Tuesday 28 August 2007

The Works - The School

Took Natalie to the works yesterday for her first session after our trip, was pretty amazed by the transformation in her footwork and all in all the general improvement. I didn't climb at the works, ended up chatting to dense quite a bit and discussing various party pieces on the campus board/ pinch rails.
The new painting at the works looks quite funky but each time I go in that place it seems to look less like a climbing wall and more like a modern art museum, with loads of bright colours and strange shapes (as well as a half complete window painting, wtf?).

The comp wall has been tinkered with leaving it a lot steeper but a pile of volumes waiting underneath it tend to suggest that it'll be ruined a.s.a.p, its not open yet due to a lack of structural steel. I am impresed that the guys down there are changing things about to make people happier but seriously, why not do something about a fixed board? I understand it will cost money etc. but its a request that I have heard a lot, the whole volume wall seems like a bit of self indulgence to me, fair enough I doubt it cost anywhere near the amount changing the fixed board might but still.....

Spoke to Mo (the sole user of the current fixed board) and he told me that it was soon to become a normal section of the wall just like the rest of it, with set problems etc.
The climbing Gnome was once again in residence looking strong but like a bit of a poser.
After Nat finished I got her to drop me off at the school, a mysterious package awaited Ben so I sent him a text and it didn't take long for him to pop in and investigate. The session started really well for me, came painfully close to Basic Ben but screwed up the last snatch of glory. Attempts rapidly went downhill so I took a concious decision to leave it and do easier problems that attacked weaknesses of mine, the gift with my finish for my weak stomach, driller killer as you have to concentrate all the time and finally schoolboy because by this time I was knackered and it is just pure power. Not a bad session I guess but progress is a little slower than I would have liked but thats always the case is it not? I finished with some bench press and then some press-ups (both of which I can feel this morning) in order to try and sort out the chest cracking/pains i've been having.
Going to head over to Nige's with Dense later for a look at their board.

Sunday 26 August 2007

Long Font/Amsterdam report



Well the package Nat and I were waiting on came early a couple of Mondays ago now, we made the (rushed) decision to leave that day and so I spent the morning rushing around like a blue arsed fly changing money, paying in cheques for the car (Full amount, no hassle!), buying spare bulbs and all the paraphenalie required to drive the car on the other side of the road (although i'm not sure why, the french don't even seem to maintain their cars, it looks like there are thousands of scooters driving around paris at night but oh no, its the french in their little twingo's...), we made a brief stop at Nat's parents place for dinner, we went out to a posh chinese where her dad spent the vast majority of the evening trying to persuade me to drive his techno barge 7-series, I refused (knowing full well that my bank balance wasn't enough to repair even the slightest damage to the car). After that we had a few hours sleep before heading down to Dover for the 19 quid ferry at 4am. We followed the POI file for the Trois Pignon all the way down through Northern France without hassle before at the last minute following signs for La Musardiere campsite, thank god for SatNav, it made the journey very easy especially as Natalie slept for its entirety. On arrival it was very hot and we pitched the (tiny) tent without trouble. We both decided we would have a rest day on arrival because of our stupidly early ferry so we sat around for the rest of the day. It started chucking it down early evening and was still going the next morning. Crap.
I had initially wanted to start our climbing at Hatues-Plaines but a quick rece showed it to be wet, which I was expecting. Instead we headed over to Cul De Chien, the boulders were dry and we began climbing despite the grey clouds that were looming. We started on the kiddie's circuit and Natalie impressed me by having no problem whatsover with the first five or so yellow's I pointed her to.

One particularly heavy shower hit mid afternoon so we headed around to l'autre toit for some shelter, I had a quick look at a few of the problems but didn't get overly psyched. On the way past we stopped at the firs section of Roche aux Sabots where I pointed Natalie at a few harder problems, not too long after that she got up a blue, it wasn't elegant but that doesn't really matter. I did a few of the problems that I could remember enjoying in the past, including bazooka joe, its a really nice rock up and lock for those who don't know it on the side of the jet set boulder, well worth a look.
Over the next few days the weather improved, we ended up moving the tent as we were literally surrounded on all sides by a large french party at one time. The sat nav well and truely died, the sound doesn't seem to work at all now and I can't figure out what the hell is wrong with it, it only narrowly escaped being ejected from the car window on one of the faster, more fun french D-roads.
We visited loads of venues, Hautes-Plaines, Buthiers, Apremont-Envers, Beauvais, Cul de chien, 95.2, Cuvier (what a mess this was, you could literally follow the empty condom wrappers from the car park to cortomaltese) and Sabots.
Natalie did well on all of the circuits, doing extremely well on the blue next to Miss KGB at 95.2. It took her a while to get used to the significantly smaller footholds compared to the bolt-a-ledges used at the climbing works but that was expected.
During the week we kept checking the forecast in Switzerland and it wasn't good, rain, showers and an impending thunderstorm so after a while I decided that taking it easy in Font wasn't a good idea just in case we didn't end up going on the swiss leg of our trip. In the evenings we headed to specific venues for me to try harder problems, given the summer temps I tried to be sensible and stick to the crimpy problems on boulders covered in limestone or easier slopey problems. I was quite happy with the ticks given my long lay off and the temps although not so happy with my performance on one problem. Magic Bus.

The day I tried this it was HOT so I waited until evening and eventually found the cave its located in. Initially I tried a sequence that was pretty much all power. Undercuts at the back, right hand to good scooped foot hold and again to the undercut on the lip of the cave, left foot on good foot hold, power up to sloper then the finish. It wasn't working and I was sure there must be some serious toe-hooking faggotry to be had. After a while I tried another sequence, undercuts then LH to crimp, right foot out wide, left heel/toe on undercuts, then RH into undercut on lip, it felt like it should be much easier but at the crucial moment each time one of either of my feet popped. It started to get annoying so I opted to go back to the pure power sequence, this time stopping to catch an undercut pocket (completely the wrong way mind you) before powering for the sloper. After a few tries I caught the pocket and it all felt very easy...Damn annoying, really need to sort out my toe hooking so I can use them well rather than opting for an akward heel instead.
Earlier on in the week we popped over to cuvier, did Cortomaltese because its an amazing problem, nobody was around to hiss/spit/boo as I crimped the hell out of the ripples on the lower slopers. Then we went to do the Marie Rose, I have to admite that on the first attempt I bailed due to being an absoloute wuss with my leg, after sitting around for 5 mins or so being thoroughly pissed off about this I got back on it and clawed my way over the top using the very sweaty slopers, I'd hoped this could be a hard problem for Nat to try during the week but i'd forgotten how cr*p those slopers get in the heat. Oh well.
Anyway this post must be tres long already? (boring as well no doubt) so i'll try and shorten the next bit. At the end of the week the weather broke and we were left with a difficult decision, 7 hours over to Magic Wood where the weather was looking poor, or home (via amsterdam). We opted for the latter, I was unwilling to taint Nat's first proper climbing trip with a week of potentially horrible weather. Dave Mason sent me a txt saying that he was managing to climb between the showers, if it had just been me then I would of gone for it, however driving 14 hours to get wet for no reason didn't seem like fun.

The latter half of the trip isn't climbing based so i'll try and keep it in one short paragraph. We went to Amsterdam, via Brussels. Spent a great deal of time walking around seeing the sights for a few days before heading back via Rotterdam (shithole) before returning to Dunkerque. Just before getting to the ferry terminal a porsche GT3 from a British Driving school overtook me at a ridiculous speed. Amazing. We then drove back to Watford where we made good inroads on the wine we brought back and I finally succumbed to being the designated driver and driving the 730d automatic, that thing is just ridiculously large (suprised it doesn't say Boeing somewhere on the side), and has automatic everything including handbrake, all you have to do is press stop and go...




Nat's punto did admirably on the trip increasing its lifetime average from 57mpg to 67mpg (god knows what it would have average for the trip alone 70 something?), before the side window popped out yeterday... although some shoving fixed that in no time.
Right I need to get back up the school as i'm feeling weak.

Sorry about the length of the post.

Friday 10 August 2007

Europe

Well Natalie got back on wednesday complete with two huge cases full of clothes. My chest has been feeling better each day and I reckon tomorrow i'm about ready to climb again. I've spent the last few days eating a lot and drinking, tonight will be no exception as i'm about to head out to the "Floody Hell" beer festival although I won't be having too much as I DO want to train tomorrow and beer makes me feel crappy.
Currently there is a tent in our main room, anchored to various pieces of furniture to hold it up (it hadn't been aired since ceuse a couple of years ago and still had a bag of half eaten Haribo inside), after two false starts to trips since the big one was cancelled it finally looks like i'll be off sometime next week for a few weeks. The plan is to hit fontainebleau and do easy stuff with Natalie so she can enjoy the sun and climbing (and I can do a bit but mostly eat cake), and then to head over to the land of magic grades to see how weak I am (or more to the point how soft the grading really is...), on the way we're going to stop off at a few places we'd like to see and maybe a quick trip through Germany on the way back...who knows.

Tuesday 7 August 2007

Early Doors.

Went up the school this morning as my folks should be here in a minute so later wasn't an option. Much cooler up there depsite the corridor being very hot. Did a few good problems on the 50, nothing of note, dave did basic ben I dropped C45, seems to be stopping me that move. Unfortunately not long after warming up I got a sharp pain in my chest (around my sternum) and it stayed there for the rest of the session and is still there now. Very uncomfortable, wonder what it is?
Moved over to the cressbrook board, failed on the last move of stuperman, and dropped the last move of uncle crimpy guts...ah well, the improvement is obvious.

Sunday 5 August 2007

The fire of a thousand suns...

...was upon the schoolroom today, my god it was hot. Warmed up slowly then slipped off loads of different problems loads of time before both dave and I got fed up, he gave up and i did reps on Chalk n Blow with a weightbelt. Did more walking than climbing, the place really is more of a crag than a board sometimes.
Has anyone seen the large red pusher system tile? It seems to have gone walkabout...

Saturday 4 August 2007

Motorsport

Got sent this the other day:


it's a tad depressing but sums up why the drivers campaigned so hard for stricter safety regulations on the cars....

Friday 3 August 2007

Good Session!

Well I guess now I can pretty much say that last sessions poor performance was due to overdoing it the time before. Waited in all day for a package, it never came (sorry dave should of just gone earlier). Got to the school warmed up very concious of the fact that I was the only one there so needed to rest a lot (started using my phone to time 2 minute and 5 minute rest periods), warmed up over about half an hour then got on schoolgirl, first go I came off backwards on the large wooden pinch, it was very humid. 2nd go nailed it. Next up was turd reich, 1st go again I did a spectacular dismount off backwards, 2nd go latched the final block, finger stayed off the top, campus to glory. Next up was total recoil, did this first go then tried bradbury finish but didn't have enough push from my leg. Got on driller killer as i'd been struggling with the last move since I started again, did it but was shakey as hell on the last move. Moved over to the cressbrook board and tried stuperman, worked out what to do and did it to the last move but i'm not strong enough to do that rockover yet and was starting to get tired hence I deecided to stop strong so that I can train again soon rather than having a crap session next time...
Nige came in as I was leaving...Turns out red bull DOES NOT make climbing boots more sticky.

Thursday 2 August 2007

Bad Session...

Terrible in fact, can't really work out what was wrong but I wasn't going well at all, I could blame it on the heat up there tonight but mainly I think I was lacking enthusiasm and maybe overdid it a little on monday? who knows, it happens. Dave is starting to look stronger in the finger department which is good and managed a sweaty ascent of Owlowek. Left early so not much to say. 2/10 for the session, 8/10 for the walking, did it in under 45 minutes which is good going as my calf is still a bit of a weakling. I need to find more enthusiasm for Friday (Watch: Rocky III and The real thing), considering a change of scene but usually when I go to the works instead I regret it and swear not to do it again for ages. One week until I pick Natalie up from her hols where she has been buying mountains of clothes in Florida.
Oh and the good news is the school is safe for a little longer...would say more but its over on Dobbin's blog.
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.