Nat's Warrington death flu has become worse and worse since Fri, today she was at the docs and was handed a prescription for some Antibiotics despite this she's beginning to perk up.
Up until now I've been feeling fine but tonight I feel like utter sh*t. What could be worse before a bouldering trip than being ill and having to work hard?
I went to the works on Mon, again the comp wall wasn't too thrilling and the training board didn't seem much better (sorry Dave M).
Tuesday 16 December 2008
Saturday 13 December 2008
Day Off
Nat took this Fri off, the plan was to break up the journey to the North East (Chrimbo Visit) with a days climbing in Yorkshire.
Slipstones looked the best bet weatherwise after a lengthy chat with a few people.
Only one problem, thur evening Nat arrived home early with some form of the Plague, Fri morning she was worse and the last thing that seemed sensible was to go out climbing in the freezing cold.
Damn
Damn
Damn
Mon I will be back in Sheffield
By Thur finish (should that be start?) stupid RTP report that will eat time.
Thur drive down to Watford.
Fri drive to FONT!
Slipstones looked the best bet weatherwise after a lengthy chat with a few people.
Only one problem, thur evening Nat arrived home early with some form of the Plague, Fri morning she was worse and the last thing that seemed sensible was to go out climbing in the freezing cold.
Damn
Damn
Damn
Mon I will be back in Sheffield
By Thur finish (should that be start?) stupid RTP report that will eat time.
Thur drive down to Watford.
Fri drive to FONT!
Wednesday 10 December 2008
Is grit worth it? Part II
Friday night came and pessimistic Paul reared his ugly head. I went to the foundry. I found most people down there to be proclaiming the forecast incredible and they couldn't believe they had to visit their Gran/work/take the car in etc. I warmed up slowly and kept explaining my fruitless day on the grit earlier in the week. My cries of melt water and ice did nothing to dampen their impressions of the forecast and so in an unprecedented move I took off my boots, and headed home (without pulling hard at all).
The morning came and I wasted a tonne of texts finding out what was in condition. Nothing seemed perfect so I headed to Robin Hood's and Cratcliffe.
We warmed up on the chipped arete boulder. Jackpot! Conditions were incredible and I promptly phoned my mate James to gloat. After we were both warm (and I was bleeding from 3 knuckles after a moment of sheer stupidity) I remarked "I'll just go and do Jerry's Arete quickly before we venture on"...
*Tantrum*
Yes, despite my best efforts I couldn't claw my ass up it which was quite frankly dismaying given 3 years ago I nearly flashed it and then did it second go. I convinced myself I had the sequence wrong (I didn't) and wasted ages on it before it finally dawned on me; maybe conditions weren't very good down here in the trees. In fact, it turned out that conditions were fairly poo everywhere other than the first boulder we climbed on...Thank f*ck for that otherwise I'd be metaphorically hanging my boots up (that one's for Ben).
At Cratcliffe it was much the same. We did a few things but it all felt a little damp and I was very aware that climbing on wet grit is very bad practice so we called it a day. Not quickly enough as Nat managed to fall off and stamp my hand onto a nearby boulder. I ran around for a few minutes like you do exhaling loudly. The next day it was swollen and very sore!
Not quite as sore as James' ankle. The plonker fell of great white on his best go yet and dislocated his ankle on the mats. After picking him up from the Hallamshire Nat and I braved Meadowhell for Christmas purposes, it wasn't nice but it was needed.
His ankle is much better just a few days on. Being stubborn he's walking on it a lot and pretending it isn't hurting at all.
Right time to be off, Nat is arriving back at the station from her works Christmas do. It could be interesting...
The morning came and I wasted a tonne of texts finding out what was in condition. Nothing seemed perfect so I headed to Robin Hood's and Cratcliffe.
We warmed up on the chipped arete boulder. Jackpot! Conditions were incredible and I promptly phoned my mate James to gloat. After we were both warm (and I was bleeding from 3 knuckles after a moment of sheer stupidity) I remarked "I'll just go and do Jerry's Arete quickly before we venture on"...
*Tantrum*
Yes, despite my best efforts I couldn't claw my ass up it which was quite frankly dismaying given 3 years ago I nearly flashed it and then did it second go. I convinced myself I had the sequence wrong (I didn't) and wasted ages on it before it finally dawned on me; maybe conditions weren't very good down here in the trees. In fact, it turned out that conditions were fairly poo everywhere other than the first boulder we climbed on...Thank f*ck for that otherwise I'd be metaphorically hanging my boots up (that one's for Ben).
At Cratcliffe it was much the same. We did a few things but it all felt a little damp and I was very aware that climbing on wet grit is very bad practice so we called it a day. Not quickly enough as Nat managed to fall off and stamp my hand onto a nearby boulder. I ran around for a few minutes like you do exhaling loudly. The next day it was swollen and very sore!
Not quite as sore as James' ankle. The plonker fell of great white on his best go yet and dislocated his ankle on the mats. After picking him up from the Hallamshire Nat and I braved Meadowhell for Christmas purposes, it wasn't nice but it was needed.
His ankle is much better just a few days on. Being stubborn he's walking on it a lot and pretending it isn't hurting at all.
Right time to be off, Nat is arriving back at the station from her works Christmas do. It could be interesting...
Friday 5 December 2008
Grit, is it really worth it?
The other day was a real let down. Dave, Katherine, Vic's, Nacho and myself arrived at a locked plantation car park shortly to find out that everything was suffering from run off. Burbage West wasn't much better so after moping around Dave and I went back to Sheffield via the Broomhill friary.
In the evening I climbed like a donkey, I'd resurrected my old boots and my feet were skidding all over the place. TBH looking back the session wasn't terrible but there were plenty of signs telling me to stop and go home. I ignored these but had a laugh nonetheless with Andy H reminding us of some of the classic feature and disc problems on the wave.
Just found this on the Climbing Acadmeys Blog:
In the evening I climbed like a donkey, I'd resurrected my old boots and my feet were skidding all over the place. TBH looking back the session wasn't terrible but there were plenty of signs telling me to stop and go home. I ignored these but had a laugh nonetheless with Andy H reminding us of some of the classic feature and disc problems on the wave.
Just found this on the Climbing Acadmeys Blog:
Tuesday 2 December 2008
Life getting in the way?
It may seem like my plan to try and get out as much as possible has failed and I'm falling comfortably back into my training rut. But, I must assure you this is not the case!
Last weekend I went out on Sat with Nat. As this is old news now I'll be brief; we started at the plantation which was cut short by a trip over to Froggat to spot a mate on Renegade. He didn't need it and was packing up as we arrived (ARGH!), Met Richdraws. With about an hour and a half of light remaining I had a tussle with Famous Grouse at BBG West. I lost. It felt like a bit of a wasted day for me at least. Thanks to Andy J, Nat floated up Pebble arête and was made up. Maybe by the ascent but mainly I believe at how nice everyone is in the 'scene' if I dare call it that. She's never really enjoyed 'sport' etc. but I think the social side of climbing and the fact she now realises that it doesn't just come instantly have helped in this case. Thankfully with no applied pressure from my direction, well apart from the odd rant.
Sunday wasn't good as I remember and the week was a busy one for me. This Friday I was meant to be out with Neddy boy but he screwed up his lecture timings and it left me a bit short on time which again felt like a bit of a waste.
The weekend was spent stranded in Watford with Nat's family instead of the usual Xmas formalities. Although I was a little bored I get on well with her family and her Dad has a lot more time to be sociable now that he is fully retired. Lots of drink was had and I scored brownie points by fixing various electronic devices and turning their DVD player Multi-region.
Now I'm back in Sheffield and I'm starting to get a bit worried about what I want to achieve work wise by Christmas and how little time I have left. Not to mention the fact that I only have one more weekend (this one coming) to enjoy in the Peak before its time for Bleau! Despite that I'm heading out tomorrow with Dave M to meet a team at the plantation before going to Baslow for Dave to do Flatworld RH (I think?).
I've been frequenting the Foundry board when I've had free time and I've just started getting to grips with it in the last two sessions (despite having man flu). Its not perfect but it IS good. Great to see Andy 'hydraulic crimping fingers' Harris at the wall the other night.
I also had the pleasure of meeting Dan V properly this week and being shown their board (although I couldn't climb as Nat had stolen all of my stuff). Thoroughly nice bloke and he didn't seem to take offence to some past comments made about Queens, although TBH I think my comments weren't the offensive ones!
It seems like a lot of people are out in Font over new year, if you're one of them then let me know its been ages since I tried something in a big team. It may even give me the balls to try some highballs. Hotline is on my list already!
Last weekend I went out on Sat with Nat. As this is old news now I'll be brief; we started at the plantation which was cut short by a trip over to Froggat to spot a mate on Renegade. He didn't need it and was packing up as we arrived (ARGH!), Met Richdraws. With about an hour and a half of light remaining I had a tussle with Famous Grouse at BBG West. I lost. It felt like a bit of a wasted day for me at least. Thanks to Andy J, Nat floated up Pebble arête and was made up. Maybe by the ascent but mainly I believe at how nice everyone is in the 'scene' if I dare call it that. She's never really enjoyed 'sport' etc. but I think the social side of climbing and the fact she now realises that it doesn't just come instantly have helped in this case. Thankfully with no applied pressure from my direction, well apart from the odd rant.
Sunday wasn't good as I remember and the week was a busy one for me. This Friday I was meant to be out with Neddy boy but he screwed up his lecture timings and it left me a bit short on time which again felt like a bit of a waste.
The weekend was spent stranded in Watford with Nat's family instead of the usual Xmas formalities. Although I was a little bored I get on well with her family and her Dad has a lot more time to be sociable now that he is fully retired. Lots of drink was had and I scored brownie points by fixing various electronic devices and turning their DVD player Multi-region.
Now I'm back in Sheffield and I'm starting to get a bit worried about what I want to achieve work wise by Christmas and how little time I have left. Not to mention the fact that I only have one more weekend (this one coming) to enjoy in the Peak before its time for Bleau! Despite that I'm heading out tomorrow with Dave M to meet a team at the plantation before going to Baslow for Dave to do Flatworld RH (I think?).
I've been frequenting the Foundry board when I've had free time and I've just started getting to grips with it in the last two sessions (despite having man flu). Its not perfect but it IS good. Great to see Andy 'hydraulic crimping fingers' Harris at the wall the other night.
I also had the pleasure of meeting Dan V properly this week and being shown their board (although I couldn't climb as Nat had stolen all of my stuff). Thoroughly nice bloke and he didn't seem to take offence to some past comments made about Queens, although TBH I think my comments weren't the offensive ones!
It seems like a lot of people are out in Font over new year, if you're one of them then let me know its been ages since I tried something in a big team. It may even give me the balls to try some highballs. Hotline is on my list already!
Wednesday 26 November 2008
Choo choo!
Yesterday I was required to be at Warwick Uni for the day, to find out as per usual, that the other person involved on my project work has done sweet FA. As usual I gave her all my results and hard earned literature review and spent the day having holes picked in my work and plans for the future. Thankfully, this time I could answer all of the questions and defended myself admirably.
By the end of the day (again as per usual) my brain was on meltdown, the theorising started in the car at 8.30 and didn't stop until 4.30. At this time I was offered a lift to the station which was soon countered by someone else's input that we wouldn't be able to move in a car at this time. A quick google map was thrust into my hand and I was told I had 20 mins to find the station which is roughly 20 mins quick walk away. Fantastic!
On arrival, very sweaty, I found the ticket office to be closed and a post it pad pretty much saying "sorry" on the door. There was no ticket machine, only what looked like a car park meter selling permits to travel. It read; please purchase a permit to the value of your desired destination. Well, how much to Sheffield please? I rang the helpline which was where everything just went wrong. I was told that the cost was £27 (which I didn't have in £ coins) and that if I got on the train without a permit for that value I would be fined a further £90, preposterous, but the dumb (I presume blonde) on the other end of the phone continued along this line of thinking until I hung up and paid £1 before jumping on a train. A train which took far too long to get from Canley to Brum New St.
At Brum New St. I ran to the ticket office to buy a ticket for the full value to Sheffield, the woman seemed pleasant enough and told me that I could catch the next train if I ran to platform 4b now. So I did. However, as the train pulled away I realised that once again the information I'd been given was bogus, yes this train was heading north, but not on the correct line. By now I wasn't happy and all hope of getting back to the foundry in time for a session was gone. The train manager printed me off an itinerary:
Canley 16:55
Birmingham New St.
Crewe
Stockport
Sheffield 21:08
What an absolute joke, I guess its pretty much down to me not checking the information I was given but I did expect (seeing as though she just sold me a ticket) she might know her stuff. Damn Brummies. I pity anyone that relies on trains more regularly than I.
Oh I can't remember if I've posted this but I passed my Mphil transfer interview, barely. I also went climbing at the weekend I'll write about that some other time.
By the end of the day (again as per usual) my brain was on meltdown, the theorising started in the car at 8.30 and didn't stop until 4.30. At this time I was offered a lift to the station which was soon countered by someone else's input that we wouldn't be able to move in a car at this time. A quick google map was thrust into my hand and I was told I had 20 mins to find the station which is roughly 20 mins quick walk away. Fantastic!
On arrival, very sweaty, I found the ticket office to be closed and a post it pad pretty much saying "sorry" on the door. There was no ticket machine, only what looked like a car park meter selling permits to travel. It read; please purchase a permit to the value of your desired destination. Well, how much to Sheffield please? I rang the helpline which was where everything just went wrong. I was told that the cost was £27 (which I didn't have in £ coins) and that if I got on the train without a permit for that value I would be fined a further £90, preposterous, but the dumb (I presume blonde) on the other end of the phone continued along this line of thinking until I hung up and paid £1 before jumping on a train. A train which took far too long to get from Canley to Brum New St.
At Brum New St. I ran to the ticket office to buy a ticket for the full value to Sheffield, the woman seemed pleasant enough and told me that I could catch the next train if I ran to platform 4b now. So I did. However, as the train pulled away I realised that once again the information I'd been given was bogus, yes this train was heading north, but not on the correct line. By now I wasn't happy and all hope of getting back to the foundry in time for a session was gone. The train manager printed me off an itinerary:
Canley 16:55
Birmingham New St.
Crewe
Stockport
Sheffield 21:08
What an absolute joke, I guess its pretty much down to me not checking the information I was given but I did expect (seeing as though she just sold me a ticket) she might know her stuff. Damn Brummies. I pity anyone that relies on trains more regularly than I.
Oh I can't remember if I've posted this but I passed my Mphil transfer interview, barely. I also went climbing at the weekend I'll write about that some other time.
Wednesday 19 November 2008
Long live the FOUNDRY!
I've given up with the Works, the recent set of comp problems is a new low even by their standards.
So last night, idiotically or not, Nat went to her wall whilst I headed to mine. The company was good and the wave was great. After what was probably a decent session already I managed to coax everyone else to the board and session part II commenced. I had a plan; instead of come back on my lonesome and figure out all the problems myself, I'd try everything and anything anyone would try. That way securing a good repetoire of problems to try that did NOT suit my style. This worked well and it was only when my forearms started aching that I realised the time, Malc wouldn't be happy but I certainly was.
Long live the FOUNDRY!
So last night, idiotically or not, Nat went to her wall whilst I headed to mine. The company was good and the wave was great. After what was probably a decent session already I managed to coax everyone else to the board and session part II commenced. I had a plan; instead of come back on my lonesome and figure out all the problems myself, I'd try everything and anything anyone would try. That way securing a good repetoire of problems to try that did NOT suit my style. This worked well and it was only when my forearms started aching that I realised the time, Malc wouldn't be happy but I certainly was.
Long live the FOUNDRY!
Sunday 16 November 2008
Living for the weekend?
I didn't bother with the comp on Friday night as the forecast (Metcheck) looked favourable for Sat. When I awoke I checked my phone and peered out of the window. The road was soaked, the sky grey and it was raining. I had a few messages saying conditions were sh*t in various places. Darn. Nat and I filled the day doing other things until the evening. Once again I ended up at the works.
I'm not impressed at the new set of comp problems (what a surprise I hear you all say). The holds are mostly HUGE and juggy. Needless to say I didn't enjoy my session despite the soothing tones of Nic Clement shouting out 5 sec intervals for the British Team.
There's no longevity in this set of problems. The majority of them are flashable, there's one hard green problem and two volume centric ones, Percy's special (I'll never do) and P14 which should go next session. I didn't do these three. The green was going well but I couldn't get my heel to move from the starting position to the next hold higher, pulling on in this position, the rest isn't uber-hard, tricky enough though.
Where the training board has made some large improvements the comp wall seems to have taken a big leap backwards maybe this will be rectified with the filler problems going up tomorrow. I'm hoping I'll get to a few of the boards this week and if not I'll be heading towards the foundry. Its a ball ache that Nat and I will be going to different places but I'm sick of not enjoying my evenings.
Saturday night - protect the human and far too much to drink. Andy K scores points for player of the evening coming out with some classic lines.
Sunday morning - asleep
Sunday afternoon - Nat and I took Dom (young kid from the works) out to Burbage South, we did a bit of a tour of the boulders before doing the same on the edge. The problems later in the day were a bit tricky for the other two but nonetheless I think they had a great time. I did too, ticking a lot of problems I've never really tried before, most of which were surprisingly good. School boy error of the day was leaving my head torch in the car and staying 15 minutes too long. This led to very muddy legs after flailing in the dark.
The evening was capped off with a bottle of mulled wine. Tues is my transfer interview *GULP*...
I'm not impressed at the new set of comp problems (what a surprise I hear you all say). The holds are mostly HUGE and juggy. Needless to say I didn't enjoy my session despite the soothing tones of Nic Clement shouting out 5 sec intervals for the British Team.
There's no longevity in this set of problems. The majority of them are flashable, there's one hard green problem and two volume centric ones, Percy's special (I'll never do) and P14 which should go next session. I didn't do these three. The green was going well but I couldn't get my heel to move from the starting position to the next hold higher, pulling on in this position, the rest isn't uber-hard, tricky enough though.
Where the training board has made some large improvements the comp wall seems to have taken a big leap backwards maybe this will be rectified with the filler problems going up tomorrow. I'm hoping I'll get to a few of the boards this week and if not I'll be heading towards the foundry. Its a ball ache that Nat and I will be going to different places but I'm sick of not enjoying my evenings.
Saturday night - protect the human and far too much to drink. Andy K scores points for player of the evening coming out with some classic lines.
Sunday morning - asleep
Sunday afternoon - Nat and I took Dom (young kid from the works) out to Burbage South, we did a bit of a tour of the boulders before doing the same on the edge. The problems later in the day were a bit tricky for the other two but nonetheless I think they had a great time. I did too, ticking a lot of problems I've never really tried before, most of which were surprisingly good. School boy error of the day was leaving my head torch in the car and staying 15 minutes too long. This led to very muddy legs after flailing in the dark.
The evening was capped off with a bottle of mulled wine. Tues is my transfer interview *GULP*...
Wednesday 12 November 2008
Basic?
I've been feeling a little rough since the weekend and today was no different. Nat is away on business again but that's ok as my anti social habit of working really late doesn't really get in the way of anything.
Tonight I headed to the works to check if my general ill feeling was affecting my body badly. I keep re-trying this place, desperately hoping that it will offer something for me whilst still being the best place for Nat to head in the evening. On that line of thinking I was ready to splash out on a 3 month membership, dependant on whether or not the board was going to be of any use.
I'm only ~£6 lighter.
Effort has been made to improve the board however I still felt like bashing my head against the nearest girder. Intermediates, left right and centre, Egyptians and nothing really all that hard. *Sigh*, given these problems are within the usual grade range of the place and aren't as basic as I believe basic should be I can't imagine what the harder problems (to be added soon) will be like. I was very disappointed but again you have to hand it to the guys for actually giving a cr*p.
Here's Malc, heed his words!
I'm glad I have access to Dylans board now and then and an invite to climb with Ned at theirs.
Apart from that I think I really should give the Foundry my business, after all it does make more of an effort to cater towards my wants (probably totally different from my needs).
The evening ended with Stu and I comparing weaknesses on the finger/campus board which was great fun.
Tonight I headed to the works to check if my general ill feeling was affecting my body badly. I keep re-trying this place, desperately hoping that it will offer something for me whilst still being the best place for Nat to head in the evening. On that line of thinking I was ready to splash out on a 3 month membership, dependant on whether or not the board was going to be of any use.
I'm only ~£6 lighter.
Effort has been made to improve the board however I still felt like bashing my head against the nearest girder. Intermediates, left right and centre, Egyptians and nothing really all that hard. *Sigh*, given these problems are within the usual grade range of the place and aren't as basic as I believe basic should be I can't imagine what the harder problems (to be added soon) will be like. I was very disappointed but again you have to hand it to the guys for actually giving a cr*p.
Here's Malc, heed his words!
I'm glad I have access to Dylans board now and then and an invite to climb with Ned at theirs.
Apart from that I think I really should give the Foundry my business, after all it does make more of an effort to cater towards my wants (probably totally different from my needs).
The evening ended with Stu and I comparing weaknesses on the finger/campus board which was great fun.
Sunday 9 November 2008
HULKenstein
I've been a little slack with posting recently, mainly due to getting the final draft of my transfer report done and dusted. Now its printed and bound all I have to worry about (dread) is the examiners meeting, I need to convince them I'm not a waste of space and worth of transferring onto a PhD.
Climbing wise? as well you know the weather has been utter sh*t. Last Friday (Halloween), dressed as the hulk, I went up to the plantation for the UKC/UKB bouldering meet with Nat. TBH the evening wasn't that great at first, I quickly realised my error; the majority of people weren't actually there to climb.
One tall man did laps on Deliverance getting a massive ego boost from the woo'd crowds. I rapidly became bored of this, each repeat made me want to shout abuse at him more and more. There were no lamps as such and therefore the light was poor, as everyone was focussing their headlamps on Deliverance I used it to warm up, naturally failing on the last move (but not being far short really for a first go).
After that I braved the darkness and headed up to the ace. 5 mins later I declared it impossible and played on the green traverse (probably warming up fully by now). A minute or so later I was shocked by the arrival of Ryan Pasquill and Katy W. They were shocked at the amount of people present and Ryan was set on the Ace. He talked me into giving it a go, I muttered 9a at him but promised to come over and use my green hulk of a figure to spot him.
First go Ryan hit the top with his left, foot still on and just didn't bother trying to match. I got excited (he didn't). The small crowd of three spotters all agreed that if he actually tried to match he'd cruise it and that's exactly what he did next go. LH bang to the top, what seemed like an age of body tension and then a quick match. We all screamed (he didn't) but did return shortly afterwards with a big grin. I booted up and Ryan talked me through the start beta using the heel, including all of the little intricacies. First go it felt shit but a little more coaching and I was happily camped on the first crimp, holding it easily and crimping hard. I dragged my toe into the right spot and lent out to the second crimp, falling off. Now, I had a BIG smile on my face, the ACE, the f*cking ACE is doable.
Ryan and Katy left for a romantic curry for two. Nat and I remained camped out as I kept getting back out to the right hand crimp, I never got to actually slap the top but to be getting (nearly perfectly) set up made my night. After that, goes got worse and worse and I got a bit downhearted, it turned out later than my tip was pouring blood I just couldn't see it.
Now here is something contentions (a blog post here wouldn't seem right without it?); the ace doesn't seem that hard. I'm not saying its not 8b, but I'd always regarded it as the hardest of the peak 8b's, I'm not so sure any more.
The small list of ascentionists is however a testament to its difficulty.
Jerry - old beta
Ben - old beta
Malc- old beta
Tyler - old beta
Earl? - old beta
Mick- old beta
Scott M - New beta (given by Ryan)
Ryan P - New beta (CONGRATS!)
However, I do believe (for me at least) that the new beta makes it lower in the grade bracket, the traditional way of starting with just your foot below is the living end!
The rest of the weekend was a let down as I had no skin and then the weather was poo on Sunday. The week flew by and again the weather was poo on Wednesday. This weekend? rubbish. Yesterday was spent at trackside in damp conditions and realistically this was one session where the wall would have been a million times better for me.
Today, supposedly the tor was in fine nick, I didn't bother calling around after the night of rain and went to the sanctity of Dylan's board instead. This place is seriously growing on me despite handing out a spanking each time I visit. The scene was good today, Stu L, Ru, Gary, 320d Saltus, Ed R, Dylan and a few ladies. I came up with some great problems which other people finished off on my behalf. Ru as ever looked strong, poor Stu as ever was nursing healing injuries (or so I think).
Where the school was very flicky between pinches Dylan's place seems to be all about the shoulders. Sean Myles eat your heart out.
Climbing wise? as well you know the weather has been utter sh*t. Last Friday (Halloween), dressed as the hulk, I went up to the plantation for the UKC/UKB bouldering meet with Nat. TBH the evening wasn't that great at first, I quickly realised my error; the majority of people weren't actually there to climb.
One tall man did laps on Deliverance getting a massive ego boost from the woo'd crowds. I rapidly became bored of this, each repeat made me want to shout abuse at him more and more. There were no lamps as such and therefore the light was poor, as everyone was focussing their headlamps on Deliverance I used it to warm up, naturally failing on the last move (but not being far short really for a first go).
After that I braved the darkness and headed up to the ace. 5 mins later I declared it impossible and played on the green traverse (probably warming up fully by now). A minute or so later I was shocked by the arrival of Ryan Pasquill and Katy W. They were shocked at the amount of people present and Ryan was set on the Ace. He talked me into giving it a go, I muttered 9a at him but promised to come over and use my green hulk of a figure to spot him.
First go Ryan hit the top with his left, foot still on and just didn't bother trying to match. I got excited (he didn't). The small crowd of three spotters all agreed that if he actually tried to match he'd cruise it and that's exactly what he did next go. LH bang to the top, what seemed like an age of body tension and then a quick match. We all screamed (he didn't) but did return shortly afterwards with a big grin. I booted up and Ryan talked me through the start beta using the heel, including all of the little intricacies. First go it felt shit but a little more coaching and I was happily camped on the first crimp, holding it easily and crimping hard. I dragged my toe into the right spot and lent out to the second crimp, falling off. Now, I had a BIG smile on my face, the ACE, the f*cking ACE is doable.
Ryan and Katy left for a romantic curry for two. Nat and I remained camped out as I kept getting back out to the right hand crimp, I never got to actually slap the top but to be getting (nearly perfectly) set up made my night. After that, goes got worse and worse and I got a bit downhearted, it turned out later than my tip was pouring blood I just couldn't see it.
Now here is something contentions (a blog post here wouldn't seem right without it?); the ace doesn't seem that hard. I'm not saying its not 8b, but I'd always regarded it as the hardest of the peak 8b's, I'm not so sure any more.
The small list of ascentionists is however a testament to its difficulty.
Jerry - old beta
Ben - old beta
Malc- old beta
Tyler - old beta
Earl? - old beta
Mick- old beta
Scott M - New beta (given by Ryan)
Ryan P - New beta (CONGRATS!)
However, I do believe (for me at least) that the new beta makes it lower in the grade bracket, the traditional way of starting with just your foot below is the living end!
The rest of the weekend was a let down as I had no skin and then the weather was poo on Sunday. The week flew by and again the weather was poo on Wednesday. This weekend? rubbish. Yesterday was spent at trackside in damp conditions and realistically this was one session where the wall would have been a million times better for me.
Today, supposedly the tor was in fine nick, I didn't bother calling around after the night of rain and went to the sanctity of Dylan's board instead. This place is seriously growing on me despite handing out a spanking each time I visit. The scene was good today, Stu L, Ru, Gary, 320d Saltus, Ed R, Dylan and a few ladies. I came up with some great problems which other people finished off on my behalf. Ru as ever looked strong, poor Stu as ever was nursing healing injuries (or so I think).
Where the school was very flicky between pinches Dylan's place seems to be all about the shoulders. Sean Myles eat your heart out.
Thursday 30 October 2008
Pushing my boundaries?
It seems a while since I blogged, so here goes.
Last Wednesday I went out with Dobbin and Dylan as you might already know. Right from the start with warm conditions, bad planning and hurty skin I should have known that getting on HFC was a waste of time. I mean, last time I was there, I said to myself "Don't go back on it unless its cold, its all you need". I ignored this and my 1st go despite being good was stopped short by getting a gigantic cobweb/leaf/mess stuck to my shoe at the crucial point. I'm glad I didn't get further mind as some choad had obviously found the climbing far too easy and attempted to fill in all of the holds with chalk, I can see no other reason for the amount used. He/She had also tick marked the break, the break FFS, how can you miss something that big?
My second go was worse, I was in a bad mood by then and was regretting not doing something else with my day, a session on Zeke or an onsight shot at too old to be bold. I don't know if it was hampered by bad light but everything I caught, I caught wrong, this carried on to the break with me fighting through every move. Frustrated at this point I just pulled hard and therefore wasn't too surprised when my foot popped. Damn Damn Damn. Lesson learned.
Nat disappeared that night for a 5 day conference in Boulder, Colorado. How crazy is that? Next time (if she's selected again I vow to take full advantage).
As she was gone, all work, tidying up etc. went out of the window and I spent far too much time hanging around with a good friend of mine, who most of you know but probably can't name. Here forth he shall be known as Wildcountry (WC) James. He was very excited after spending a session earlier that week on Renegade Master. He'd abbed down the line, brushing, chalking and feeling all of the holds as well as inspecting the gear before having a stab above some pads.
We arranged to climb Sunday but as Sat morning progressed neither day looked favourable for the grit. Usually at this point i'd sack it and head to the wall for some guaranteed conditions, but this is the new me and that's just not cricket. A few phone calls later James agreed to head out with me. He wasn't psyched. It was raining as we arrived and so no warmup was possible. James set away at the start and was instantly on his back after violently slipping off the easy traverse in. Shit. My first go, my onsight attempt, was cut short but non stretchy hamstrings. I cursed my lack of stretchiness and spent the next 5 minutes contorting myself as much as possible. Round 2 showed just how quickly stretching works as my heel was up easily, locked into position I reached out for the good hold but I didn't seem to have it in me. Hmmmm, on paper this route should be my thing but its plainly obvious that I just lack feel for grit, its coming but I do perform sub par. During the two days I did notice subtleties in my climbing improve ,foot placements, sagging a lot of small factors that combined to allow me to make the moves easier and smoother thab before. As the day progressed the weather worsened but our attempts improved. James always one step ahead. I made it out to the lip and onto the next couple of holds but couldn't keep my feet on and had to campus the next move, this sets you up all wrong for the next move and bang, i'm off. We call it a day as the light worsens both relatively happy at our high points.
Sunday was much the same weather wise but the rain throughout the night had turned the path into a stream. The pads were floating which made for some interesting falls. James abbed off cleaning everything (unnecessarily IMO) and placed the gear. Ironically he was forced to use one of my bits of kit, a small DMM peenut instead of his shiny new wildcountry getup. He tested it with bodyweight and seemed pleased. I muttered that it would lift out as he topped out, sure enough as he dogged past it, it fell out.
From now on the two different styles of ascent were set.
WC James - abbed, cleaned, pre-placed gear
Me - plenty of beta, ground up, purposefully ignoring James' gear (as it wasn't placed ground up).
The goes went well with my first being better than the previous day. I blasted past my high point and made the next move before falling wildly. The goes carried on again until darkness with little upwards progression, consolidation was however there. I believe that we both have one more hard move to make before the top out business begins. Ned has rocked over onto the slab and left it at that. Variable, being a hero has topped it out although more directly up the slab. I believe (WARNING CONTENTIOUS STATEMENT) that Rich is the only person to have repeated it in the same way as JM taking the crack direct?
I'm not sure what I'll do when I get there, I'm NOT clipping pre-placed gear and I would love to finish it off in a truly great style however fear of another frame might hold me back. We'll just have to see.
I'm fairly happy with the way i'm approaching my climbing at the moment, I'm rarely down the wall and I'm doing things that I enjoy, ok, i'm not as strong as I once was but then again expectations aren't as high.
I had intended to try some routes in this style just as I hurt myself, Shine on and EOTA being the main targets so its good to feel that I'm back on target.
Tonight I met the travelling Americans who are "Crushing", they're very enthusiastic and talented but I have to say that this pre-placing malarkey is very confusing to me, how can you ground up something if the gear wasn't placed ground up, maybe I've just got the wrong end of the stick, its highly likely...I guess the main important thing is being honest about the way in which you've climbed a route.
The other thing I've noticed is that where they seem to be good climbers I've seen a number of British talents that I'm sure outshine them completely. My mind wanders as to what they might achieve given the same kind of support? (That I'm supposing rightly or wrongly that these guys have).
This week won't be too good for climbing, I'm behind with my work, Friday night I'm hoping to get out and possibly Sunday but it all depends on how things go.
Oh I forgot to say we took a video camera for RM, the footage isn't great and being idiots/lazy we missed quite a bit of stuff. We have however got a couple of nice links on cam. I'll pick a good one and post it up at some point. Its not high def.
Last Wednesday I went out with Dobbin and Dylan as you might already know. Right from the start with warm conditions, bad planning and hurty skin I should have known that getting on HFC was a waste of time. I mean, last time I was there, I said to myself "Don't go back on it unless its cold, its all you need". I ignored this and my 1st go despite being good was stopped short by getting a gigantic cobweb/leaf/mess stuck to my shoe at the crucial point. I'm glad I didn't get further mind as some choad had obviously found the climbing far too easy and attempted to fill in all of the holds with chalk, I can see no other reason for the amount used. He/She had also tick marked the break, the break FFS, how can you miss something that big?
My second go was worse, I was in a bad mood by then and was regretting not doing something else with my day, a session on Zeke or an onsight shot at too old to be bold. I don't know if it was hampered by bad light but everything I caught, I caught wrong, this carried on to the break with me fighting through every move. Frustrated at this point I just pulled hard and therefore wasn't too surprised when my foot popped. Damn Damn Damn. Lesson learned.
Nat disappeared that night for a 5 day conference in Boulder, Colorado. How crazy is that? Next time (if she's selected again I vow to take full advantage).
As she was gone, all work, tidying up etc. went out of the window and I spent far too much time hanging around with a good friend of mine, who most of you know but probably can't name. Here forth he shall be known as Wildcountry (WC) James. He was very excited after spending a session earlier that week on Renegade Master. He'd abbed down the line, brushing, chalking and feeling all of the holds as well as inspecting the gear before having a stab above some pads.
We arranged to climb Sunday but as Sat morning progressed neither day looked favourable for the grit. Usually at this point i'd sack it and head to the wall for some guaranteed conditions, but this is the new me and that's just not cricket. A few phone calls later James agreed to head out with me. He wasn't psyched. It was raining as we arrived and so no warmup was possible. James set away at the start and was instantly on his back after violently slipping off the easy traverse in. Shit. My first go, my onsight attempt, was cut short but non stretchy hamstrings. I cursed my lack of stretchiness and spent the next 5 minutes contorting myself as much as possible. Round 2 showed just how quickly stretching works as my heel was up easily, locked into position I reached out for the good hold but I didn't seem to have it in me. Hmmmm, on paper this route should be my thing but its plainly obvious that I just lack feel for grit, its coming but I do perform sub par. During the two days I did notice subtleties in my climbing improve ,foot placements, sagging a lot of small factors that combined to allow me to make the moves easier and smoother thab before. As the day progressed the weather worsened but our attempts improved. James always one step ahead. I made it out to the lip and onto the next couple of holds but couldn't keep my feet on and had to campus the next move, this sets you up all wrong for the next move and bang, i'm off. We call it a day as the light worsens both relatively happy at our high points.
Sunday was much the same weather wise but the rain throughout the night had turned the path into a stream. The pads were floating which made for some interesting falls. James abbed off cleaning everything (unnecessarily IMO) and placed the gear. Ironically he was forced to use one of my bits of kit, a small DMM peenut instead of his shiny new wildcountry getup. He tested it with bodyweight and seemed pleased. I muttered that it would lift out as he topped out, sure enough as he dogged past it, it fell out.
From now on the two different styles of ascent were set.
WC James - abbed, cleaned, pre-placed gear
Me - plenty of beta, ground up, purposefully ignoring James' gear (as it wasn't placed ground up).
The goes went well with my first being better than the previous day. I blasted past my high point and made the next move before falling wildly. The goes carried on again until darkness with little upwards progression, consolidation was however there. I believe that we both have one more hard move to make before the top out business begins. Ned has rocked over onto the slab and left it at that. Variable, being a hero has topped it out although more directly up the slab. I believe (WARNING CONTENTIOUS STATEMENT) that Rich is the only person to have repeated it in the same way as JM taking the crack direct?
I'm not sure what I'll do when I get there, I'm NOT clipping pre-placed gear and I would love to finish it off in a truly great style however fear of another frame might hold me back. We'll just have to see.
I'm fairly happy with the way i'm approaching my climbing at the moment, I'm rarely down the wall and I'm doing things that I enjoy, ok, i'm not as strong as I once was but then again expectations aren't as high.
I had intended to try some routes in this style just as I hurt myself, Shine on and EOTA being the main targets so its good to feel that I'm back on target.
Tonight I met the travelling Americans who are "Crushing", they're very enthusiastic and talented but I have to say that this pre-placing malarkey is very confusing to me, how can you ground up something if the gear wasn't placed ground up, maybe I've just got the wrong end of the stick, its highly likely...I guess the main important thing is being honest about the way in which you've climbed a route.
The other thing I've noticed is that where they seem to be good climbers I've seen a number of British talents that I'm sure outshine them completely. My mind wanders as to what they might achieve given the same kind of support? (That I'm supposing rightly or wrongly that these guys have).
This week won't be too good for climbing, I'm behind with my work, Friday night I'm hoping to get out and possibly Sunday but it all depends on how things go.
Oh I forgot to say we took a video camera for RM, the footage isn't great and being idiots/lazy we missed quite a bit of stuff. We have however got a couple of nice links on cam. I'll pick a good one and post it up at some point. Its not high def.
Monday 20 October 2008
What a weekend
It will probably be obvious to you, if you regularly read this blog, that a fortnight or so ago when I started climbing again I realised that there were certain issues within my climbing that I needed to address, the most important (despite not being emphasised enough) is that I DON'T spend enough time actually climbing.
Due to this and with the words of Sensai bonjoy running through my mind I started hatching a plan for this weekend gone.
Friday night up to visit my folks after picking Nat up from work, free meal. Sat carry on up to Bowden, put Nat on the problems that I think she should be trying before returning to my folks, free meal.
Leave on Sun morning stopping off via Yorkshire, free packed lunch. The weather looked fair enough for this plan to actually work and it wasn't long before I was running out of the flat, forgetting almost everything on the way to pick up Nat from work.
It was great to see my folks on Friday night and much merriment was had before I hit the sack with sweating tips. The drive up to Bowden took less time than I remembered and some of the speed cameras have been taken away and others now have flashing signs in front of them. Great. We arrived at a windswept Bowden early ish and only a handful of cars were parked off the road. This we later found out must be due to the insane wind gusting all over the place. Durham university club were the only people to be found on the crag, it was I'm afraid to say, a fresher's meet. However, the club were conducting themselves perfectly.
We warmed up at the far end after which I pointed Nat at Childs play. She got to the crux looking absolutely terrified before being blown off and completely overshooting the mat. I poo-pah'd her claims of a force 9 death wind and quested off, after all it's not longer as hard as it used to be, Childs play in fact. Minutes later I understood what she meant. In between gusts I balanced my way up to the top, declaring it to be E9 (or should that be 6b+ x?). Nat got stuck into another problem and I continued to warm up. All the cave routes went down as per usual, followed by a favourite eliminate of mine. After this I had a dabble on sprung but felt cold. Staggered, captain haddock, poverty and the other things in this area were next. The wind had died down a lot by this time so I urged Nat to try CP again. 5 or so goes later she was past the crux looking terrified and resorting to beginner beaching tactics at the top, I managed to coax her out of this line of attack and once she re-committed to some technique she cruised on over the top. She was psyched out of her mind (as was I) as this is her first 6b. It was fantastic to see her climbing like this after so little time and bodes well for her Christmas ambitions.
Next I went on something out of my comfort zone, lippy bastard, but unfortunately I kept getting hit by gusts at bad moments so I left it. The crack was suffering from similar conditions. A harsh 2 min downpour then struck leaving us all huddled beneath the cave routes for the next 15 mins or so. When it passed I went for Vienna, an eternally changing problem, and then back on Sprung. I felt like a bit of a twat running around as there were a number of onlookers but so be it. My earlier guess at not being warmed up was confirmed as I climbed it straight away, comfortably in fact.
The day was going well and after flicking through the new (appalling) guide, I'd singled out another line, The Growlers, crimpy, vertical, 8a wall. I stepped up, and after a few hard rock over moves on dirty dirty little holds I was eyeing up a larger, decent crimpy hold. I gave it my all, my fingers crept over the edge of the hold, the razor like crimp bit in deep across my tips and I was suddenly aware of very sore skin. Back on the pad I was gutted and extremely sore. A few more goes ended only in backward progress as the smallest hold turned progressively warmer. Saving skin for the next day we packed up and headed to 'the woods'. I really wanted Nat to try Bad Company (now given 6a), a fantastic problem in an even better setting. On arrival conditions were amazing, old timer locals (Bob Smith?) confirmed this. I re-warmed up on Jocks and then Monty Pythons and then demo'd the problem for Nat. I hadn't realised it but her tips were worse than mine and after a few goes we both decided that if we were to climb on Sunday we needed to stop.
Back home, and once again plenty of food and loads of wine.
On Sunday weather reports (courtesy of Stubbs from UKB) showed Caley to be in poor nick. Instead we opted for the ever gusty cliff. On arrival we met Joe Brown who informed us that the good doctor would be arriving shortly. Warming up was hard and sore and I inwardly kicked myself for being a bit silly the previous day. Joe pointed me at underhand which I'd never heard of. It took a while but I worked out quite a neat sequence. Fatigue or a lack of length meant it didn't resemble Foleys sequence one bit however it was efficient. Further floundering later I decided to change out of my floppy Velcro's and into dragons. One minute later it was done. I worked the extension but didn't feel it was worth risking the skin as I want to climb sometime this week. Nat proceeded to crush the left hand roof problem which again, is a good effort for her.
I took my boots off and packed everything away, for a split second Martin(bringing purple back in style, holy sh*t kind of strong) Smith tempted me towards Stu's roof. It didn't take long for the small crimps to persuade me to take them back off.
We stopped off via Headingly to see her brother and chuck down a gallon of warming tea.
A text from Foley later on in the day informs me that he fell floundering around with the end slots of underhand. Next time beast.
Now I fully understand that this weekend hasn't pushed me out of my comfort zone as far as possible (wait to see what I've got planned next weekend!) and as ever comments are welcome (yes you as well Bonjoy, I promise I won't get upset). However, I did spend both days outside, and this resulted in new ticks which can only be a good thing., non?
For the first time in ages I felt like I was climbing well this weekend...It's a great feeling.
Currently on UKB there is the start of another debacle albeit at a lesser scale (although thinking about it probably not). The fact that my name has now been mentioned directly (not in a malicious manner thankfully) leads me to feel that I have to at least offer some kind of stance as a reply. I'm not quite sure how to go about this and really I should be doing more productive things. I'll give it some thought and no doubt produce another controversial blog post at some point, or maybe I'll decide it's not worth it. At best, I've managed to stay away from my keyboard and avoid some rather obvious baiting.
Due to this and with the words of Sensai bonjoy running through my mind I started hatching a plan for this weekend gone.
Friday night up to visit my folks after picking Nat up from work, free meal. Sat carry on up to Bowden, put Nat on the problems that I think she should be trying before returning to my folks, free meal.
Leave on Sun morning stopping off via Yorkshire, free packed lunch. The weather looked fair enough for this plan to actually work and it wasn't long before I was running out of the flat, forgetting almost everything on the way to pick up Nat from work.
It was great to see my folks on Friday night and much merriment was had before I hit the sack with sweating tips. The drive up to Bowden took less time than I remembered and some of the speed cameras have been taken away and others now have flashing signs in front of them. Great. We arrived at a windswept Bowden early ish and only a handful of cars were parked off the road. This we later found out must be due to the insane wind gusting all over the place. Durham university club were the only people to be found on the crag, it was I'm afraid to say, a fresher's meet. However, the club were conducting themselves perfectly.
We warmed up at the far end after which I pointed Nat at Childs play. She got to the crux looking absolutely terrified before being blown off and completely overshooting the mat. I poo-pah'd her claims of a force 9 death wind and quested off, after all it's not longer as hard as it used to be, Childs play in fact. Minutes later I understood what she meant. In between gusts I balanced my way up to the top, declaring it to be E9 (or should that be 6b+ x?). Nat got stuck into another problem and I continued to warm up. All the cave routes went down as per usual, followed by a favourite eliminate of mine. After this I had a dabble on sprung but felt cold. Staggered, captain haddock, poverty and the other things in this area were next. The wind had died down a lot by this time so I urged Nat to try CP again. 5 or so goes later she was past the crux looking terrified and resorting to beginner beaching tactics at the top, I managed to coax her out of this line of attack and once she re-committed to some technique she cruised on over the top. She was psyched out of her mind (as was I) as this is her first 6b. It was fantastic to see her climbing like this after so little time and bodes well for her Christmas ambitions.
Next I went on something out of my comfort zone, lippy bastard, but unfortunately I kept getting hit by gusts at bad moments so I left it. The crack was suffering from similar conditions. A harsh 2 min downpour then struck leaving us all huddled beneath the cave routes for the next 15 mins or so. When it passed I went for Vienna, an eternally changing problem, and then back on Sprung. I felt like a bit of a twat running around as there were a number of onlookers but so be it. My earlier guess at not being warmed up was confirmed as I climbed it straight away, comfortably in fact.
The day was going well and after flicking through the new (appalling) guide, I'd singled out another line, The Growlers, crimpy, vertical, 8a wall. I stepped up, and after a few hard rock over moves on dirty dirty little holds I was eyeing up a larger, decent crimpy hold. I gave it my all, my fingers crept over the edge of the hold, the razor like crimp bit in deep across my tips and I was suddenly aware of very sore skin. Back on the pad I was gutted and extremely sore. A few more goes ended only in backward progress as the smallest hold turned progressively warmer. Saving skin for the next day we packed up and headed to 'the woods'. I really wanted Nat to try Bad Company (now given 6a), a fantastic problem in an even better setting. On arrival conditions were amazing, old timer locals (Bob Smith?) confirmed this. I re-warmed up on Jocks and then Monty Pythons and then demo'd the problem for Nat. I hadn't realised it but her tips were worse than mine and after a few goes we both decided that if we were to climb on Sunday we needed to stop.
Back home, and once again plenty of food and loads of wine.
On Sunday weather reports (courtesy of Stubbs from UKB) showed Caley to be in poor nick. Instead we opted for the ever gusty cliff. On arrival we met Joe Brown who informed us that the good doctor would be arriving shortly. Warming up was hard and sore and I inwardly kicked myself for being a bit silly the previous day. Joe pointed me at underhand which I'd never heard of. It took a while but I worked out quite a neat sequence. Fatigue or a lack of length meant it didn't resemble Foleys sequence one bit however it was efficient. Further floundering later I decided to change out of my floppy Velcro's and into dragons. One minute later it was done. I worked the extension but didn't feel it was worth risking the skin as I want to climb sometime this week. Nat proceeded to crush the left hand roof problem which again, is a good effort for her.
I took my boots off and packed everything away, for a split second Martin(bringing purple back in style, holy sh*t kind of strong) Smith tempted me towards Stu's roof. It didn't take long for the small crimps to persuade me to take them back off.
We stopped off via Headingly to see her brother and chuck down a gallon of warming tea.
A text from Foley later on in the day informs me that he fell floundering around with the end slots of underhand. Next time beast.
Now I fully understand that this weekend hasn't pushed me out of my comfort zone as far as possible (wait to see what I've got planned next weekend!) and as ever comments are welcome (yes you as well Bonjoy, I promise I won't get upset). However, I did spend both days outside, and this resulted in new ticks which can only be a good thing., non?
For the first time in ages I felt like I was climbing well this weekend...It's a great feeling.
Currently on UKB there is the start of another debacle albeit at a lesser scale (although thinking about it probably not). The fact that my name has now been mentioned directly (not in a malicious manner thankfully) leads me to feel that I have to at least offer some kind of stance as a reply. I'm not quite sure how to go about this and really I should be doing more productive things. I'll give it some thought and no doubt produce another controversial blog post at some point, or maybe I'll decide it's not worth it. At best, I've managed to stay away from my keyboard and avoid some rather obvious baiting.
Wednesday 15 October 2008
More drivel
I think the last thing I wrote about was the strength test? The friday after I sent Dave M a message to find out that he was heading out for a night session on The Ace. I didn't feel strong enough to try it but trying to avoid falling into my usual routine of being a little negative and always going for a training session unless everything, including alignment of the stars was perfect. So at 8 I met up at Ned's house of power and loaded up the cars with as many pads and lights as possible. It was good to see Tom Newman who was staying for the weekend. I started climbing with Tom years ago and it's really cool to see how strong and psyched he still is, despite shunning Sheffield Uni a year or so ago.
Things weren't looking good on the way out, the car read 18'c then 15 and finally 13 by the time we parked up. A quick romp up to Brad Pit saw new lapping it, Ben Thompson cruising it and the rest of us not really doing a lot. It was still warm.
Next up was the green trav for a bit of a warm up, no one else bothered and carried straight on to the Ace/Joker. Ben put in an impressive attempt despite the rubbish conditions on the joker while the rest of us floundered around on the Ace not really getting anywhere, I felt a residual tiredness from the earlier fun of the week and couldn't lock in deep enough to do the first move, this was a little disappointing at the time but in retrospect that last week was a harsh re-introduction. Next was deliverance, I was anxious about my inadequate footwork but it was ill-founded. I happily wandered along to the flake before barn dooring off due to indecisiveness. Climbing works Ryan dispatched while the rest of us packed up and headed home. Felt too tired to do much over the weekend.
Since then I climbed on Dylans board on Mon, it took a while to get used to and somehow doesn't feel anywhere near as hard as the school but it is GOOD.
Yesterday I went to the works. It was good to see a whole host of people down. However, the youthier youth of today are dismayingly strong. This includes Sasscotty who has come from zero to hero within the year I've known him. Ryan casually introduced me to his wiry friend, after a moment of stupidity I realise that it's actually uber wad Dave Graham. I spent the rest of the night being quietly impressed by his climbing style and general personality. At the end of the night I forced myself to go and hang open handed on some rungs. Front 3 and back 3 repeaters, plus 2 one handed hangs of the moon 2 finger pocket. Keith is right, rungs are so much harder than finger boards.
Nats away tonight and instead of questing out today and making the most of it I'm going to catch up on a load of work. Tomorrow I'm going to see Onsight, I hope in this film the climbing is the main focus rather than the fancy camera work of his Dave Birkett film.
Things weren't looking good on the way out, the car read 18'c then 15 and finally 13 by the time we parked up. A quick romp up to Brad Pit saw new lapping it, Ben Thompson cruising it and the rest of us not really doing a lot. It was still warm.
Next up was the green trav for a bit of a warm up, no one else bothered and carried straight on to the Ace/Joker. Ben put in an impressive attempt despite the rubbish conditions on the joker while the rest of us floundered around on the Ace not really getting anywhere, I felt a residual tiredness from the earlier fun of the week and couldn't lock in deep enough to do the first move, this was a little disappointing at the time but in retrospect that last week was a harsh re-introduction. Next was deliverance, I was anxious about my inadequate footwork but it was ill-founded. I happily wandered along to the flake before barn dooring off due to indecisiveness. Climbing works Ryan dispatched while the rest of us packed up and headed home. Felt too tired to do much over the weekend.
Since then I climbed on Dylans board on Mon, it took a while to get used to and somehow doesn't feel anywhere near as hard as the school but it is GOOD.
Yesterday I went to the works. It was good to see a whole host of people down. However, the youthier youth of today are dismayingly strong. This includes Sasscotty who has come from zero to hero within the year I've known him. Ryan casually introduced me to his wiry friend, after a moment of stupidity I realise that it's actually uber wad Dave Graham. I spent the rest of the night being quietly impressed by his climbing style and general personality. At the end of the night I forced myself to go and hang open handed on some rungs. Front 3 and back 3 repeaters, plus 2 one handed hangs of the moon 2 finger pocket. Keith is right, rungs are so much harder than finger boards.
Nats away tonight and instead of questing out today and making the most of it I'm going to catch up on a load of work. Tomorrow I'm going to see Onsight, I hope in this film the climbing is the main focus rather than the fancy camera work of his Dave Birkett film.
Thursday 9 October 2008
....more on streng!
Further musings on the test (below) have left me feeling like it wasn't ideal and therefore not wholly representative. In an ideal situation each item would be tested separately therefore without any impact from the previous test however this was not possible and above anything would be dreadfully boring.
It was raised to my attention that the max number of pull ups was a bit low and I know in my head that the minute I began them I could feel the pump from the previous set on the campus rung. Not enough rest.
The fact that my one armers on a rung and a bar are quite different (if I'd rested longer the same would probably be apparent in the normal pulls) again go on to highlight the weakness of my fingers (when to crimped), as doing these exercises I made sure to NOT crimp the rung but to hold it half/open ish.
However, despite not being perfect the test HAS worked. Now I need to not fall victim of the usual syndrome of talking an awful lot about training, buying stuff and then not actually addressing our weaknesses.
It was raised to my attention that the max number of pull ups was a bit low and I know in my head that the minute I began them I could feel the pump from the previous set on the campus rung. Not enough rest.
The fact that my one armers on a rung and a bar are quite different (if I'd rested longer the same would probably be apparent in the normal pulls) again go on to highlight the weakness of my fingers (when to crimped), as doing these exercises I made sure to NOT crimp the rung but to hold it half/open ish.
However, despite not being perfect the test HAS worked. Now I need to not fall victim of the usual syndrome of talking an awful lot about training, buying stuff and then not actually addressing our weaknesses.
Wednesday 8 October 2008
Streng?
Tonight I went down the works with Nat, thankfully there wasn't a band of pitch fork wielding employees waiting for me behind entrance.
I undertook a thorough warm-up, taking my time to ensure that I went through all of the motions. Basically every bit of me needed to be absolutely ready for what I was about to throw at it. Realistically being my 2nd session back, I was asking a lot!
Results:
Max Campus:
LH - 1-4-7
RH - 1-4-7
Smallest hold, hung one arm?
LH - Moon board smallest crimp
RH - Moon board smallest crimp
Length of hang on campus rung (standard size)
3 fingers open:
LH - 4s (poor)
RH - 2s (poor)
2 fingers open:
LH - Didn't bother
RH - Didn't bother
How many 1-armers?
LH - 5
RH - 2
How many pullups on a standard campus rung?
17
How many pullups on jugs (not a bar!)?
22
How long can you hold a front lever for:
5 sec
(One armers on a standard campus rung?
LH - 2
RH - 1)
What is the max amount of weight you can hang on yourself and still do a pullup on a standard campus rung?
~50kg (they didn't have plates so I had to use a Natalie instead)
A lot of this surprised me, I know I felt strong the other night but this shows that i'm not too far off where I was in terms of absolute strength. Campussing I've never really achieved more than 1-4-7, one armers i've done a few more but the powerpull on a rung amazed me. Nat's arms interfered with my shoulders and stopped me getting the rung fully locked below my chest which was a shame. It's safe to say that there weren't enough plates kicking about and asking every body their weight until I found a suitable load wasn't really a good idea. Scouse offered.
I think its safe to say that the test highlights the fact that my crimp strength is severely imbalanced compared to openhanding, and, that my core doesn't really fall into line with the rest of my body. This confirms what I've thought for a while now, I have tried to address a few of these issues before but injury has always prevented a methodic approach.
So where do I take it from now? I'm not exactly sure and i'm hoping that the readership of this blog may comment and let me know their thoughts (so I can ignore them, obviously).
Issues to be addressed:
Open hand strength - beastmaker training article looks good but what do people think, repeaters? weighted hangs?
Core - Lots of L-sits, levers etc. I enjoyed rings before so If I shift the focus towards levers rather than an all round workout that should be good?
Flexibility - i'm going to hassle Ned and see if I can get whatever he takes for this.
(Footwork and technique - an on going battle but climbing with Nat on easier grit allows me to really focus on that without getting disheartened, a long process but very worthwhile).
The results I've posted are for a very specific strength assessment tailored towards myself by a person who has a good idea of what I can and can't do. It's not gospel but can probably be altered to different levels if necessary. However, it's likely that deep down you know what your weak at. Work them and Stop Strong.
I undertook a thorough warm-up, taking my time to ensure that I went through all of the motions. Basically every bit of me needed to be absolutely ready for what I was about to throw at it. Realistically being my 2nd session back, I was asking a lot!
Results:
Max Campus:
LH - 1-4-7
RH - 1-4-7
Smallest hold, hung one arm?
LH - Moon board smallest crimp
RH - Moon board smallest crimp
Length of hang on campus rung (standard size)
3 fingers open:
LH - 4s (poor)
RH - 2s (poor)
2 fingers open:
LH - Didn't bother
RH - Didn't bother
How many 1-armers?
LH - 5
RH - 2
How many pullups on a standard campus rung?
17
How many pullups on jugs (not a bar!)?
22
How long can you hold a front lever for:
5 sec
(One armers on a standard campus rung?
LH - 2
RH - 1)
What is the max amount of weight you can hang on yourself and still do a pullup on a standard campus rung?
~50kg (they didn't have plates so I had to use a Natalie instead)
A lot of this surprised me, I know I felt strong the other night but this shows that i'm not too far off where I was in terms of absolute strength. Campussing I've never really achieved more than 1-4-7, one armers i've done a few more but the powerpull on a rung amazed me. Nat's arms interfered with my shoulders and stopped me getting the rung fully locked below my chest which was a shame. It's safe to say that there weren't enough plates kicking about and asking every body their weight until I found a suitable load wasn't really a good idea. Scouse offered.
I think its safe to say that the test highlights the fact that my crimp strength is severely imbalanced compared to openhanding, and, that my core doesn't really fall into line with the rest of my body. This confirms what I've thought for a while now, I have tried to address a few of these issues before but injury has always prevented a methodic approach.
So where do I take it from now? I'm not exactly sure and i'm hoping that the readership of this blog may comment and let me know their thoughts (so I can ignore them, obviously).
Issues to be addressed:
Open hand strength - beastmaker training article looks good but what do people think, repeaters? weighted hangs?
Core - Lots of L-sits, levers etc. I enjoyed rings before so If I shift the focus towards levers rather than an all round workout that should be good?
Flexibility - i'm going to hassle Ned and see if I can get whatever he takes for this.
(Footwork and technique - an on going battle but climbing with Nat on easier grit allows me to really focus on that without getting disheartened, a long process but very worthwhile).
The results I've posted are for a very specific strength assessment tailored towards myself by a person who has a good idea of what I can and can't do. It's not gospel but can probably be altered to different levels if necessary. However, it's likely that deep down you know what your weak at. Work them and Stop Strong.
Climbing with the Champ
The title sounds like it was written by Apollo Creed alas its just me again:
The "Scaffolding" post caused quite a storm in a teacup. Quite frustratingly so, as it was purposefully steered away from UKB in order to avoid any such hassle and allow the limited readership of this blog to here my inner paranoid ravings. Lesson learnt, this blog isnt quite private enough and despite the first paragraph effectively saying it was all parandoid ramblings of a scared individual some people took serious offence, just to clarify I'm not talking about Percy here (who answered a lot of long standing questions extremely well and in a very patient manner). I took the post down as to not cause any un-necessary trouble for both him and myself but left the comments in order to ensure transparency. It was a pretty rushed post and on reading it back it didn't come across entirely as intended. Despite all of this, yesterday, I was sorely tempted to put it back up. I won't go into that further.
Good news - the over dramatic italian has been silenced. Despite being warned that it had dodgy electrics Fiat took the diagnostic check to be gospel and ordered new parts (very £££), after a reasoned discussion yesterday they decided that was madness and have refunded our deposit etc. so in the end a routine service and a nice new set of front tyres has made it happy. I will be buying a fault reader for any future issues. I still can't believe that its routine not to use a multimeter or anything to check these failures have actually occurred. Another point to note is that Nat made very little progress with the garage throughout yesteday, they even assured her at one stage that they'd disabled the warning light (a physical impossibility), one phone call from me and it was all sorted and they were very apologetic. Makes you think.
Sunday Nat and I finally made our minds up and booked a Christmas jolly. From the 20th of Dec to the 3rd of Jan we will be staying at the Maisonbleau. Neil even kindly offered to arrange a tree (Waddage!).
Due to that fact, I decided it was time to get this show back on the road and dive head first back into climbing, a few hurried phone calls on Monday found Ned 'Champ, long hair, still slightly ginger' feehally was foundry bound and despite concerns that it's all a little bit too steep for me I decided to join him. Nat tagged along too (and climbed much better than last time). The evening went well with a dismaying display of strength and technique from Simon Lee's extremely young son.
Ned was climbing well, training fitness for the upcoming comp. Bony tony had injured himself somehow so had turned into stopwatch/dungeon master and was working the champ into the ground.
I felt like I climbed well, or very well considering. At first my feet felt very akward and clumpy but as the evening progressed things improved. I didn't fall off until I was about to call it a night, stupidly failing on the last move due to ignoring footholds and on the second failure picking a powerful pinch move to finish with. Ok, so I'm far from on form but it all looks rosey (well, apart from a finger that began aching pretty much straight away, RH middle).
Tonight, I will undertake a full strength assesment on myself (probably at the works). Hopefully this will show what I need to work on in order to get myself where I want to be by the 20th Dec and it should also provide an interesting comparison if I remember to repeat the same assesment at regular intervals down the line.
Lastly, please, if you take the time to read this blog (bored at work?) and are seriously offended easily then go elsewhere. At the end of the day anything you read should be treated exactly as it is; one mans (limited) opinion. Form your own about anything mentioned and if you think that any of the writing is vindictive or especially cutting towards one person then read it again. There are numerous examples on forums and blogs where things are read in a whole different manner to which they intended. That may be down to the shortcomings of one persons writing techniques or just a facet of the medium that we choose to write in.
The "Scaffolding" post caused quite a storm in a teacup. Quite frustratingly so, as it was purposefully steered away from UKB in order to avoid any such hassle and allow the limited readership of this blog to here my inner paranoid ravings. Lesson learnt, this blog isnt quite private enough and despite the first paragraph effectively saying it was all parandoid ramblings of a scared individual some people took serious offence, just to clarify I'm not talking about Percy here (who answered a lot of long standing questions extremely well and in a very patient manner). I took the post down as to not cause any un-necessary trouble for both him and myself but left the comments in order to ensure transparency. It was a pretty rushed post and on reading it back it didn't come across entirely as intended. Despite all of this, yesterday, I was sorely tempted to put it back up. I won't go into that further.
Good news - the over dramatic italian has been silenced. Despite being warned that it had dodgy electrics Fiat took the diagnostic check to be gospel and ordered new parts (very £££), after a reasoned discussion yesterday they decided that was madness and have refunded our deposit etc. so in the end a routine service and a nice new set of front tyres has made it happy. I will be buying a fault reader for any future issues. I still can't believe that its routine not to use a multimeter or anything to check these failures have actually occurred. Another point to note is that Nat made very little progress with the garage throughout yesteday, they even assured her at one stage that they'd disabled the warning light (a physical impossibility), one phone call from me and it was all sorted and they were very apologetic. Makes you think.
Sunday Nat and I finally made our minds up and booked a Christmas jolly. From the 20th of Dec to the 3rd of Jan we will be staying at the Maisonbleau. Neil even kindly offered to arrange a tree (Waddage!).
Due to that fact, I decided it was time to get this show back on the road and dive head first back into climbing, a few hurried phone calls on Monday found Ned 'Champ, long hair, still slightly ginger' feehally was foundry bound and despite concerns that it's all a little bit too steep for me I decided to join him. Nat tagged along too (and climbed much better than last time). The evening went well with a dismaying display of strength and technique from Simon Lee's extremely young son.
Ned was climbing well, training fitness for the upcoming comp. Bony tony had injured himself somehow so had turned into stopwatch/dungeon master and was working the champ into the ground.
I felt like I climbed well, or very well considering. At first my feet felt very akward and clumpy but as the evening progressed things improved. I didn't fall off until I was about to call it a night, stupidly failing on the last move due to ignoring footholds and on the second failure picking a powerful pinch move to finish with. Ok, so I'm far from on form but it all looks rosey (well, apart from a finger that began aching pretty much straight away, RH middle).
Tonight, I will undertake a full strength assesment on myself (probably at the works). Hopefully this will show what I need to work on in order to get myself where I want to be by the 20th Dec and it should also provide an interesting comparison if I remember to repeat the same assesment at regular intervals down the line.
Lastly, please, if you take the time to read this blog (bored at work?) and are seriously offended easily then go elsewhere. At the end of the day anything you read should be treated exactly as it is; one mans (limited) opinion. Form your own about anything mentioned and if you think that any of the writing is vindictive or especially cutting towards one person then read it again. There are numerous examples on forums and blogs where things are read in a whole different manner to which they intended. That may be down to the shortcomings of one persons writing techniques or just a facet of the medium that we choose to write in.
Monday 6 October 2008
The School is DEAD!
On Sat, before rushing off to attend a retirement party weekend, I ended up at the top of heeley bank, very tired and a little hungover from 'cocktail hour' that had ended up being more like Tequila night. It was the temptation of 'the last session' that had me out of bed so early on a Saturday morning but alas it wasn't to be.The old school building looked very depressing as I sat there awaiting the other members and I felt almost glad to be removing the boards from our room as I felt sure that they wouldn't last long in there without constant monitoring.
Keith arrived 5 mins or so later, followed by Joe, Nacho and later on Ben P (Other people came and went throughout the morning and afternoon I assume).
After a brief bit of vandalism by Joe we found the bottom door to be open and also found that the caretaker, Darren, has a new image; bleached blond and dubious skin tight black garments, his shakes are less obvious now as well.
Keith and I went up to the boards and gingerly opened the door. I was expecting it to be the same as we'd left it however the council had covered the entire window with wooden boards so the only working (energy saving) light bulb made little inroad on the darkness. The place looked creepy, all that was obvious was the bottom edge of the campus board. I took it upon myself to scrabble up to the top and fiddle with the lights. We got one working and something became very apparent; the council had managed to lock in 4 or so pigeons who had obviously camped out on rung 9 and proceeded to shit absolutely everywhere before very kindly dying. One under each board. The fact that I put my drill case down right next to a carcass shows just how dark it really was at first!
It soon became obvious that the door that was open wasn't going to be enough so Keith and I began work removing the vandal proof doors (these were pretty secure) from the top fire escape. It took a lot of work but eventually after lots of kicking, cutting and drilling it was open and surprisingly two lads with hoodies drilling through doors didn't seem to cause a stir which wasn't the case later on when I was informed that the police were called because of all the comings and goings.
The dismantling began with the Moon board. Everyone got to work shifting things whilst joe went to sort a van and ben went to buy us all of the equipment we'd forgotten. Dust masks were highly welcome but unfortunately i'm still sneezing toxic school dust today, monday.
As the morning progressed, the air quality proceeded to get worse. Just check out Ben's drill after just taking one panel off the moon board!
Everything went smoothly, Moon, Campus, 15 deg, 50 deg 30 I believe. The structural integrity of the boards was pretty horrific, things were tied together and that campus board wasn't attached at the bottom. Only five screws held the campus panels to the frame work.
Above is a picture of the 50 deg board (left), thats not chalk on the lense as you can see by the picture taken minutes below of vic, who got the nasty job of brushing down all of the boards.
I'm obviously not going to try and name everyone that helped out but it was really good to see everyone putting the effort in to save these board. Notably Joe for organising it, Keith for driving such a long way, and Nacho because he's never even climbed there and it was disgusting work for a volunteer.
Angles to remember:
50 = 56 (Thats why it was always so hard!)
30 = 28
15 = 17
Tonight I climbed with Ned at the Foundry but more on that some other time.
Oh, I should also probably add that the School was one of the most structurally unsound boards I have ever had the pleasure of climbing on, however, it was still nowhere near as dangerous as my very own balcony board. I think Bonjoy was accurate with his Asterix comparison however he should have also added, campus board, fingerboards and screws penetrating my feet. Possibly electrocution as well.
The works has none of the above problems. In fact I'd recommend training there.
Friday 3 October 2008
Thursday 2 October 2008
Working out with Rab!
Well I didn't manage to go to the gym on Tues as my report dragged on for longer than it ought to. Only slightly annoying seeing as though she didn't read it when she said she would and hence I could of relaxed a little more and handed it in a day later than I did. No worries though, that draft is out of the way.
As I'd worked myself into the ground I allowed myself to sleep in until I woke. This is to try and avoid becoming ill or even worse having a disappointing training session (of which I've only had a few).
Warmed up then went on Bench to start with, I'm still reasonably poor at this exercise and its getting annoying, i've seen gains they're just not fast enough for my liking something not true of the next exercise, Deadlift.
The other day (see below) I did a pb of 100kg but I knew deep down that I could get more out it, I was nowhere near my limit. The first few sets I went light, 40kg for 8, 60kg for 6, 80kg for 6 to ensure my back was fully warmed up and ready to be tested. I wandered over to the other side of the gym to enforce a decent rest period and to pick up more plates on the way in. I took my time racking up the bar and stood there for a while looking at it and psyching myself up. Feet in the right position, one glance forward to set myself correctly, then one to the side mirror. No straps, no belts, overhand grip. I started to push and it came so easily, no shrugging at the top and I locked my shoulders back and chest forward. Done. 5kg's more. Repeat. 5kg's more. Repeat. Repeat. The next thing I knew I was tiring (a lot of reps so far), I had 120Kg laying in front of me. I pushed hard and with a little grunt locked my chest forward, nodded at myself in the mirror and lowered the weight before grinning wildly. 10kg more on the bar but this time it felt welded to the floor. With the advice of Dense ringing in my ears I quit "While I still have a back!". I'm not sure if 120kg is my limit as I did so many reps beforehand, it can't be far off mind but that 145kg doesn't seem so elusive now.
So that's it 120kg @ 54 kg (weighed just after). Richdraws from UKB reliably informed me that 'Mighty Malc' did 190kg i'm not sure what at, 65-70?
As I finished off the rest of my workout (notably struggling on the next two exercises, Weighted dips and pulls, super setted together), I noticed a bearded, muscled greying older wad working out in the corner. Some items of clothing screamed climber and it didn't take me long to work out it was Rab, he'd noticed the faded BBC vest I was wearing and we had a brief chat. I hope i'm busting out 8a's when I'm his age I really do. Wad.
For anyone lacking pysch out there check out this Ronnie tribute (he deadlifts 800lb's!).
As I'd worked myself into the ground I allowed myself to sleep in until I woke. This is to try and avoid becoming ill or even worse having a disappointing training session (of which I've only had a few).
Warmed up then went on Bench to start with, I'm still reasonably poor at this exercise and its getting annoying, i've seen gains they're just not fast enough for my liking something not true of the next exercise, Deadlift.
The other day (see below) I did a pb of 100kg but I knew deep down that I could get more out it, I was nowhere near my limit. The first few sets I went light, 40kg for 8, 60kg for 6, 80kg for 6 to ensure my back was fully warmed up and ready to be tested. I wandered over to the other side of the gym to enforce a decent rest period and to pick up more plates on the way in. I took my time racking up the bar and stood there for a while looking at it and psyching myself up. Feet in the right position, one glance forward to set myself correctly, then one to the side mirror. No straps, no belts, overhand grip. I started to push and it came so easily, no shrugging at the top and I locked my shoulders back and chest forward. Done. 5kg's more. Repeat. 5kg's more. Repeat. Repeat. The next thing I knew I was tiring (a lot of reps so far), I had 120Kg laying in front of me. I pushed hard and with a little grunt locked my chest forward, nodded at myself in the mirror and lowered the weight before grinning wildly. 10kg more on the bar but this time it felt welded to the floor. With the advice of Dense ringing in my ears I quit "While I still have a back!". I'm not sure if 120kg is my limit as I did so many reps beforehand, it can't be far off mind but that 145kg doesn't seem so elusive now.
So that's it 120kg @ 54 kg (weighed just after). Richdraws from UKB reliably informed me that 'Mighty Malc' did 190kg i'm not sure what at, 65-70?
As I finished off the rest of my workout (notably struggling on the next two exercises, Weighted dips and pulls, super setted together), I noticed a bearded, muscled greying older wad working out in the corner. Some items of clothing screamed climber and it didn't take me long to work out it was Rab, he'd noticed the faded BBC vest I was wearing and we had a brief chat. I hope i'm busting out 8a's when I'm his age I really do. Wad.
For anyone lacking pysch out there check out this Ronnie tribute (he deadlifts 800lb's!).
Friday 26 September 2008
DEADLIFT!
Well I managed to hit the gym yesterday. It was rushed but it went well. I managed a goal of mine:
100Kg deadlift.
Now according to exrx that puts me at Intermediate level, Advanced is 145 kg and elite 185 kg (for my weight) so its nothing special but I'm pretty psyched as I know I can improve this fairly rapidly.
The strength tables show my other goal of a 100 kg bench to be completely ludicrous as it's classed as elite which:
'Refers specifically to athletes competing in strength sports. Less than 1% of the weight training population will attain this level. '
100Kg deadlift.
Now according to exrx that puts me at Intermediate level, Advanced is 145 kg and elite 185 kg (for my weight) so its nothing special but I'm pretty psyched as I know I can improve this fairly rapidly.
The strength tables show my other goal of a 100 kg bench to be completely ludicrous as it's classed as elite which:
'Refers specifically to athletes competing in strength sports. Less than 1% of the weight training population will attain this level. '
Thursday 25 September 2008
Cabin Fever
Yesterday I had to wait in for the original netgear router to be picked up between 9 and 5 (good accuracy there), and today i'm stuck in again waiting for the ebuyer router to be collected. No doubt returning it will be an absolute hassle. I should of taken screenshots of the problem to prove it to them but I didn't so I'll just have to cross my fingers that its pain free.
The transfer report is edging ever closer to the standard of perfection my supervisor demands. You're required by the uni to write a 6 page report to transfer, thats it. However, I was told to write up my lit review and technical findings which puts the document closer to 106 pages. WHY?
Sorry about this but the whingey tone of the post is due to the fact that i'm due to go to the gym and having an off peak membership means I have to be out by 5, if the b*ggers don't come soon then thats it for today and I hate not being able to train when it suits.
Yesterday. after spending the whole day without uttering a word to anyone, it didn't take a lot of convincing from Nat for me to enlist on spotting duty. I was appalled to see that the comp wall has been reset with HUGE holds. Seriously. I think there are three problems that are going to 'challenge' (and I use that term loosely) the stronger of the Sheffield masses. V. Poor.
Somone asked me why I have such a downer on the place and it's simply that it had the chance to be something amazing and it turned into puntering mediocrity. The original layout had a training area and a free weights area none of which really materialised. I'd love to be able to scrap my gym membership and have somewhere else to train, boards, weights and rings but it doesn't exist and I havent got enough space here in the flat.
Last week when I climbed, two main weak areas (well 3) shone through:
Fingers - they felt crunchy and a bit lacking
Core - Weak weak weak weak
(and the age old Flexibility issue.)
These will need addressing upon re-psych.
The transfer report is edging ever closer to the standard of perfection my supervisor demands. You're required by the uni to write a 6 page report to transfer, thats it. However, I was told to write up my lit review and technical findings which puts the document closer to 106 pages. WHY?
Sorry about this but the whingey tone of the post is due to the fact that i'm due to go to the gym and having an off peak membership means I have to be out by 5, if the b*ggers don't come soon then thats it for today and I hate not being able to train when it suits.
Yesterday. after spending the whole day without uttering a word to anyone, it didn't take a lot of convincing from Nat for me to enlist on spotting duty. I was appalled to see that the comp wall has been reset with HUGE holds. Seriously. I think there are three problems that are going to 'challenge' (and I use that term loosely) the stronger of the Sheffield masses. V. Poor.
Somone asked me why I have such a downer on the place and it's simply that it had the chance to be something amazing and it turned into puntering mediocrity. The original layout had a training area and a free weights area none of which really materialised. I'd love to be able to scrap my gym membership and have somewhere else to train, boards, weights and rings but it doesn't exist and I havent got enough space here in the flat.
Last week when I climbed, two main weak areas (well 3) shone through:
Fingers - they felt crunchy and a bit lacking
Core - Weak weak weak weak
(and the age old Flexibility issue.)
These will need addressing upon re-psych.
Tuesday 23 September 2008
Climbing, lifting and all that malarkey.
The last few weeks have been very busy for me, I'm on draft no. god knows of my transfer report and its got to the point where I didn't get chance to sleep on Sunday night trying to make another unrealistic submission. The knock on effect is that I went to bed early last night and slept for about 18 hours and surprise surprise i'm now not tired, at all.
Saturday night was good as for my Christmas present Nat got me tickets to Lee Evans at the Hallam Arena, that place is massive. The gig was good but not as good as his XXL tour DVD and was ruined slightly at the end by him singing a non comic song about environmental affairs.
Right onto the more interesting stuff.
A while ago now I ended up down at the works with Nat as we were shopping afterwards. On arrival I was met by the enthusiasm of Ryan and Dave M who were both more than keen for me to get my boots on, unfortunately minutes after I agreed they both buggered off but James Blay (now works for wildcountry) turned up and I had a good session. I surprised myself by flashing the majority of the comp wall problems, narrowly missing out on the flash of one of the harder problems as my elbow collided with a blue bolt-a-ledge, unfortunately the session was ruined near the end. I decided to do some chest o n the rings as I knew I'd be too sore/tired to fit in my expected chest session the next day. Within seconds of getting the rings down I had a sea of idiots surrounding me and jumping in whenever possible. I was talking James through the muscle up and an idiot showed up to add his 2p who I had previously taught the same thing. I gave up and left a little annoyed by the whole affair.
Sensing then that this may be the time to re-kickstart the whole climbing affair I forced myself back a few days later, now this session again reminded me about another problem with the works, once you've done the harder problems on the comp wall there isn't a great deal of hard, good problems available. There's a lot of things well within your limit and a tricky circuit with one or two harder problems but consistently hard problems just don't exist. Oh and the training board is w*nk, missing half the holds put on it since it evolved into a 'fixed' problem board.
On the whole climbing front my Dad called on Tuesday morning last week (I think) and said he was coming to Stanage with a friend and would I like to come out tradding? I'd like to point out at this time that the other two members of the group bailed seeing the weather forecast ergo my family does NOT have a pessimistic gene as Dobbin would like to believe.
I spent the day romping up a load of easy routes and really enjoyed myself. I even spied some routes i'd like to return to climb. It's also good to see my Dad progress. I'm not a second generation climber as the previous paragraph might suggest, my Dad started after getting sick and tired of driving me around to crags and to meet people and decided (when I went to Uni) that he'd see what all the fuss is about (quite a logical choice given he loves walking [Dull]).
In the gym things have been going fairly well but as I'm increasingly busy I've tried to mix things up so that I can train less:
Superset:
Flat Bench
Deadlift
Superset:
Weighted Pull-ups
Weighted Dips
Superset:
Pendalay row
Military Press [Currently Arnold Press]
3 sets of 8 although I should really go for 5x5, I just hate it. My body has always responded best to this kind of training 1 day on 1 day off, I'm not sure I subscribe to the theory that you can train every day without ensuring that your isolation of different areas is infallible. It seems to work with some people though but I do think some people struggle with the fact that less can be more, it seems to be a common theme in newbie quieries on power etc.
I found these on exrx.net (they're in lb's)
It made it quite obvious that my goal of getting the big 100kg bench press is going to be very hard, for my bodyweight (56kg, so 123lb's) that's classed as ELITE. My 1 RM's seem to fit in somewhere between Inter and Advanced which I'm pleased with given the definitions on the site.
I don't know whats happened recently but I seem to unseemingly encounter people being less than discrete in various 'acts', my lunch last week on Dev Green was somewhat ruined when I realized that the two alki chavs sat on the near by wall were tending to each other and today at the gym, there I was drinking at the water fountain looking down into the pool to see some jabba the hut looking female tending to her partner in the Jacuzzi. Dear me.
The car is still being overly Italian, Dobbin said it well when he told me that "I'd done my time with an Alfa group car", not wrong! Fuel management sensor failure is it's latest failure as well as Engine Failure, Hill-brake failure, Airbag Failure...the list goes on.
About two weeks ago my router started smelling, of burning components and lett of a little puff before it died. I bought a replacement which had an intermittent signal fault and had hassle returning it and now it seems that the next router that I've bought has some major issues.
Two wried connections, Desktop and Xbox360, two wireless Ubuntu laptop and win xp. Set up using the factory wizard, WPA encryption yet when one laptop is connected the other will detect it as an ad-hoc network. An hour of Netgear help later (their initial suggestions were to turn off security, NO and to delete all of my other preferred networks, NO) they agreed that it was screwed so I now have to return it ebuyer. I also bought a 15 quid wireless access point to configure with my Xbox, I'm now thinking that was a bad move with all this hassle trying to get a basic one working. The silver lining is that Netgear are replacing the first faulty router even though its out of the warranty period.
Saturday night was good as for my Christmas present Nat got me tickets to Lee Evans at the Hallam Arena, that place is massive. The gig was good but not as good as his XXL tour DVD and was ruined slightly at the end by him singing a non comic song about environmental affairs.
Right onto the more interesting stuff.
A while ago now I ended up down at the works with Nat as we were shopping afterwards. On arrival I was met by the enthusiasm of Ryan and Dave M who were both more than keen for me to get my boots on, unfortunately minutes after I agreed they both buggered off but James Blay (now works for wildcountry) turned up and I had a good session. I surprised myself by flashing the majority of the comp wall problems, narrowly missing out on the flash of one of the harder problems as my elbow collided with a blue bolt-a-ledge, unfortunately the session was ruined near the end. I decided to do some chest o n the rings as I knew I'd be too sore/tired to fit in my expected chest session the next day. Within seconds of getting the rings down I had a sea of idiots surrounding me and jumping in whenever possible. I was talking James through the muscle up and an idiot showed up to add his 2p who I had previously taught the same thing. I gave up and left a little annoyed by the whole affair.
Sensing then that this may be the time to re-kickstart the whole climbing affair I forced myself back a few days later, now this session again reminded me about another problem with the works, once you've done the harder problems on the comp wall there isn't a great deal of hard, good problems available. There's a lot of things well within your limit and a tricky circuit with one or two harder problems but consistently hard problems just don't exist. Oh and the training board is w*nk, missing half the holds put on it since it evolved into a 'fixed' problem board.
On the whole climbing front my Dad called on Tuesday morning last week (I think) and said he was coming to Stanage with a friend and would I like to come out tradding? I'd like to point out at this time that the other two members of the group bailed seeing the weather forecast ergo my family does NOT have a pessimistic gene as Dobbin would like to believe.
I spent the day romping up a load of easy routes and really enjoyed myself. I even spied some routes i'd like to return to climb. It's also good to see my Dad progress. I'm not a second generation climber as the previous paragraph might suggest, my Dad started after getting sick and tired of driving me around to crags and to meet people and decided (when I went to Uni) that he'd see what all the fuss is about (quite a logical choice given he loves walking [Dull]).
In the gym things have been going fairly well but as I'm increasingly busy I've tried to mix things up so that I can train less:
Superset:
Flat Bench
Deadlift
Superset:
Weighted Pull-ups
Weighted Dips
Superset:
Pendalay row
Military Press [Currently Arnold Press]
3 sets of 8 although I should really go for 5x5, I just hate it. My body has always responded best to this kind of training 1 day on 1 day off, I'm not sure I subscribe to the theory that you can train every day without ensuring that your isolation of different areas is infallible. It seems to work with some people though but I do think some people struggle with the fact that less can be more, it seems to be a common theme in newbie quieries on power etc.
I found these on exrx.net (they're in lb's)
It made it quite obvious that my goal of getting the big 100kg bench press is going to be very hard, for my bodyweight (56kg, so 123lb's) that's classed as ELITE. My 1 RM's seem to fit in somewhere between Inter and Advanced which I'm pleased with given the definitions on the site.
I don't know whats happened recently but I seem to unseemingly encounter people being less than discrete in various 'acts', my lunch last week on Dev Green was somewhat ruined when I realized that the two alki chavs sat on the near by wall were tending to each other and today at the gym, there I was drinking at the water fountain looking down into the pool to see some jabba the hut looking female tending to her partner in the Jacuzzi. Dear me.
The car is still being overly Italian, Dobbin said it well when he told me that "I'd done my time with an Alfa group car", not wrong! Fuel management sensor failure is it's latest failure as well as Engine Failure, Hill-brake failure, Airbag Failure...the list goes on.
About two weeks ago my router started smelling, of burning components and lett of a little puff before it died. I bought a replacement which had an intermittent signal fault and had hassle returning it and now it seems that the next router that I've bought has some major issues.
Two wried connections, Desktop and Xbox360, two wireless Ubuntu laptop and win xp. Set up using the factory wizard, WPA encryption yet when one laptop is connected the other will detect it as an ad-hoc network. An hour of Netgear help later (their initial suggestions were to turn off security, NO and to delete all of my other preferred networks, NO) they agreed that it was screwed so I now have to return it ebuyer. I also bought a 15 quid wireless access point to configure with my Xbox, I'm now thinking that was a bad move with all this hassle trying to get a basic one working. The silver lining is that Netgear are replacing the first faulty router even though its out of the warranty period.
Thursday 18 September 2008
Arghhh!
Well the other day I though was going to be a good day, I opened the mail to find one of my nsi bonds had won £50 quid. Not a bad start. Later that night, beavering away at my latest (late) report I could smell burning, not toast, nor bad cooking but electrical components. A frantic search around the flat led me to the router which was HOT, one minute later it let out a small puff of smoke so I turned it off. It won't turn back on!.
As I rely quite heavily on it for work I went out that day and bought an almost identical replacement and as you might have guessed from the recent UKB thread I haven't had much luck with that one either.
Today I took it back and was told that he wouldn't refund it and would 'test' it to see if it was indeed faulty. This p*ssed me off but I said ok. He phoned a few hours ago and told me that its fine, he's had it connected (a whopping 1m away) but not sent or recieved any data through it, just let it sit there connected. He then stated that there is no problem and hence no refund. I tried to stay polite and the upshot of it is that he'll test it a bit more (probably about as thoroughly as he has done so far). Now i'm left feeling slightly aggrivated by this, i've never taken anything back before that's needed testing in this way so why now? Is this really acceptable, I don't really see how as he has a vested interest in the item in question being ok. I haven't a clue where to take this from now but I certainly won't be buying from them again.
Furthermore I recieved a letter from my holiday insureres (Snowcard - windsurfing) and they regretfully inform me that they won't cover my sunglasses that sunk because I didn't inform the police of the sinking within 24 hours. Has common sense evaporated from the minds of these people? After an akward pause on the phone where I challenged this brilliant logic they conceded that they would take a written statement from the rep, who incidentally now happens to own an extra two sets of half jacket lenses. I'm sure he won't be hard to convince into writing a letter.
B*stards.
Now, sorry about the rant, I do have climbing/gym revelations to add some time soon. This time with a real shocker = Gritstone tradding!
As I rely quite heavily on it for work I went out that day and bought an almost identical replacement and as you might have guessed from the recent UKB thread I haven't had much luck with that one either.
Today I took it back and was told that he wouldn't refund it and would 'test' it to see if it was indeed faulty. This p*ssed me off but I said ok. He phoned a few hours ago and told me that its fine, he's had it connected (a whopping 1m away) but not sent or recieved any data through it, just let it sit there connected. He then stated that there is no problem and hence no refund. I tried to stay polite and the upshot of it is that he'll test it a bit more (probably about as thoroughly as he has done so far). Now i'm left feeling slightly aggrivated by this, i've never taken anything back before that's needed testing in this way so why now? Is this really acceptable, I don't really see how as he has a vested interest in the item in question being ok. I haven't a clue where to take this from now but I certainly won't be buying from them again.
Furthermore I recieved a letter from my holiday insureres (Snowcard - windsurfing) and they regretfully inform me that they won't cover my sunglasses that sunk because I didn't inform the police of the sinking within 24 hours. Has common sense evaporated from the minds of these people? After an akward pause on the phone where I challenged this brilliant logic they conceded that they would take a written statement from the rep, who incidentally now happens to own an extra two sets of half jacket lenses. I'm sure he won't be hard to convince into writing a letter.
B*stards.
Now, sorry about the rant, I do have climbing/gym revelations to add some time soon. This time with a real shocker = Gritstone tradding!
Tuesday 9 September 2008
King of the Hill
Yesterday a huge box arrived from Myprotein.
A few friends and I clubbed together to save on postage and to take advantage of the bulk buying discounts that they have:
5kg Whey (Raspberry)
2.5 kg Hurricane XS
1kg Creatine Ehtyl Ester (CEE)
1Kg L-glutamine
Numerous shakers, tubs and scoops.
I have to say that i'm really impressed with the whey, i've always conceded that MP didn't have the same palatability of Maximuscle, Met-RX etc. but this flavoured whey is amazing!
Hopefully I can get back into training properly this week without all this inconvenient work stuff getting in the way.
A few friends and I clubbed together to save on postage and to take advantage of the bulk buying discounts that they have:
5kg Whey (Raspberry)
2.5 kg Hurricane XS
1kg Creatine Ehtyl Ester (CEE)
1Kg L-glutamine
Numerous shakers, tubs and scoops.
I have to say that i'm really impressed with the whey, i've always conceded that MP didn't have the same palatability of Maximuscle, Met-RX etc. but this flavoured whey is amazing!
Hopefully I can get back into training properly this week without all this inconvenient work stuff getting in the way.
Sunday 7 September 2008
Holiday Blues...
Just before going on holiday I worked like a demon to meet some fairly unrealistic targets thrust upon me.
One of the final conclusions I made was that "where .... is interesting the effects are not significant when compared to the effects of more hydrodynamic structures". That's taken a year of effort and my time and I'm currently painstakingly making corrections to a report for the nth time that comes to that very conclusion and it's really making me start to question what on earth I thought I was doing signing up for this?
The corrections just seem meaningless given the context, if the end results is of no significance then the method I used to get there is even less so, what happens if the next two years are devoted to taking this further in another context which ends up with the same conclusion? It certainly doesn't make for a meaningful qualification in my mind at least. The other alternative of course is to go down the same path as Nat but that's not something that even she is enjoying, despite her worker bee tendency. The final option of course is (to quote a fairly tacky line) break the mould and do something else with myself, a few ideas flick around in the back of my mind but I really haven't a clue how to make them feasible and I'm not talking free loading sporting bum type career choices either.
Sorry for the whinge which is almost undoubtedly down to coming back from one of my best holidays to date.
On a climbing note (something a bit new and different), Nat hassled me into taking her to the Foundry on friday night. I have to say the place looked sad and vulnerable centered amongst all of the re-development. The same crowd of Friday night locals I knew from around 3 years ago where all there but that was it. I climbed suprisingly well although the firmness on the mat's stopped me from pushing myself on the hardest of the problems. My fingers didn't really thank me for the Foundry reunion, they felt crunchy and generally bad throughout the night. I also managed to upset Ed "concave chest, the human matchstick" Horseley by making reference to Serpico's sports science papers re: rate coding and the uselessness of adding weight for sports specific movements. He looked genuinely hurt. The plus point of all this is of course that the Foundry is only 2 mins away from our flat, hence the evening was much less rushed due to not having to rush across town.
One of the final conclusions I made was that "where .... is interesting the effects are not significant when compared to the effects of more hydrodynamic structures". That's taken a year of effort and my time and I'm currently painstakingly making corrections to a report for the nth time that comes to that very conclusion and it's really making me start to question what on earth I thought I was doing signing up for this?
The corrections just seem meaningless given the context, if the end results is of no significance then the method I used to get there is even less so, what happens if the next two years are devoted to taking this further in another context which ends up with the same conclusion? It certainly doesn't make for a meaningful qualification in my mind at least. The other alternative of course is to go down the same path as Nat but that's not something that even she is enjoying, despite her worker bee tendency. The final option of course is (to quote a fairly tacky line) break the mould and do something else with myself, a few ideas flick around in the back of my mind but I really haven't a clue how to make them feasible and I'm not talking free loading sporting bum type career choices either.
Sorry for the whinge which is almost undoubtedly down to coming back from one of my best holidays to date.
On a climbing note (something a bit new and different), Nat hassled me into taking her to the Foundry on friday night. I have to say the place looked sad and vulnerable centered amongst all of the re-development. The same crowd of Friday night locals I knew from around 3 years ago where all there but that was it. I climbed suprisingly well although the firmness on the mat's stopped me from pushing myself on the hardest of the problems. My fingers didn't really thank me for the Foundry reunion, they felt crunchy and generally bad throughout the night. I also managed to upset Ed "concave chest, the human matchstick" Horseley by making reference to Serpico's sports science papers re: rate coding and the uselessness of adding weight for sports specific movements. He looked genuinely hurt. The plus point of all this is of course that the Foundry is only 2 mins away from our flat, hence the evening was much less rushed due to not having to rush across town.
Thursday 4 September 2008
Dahab '08
Almost 3 weeks ago now I was sat in Manchester Airport at around 5am having left Sheffield at 3, opting to shun sleep in favor of a Halo 3 marathon as by the time we had packed (to the good lady's satisfaction I might add) it was already midnight.Sat there in the gate I started to get very edgey, everyone milling about was fake tan tangerine and sporting either a football shirt or a Juicy Couture tracksuit (first worn by that classy lady Jodie Marsh). Surely these people weren't destined for a week or two of whipping around windsurfing? After what was possibly the most cramped flight I've ever been on, listening to a soundtrack of screaming children over the top of Dobbin's latest mix recommendation on my ipod my fears increased. Straight out of the airport I was handed a load of flyers for the ministry of sound (sporting an open air foam party, MMmmm nice). Kicking myself and making a new resolution to do more research before booking holiday, my fears lifted as the orange brigade marched off in one direction as a Nielson holiday shepherd ushered my another.
An hours bus ride ,a lot of dust, rubbish and a load of check points later, all manned by a young guy with an AK47 we passed through another guarded gate and into the resort and the scenery changed. Nielson have created an odd place here, surrounded by a dusty waste land and a whole lot of nothingness they've managed to build a resort surrounded by lush green grass and trees.
Nat on the beach.
The hotel was basic and the food although not amazing certainly wasn't bad the only bug bear I really had was that they tried to screw you over for water by charging £2.00 for a 1.5 ltr bottle (that was soon rectified by running through the gate house with cases of water bought from the local town as the guards chased us to seize the offending goods).
I won't bore you with all the details and a blow by blow account of the fortnight, just a few noteworthy points.
We were very lucky, 1 or 2 days before we arrived a load of containers that had been held up in Cairo for 3 months also showed up. They contained replacement everything. New dinghies, new boards, new rigs, new harness's the LOT and all of this it turns out is worth a scary amount of money.
There were four aisles like this!
The flies in Dahab are persistent, the local shopkeepers even more so.
It is impossible to spend more than £20 on a 3 course meal for two, we tried ordering mountains of fresh sea food but it never broke that magical 200 L.E.
In week one our group was made up of overweight mothers, jail bait teens who chose to windsurf in bikini top's and booty cut jean shorts under a wet t-shirt, a very studenty student, Nat and I and was 25 strong. By the end of week one only four of us remained and made the cut for RYA level 1. However Nat the student and I made headway into more complex things such as beach starts etc.
The group for week 2 was about 12 strong and as it was classified as "Intermediate Non-planing" everyone had actually decided that they liked the sport and progress was swift. The week was spent improving our tacking and gybing, re-doing beach starts for those that hadn't done them, deep beach starts, water-starts and then using the harness.
My first deep beach start
By the end of the first two days the whole group was planing which was seriously astounding the instructor. After this (as you get days off) Nat and I spent the rest days on the water and ended up pretty much with 1 to 1 tuition, the instructor we got (being Egyptian) was confused as to which group we were in and spent the day teaching us duck gybe's and helitacks which are slightly more advanced, we cracked the duck gybe but the helitack (being the first real freestyle move you learn) evaded us, the whole getting back winded and being on the wrong side of the sail just led to being catapulted violently in various directions.
On the last day the instructor encouraged us to be brave, smaller board, bigger sail. Oh, it was also very windy. I had a massive smile on my face as I was planing along in the harness at high speed with shoals of fish shooting beneath my board. I don't really know how to liken it to climbing but its a similar feeling when you're skiing, really smooth and really fast in nice conditions. We were warned in week 1 that once you get planing you'll get addicted, it's true. Another freestyle move went down on the final day, the boomerang, turn into the wind and throw your sail forward and down, it shoots back to your hand like a boomerang and bang, you're off!
As we didn't leave until 1:30pm on the last day and it was a free-sail day, Nat and I got up early, so early in fact that we had the water to ourselves. We managed to squeeze in a good few hours of blasting around until my hands fell to bits and we called it a day. It was a bit depressing to finally sign the equipment back in.
By the end of the two weeks we both managed to get our RYA level 2 and are well on the way to level 3, the whole group as we said previously were planing! Nat and I also received the group award and were urged NOT to quit due to the swift rate of progress.
Nat in the middle
The journey back was boring and uneventful but thankfully Nat had the Friday off so it wasn't straight back to work. We picked up our bags at the airport and wandered down to the station just in time to watch a Sheffield train disappear. The next train was nearly three hours later which made me curse taking the slightly cheaper option. Sitting around doing nothing when you're tired is just rubbish.
So now we're back and still keen on getting back out on the water sometime soon, despite the obvious differences, we're not exactly in a great location which means travel, add to that the cost of renting equipment and things start getting pricey but nowhere near the cost of buying equipment. Second hand, one board and rig similar to that which we were using the previous week costs £1057 and add to that you need another couple of sails, wet suit, harness..
The car tried to upset me last weekend. "Engine Failure" warning light. Nat and I cursed its Italian nature, a few days later I decided to give it a check over and my cursing turned to my other half. A quick top up of water and the over dramatic Italian was silenced.
One more thing - Oakleys don't float unfortunately.
Glossary if anyone cares:
Duck Gybe:
Helitack:
An hours bus ride ,a lot of dust, rubbish and a load of check points later, all manned by a young guy with an AK47 we passed through another guarded gate and into the resort and the scenery changed. Nielson have created an odd place here, surrounded by a dusty waste land and a whole lot of nothingness they've managed to build a resort surrounded by lush green grass and trees.
Nat on the beach.The hotel was basic and the food although not amazing certainly wasn't bad the only bug bear I really had was that they tried to screw you over for water by charging £2.00 for a 1.5 ltr bottle (that was soon rectified by running through the gate house with cases of water bought from the local town as the guards chased us to seize the offending goods).
I won't bore you with all the details and a blow by blow account of the fortnight, just a few noteworthy points.
We were very lucky, 1 or 2 days before we arrived a load of containers that had been held up in Cairo for 3 months also showed up. They contained replacement everything. New dinghies, new boards, new rigs, new harness's the LOT and all of this it turns out is worth a scary amount of money.
There were four aisles like this!The flies in Dahab are persistent, the local shopkeepers even more so.
It is impossible to spend more than £20 on a 3 course meal for two, we tried ordering mountains of fresh sea food but it never broke that magical 200 L.E.
In week one our group was made up of overweight mothers, jail bait teens who chose to windsurf in bikini top's and booty cut jean shorts under a wet t-shirt, a very studenty student, Nat and I and was 25 strong. By the end of week one only four of us remained and made the cut for RYA level 1. However Nat the student and I made headway into more complex things such as beach starts etc.
The group for week 2 was about 12 strong and as it was classified as "Intermediate Non-planing" everyone had actually decided that they liked the sport and progress was swift. The week was spent improving our tacking and gybing, re-doing beach starts for those that hadn't done them, deep beach starts, water-starts and then using the harness.
My first deep beach startBy the end of the first two days the whole group was planing which was seriously astounding the instructor. After this (as you get days off) Nat and I spent the rest days on the water and ended up pretty much with 1 to 1 tuition, the instructor we got (being Egyptian) was confused as to which group we were in and spent the day teaching us duck gybe's and helitacks which are slightly more advanced, we cracked the duck gybe but the helitack (being the first real freestyle move you learn) evaded us, the whole getting back winded and being on the wrong side of the sail just led to being catapulted violently in various directions.
On the last day the instructor encouraged us to be brave, smaller board, bigger sail. Oh, it was also very windy. I had a massive smile on my face as I was planing along in the harness at high speed with shoals of fish shooting beneath my board. I don't really know how to liken it to climbing but its a similar feeling when you're skiing, really smooth and really fast in nice conditions. We were warned in week 1 that once you get planing you'll get addicted, it's true. Another freestyle move went down on the final day, the boomerang, turn into the wind and throw your sail forward and down, it shoots back to your hand like a boomerang and bang, you're off!
As we didn't leave until 1:30pm on the last day and it was a free-sail day, Nat and I got up early, so early in fact that we had the water to ourselves. We managed to squeeze in a good few hours of blasting around until my hands fell to bits and we called it a day. It was a bit depressing to finally sign the equipment back in.
By the end of the two weeks we both managed to get our RYA level 2 and are well on the way to level 3, the whole group as we said previously were planing! Nat and I also received the group award and were urged NOT to quit due to the swift rate of progress.
Nat in the middleThe journey back was boring and uneventful but thankfully Nat had the Friday off so it wasn't straight back to work. We picked up our bags at the airport and wandered down to the station just in time to watch a Sheffield train disappear. The next train was nearly three hours later which made me curse taking the slightly cheaper option. Sitting around doing nothing when you're tired is just rubbish.
So now we're back and still keen on getting back out on the water sometime soon, despite the obvious differences, we're not exactly in a great location which means travel, add to that the cost of renting equipment and things start getting pricey but nowhere near the cost of buying equipment. Second hand, one board and rig similar to that which we were using the previous week costs £1057 and add to that you need another couple of sails, wet suit, harness..
The car tried to upset me last weekend. "Engine Failure" warning light. Nat and I cursed its Italian nature, a few days later I decided to give it a check over and my cursing turned to my other half. A quick top up of water and the over dramatic Italian was silenced.
One more thing - Oakleys don't float unfortunately.
Glossary if anyone cares:
Duck Gybe:
Helitack:
Tuesday 12 August 2008
Waiting for my hols and weighting my dips.
My supplement stash was replenished courtesy of my friend James who purchased 25kg of unflavoured whey about a year ago. I can only wonder as to what the people in the office were thinking as I confirmed "I'll take a kilo off you", but never mind. The last two weeks have been pretty intense with work, I had to do a number of small simulations that I'd forgotten about as well as a monster one; a time dependant multiphase volume of fluid species model on a 2D CSO. Not exciting but very long winded and trying to get all of the different models to interact was tricky, not to mention time consuming. Each time a new model is enabled a number of additional algorithms are added at each computational stage, therefore a high number of models eats processor power and the run time is hhhuuuggggeee. Get it wrong and start again.
As I write this I'm waiting to see my supervisor having ticked 2 of the 3 boxes she set me to do whilst she was away. The last is only a short report but it's the front end for my transfer report so it must be well written, with a sound plan behind it. I don't have a plan.
Despite not being able to enjoy my weekends due to the amount of work on I told myself that I wouldn't let it get in the way of me doing some things that I enjoy, mainly exercise. The gym has been going well with a few of the weights increasing although not at the same rate I'd previously seen. My chest workout is fine tuned and I really enjoy it. The Gironda dips have been feeling fairly easy as of late which is a miracle compared to the first time I did dips at the foundry 4 years ago, my chest felt like it was about to tear in two, Paul Reeve proceeded to blast out a lot. As nothing should feel 'easy', I decided to add weight to my dips, first session 5kg, still too easy, next 10kg but still not failing and the third 15kg which just about crushes me. On another weight related note Keith and I have a new challenge, I won't go into it further but I'm currently at +12.5kg which I'm sure the man muscle will crush.
I remember writing not so long ago that the day I decided to train legs was the day that I'd really lost interest in climbing, well it's nearing that day. It feels so unbalanced ignoring the lower half of your body, I can't work out a training split that allows me to split out chest, shoulders and back without adding a lower half day (or I guess another rest).
My family popped in for an hour or so yesterday to pick up a few bits and bobs and it left just enough time to go out for lunch which was nice.
Oh james also gave me a film to watch, more of a documentary really
BIGGER, STRONGER, FASTER
it's very similar in style to Michael Moore type documentary's but this time it's about steroids.
5 mins to my meeting so I better leave it at that, it's likely this will be my last post before my hols.
As I write this I'm waiting to see my supervisor having ticked 2 of the 3 boxes she set me to do whilst she was away. The last is only a short report but it's the front end for my transfer report so it must be well written, with a sound plan behind it. I don't have a plan.
Despite not being able to enjoy my weekends due to the amount of work on I told myself that I wouldn't let it get in the way of me doing some things that I enjoy, mainly exercise. The gym has been going well with a few of the weights increasing although not at the same rate I'd previously seen. My chest workout is fine tuned and I really enjoy it. The Gironda dips have been feeling fairly easy as of late which is a miracle compared to the first time I did dips at the foundry 4 years ago, my chest felt like it was about to tear in two, Paul Reeve proceeded to blast out a lot. As nothing should feel 'easy', I decided to add weight to my dips, first session 5kg, still too easy, next 10kg but still not failing and the third 15kg which just about crushes me. On another weight related note Keith and I have a new challenge, I won't go into it further but I'm currently at +12.5kg which I'm sure the man muscle will crush.
I remember writing not so long ago that the day I decided to train legs was the day that I'd really lost interest in climbing, well it's nearing that day. It feels so unbalanced ignoring the lower half of your body, I can't work out a training split that allows me to split out chest, shoulders and back without adding a lower half day (or I guess another rest).
My family popped in for an hour or so yesterday to pick up a few bits and bobs and it left just enough time to go out for lunch which was nice.
Oh james also gave me a film to watch, more of a documentary really
BIGGER, STRONGER, FASTER
it's very similar in style to Michael Moore type documentary's but this time it's about steroids.
5 mins to my meeting so I better leave it at that, it's likely this will be my last post before my hols.
Thursday 7 August 2008
Two Weeks, No Fun
Due to my sneaky trip plan failing at an early stage I was pretty sulky for the start of last week and hence not very productive, another reason for this is that last time I worked myself for stupidly long days in order to produce a report for a silly deadline, I got it all done and dusted and then caught the dreaded man flu which is not a position I want to be in generally, even more so with a holiday coming up.
Despite the above I've been fairly consistent at the gym (besides today). My workout needs changing up a bit and I'm not quite sure which direction to take it, I dabbled with 10 sets of 3 in my last workout but I have to admit I didn't enjoy it as the majority of the time you just clock watch (which is what I do when I'm writing things usually!). Maybe its time for 5 x 5, it'll certainly be a bit of an ego boost as the weight I'm lifting will dramatically increase. Back to the 10x3, it's a very strange feeling; you fail without the usual feeling of failure that you get from weights, your muscle doesn't feel tired it just CANNOT lift anymore. Personally I prefer the 'pumped' feeling.
I posted up some questions about what I could/should do on a fitness forum and some of the responses were very amusing, I mentioned that legs were not going to be trained as I climbed which caused quite a stir, i know strong legs help with rockovers etc. but I've never struggled to push my slight frame upwards. The additional weight however would be annoyingly pointless. Anyway they suggested I take a look at this for pullup variants:
trying to explain to them that the above looks like what happens when a load of strong climbers get bored and start dicking about (apart from the planche type stuff) fell on deaf ears.
My supplement stash pile is dwindling and I've left it too late to order some extra whey and be sure that it arrives before we depart for Egypt. DAMN!
Unfortunately I was dragged around Meadowhall to buy stuff for the trip, one purchase was an O'neil surfing top to stop me getting badly burnt (it'll take more than that) which was highly embarrassing as it can only be described as somewhat 'tight'
Today is a wholly unproductive day as I'm sat in showing estate agents the apartment. Basically a financial opportunity has popped up and we need to know where we stand before considering our options. The other thing is that despite being a full time student in Sheffield, my studies don't really require me to be in a specific place, wherever I lay my hat is my home so to speak but in this case replace hat with "computer with a silly amount of RAM and processors used to run fluent at a hell of a pace". Nat commutes daily for what ends up being 45 mins each way and it really eats into her free time. Add her fitness regime to that and the days fly by without seeing each other much at all.
I forgot to add:
I was at the works one evening this week (on spotting duty as per usual) and watched two people one m one f, climbing. Being bored I started mentally weighing up their climbing styles, strengths and weaknesses. The funny thing is that they both were completely opposite but yet saw fit to undertake the same rings routine at the end of the session. Why is it that people train the same way as their friends, even if that clearly isn't their weakness? Merely for companionship throughout the session? I know its hard to work your weaknesses but it is the most beneficial thing you can do (something I wish I'd understood the importance of earlier on!).
Now...where is that stretching article?
Despite the above I've been fairly consistent at the gym (besides today). My workout needs changing up a bit and I'm not quite sure which direction to take it, I dabbled with 10 sets of 3 in my last workout but I have to admit I didn't enjoy it as the majority of the time you just clock watch (which is what I do when I'm writing things usually!). Maybe its time for 5 x 5, it'll certainly be a bit of an ego boost as the weight I'm lifting will dramatically increase. Back to the 10x3, it's a very strange feeling; you fail without the usual feeling of failure that you get from weights, your muscle doesn't feel tired it just CANNOT lift anymore. Personally I prefer the 'pumped' feeling.
I posted up some questions about what I could/should do on a fitness forum and some of the responses were very amusing, I mentioned that legs were not going to be trained as I climbed which caused quite a stir, i know strong legs help with rockovers etc. but I've never struggled to push my slight frame upwards. The additional weight however would be annoyingly pointless. Anyway they suggested I take a look at this for pullup variants:
trying to explain to them that the above looks like what happens when a load of strong climbers get bored and start dicking about (apart from the planche type stuff) fell on deaf ears.
My supplement stash pile is dwindling and I've left it too late to order some extra whey and be sure that it arrives before we depart for Egypt. DAMN!
Unfortunately I was dragged around Meadowhall to buy stuff for the trip, one purchase was an O'neil surfing top to stop me getting badly burnt (it'll take more than that) which was highly embarrassing as it can only be described as somewhat 'tight'
Today is a wholly unproductive day as I'm sat in showing estate agents the apartment. Basically a financial opportunity has popped up and we need to know where we stand before considering our options. The other thing is that despite being a full time student in Sheffield, my studies don't really require me to be in a specific place, wherever I lay my hat is my home so to speak but in this case replace hat with "computer with a silly amount of RAM and processors used to run fluent at a hell of a pace". Nat commutes daily for what ends up being 45 mins each way and it really eats into her free time. Add her fitness regime to that and the days fly by without seeing each other much at all.
I forgot to add:
I was at the works one evening this week (on spotting duty as per usual) and watched two people one m one f, climbing. Being bored I started mentally weighing up their climbing styles, strengths and weaknesses. The funny thing is that they both were completely opposite but yet saw fit to undertake the same rings routine at the end of the session. Why is it that people train the same way as their friends, even if that clearly isn't their weakness? Merely for companionship throughout the session? I know its hard to work your weaknesses but it is the most beneficial thing you can do (something I wish I'd understood the importance of earlier on!).
Now...where is that stretching article?
Wednesday 30 July 2008
Not quite feeling the penguin...
Ok, this post is a little less intense than the last:
Last Thursday I had quite a big meeting regarding progress so far with my PhD. The intention was to tie off any loose ends and present a decent conclusion for all my work up to date, obviously I was busy. Add to that the fact that another avenue showed potential and my week got a lot busier, Thursday came and went well and I put in extra effort to finalize something before my supervisor was off on holidays for two weeks. That was a mistake, it backfired and she basically suggested that due to the efficiency that I'm working that it would be reasonable for me to transfer from mphil to the full on course in two weeks time on her return, just before I'm off windsurfing for two weeks. B*llocks, two very busy weeks for me then. I'd hope I might be able to justify a trip to Ceuse as a mate had emailed asking whether I fancied it, its not my favorite place but at least the weather is a tad more reliable, anyway thats a non starter now.
The following weekend we visited my family which was good and I finally got a proper drive of the new car, it's a nippy one for sure but it's not thrilling to be honest, more of a rep mobile. Oh and the mpg is cr*p compared to the previous Audi.
This weekend we visited Nat's family for a company bbq which was fantastic and a great laugh however I'm always put in a difficult position at these events. Basically Nat and I aren't fussed about drinking so we offered to drive, her younger brother said the same and seeing as though he's ensured on the 7 series (much more room), we took him up on it. We arrived and he started drinking like a fish, thankfully the heat caught up with him and he got so de-hydrated he switched to water and several hours later was surely fine to drive. I've got to admit however that I'm not really that comfortable getting in a car with any of her family with their lax attitude to the alcohol limit, not to mention an over enthusiastic teenager in a 350 bhp monster. His driving was appalling and (as with Nat previously) seems to understand very little about driving at a reasonable pace, there are some do's and some definite don'ts. Cars DO NOT like you decelerate or brake mid corner, its a terrifying feeling.
Due to all of this gallivanting I haven't been as consistent at the gym, I did chest today and despite feeling a little pre-cold in the back of my throat I did fairly well. I arrived late again which means the workout was rushed, I need to stop doing this. Tomorrow will be a back day unless Dobbin calls and has a sensible suggestion for going out somewhere, with this heat though I can't really think of a suitable afternoon destination that appeals.
On another more geeky note I got sick of this laptop taking an age to boot and generally breaking more often than it ought to so I had a crack at installing Ubuntu, it wasn't a straightforward process but I'm getting there now and this is the first post under the new OS and I've got to say that everything works much quicker and of course its all free with excellent support! It'll be interesting to see how these distro's develop in the future.
Last Thursday I had quite a big meeting regarding progress so far with my PhD. The intention was to tie off any loose ends and present a decent conclusion for all my work up to date, obviously I was busy. Add to that the fact that another avenue showed potential and my week got a lot busier, Thursday came and went well and I put in extra effort to finalize something before my supervisor was off on holidays for two weeks. That was a mistake, it backfired and she basically suggested that due to the efficiency that I'm working that it would be reasonable for me to transfer from mphil to the full on course in two weeks time on her return, just before I'm off windsurfing for two weeks. B*llocks, two very busy weeks for me then. I'd hope I might be able to justify a trip to Ceuse as a mate had emailed asking whether I fancied it, its not my favorite place but at least the weather is a tad more reliable, anyway thats a non starter now.
The following weekend we visited my family which was good and I finally got a proper drive of the new car, it's a nippy one for sure but it's not thrilling to be honest, more of a rep mobile. Oh and the mpg is cr*p compared to the previous Audi.
This weekend we visited Nat's family for a company bbq which was fantastic and a great laugh however I'm always put in a difficult position at these events. Basically Nat and I aren't fussed about drinking so we offered to drive, her younger brother said the same and seeing as though he's ensured on the 7 series (much more room), we took him up on it. We arrived and he started drinking like a fish, thankfully the heat caught up with him and he got so de-hydrated he switched to water and several hours later was surely fine to drive. I've got to admit however that I'm not really that comfortable getting in a car with any of her family with their lax attitude to the alcohol limit, not to mention an over enthusiastic teenager in a 350 bhp monster. His driving was appalling and (as with Nat previously) seems to understand very little about driving at a reasonable pace, there are some do's and some definite don'ts. Cars DO NOT like you decelerate or brake mid corner, its a terrifying feeling.
Due to all of this gallivanting I haven't been as consistent at the gym, I did chest today and despite feeling a little pre-cold in the back of my throat I did fairly well. I arrived late again which means the workout was rushed, I need to stop doing this. Tomorrow will be a back day unless Dobbin calls and has a sensible suggestion for going out somewhere, with this heat though I can't really think of a suitable afternoon destination that appeals.
On another more geeky note I got sick of this laptop taking an age to boot and generally breaking more often than it ought to so I had a crack at installing Ubuntu, it wasn't a straightforward process but I'm getting there now and this is the first post under the new OS and I've got to say that everything works much quicker and of course its all free with excellent support! It'll be interesting to see how these distro's develop in the future.
Wednesday 23 July 2008
Skimming the Fat - a method to get lean!
***Warning - None of this post is written by a qualified individual. Please seek advice from a suitable party before considering any change in diet or lifestyle as it may severely affect your health and well being.***
Myths:
Firstly let's dispel some myths about body fat. I've read (on some of the better climbing forums) people claiming body fat percentages as low as 4%, whereas this is not impossible, I have NEVER seen a single climber who would actually live up to this claim. Bruce lee (pictured below pulling off an impressive front lat spread) was rumoured to have reached the fabled level of 5%, but in this picture he is far off this level and once again I believe this could be a myth propagated by fitness magazines and the general media knowing very little on the subject.
At around 15% body fat (in males) the abdominals begin to show definition, below 12% you start to develop a decent cut and shape around most of the central abdominal muscles. Below 10% further definition continues especially on the surrounding areas such as the Serratus (fingers of muscle which span from the side at chest level into the upper abdominal region). 8% and you're starting to look like an anatomy chart. Finally the hallowed ~5% , at this level striations are apparent and the body will have obvious vascularity (I'm not talking about blue lines under the skin here, I mean veins like somebody draped a power cord over your muscles). Dorian Yates is pictured below at what is probably around that level (N.B. Being this low is NOT good for you and is generally only carried out for short periods of time, it's also very unsustainable).
Now this brings me back to climbers; who do you know that has that kind of definition, separation and vascularity (even just on the muscles that we mainly stress in climbing)? Ignore what the machines down at your local gym tell you, or the free hand held device you were given when you spent £50 on petrol at Tesco's, even ignore calliper measurements, the mirror never lies.Another Myth I wish to dispel is spot reduction of fat. It is impossible! The only way crunches vaguely help you loose body fat around your stomach is by increasing the vascularity of the muscle group, thus allowing it more blood supply and more potential for fat oxidisation/mobilisation.
Why?
The climbing press has recently highlighted its concerns as to the health and well being of some top climbers, suggesting that a few may have dietary conditions such as Anorexia and are using unsafe weight loss techniques to ensure a high power to weight ratio. It has also been suggested that this is particularly common in female competition climbers who find it much easier to loose weight than to gain the equivalent power. I can't really comment on whether or not this is true. Stevie Haston has backed up the point with a few examples from his own experience.
The problem with the above (apart from the serious health implications) is that weight loss does not differentiate between muscle and fat. It is much harder to loose fat and retain lean body mass (LBM) than it is to just loose weight, this is apparent in celebrity culture where the latest person in the limelight will crash diet and look like a walking skeleton.
The methods generally used to achieve this look slow down the metabolism and as soon as the person returns to a normal diet, a high amount of body fat is instantly gained. Obviously it's not wise for anyone to employ such tactics, especially sports people who will swiftly loose any hard earned strength gains.
Short term manipulation of body composition can however be beneficial and help in gaining that elusive goal, more to the point it can be carried out in a safe manner, allowing lean body mass to be retained.
Diet Types:
A brief look at 3 main diet types:
The Bulk - A high calorific excess is taken in daily, allowing for swift gains in muscle size due to increases in muscle and also each muscle gaining a large covering of fat. A bulk is usually followed by a cut in which the fat is lost, as well as some of the muscle gains.
The Lean Bulk - A smaller calorific excess is taken in daily, gains are slower but the increase in body fat percentage is also much slower. This method usually negates the need to cut. If this is not the case the cutting period is greatly reduced. Personally this seems like a sensible method for climbers during strength phases.
The Cut - A calorific deficit is taken in daily (200-300Kcals below maintenance), teamed with an exercise plan and clean eating this will lead to a decrease in body fat percentage.
Clean Eating
Before starting any of the above it is essential to eat 'Clean' for the first few weeks. Clean foods consist of (but are not limited to):
Carbs:
Wholewheat/Spinach/Beetroot Pasta
Brown Rice
Porridge Oats
Protein:
Eggs
Chicken
Pork
Beef
Lamb
Tuna
Salmon
Mackerel
Cottage Cheese
Fats:
Olive Oil
Eggs
Nuts
Meat
Vitamins & Minerals:
Most veg, preferably green leafy
EFA's (Essential Fatty Acids):
Mackerel
Salmon
Cod
Flax Seed
Nuts
Fish Oil Supplements
Complex carbs are in, low GI foods, leafy veg and good protein sources. Empty calories are avoided, simple carbs, sugars (fructose, so fruit is out) etc. The only place these are relevant in a cutting diet is post workout (PWO) Simple carbs such as Dextrose are found in many recovery shakes. (If you must sweeten things such as porridge oats use a natural sugar such as honey, set seems to be sweet so you'll use a little less)
No alcohol!
The Method
Find out your calorific maintenance level, for women this is usually around 2000 Kcals and for men 2500 Kcals. Subtract 200-300 Kcals from that and you have your daily aim. The deficit can be further reduced (to around 400-500 Kcals) at a later stage if progress is slow. It is important to never dip below 1400 Kcals per day as this will stall your metabolism and make it cling to your body fat until the bitter end, you have been warned.
Your daily intake should be split into six equally spaced meals, the first of which should be a complex carb such as porridge oats and the last of which should be a slow digesting protein, this prevents your LBM being used as an energy source as you sleep.
The rest of the meals should consist of a protein source and if at all possible some kind of green veg. (Malc wasn't far off with steak and broccoli)
Using a website such as fitday.com (i'm sure a uk version exists), plan your meals for the next day aiming for a split of 50% protein, 30% Carbs, 20% Fat (NOT SATURATED FAT!). Aim to hit your target amount of calories and to split the calories evenly throughout the day.
Cheating
As the above is very restrictive it is often wise to allow a cheat meal. People have different methods of cheating, some allow one meal a week, others 2 meals a month. Some even allow themselves a whole day per week! Whatever you choose to do accept that this will slow down progress however it is likely to prevent you from having a complete dietary lapse and loosing all of you're effort up to that point. Do not take cheating to the extreme as you know plain well three Donner kebabs is overdoing it.
Hydration
Drink lots, more than you usually do by far.
Exercise:
(Not applicable if you're climbing regularly)
Of course the above won't really do a great deal if it's not partnered with a decent exercise schedule. Try to keep sessions short (especially when lifting weights, 1 hour max) and hard.
Aim for 5-6 days a week and ensure one full rest day.
To help speed things up cardiovascular exercise can also be utilised. Do not undertake steady state cardio, instead carry out High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) 2-3 days a week for no more than 15-20 mins. It has been suggested in various publications that this can be undertaken before breakfast, do not do this, it's been shown to weaken the immune system.
HIIT: 5 mins warm up of chosen exercise e.g running
followed by 15-20 mins
30 sec's Sprinting (Ensure this is roughly 90% of your maxiumum effort at every interval)
60 sec's Light Joggging
It may be tempting to do more, don't. Rushing things will inevitably lead to doing something wrong.
Supplementation:
Supplemetns are exactly that, supplementary. If the basics aren't right these aren't going to make a great deal of diference.
Thermogenics - work by briefly increasing the metabolic rate, people experience mixed results and these are not suitable for some people to take *CHECK THIS WITH SOMEONE WHO KNOWS*. They also make you sweat a lot.
Sesamine - Is an extract taken from sesame seed oil. It has been shown to help mobilise stubborn fatty deposits. Some people experience total loss of sexual desire while taking this product.
Fish Oils - A common household supplement in this day and age. When stacked with Sesamine results are increased.
Green Tea - As in the drink, has been found to help in fat oxidisation, the problem is that to get a useful dose you need to drink a hell of a lot of this stuff (7 cups per day). As many people don't find this practical or hate the taste (Clipper seems nice to me and fair trade, unbleached etc.) it is available in tablet form. These tablets often contain caffeine.
Protein - You might find if you are undertaking a cut it's hard to get in enough protein within a day. Protein shakes obviously can help this, pick the right one preferably low in simple carbs. Some companies have developed bedtime formula's to allow convenient access to slow digesting (Cassein) proteins.
Supplements usually aren't cheap, shop around a lot and avoid Holland and Barrett like the plague (for most things anyway). Myprotein.co.uk supply a good range of sports and health supplements at a reasonable price, it seems to me that taste is often compromised compared to the bigger brands.
Guaging Progress
Don't use the scales to measure progess, your daily weight will vary depending on all sorts of factors, even more so if you're a woman. Use a mirror or take a photograph, 4-6 weeks later take another and compare.
In the end:
If you've been bothered to carry out any of the above revel in your new found lean self and hopefully that elusive tick. After this re-think your diet, where to next?
***Climbers reading this: It is unlikely that any of the above is at all applicable, go out and climb instead. I can promise you it will be more fun!***
***Warning - None of the above is written by a qualified individual. Please seek advice from a suitable party before considering any change in diet or lifestyle as it may severely affect your health and well being.***
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