Tuesday 30 October 2007

Lots of Climbing

Lot of climbing to report since last blog. Friday night was spent on the board with a large crowd. Keith looking very strong on Feel the Pinch which he WILL tick pretty quickly i'm sure. Had a couple of goes on stuey, keith pointed out that the guide is incorrect and hence my foot sequence isn't allowed. I change but still persist on adding foot faff that was just removed by last sequence. Ponce around a bit on some other problems, feeling fairly good but to be honest i'd hope for more. Eliminate foot faff and have a few goes on stuey, each one being better than the last until that first move (now a litte more powerful) had me sapped. Did a few other things then left.
On checking the forecast for the weekend late that night we decided saturday was looking the best, most of you know, it wasn't. We got to the stride at around 10am managed to find a couple of easy slabs that were dry for Nat to play on. We then wandered over to cratcliffe and I proceeded to make my digits bleed trying wet problems. A quick check of the top boulders (wet), before we headed back to the works. By this time I was knackered I simply don't ever do two days on. Sunday; Rest, and the weather looked much better so I sit and curse the weatherman. One of my freinds from uni is in the peak and stayed over to try and climb on monday.
Monday: We (Me and James Blay) went out to plantation, walking up we got soaked despite the sky being completely cloud free (que more cursing of the weatherman). NTBTA, the Storm, Brad Pit, all soaked. We head over to the pebble area and play around on Deliverance, I was pleased to find the traverse into the flake absoloutely piss showing my footwork to have improved drastically. We both had a few decent goes on this and then I did several laps of the full green traverse (because I like it and all the eliminates I know on it).
My folks stopped in for lunch that day on the way back from visiting my uncle. James borrowed (my only) set of flat keys to go and remove his gear from his car. Minutes later my phone rang, the fool had managed to lock my keys and HIS, in the boot of his old volvo..He asked if I had any experience of braking into cars, which I dont. Despite this I grabbed my toolkit and went down to his aid. A bit of pondering went on between us, james' rage showing through as he was eyeing up which window to smash/punch out. Anyway: crimp the top of the door, flat edged screwdriver in to create small gap, another driver in the side gap. Next an extra long zip tie was fastened to leave a small loop and a long tail, feed this down the side of the door and hook it onto the central locking pin. Pull tight, pull upwards and we're in. Not a mark on the car either. Very fun. Volvo 440's aren't exactly secure then, it took around 15s.
In the evening myself and masonic dave went up the board. I had a few more goes on stuey (as ever) but I was far from psyched for it. As Dave was trying (and succesffuly climbed) Turd Reich, I left him to it rather than sweat up the pinch. Instead I did a load of stuff on the cressbrook board, including uncle crimpy guts and my own problem, both of which fealt like a path. I did a bit on the 30 deg board afterwards but my finger started to feel a bit crunchy. Bench press then home.
I'm quite impressed with the amount of climbing I have managed over the last few days.

Thursday 25 October 2007

EUREKA!

cip07pb logged on to ICEBERG. Now I can actually see things, all I need to do is learn CFD modelling, thats what the PHD is for.

From HERO to ZER0

Monday night I ventured up the board, i'd been avoiding it due to my finger swelling up on even large holds which lets be fair: the board has very little of.
Warmed up well, lock was feeling good etc. Pointed dobbin at my as yet unamed new ish 7b(+). Had a quick go at stuey, feeling really strong on the pinch, and the swing but drop it, another go shows temperatures to be far from ideal. There were a lot of bodies in the room, still good to see the place busy ish sessions can be very dull up there alone. Had a quick go at snot, half hearted but just to see how it was feeling, my conclusion is doable but first I should finish stuey. Tried my HARD problem, did well on it but again my thoughts were on the slightly warm conditions so I did a few ticky odds and ends before getting onto my circuit of doom! Pulled on to Total Recoil BB, onto the small pinch did a double snatch caused by grease and stepped off very angry. Next go I got through that move (shakily) and headed up to the top, down basic jez, across into basic bowie, up to the crimp then the little pinch, feeling wrecked now, pull foot up and then sag down onto the mat after a pitiful slap. Pleased with my effort, warm down with some footless problems and then do some bench press. A really good session despite it being AGES since I trained up there...
Yesterday I rested and wasted lots of time configuring random remote access clients for use with a university super computer. At the end of the day I still couldnt logon.
Up early today which was novel, again spend ages faffing to get nowhere, well not nowehere I can logon, I just can't do anything, well I can but it wont show me it.
Walked up the board still psyched from Mon's session. Warm up feeling pretty rubbish, have to try a bit too hard on basic jez...Add a few others to my warm up to make sure its not just a slow start, try basic ben and drop c45 and again drop c45 and again...you get the picture. Instead of trashing myself I realised that I probably overdid it on monday and call it a night after about 40 mins. I chose to console myself later by getting some food from the broomhill friary, it seems to me that this establishments has gone seriously down hill over the last 6 months. Boo HISS!
Looking forward to the weekend now, hopefully Nat and I will have no suprise visits from her brother and be able to get out and do some easy bouldering. Not looking forward to the crowds to be honest but I think I may have a plan.
Turns out my Ipod is one of the few models where the volume can't be uncapped, which is a shame but maybe its time to splash out on some funky headphones? who knows.

oh - Keith was up the board when I arrived, filming himself on Feel the pinch, supposedly he's been getting very close (c45), he's going for the womens way of jumping rather than my beefy lock beta, granted i'm yet to do it that way but a climing shire horse should surely be tempted by the beefier option? I also believe that if he is to do it, that it would be its only repeat?

Sunday 21 October 2007

Catch Up Blog...

Bascially after my finger stopped hurting I had a session down the works, I tried to take it easy but failed miserably, that, and taking my tape off mid session left me with a very sore finger the next morning. After sulking a bit and posting on UKB I went to the works when 'The Clinic' offer a free consulation period (and cheap treatment). Rick had a prod a twist etc. of my finger and then told me that it was probably a ligament strain, he gave it a bit of deep friction massage and told me to tape a lot and climb trying not to aggrivate it. Ice after climbing and deep friction massage every couple of days. He also said that pulling hard wasn't ruled out and as long as it doesnt hurt then i'm ok. On that note I had a session today, a bit of an odd one as Nat's brother is down and for some reason she wanted him to try climbing. Now just to be clear he isnt the type of person that would usually come to climb, you all know the type. In the end I just got on with my session and left them to it. A long warm up, no pain so I progressed to harder and harder problems, got on the grey problem on the comp wall and dropped it on the final moves, damnm. My finger started to get a little sore so i re-tightened the tape and tried again, no problem. After a bit I called it quits and warmed down, no soreness at all, RESULT! Next session i shall be mostly be climbing on THE board. The new black circuit was begining to emerge and my first impression weren't good, the steep steep bit of wall where the hanging slab was is now littered with humungus holds, ruining the best red problem and probably leaving it a bit cr*p for all future hard problems.
Watched the rugby this evening, disapointing result but a good game and a good impovement over the tournament, hopefully Lewis Hamilton will give us a win tomorrow to make up for it but I doubt it, too much pressure?
Dobbin emailed me the last edition of the school guides for editing and re-binding through free university facilities so expect a few changes, get any projects/new problems written down (legibly if possible) and i'll do my best to stick them in.
Its very late now an all thats on is twister. Damn you coca cola.

Sunday 14 October 2007

Superset

Taken from http://climbingworks.blogspot.com:


Truely Worrying....

My finger has finally stopped being swollen and irritating, I feel like I could start climbing again lightly but can't really decide if its just going to flare back up again and I should give it more time?

I decided to split my gym workout as well, instead of having one body destroying session every other day I now have two' superset' sessions on alternate days. Takes a lot of effort to be arsed to go to the gym compared to the board etc.

Committed premier tonight at the works, I think Nat and I will probably go as I doubt i'll buy the DVD, hopefully it doesn't play too much on the danger side of headpointing too much or it might become tedious, the various voice overs on the trailer seem to.

oh, just to show how on the ball Sheffield Uni are: Yesterday I recieved an offer letter after starting 2/3 weeks ago....

Thursday 11 October 2007

Testing and Gym Culture

At the start of the week the odd feeling cod finger hadn't improved or got any worse, i've been holding back my board visits in the hope it might just go away. This hasn't happened so I went down to the works to try and identify what was wrong with it and therefore what on earth I should do, the night wasn't really conclusive, warming up it was feelign fine until a sharp jug put pressure on it, after I stepped off it didn't hurt, carried on warming up and something felt a bit sore on one of the reds but again nothing I could put my finger on, I carried on warming up, did some probems with Dave and he corrected the crap beta travs gave me on a new problem on the training board (given 8a+), the first move that had been kicking my ass went first go and dave promptly ticked the problem. Sat down and Mike Lea (Lee maybe?) started discussing the school and told me how happy it would make him to see the boards burn, did someone pick on him while he was up there or something? He certainly spoke of the place in a bitter way.
Anyway the next morning my finger was a little sore in the side, for this reason I decided i'll take a break rather than risk making it worse, i mean whats two weeks off compared to five months? and its not as if getting back to strength was taking ages.
Due to the above, I headed to cancel my gym membership (that i forgot about completely), it has a 30 day cancellation clause so I can use it in my rest time. I decided while I was there I should make use of the 40 min walk each way and have a session:
Bench Press
Fly
Shoulder Press
Behind Neck Shoulder Press
Incline Bench
Curls
Tricep Extensions
Upright Row
Lower Back
Leg Raises
Lat Pull Down
Seated Row
Vertical Traxion

...collapse in sauna. The soreness is still with me!

Que rant: Why at these gyms do people hand out stupid advice? For instance, why is the 60 year old man with a huge beer gut doing crunches? It's a waste of his time, get on the treadmill eat less rubbish and it'll go, rock around 30 times on a mat and it will not. Incidentally why is it that the same people seem to have some kind of nudist streak and insist on doing absoloutely everything they possibly can in the changing rooms nude? Hair Drying, Shaving, Weighing themselves....

On another note, I found an available unit for the school (Don't get too excited people its pricey), 1700 sqft, £7250 per annum 18ft ceilings (or so i'm told), parking and just down the road from the school (Edmund Rd), waiting for the bloke to call me back about the rental agreement to see how it would need to be paid. I've spent a while looking and THIS is the only unit that seems to suit. Let's see if others have done better or more importantly come crunch time who'll put their money where their mouth is!!!

Was at the works last night for a bit of spotting duty, to be honest I was pretty unimpressed to see what had been put up on the new steep boards, the hardest problems (excluding the volume nonsense) looked on for the flash, or am I way off? (The grey one up the 55 deg and the green up the far right section?), I hope there's smaller holds to come, all the holds seemed pretty big, disapointing. You'll be pleased to see though that the kiddies boulder now has a rainbow painted on it! Great stuff....?

Monday 8 October 2007

Lacklustre...

Well a week passed by with me trying my best to nurse my finger back to full strength unfortunately to no avail. The annoying thing is I don't have a clue what is wrong with it, its not the usual ring finger crimping demon injury its the index finger and it doesnt really bother me when i'm climbing (i'm just very aware that a previous irritation on a finger got significantly worse because I tried to convince myself it didn't exist). Using my nail to prod the bottom pulley (probably a bad idea) I can't find any one point that is particularly sore, slightly to one side an area is a bit tender but it seems likely thats it been caused by all the testing. Open handing doesn't hurt, crimping doesnt seem to either and my last two sessions where I tried to take it easy ended up with me on red's with no problem during or after apart from something feeling a bit weird with the finger (no pain). Maybe its some kind of crush injury caused by my last attempt on stuey? or maybe a ligament sprain caused by pinching too hard too early in a session (again on stuey...), I really don't want it to get worse but conversely I dont want to take time off uncessesarily...Anyone got any ideas? I've checked climbinginjuries.com and initially thought it was a sprain but now i'm less than certain...
On friday I had my first go at teaching, I felt like a bit of a fraud as I know very little more than them on the subject of the module however the session went by without any major hiccups, however everyone taking it seemed to be ill, I woke up on saturday with little more than a sore throat but by the looks of it Nat has managed to catch the whole lot off me, she wasn't in the best mood today before work for that reason.
Right better do some (more) reading, I'm guessing I shouldn't train this evening but I desperately want to find out what is really up with this finger and what it can cope with...
Oh Top Gear returned this weekend, very unimpressed by it. The cars seem to become less and less of a focus, although I have to admit I did like the look of the roads around magic wood and the boy racer styling of the Golf GTI 640 (very clio V6 esque, Andi_E speaks sense)...

Monday 1 October 2007

Car Bore

For anyone who reads this and isn't interested in cars, dont worry there is a climbing bore post below this one. Anyway i've just seen this, the new mini clubman:


and think it deserves to go in the same hall of fame as the renault vel satis, BMW what have you done!
On the same show I also saw the new fiat 500, looks like an awesome little car which sounded pretty sporty for a small car (nice exhaust note)...The interior looked alright unlike the panda etc.

Anyway a van is still the most appealing option at the minute, there's a tasteful vw t4 thats often at the works (blue, lowered, alloys), anyone know who owns it?

Today was also the first day of my PHD, I was very suprised at how little everyone was doing and even more so when my supervisor showed up and said "ooh, didn't expect to see you here today", its my first day!!!

Woodwell, School...

After my last post this was sitting in my pm box:

Just read the last post on your blog and thought I'd just confirm that the quote about The School "back in the day" is total bollocks. Although I was never a particularly regular visitor to The School (my own board took up most of my time) I went quite a few times and knew pretty much everyone who did go regularly from when it was built. This halcyon view of 30 (?) or so people all happily training in their own groups with punters bumbling about alongside Malc and Stuart is utter tosh. If anything more people use the place now (by the sound of things). I don't know why there is such a feeling of hostility towards the School and it's users. It just seems a bit sad. The place has always been slightly elitist but just because you need to climb pretty hard to get the most out of it and there is f*ck all wrong with that.

So that's clarified that!

Anyway, I finally got out last week. Initial plans for a Monday trip were ruined by the threat of bad weather, on wednesday I had to see a man about a cyclops (some piece of die tracing equipment) up near leeds/bradford. I slung my kit and mats into the car. I dropped Nat off at work (nice business park on the North side of Wakefield) and carried on further North hitting about as much of the rush hour traffic as is physically possible. After my meeting (which was pointless and didn't last long at all) I decided on my destination, now caley, Almscliffe etc would of been the logical choice but I was psyched to try something hard. Over to Woodwell it was then. Warmed up on all the steep easy problems which are mostly nice but I feel they lack a logical or good finishing hold? I then did some of the problems on the LHS, beauty of being etc. After that I had a brief hang on the Art of Self Destruction to warm up, must say the top bit felt far too easy to be F8a/V11 so I towelled off the soapy undercuts and gave it a go, the first move is a long way and the footlock LH up 1st beta was failing me, changed my sequence using more of a toe jam and RH up first and got matched up on the crimps, thumb over the sharp pointy bit. Tension and lift your foot up to the glassy polish then push for a reasonable pocket around the lip before finishing. Can't really say if it justifies the grade? It certainly isnt hard for the grade.
After this I had a large bit of cake and realised just how cold it was now that my jumper was covered in limestone gunk and water. I moved on to the next buttress and did the 7b traverse (name?) that starts after the hard section of anesthesia. I then tried it from the true start miles to the left, further than is logical even. The third ish move proved to be a stopper for me the LH hold being a bit too slopey. I decided to try it from the "better" crimps (1 move further on) and managed a good link past the jug on the 7b, stepped off at this point to try and reserve some energy for a decent push, this was futile however as my forearms were starting to feel as if i'd been using a steak hammer on them... A few half hearted attempts and I decided to call it a day, passed gregs free guide on to some guy who was using the Lancashire route guide as his bible, he was very pleased.
I had a board session on friday but was still tired, had a few good goes at my project but didn't manage it, dave mason was back and looking fairly strong.
Last night I had a board session with Lee, conditions seemed pretty rubbish suprisingly and it took me around 6 goes just to hold the swing on stuey, not a good sign. The next go however was to be the best i'd had. Pulled on, RH into U/cut, foot higher on kickboard, RF up to 1st u/cut, flick to pinch, adjust before matching feet and PULLING into the horizontal pinch, campus really hard, LH properly over the blue edge but no energy left to even try and fight the swing. DAMN, Lee even gave me a minute before the mocking started. Tried again but had no energy left...Next time surely?

Boring stuff below:
After an exchange of pm's with greg about the lines and stuff at woodwell I was left a bit confused. It seems (at least to me) that anesthesia has only had one true repeat by greg himself the other two seem to have been less than pure (not just for going high at the end), as they started one or two moves from the JG start, this has probably all come about from the stick it! footage, remember people sit down where you think it starts then move left until your 6" from the floor with your LH. IT STARTS HERE!!! It also turns out that the good link I put together gets a grade of its own, if you don't step off on the easy stuff. Stupid..Stupid.
Please disregard anything you read on this page. It's all just random thoughts and opinions based on very little. Therefore it's not worth getting upset about. In fact; just don't bother reading it, it'd make life easier for everyone involved.