NNFN!

Went to the tor...

warmed up thoroughly, but all of my goals were wet so I went on 'Powerhumps' with the hope of getting it so wired that 'Staminahumps' is a real possibility.

First try goes badly, I hit the crimp wrong. No worries, it happens.

I pull back on, hit the second open and carry on to the jug, easy.

Drop off from the jug in absolute agony.

Uncurling my fingers hurt like hell, I couldn't load it. I can't load it. Its f*cked!

NNFN!

3 weeks 'til trip time...

Tor-bound

When Nat gets home from work we'll be jumping in the car ASAP and nipping to the tor, fingers crossed for ok conditions, as well as no traffic.

If we run out of light, Wed I'll be buying a lantern!

Whilst I may berate myself for not approaching my sessions very sensibly lately, at least I can say that these days I am definately making a lot more effort to get out instead of taking the easy option...

Amateur

Having not had much enthusiasm to train recently everything has become a bit slack. I haven't been indoors much and when I have, I haven't really tried all that hard, preferring to sag back to Terre Firma than actually pull hard. Team this with my amateurish attitude to skin from the previous weekend and you have the perfect recipe for a disappointing day at the Tor. Yesterday, weepy, hurty bruised skin stopped me from feeling particularly good on anything. I couldn't manage the move on Ben's roof where you (or I) take my feet off and plonk them on the sidewall (I was cruising on this just a few weekends ago), this left me feeling frustrated with myself. I've got a trip coming up in less than a month, I don't want to have peaked too early or waste it by not being on form or worse; because I haven't given it my all before I leave! Maybe I just wasn't on it, maybe it was too warm, whatever it was it certainly wasn't great.
When we then decided to leave (5.30 ish) it was evident that I'd made another amateurish mistake, the conditions had improved massively just in time for the so-called 'hour of power'. We arrived in the heat of the day, with bad skin, and yet persevered? Foolish behaviour, which I won't be repeating anytime soon.

Next weekend we are away so I'm going to pack in the training this week as much as possible. Tomorrow night Nat and I will try and squeeze in an evening tor session. My lock felt particularly weak yesterday and it's about time I did another Beastmaker phase. NO MORE BEER...or tequila...

A few things crossed my mind yesterday (whilst being grouchy of course);

• Kids and climbing are all well and good but when they have little or no understanding of crag etiquette and their guardian would prefer to get stuck into Staminaband rather than to stop them chanting (loudly) behind someone climbing then the two simply don't go together.
• People who walk over and try whatever you're trying for the sake of it are annoying, especially when their kids are running around being a pain.
• IF there isn't enough room for you to get in between me and the bit of rock I'm about to pull on to, suppose there may just be a reason. Especially if your kids are running around being a pain.
• Climbing or more to the point BOULDERING is far too accessible.
• Sheffield will be getting a real treat in under a month when UKB's latest pair of buildering fanatics head our way, supposedly climbing full-time no doubt not living in a woodshed.

Deck!

Things have changed and it might be possible for me to get out on Saturday morning, because of this last night (despite being absolutely disinterested with plastic) I eventually arrived at the Foundry.
I climbed well but a bit half heartedy. The current set of problems IMO are a bit poor. Many of them are tweaked older problems or have the same start as before etc. Its like doing the same problems over and over and gets boring. The new white thing was good but went down fairly quickly, the only other struggle was the wasp. It turned out I was missing a feature out but TBH its better and more basic (and harder) without.
Later I ended the session on the board, I did a few of my old things, a few of Carl's and fell off on Leo's. I was pretty chuffed to do the moves on Pinch 3 mind you, which is something that seemed so unfeasible just 6 months or so ago. Strong Ed arrived later on but by then I was too tired to try hard on his pinching problems.
Midway through the session I was stood beneath the wave chatting to Bentlegs about various stuff. We both fell silent after hearing an almighty thud from the lead wall. Everybody knows what that sound means and to be facing out from the wave whilst it happened wasn't nice. God knows what caused it but from about 6 clips up on the wall just left of the main overhang some poor sod had decked, completely. His belayer was hysterical and in absolute bits. He, thankfully got up unscathed, a real tribute to the matting that is underneath these walls!
Rae Cowie (sp?) casually walked past me later on that evening and (in a very dry tone) said "you should learn to land like that"... and then later on "at least he didn't scream like you". It made me chuckle but morbidely curious about what she knew. Turned out she was the only person to see me screw myself up and not only had it nearly made her sick on the spot it had stayed with her...sorry about that.

Twitter

I don't have twitter so unfortunately I can't let you know instantly when my bowels decide to move however;

Paul

• Has just realised he has been climbing for 5 days out of 8 (all on rock)
• Has been climbing absolutely sh*t indoors for the last few weeks
• Thinks, maybe the two are linked?

I forgot to post about the weekend before last.
It was something like this:

Sat: Go to the tor with Nat, start trying Staminaband. Make great progress and find myself two moves from the end. Fall off a few times then it got busy. Realise that I linked from the u/cuts to the end. That means I've actually got around to trying and ticking powerband.
Sun: Caley, too warm for Zoo york. Rumble around with some elder waddage and generally have a great time. Nat waltzed up otley wall amongst other things. Flash New Jerusalem and realise its not only morpho but soft as anything in its current condition.

Welsh Rampage (...of sorts)

Ok so here's the full story:

Thurs:
The morning came and I still hadn't sorted out when or if I was still going to Wales for a few days to stay with Doyle. Having just booked a holiday to Albarraccin in the coming months I'm really feeling the pressure of getting everything done before I go so that the meeting (3 days after) goes smoothly. The main problem is that everything I do uses CFD and long iterative processes, it can't be hurried and small mistakes usually cost a large amount of time which right now I simply can't afford. I'd tried all week to meet with my supervisor to sort out some issues I was having but she didn't seem to have any time, that was until the Welsh idea formed in my mind and then she set about offering meeting times that would ruin going away at all. A few emails later I had managed to sidestep some difficult questions, so I scrabbled to get some chores done before jumping on a train to the Orme. As you will remember the weather was great and the 3 hour train journey went by quickly as I settled down to start reading Revelations. What could be more poetic than heading to LPT to try Liquid Ambar reading that book? Doyle picked me up from the station and told me we were going to the cave. Oh. I got sucked into Sams finish, a none too exciting bit problem on the RHS and set about systematically ruining my skin. Doyle made plenty of remarks about my amateurish approach but this problem got under my skin. Finally I was bleeding, failing after all the hard climbing and admitted defeat. I was quick to point out that if I stop at the first signs of skin damage I wouldn't get up anything!

Fri:
Doyle disappeared to get his window fixed whilst I slept in. After that it was a rushed warmup in the cave followed by a rushed look at LA. LPT is a phenomenal crag and it hit me just how long it had been since I'd pulled on here. Some freind of Doyle's (female) was being a rude pain in the arse and giving me hassle about various stuff. It was annoying. Doyle was made up to do one of the lower hard moves and then as the session progressed the crux move followed by what will probably prove to be the redpoint crux, a huge span from an undercut, bypassed by Moon using a dirty crimpy and simpson by some really nice pinches. When I was my turn I was a bit surprised to find a poor glue job on route, the moves felt ultra-spanned for me and I got my arse well and truly spanked. The top move (the long one) looked feasible for me off the poor crimp but the lower move before this just seemed out of my league. I returned to the floor with a badly strained bicep.
As the tide crept in we retreated to Pill Box Wall, tape covered the majority of three fingers and prevented me from trying anything too hard. Instead I ticked off the mid 7 classics one by one. They're really good! The session was kept short so that I could salvage the rest of the weekend.
Nat arrived late after getting completely lost and a hellish drive from Wakefield. M62 -> A55 on a friday night. We spent friday night at the heights which I can only describe as a shithole straight out of the league of gentlemen.

Sat:
The pass, Wavelength as suggested by Doyle. We picked off the obvious boulders as we set off up the hill, Utopia, Pieshop, Wavelength, Boysen's Groove.

The Shelf (V2)

The wavelength boulders were king of them all offering some really superb climbing for both Nat and I. Tape wasn't helping again but everything I tried got ticked fairly quickly.
We ended the day by walking over to the barrel. A quick flash of the minimum and then lots of catching up with people I hadn't seen in a long time (backing off Dinas Mot due to low cloud). Newman appeared and we chatted some more before collapsing back to Pete's for some food.

Sun:
We quested back to 'the Meadow' which we had missed the previous day. I wanted the lotus but it simply wasn't happening. I did all of the moves fairly quickly but my skin was really letting me down on the crux. Oh well, one for another trip. There are few nice problems around up there, Lordy Lordy stands out and also Killer Weed (Mark Katz on Stick it!). We then tried a highball slab which unsurprisingly shot me down (it was the wind I tell you!). Lunch time. After lunch we blasted over to Ogwen. I say blasted but in reality I was stuck behind some p*nis doing 20mph through the pass and veering wildly over to the wrong side of the road to stop me overtaking. When the road straightened out towards Ogwen he purposefully slowed down and then accelerated hard onto the straight well past 60. I think he was surprised to see the little blue thing hanging onto his tail up until the point where he exceeded the limit. Prick.
A quick stomp up to sheep pen and it was time for me to get all confused by little groover. It seemed really hard until I cracked it at which point I was starting to realise the sheer volume packed into the last few days. Nat was done, completely knackered. So, it was down to me; Jerry's was next on the list. I took off the tape and sat down, aiming to give it my all but as I began to take my weight on the crimps they hurt like hell. Tape please! I hit the press well and first go, locked in deep near my chest and stared upwards. Not a chance in hell! No flick nothing. I pull on from standing and still, there was no hope. On someone (Nodders perhaps?) recommendation I went to try the pinch.

The Pinch (V7)

This went down instantly but I couldn't help doing it both ways and then again and again for photos. Back in the sheep pen it was really time to pack up but it all looked so good. I knew I'd need to rest for a few days after this trip so couldn't really help myself. Dog Shooter, Kingdom of Rain, Gnasher all went without a glitch. Before people had left I'd been told that traversing into them (Ding Dong's?) made for some nice problem so with the same list in mind I started again. DS went well. KoR was going well until the last move. I had the undercut and my feet in the same place but I just didn't have the power to slap for the top. My RH went back to undercut, my LH went onto the intermediate and I dug really deep slapping wildly for the top anywhere I could reach. My legs helicoptered well over Nat's (wrong) spotting position and somehow I controlled it and pulled myself over the top. Leave it there? Nope. I waited a grand total of 2mins before settling back at the start of the trav this time with Gnasher in my sights, I made some stupid mistakes on the traverse and decided to rest properly. After a whopping 4 mins I tried again; I made it past the akward heel around about KoR and onto the holds that form the obvious link between the problems but there was no way I could continue. My hands were sore and all power had long since faded away. I sagged onto the mat and rolled down the various gaps coming to a halt underneath Dog Shooter. Nat began packing up. Stupidly I repositioned my mat underneath Jerry's. Tops of for power I tried it from standing.

Jerry's Problem (V10)

I could pull on, take the intermediate and almost control the swing enough to get my foot up onto the starting ledge, from this position the top was easy. All that remains is to see whether or not fresh (and with skin) I can link those two positions.
After this I finally admitted I was ruined and we slid our way back down to the blue machine. A great weekend away once again... I haven't climbed since, I am destroyed.

I must apologise for the horrendous spelling and grammar in this post. I rushed it and I simply don't have the time to read over it and sort out all my hurriedly typed mistakes.

Testing - failing

Tues: Works, got sucked into the comp wall and quickly realised that I was still absolutely ruined from the weekend. Left with my tail between my legs, very sore knees and a new found respect (of sorts) for comp wads.

Thurs: Home board, it held but flexes a lot in one place where we had to cut the panels to 2ft x 4ft (to fit in the punto). It's hard, maybe a little too hard and the footholds are uber shit despite being resin.

Weekend plans: Unconfirmed, Caley is tempting but so too is the lime. Sat morning poor weather, Sunday is looking like the better day. I'm exhausted from a rather full on week of pulling my finger out and presentations left right and center. Pill box wall is also strangely tempting.

Injuries: I have a crush mid way up my middle finger on my LH. I'm sure its from that brown pocket problem at the works. It's not stopping me but I've learnt to be wary of niggles like this.
My weird hand strain is still here from Christmas but is less of an issue.

Welsh Weekend Round-up

Friday night we quested off to Pete's eats in Llanberris, the drive was arduous as the Welsh deem it acceptable to knock a 3 lane road down to 1 with little forewarning. This leads to RTA's left right and center and one hell of a traffic jam. We arrived late, 9.30 ish I think. A quick and rather poor Chinese takeaway and we settled into the comforts offered by the cold twin room.

Saturday morning I usually wake up, look at the clock, roll over and go back to sleep until well into the afternoon, but not this weekend! Oh no! Psych was flowing and after devouring a large breakfast in the cafe we once again jumped into the eye-talian stallion and headed for the coast. Porth Ysgo here we come! I've wanted to visit for ages, Stick it! made both the setting and the problems look stunning. On arrival (after another massive traffic jam) I was less than impressed. The boulders weren't very high, they all felt slightly 'tacky' and the classic lines all seemed to appear a lot less appealing than they were on my TV just the week before.

Nonetheless we walked to the far end of the crag and worked our way back. Stick it! offering the main tick list, Jawbreaker, Popcorn Party etc.

Popcorn Party, V6

One line that looked great in the guide was "tide of dreams". I got involved and quickly joined the V4 (sorry about the stupid grades but I simply cannot convert them in my head). Another bloke wandered over and made a big deal out of showing me that a low low low undercut was wet. It wasn't subtle. So despite starting on my rather short ass I still wasn't quite low enough. Oh well. Next...

Fast Cars, V5

We both got stuck in but Nat didn't seem to be enjoying herself much and I wasn't being drawn towards anything in particular. Incredible shaking man was sodden and I couldn't even find an axle that wasn't partly buried. As we approached Area 1, we both decided that we'd prefer to chance the pass being in condition and promptly jumped back in the blue beast.

It wasn't. Driving rain was the weathers weapon of choice and everything looked soaked, apart from (of course) jerry's roof area. I'd wanted to try this for god knows how long and again the psych flowed. I knew already that the tick would be evasive due to the slab running with water but nonetheless its all money in the bank. I made sure to start in the correct place and promptly was back on my ass after placing my feet rather poorly on the polish. Next go I fell at the crux hitting the hold in completely the wrong place. Next go I did the same. After actually looking at the hold and getting it right I nailed this move and carried on to the lip. RH on the slab, bump LH, bump RH... oh its now soaked, never mind!
Next on the list was Mr Fantastic another classic Stick it! tick. I pulled on at the crux with my hands spread widely and to my surprise bowled over rightwards, caught the pinch and flicked into what I now know is Bus Stop. I was a little shocked as my right shoulder is a weakness of mine and I expected to be spat off violently. For my next goes I did the sensible thing and worked backwards from the crux. Ah.. I couldn't do the catch from that high hold, darn. A large pinch is just below the positive slot like hold on Jerry's and I once again did the crux from this, much easier. Dropping from the jerry's hold to this pinch is a violent affair but very doable and I now had a sequence which breaks the crux into two separate movements, firstly a dropdown and secondly a press. I rested, rested some more and got involved. My sequence involves using really quite small footholds that are badly polished so a fair few goes ended with my feet 'clicking' off at the wrong moment and hitting the floor but one go they stuck just as I needed:

Mr Fantastic, V12

The photo sequence shows my vastly inefficient and overpowered sequence (watch the video of Ty on this for a comparison). I managed to link from the start of Jerry's into the point at which Mr Fan hits the lip. My last ditch attempts to claw my way over the top didn't yield any success whatsoever.
Now I can't take the tick obviously but I'm quite pleased, in fact I'd go so far as to say that on Sat night I was climbing the best I have since that nasty day a few years ago.

Sunday morning I awoke a lot more sore than the day before. The breakfast didn't soothe my aching shoulders but it didn't matter much because as I finished shovelling hash browns into my mouth a sleety snow fell in the town. Nat and I made the decision to explore the slate quarries:

Dinorwic Quarries

Doylo called later that morning and offered a tour of the mill. I was psyched but felt like I might not climb my best as I was still aching. The mill is great, seriously great, and confirms my thoughts on the merits of the various types of boards that now exist. The session went well with Doylo crushing a long term project and Nat powering up the board after pretending to be much weaker than she is. That very tanned man was in route mode and taking an age to ascend each problem but somehow he just wouldn't let go!
Sunshine shone through the dilapidated mill taunting our premature decision to go indoors. At that point my session ended. On the way back home Doylo offered a tour of the Orme which ended up being a quick tour of Parisella's cave before he went to Angel Bay. I think the expectation on arrival was for me to be in awe of the cave and psyched out of my mind. I wasn't. I also wasn't going to get rushed into trying Rock Atrocity and so set about getting spanked by Trigger cut, Louis Armstrong and then destroying myself on the right hand end of the cave, trying helplessly to avoid all the hooking beta I'd been offered. Doyle and Linc both left. I managed to get slightly more psyched to try trigger cut and finally worked out how to hit the ear correctly and twist my body into a position that I could slap to the shothole from. Nat offered one of her best spotting mishaps and this attempt ended with a face full of dirt and her pulling on my sleeve.
Just as thoughts of leaving the cave entered my mind I remembered just how long it had taken me to get around to visiting. I WANTED to try Rock Atrocity, furthermore I really WANTED to have a damn good go at flashing it, but in my current state of destruction I wasn't so sure if it was feasible. The holds looked like my kind of thing but Chris had warned me that I might have to jump for the glued on flake. I eyed it up for ages, would I or wouldn't I? was I too tired? was my skin too sore? could I seriously expect anything more out of the weekend than what I'd already achieved?
Blog posts, lectures and forum posts ran through my mind and the answer was obvious, with Jerry fever sweeping the climbing populous there was only one question that really needed answering; WWJD?. So, without further ado I nestled my fingers into the starting jug of RA and pulled on...

Wales boyo!

Well the CWIF is this weekend. I was quite psyched that once I'd finished my degree I could get back to doing comps (they were always in my exam time and then when I was broken) but that psych has long since faded as the comps have changed from the days in which Malc was king and Holdz were the height of designer resin. Now its all giant swinging balls and triangular weirdness. Each to their own I suppose. I'm thinking team beastmaker 'might' just make a big impression especially after Neds session tonight.
Nat and I haven't been out climbing recently, we've been tired, busy and then building. This weekend we decided to do something different; WALES! I've hardly bouldered in Wales, what I mean by that is that whilst LPT has been drying off I've done a little bit in the cave and that's that. The weather isn't perfect but I figure having a meal in Pete's eats is a good enough tick regardless.

The plan looks like this:
fri night - drive over to Pete's
Sat morn - drive to Porth Ysgo, get Nat ticking Jawbreaker, she'll love that. Do the classics
Sun morn - the pass, sheep pen looks good.
Sun aft - the weather looks questionable, I'll do what I can, maybe the mill if its really bad, hopefully Doyle will be around to give me a pointing tour in the evening.

Today I presented in front of a large number of people who I deem to be brighter than me. To top it off I had to present a brief summary of the work that had gone before my PhD topic. The people that carried out that work were in the audience making it even harder. I thought it went badly but I was told otherwise, the Q&A session at the end went well. I crushed that. For some therapy I spent a fair portion of the afternoon screwing on a large number of holds, the board is looking really good now, some more wood and a small scattering of jibs and it'll be good to go!
Motherboard tonight (I hate the name, supposedly Dave M hates the colour). Ned, Dan (ill), Stu L, Travs, James, Ben T, Dense and myself occupied the corner all evening. Everyone was looking strong, Ned and Stu especially so. I climbed well I think and I've got a fair few problems to work at now, I say problems but what I mean is Ned's 'moves'.

Another topic is grating in the back of my mind, I'm trying hard to let it go but I'm struggling...

Another Jaipur might kill it... or a honeydew perhaps.

Absent Bloggage

Its been a while since I wrote anything here due to a few reasons. The main being that blogging had seemingly become yet another thing which I waste unnecessary time doing. I think when this blog began it had a point, I'd messed myself up and it was a good way of keeping track of the healing process and much easier than relaying that information to a load of people at every stage. After that it descended into nothingness albeit with a couple of posts that read well (I hope) as well as one or two controversial posts. After leaving it for a while a few thoughts were rattling around my empty head but nothing earth shattering but this, THIS I have to share:

BEHOLD BEDROOM BOARD:


Now I'm terrible with wood, give me steel, a lathe etc. and I'm ok. Give me wood and a jigsaw and things get messy. Despite this, I'm very happy with the board.
Its 8ft wide and has about 12ft of climbing length and completely self supporting, it also supports a nice big storage shelf and some stow away space. You get in underneath the right hand side of the board. The holds aren't all on yet. I started with the jug's and I'm slowly working down to the smaller stuff.

Its not symmetrical - I can go to the works for that
Its not systematic - If I made it too specialised then Nat couldn't play on it when she wants.

It will have:
A good range of holds
Big moves
A beanbag shaped like a beefburger sporting dubious marks
A large rear storage shelf