A learning journey

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Been getting loads more climbing outdoors this year so far. Great fun! More info later (hopefully!) but if you want to see what I’ve been working on, check my ukclimbing log

Oh yes….

I’M GOING TO FONT NEXT WEEK! Bit of a short notice holiday, but hell, why not!

If you know ANYTHING that might be helpful, add it as a comment to the Fontainebleau planning page.

*squee!*

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I seem to have entirely failed to keep my blog up to date. Ah well! I’m not going to recount all I’ve missed, that might take too long. Instead I’ll continue as I was going….

TARGETS! I’ve decided my targets for 09:

1) Lead a 7b. Ouch. I’ve managed a couple of 7a’s in the past year, and they’ve remained hard, but I’ve not been able to push harder than that. I really need to work on pushing through this and get to the next level, hence the upgrade!
2) Lead outdoors. I’ve really failed to do much outdoor climbing since I’ve started, mostly due to the weather. However, I’ve already made it out this year (see below) and I really enjoyed it. I’ve not actually seconded or lead on one of my excusions, so it seems a good target.
3) Score 100 points in a bouldering competition. This is a tough one. It will really involve a step up in gear on my previous bouldering comp scores. Cross fingers eh?
4) Take more photos and videos of climbs, especially outdoors!

So, what else has been happening? Quite a bit of climbing! Last weekend saw me climbing on Friday, Saturday and spending the whole glorious, sunny day in the Peaks climbing. I’m still fairly achy from it now, but it been great. My little circle of climbing associates has a new person in it (Hi Kiri if you read this!) who is encouraging more climbing which is good. Sunday in the peaks was all her fault and it was great. We started in Stoney Middleton, climbing on Morning Crack which was HARD, we then ended up at Baslow Edge doing three more climbs. Central Crack was really demanding for me, needing a really strong layback to get up it, which I’m really not comfortable with doing but managed. The top bit involved me doing a really inelegent belly flop. I think I’ll try harder to avoid that next time!

What about indoors? Part of trying to hit those above targets has meant I’m changing my approach a little. I’ve starting doing stamina climbs once a week, where we do 3 climbs in succession, or an Up, Down, Up climb. I’m also aiming to climb on something far outside my grade every week to try and push myself.

Videos/Photos-wise, check this out:

This is Simon completing a nice over hanging 6b at The Foundry.

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My lift is ill! No Redpoint for me today. Probably good for my chances at beating 82 tomorrow at The Foundry…

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This week is a little manic from a climbing pov. Although I dropped out of my normal climbing session on Wednesday due to feeling a bit rough from an incoming chesty cough, I made it to the Bouldering competition yesterday. I’ve just got back in from another bouldering session at the Foundy, and on Sunday I’m planning on going to Redpoint in Birmingham to do a session on the BMC Leading Ladder.

Just to cap it off, Monday is the next part of the Foundry Bouldering league. I’m wondering if I’m actually going to be able to walk by then….!

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Last night was the 2nd round of the Sheffield bouldering league at “The Matrix” a bouldering wall at the Sheffield University. They never had that when I was there!

The set up was the same as the last round: 25 different problems of varying degrees of difficulty. 10 points for completing flashing it, 7 for completing it on your second attempt and 4 points for your third. If you don’t finish it, but get past a marked hold, you get 1 bonus point.

The Matrix is a nice little bouldering room. Mostly square in shape, with climbing surfaces on all sides, it was ~60% vertical ‘living rock’ style wall, with one big bulging boulder for some mean overhanging climbs and one wall which was a steep straight overhang.

I cleaned up on pretty much all of the vertical wall problems, flashing 7 of them and completing one on my second attempt getting me to 77 points. I then very quickly found myself unable to progress on any of the other climbs, most of which were either on the boulder or the straight overhang. This was rather frustrating, as I’d got 77 points in the last round and really wanted to beat that score.

Eventually, some grit and determination saw me get a bonus point on a climb in the corner of the boulder, but not finish it. I was very tempted to leave it at that. 78, verses 77, but decided to have one last attempt on the last uncompleted vertical climb, which was a tricky, stretchy traverse. I’m not entirely sure how I managed to complete it; (I somehow managed a foot swap on a tiny dent while on very poor hand holds!) but I did it on my 3rd attempt taking me to 82 points.

Yay!

I guess I’ll aim for 90 points next time. :)

Next up is the Foundry 2nd round of their bouldering league on Monday. I’ll cross my fingers….

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I’m not really the competitive sort, but having seen the notices up around The Foundry for the Sheffield Bouldering league I was tempted to try it out. I was fully expecting to come bottom but decided that it would be good for the experience, and even if I managed 2 climbs, at least I’d have something to measure myself against next time!

So, to the day. I’d had a rather knackering day at work and very nearly went straight home but forced myself to turn up. I got my sheet and went and scoped out the problems. There were 25 in total to try out, from a set of 2 nice easy warm up traverses (20 free points! :D ) right up to some pretty hardcore looking things. I spend about 3 hours wandering around, getting some beta and then trying them out. I flashed 7 of the climbs, getting 10 points for each, and completed another on the second attempt, netting me a total of 77 points. I didn’t even get to the bonus holds on any of the other climbs!

You can see how I placed on the photo to the right, significantly higher than expected! The last two columns are score and placing. I’m aiming to break 100 on the next round!

p.s. The black mark is a friend who wants to remain anonymous :D

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Wow, it’s been while since I remembered to post something and i’ve been up to plenty!

Firstly, back to those targets for the year. First was to lead a 7a, which did back in June. Next was to have top roped a 7b, which I haven’t made that much progress on (except the Alter Rock one which I’m not counting). I think Jim and I need to sort out getting a rope on some of the tougher Foundry Climbs and try them out more often.

My final target was one I’d carried from last year; doing some real outdoor climbing. Ever since I started climbing, there has been very little decent weather when I’ve been available to go out. However, a couple of weeks ago I finally had my first chance to go out. Now, the weather wasn’t that great as you can see by the flooded stream, but it was good enough for my first couple of top roped real climbs. I climbed Paradise Wall and Billiard Buttress which was, well, cold! The rock absolutely saps all the heat from your hands when it’s that cold, not to mention how windy its was!
The other picture was taken by Rich while I climbing Billiard Buttress (rather slowly!).

More to come! My first 2 bouldering competitions!

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I’m off to my Wednesday climbing session in a mo, but I thought I’d pop up two more videos taken this weekend.

First up is Jim completing the 7a I was talking about in my previous update

He’s happy because, like me he’d been working on it for ages and knew that it was going this week as well!

Next video is Jim attempting to climb a nasty 6c+ that I cannot do. I’m about a hand too short to reach the second to last hold and can’t figure out a way to get closer to it. I’ve tried jumping for it, but the hold is too poor for me to be able to hang on it.

I’m looking pink as I’ve just come off it! Ah well, that climb is probably gone by now….

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I’ve got another 7a done now. It’s the orange and black spots climb up the corner in the Furnace. Jim and I have been working on it on and off for months and, under the threat of it being taken down on Monday, set on it with a passion today. It was my second attempt that finished it, but first being thwarted by me not actually remembering how to climb correctly. After a stretch out on a couple of other easy climbs I got back on it, worked over the bits I kept messing up in my head and just did it.

It will be a shame for it to go as it’s a cracking climb.

Oh, 100 Pushups. I’ve done the first 2 weeks now and last night did the test again to start week 3. At the start I managed 40. This time I managed…. 41. Oh.

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So, I probably should have gone climbing this morning. However, I have 3 really good reasons as to why not:

1. On Friday I went as usual, but went bouldering instead. It’s been ages since I bouldered properly, and as a result I really _really_ ache. Diane (who came second in the uk womens championships!) was showing me how to do some of the routes on the overhanging wall which did most of the damage I think
2. The above hard work opened a set of flappers on my left hand. They’ll heal pretty quickly, but I don’t want to open them again
3. I was out rather late last night watching them demolish the Tinsley cooling towers. The event was at 3am, and the huge numbers of people there meant we didn’t manage to escape and get home till about 4:30!

See the cooling towers fall!

I shall redeem myself by climbing tomorrow instead! (as well as starting week two of the 100 pushs challenge.)