Wednesday 28 February 2018

Baby steps

Training is continuing. I've been mixing it up a bit as my body is protesting a bit. This has included a power endurance auto belay blitz and some of my old skool exercises from Liquid Armbar days. This basically consisted of 2 pull ups with legs raised swiftly followed by 4 press ups,  and the whole lot repeated 10 times. 20 pull ups, 40 press ups. In the old days the idea was to complete this in under 2 minutes.  Currently I've managed 3 minutes 10 seconds so it's a work in progress.
The battle against the cold is being won. I'm particularly smug about my crag hot water bottle.  It's basically a normal hotty stuffed in a £3 bottle cool bag off eBay. Field trials have it still effective 2.5 hours after Filling   ( 1hr walk in, 1.5 hrs use).

The field study in question was back up to Marchlyn.  This time the nexus of conditions and free time did not coincide with a knackered core from pilates. I got a whole 2 finger pads to the hold! It's progress folks,  but baby steps... 



Also whilst up there I knocked off the latest stander from my landscaping efforts :

Pebble Helm is about 6A and will have a very tasty sitter. 

In other news, I have a new brake on the boulder scooter,  as the old one wore through.  Initial impressions are it runs a little hot, and I don't seem to be able to go that slow... Could be exciting. 

Stay psyched 

Thursday 8 February 2018

Its Been Cold

Happy new year and all that! Bit late I know,  however, a lot of not climbing type activity has been occurring, without much blog worthy action.

January was mainly about training and trying to climb in nipply conditions.  Significant attempt one was to the Skadoosh boulder :
Too cold to put shoes on, but ok to put shoes in cracks. 
I then spent a while formulating beta and science to gain success.  This will be when it's warmer, and I'm much stronger.  Continuing the science bit, I built a replica section on the Beacon training wooden, and put some wads on it. The ones who failed to get the move, will get to work it with me...

Other training news it I'm embracing modern training methods like repeaters for the first time. Smallest rung of the Beastmaker 2000, 6 seconds on, 4 seconds off for a minute,  two minutes rest, repeat another 4 times then off to pilates...
So far so good.

One trip to Marchlyn,  and the patio is finished. All existing problems have a bo landing.  Seamus low start still evades me but here is my best effort :


Once I can make this move, I can send the project.  This gap in wrong conditions happened to be the day after pilates so my core was tired. This makes me doubly hopeful it will go soon. Once the wrong conditions stop again.
Heat packs are useful but I'm not cut out for polar bouldering,  may invent a thermos hot water bottle combo.

Stay psyched!