper trophy program instead.  Had a few more rest days than usual as been quite busy. Also having lymph node problems this week :/   I can't remember the last time i climbed, sadly got too many expenses at the moment to spend £7 every time i want to climb

Trying to eat 3000 healthy calories is proving really hard, i seem to only hit about 2300 max before i can't eat anymore.

Thinking of messing about with Creatine for a while.

[cheque]

I can't remember the last time i climbed, sadly got too many expenses at the moment to spend £7 every time i want to climb

Trying to eat 3000 healthy calories is proving really hard, i seem to only hit about 2300 max before i can't eat anymore.

Thinking of messing about with Creatine for a while.

Perhaps you could find the extra money by not trying to stuff 3000 calories down yourself and doing without whatever creatine is.

[Gus]

"Trying to eat 3000 healthy calories is proving really hard, i seem to only hit about 2300 max before i can't eat anymore."

Struggling to see why, as a climber you'd want to get in anywhere near 3000 calories in a day, I'm 78/79kg and my basic metabolic requirement is around 1700/1800 calories.

Sounds like a one way ticket to heavyness/ weakness to me??

[rich d]

Monday - alcohol and a chinese - didn't even last a day
Tues - light core and squats etc (mainly due to hangover)
Wednesday fingerboard medium session
Thursday fingerboard light session
Friday fingerboard interspersed with olympics
Saturday felt rough and did nothing
Sunday felt rough and did nothing
This week's goals
No alcohol
No snacking

Tues try to get to Dundee wall (depends on glasgow finish time)
Then 4 fingerboard sessions as no outdoors on cards
Work flexibility and core 4 sessions
(Already beat last week by making it to tuesday without a drink)

[Sasquatch]

instead feeling old and tired 

Me too

there's something about this week is seems, Me Too

Me too! I think it's a way of letting me know that my life has gotten imbalanced.  Too much training/climbing and it's time to focus more on family and friends.

Summer Goals:
Drop Weight to 170lbs by Mid July(Done), to 165lbs by end of August. (170lbs on Sunday, but it was after party weight... )
Put up 10 7C+ or harder problems this summer (by October). (9/10 done)
Put Up 2 8b or harder routes this summer (by October).

Monday - Wtd Hangs(3x +98lbs), Boulder at Gym, Run 4mi, BW progressions on Front Lever and Planche
Tuesday - Pwr-End session 1 - WU, then 3x1:30 foot on campus, Run 8 miles
Wednesday - 1 Hr ARC
Thursday -  Wtd Hangs (5x +98lbs), Boulder at Gym, Pwr-End session - WU, then 3x1:30 foot on campus, BW progressions
Friday - 1 Hr ARC, Long Mountain Run - 9 mi, 3400ft elevation
Saturday - Mtn Bike 1.25Hrs, then going away party for friends
Sunday - Boulder outside, low motivotion day as weather kept us out of where we wanted to go, climbed well though, WU, then 7B, 7C+, 7B+, 7C, and added a new 7C+, then went and worked an 8A+? project which didn't go well. Felt worse than previously.

I think I may try to spend some time focusing on routes for a bit.  I just wish we had better roped climbing.

[Big Dave]

Trying to eat 3000 healthy calories is proving really hard, i seem to only hit about 2300 max before i can't eat anymore.

Thinking of messing about with Creatine for a while.

3000 cals sounds a lot, how much do you weigh? As a general guide for calories consumed per lb bodyweight, ideally you should be looking at:

11 cals per lb if wanting to lose weight
13 cals per lb for maintenance
15 cals per lb for gaining weight

If you want to use creatine, don't believe all the myths out there about loading/cycling etc, just 5g a day is all you need.

[keefe]

Discovered that Toby can only do 1-3-4. I think this usurps weakest for the grade accolade from Keefe and me.

  Toby - that is awesome. That is excellently weak. Even I could manage 1-3-5 after a little work (shortly followed by nasty golfers, a lot of visits to the physio &  developing  a great ability to moan). Recently however, I have been working again on my weakness, fuelled by some injury-related time off,  office work, work-travel & the olympics. I am improving my weakness on a daily rate (probably letting the grade slide a bit as well mind you) - so I may be up for the challenge again quite soon.

[James Yeah]

Trying to eat 3000 healthy calories is proving really hard, i seem to only hit about 2300 max before i can't eat anymore.

Thinking of messing about with Creatine for a while.

3000 cals sounds a lot, how much do you weigh? As a general guide for calories consumed per lb bodyweight, ideally you should be looking at:

11 cals per lb if wanting to lose weight
13 cals per lb for maintenance
15 cals per lb for gaining weight

If you want to use creatine, don't believe all the myths out there about loading/cycling etc, just 5g a day is all you need.

I'm 6ft 1 and weigh 159lbs at the moment. 

I'm trying to eat 3000 cals as i currently want to bulk up and from everything i've read 3000 cals is the standard number for bulking but as i say i rarely get above 2300 ish.

I'd like to be 175lbs lean. So i need to bulk for a bit whilst lifting heavy.

Cheers for the creatine advice, seems a mixed bag on that front, i read lots saying cycle it and lots saying not to bother.

[Three Nine]

That Toby can only do 1-3-4 almost certainly has nothing to do with strength/weakness (he is pretty strong!) and everything to do with the fact that campussing is about moving with speed, and Toby is a kind of tortoise.

Discovered that Toby can only do 1-3-4. I think this usurps weakest for the grade accolade from Keefe and me.

  Toby - that is awesome. That is excellently weak. Even I could manage 1-3-5 after a little work (shortly followed by nasty golfers, a lot of visits to the physio &  developing  a great ability to moan). Recently however, I have been working again on my weakness, fuelled by some injury-related time off,  office work, work-travel & the olympics. I am improving my weakness on a daily rate (probably letting the grade slide a bit as well mind you) - so I may be up for the challenge again quite soon.

[shark]

That Toby can only do 1-3-4 almost certainly has nothing to do with strength/weakness (he is pretty strong!) and everything to do with the fact that campussing is about moving with speed, and Toby is a kind of tortoise.

Which kind? These things are important.

Good point and probably to do with the fast/slow twitch muscle ratio he was born with.

White Devonians can't jump.