Shit indoors

Just about sums it up!

I went up to Newcastle on Friday with my fellow Hangar Team mates to take part in the ASBO comp. I was hoping to improve upon my luke warm performance in the Hangar one and get into at least the final.

Well I climbed like a muppet and basically fell off three very easy qualifiers on vertical walls and slabs! It took 4 goes to do a mantle and despite flashing every other problem down in the pool area, these earlier errors cost me dear and I finished well outside the top 5! Probably out the top 10 and got beat by Sean, Ged and Michael.

Comp punter!

On to the final and Sean and Ged represented us taking 5th and 6th place respectively in the men's. A disturbingly strong Nige Callendar took the title back flashing everything in the final.

For the Women's a local lass retained her title just ahead of the steely fingered Karin Magog and our team mate Becky came 4th in her first comp, a great effort.

We went out for a filthy kebab afterwards to punish the body some more and finished off with various fine whisky's round at Ged's place.

The next morning was a pleasant affair with Nige being our mid morning breakfast delivery service, carrying wonderous gifts such as bacon and bread.

We shot up to Bowden and found it in great condition with a nice breeze keeping it cool and not overly sweaty.

We warmed up around Transformer and I managed to flash every variation on that bit of rock before doing the cool easy highball Brutally Handsome with Ged over to the left.

We moved down crag and as the others went off to try some high stuff, I crawled under the roof and got stuck into V Crimps, getting it done in about 3 attempts.

I went over to Vienna and managed to fall off after getting right over the top of the hold several times as it was super greasy and then the rain came!

We bailed under the V Crimps roof and had some lunch whilst people complained of various aches and skin issues caused by the comp.

As a rewarm up I managed a flash of the Cave Central LH line which climbed superbly well and then had a look at Sprung.

It looked very flashable so I got it matted out, put a decent pair of climbing pumps on and pulled on. It went smoothly until I crossed over from the sharp crimps to the left hand edge but went too high and right on it and couldn't hang the bit of nothing I had. I pulled back on and then pissed the move and to the end, shame!

A couple more goes to the same point and my skin got way too thin as arms got tired and people got a bit bored of shivering in the rain.

We packed up and then went back to Ged's via Morrisons where we purchased and then consumed vast amounts of garlic bread/pizza/ice cream and headed back to the pool.

Back to training on Monday and hopefully I can cure this habit of falling off easy vertical walls/slabs as the steep stuff seems to be in working order. It's obviously fun to be climbing ok outdoors but I'd love to be less shit at comps!

Hangar Comp Hangover

On Saturday the Hangar hosted it's 2nd comp (the first being a local Red Nose Day affair). It attracted the big guns with there being a cash prize on offer so the level of problems had to be raised a notch to test even the best.

I was hoping to maybe sneak into the final 5 as I knew Ned, Dave and James were all over representing team GB but Gaz Parry also turned up, so I knew I was likely going to be behind these seasoned comp beasts!

The qualifying problems were spread all over every angle and stupidly I brought only a pair of dragons and teams and no flat shoe of any description! Suffice to say the steep stuff went well but I messed up on 3 slabs/walls with my feet popping off all of them. I flashed a couple of hardish ones and should have done better on 2 of the steeper ones only to drop the last hold and have to tick them 2nd/3rd go.

I thought my score was pretty average and I finished in 6th place behind the 4 mentioned earlier and the wildcard from Wales and Cave legend Ding Dong! It was great to see Neil rock up in a pair of old boots with homemade laces and holes in the toes and make it into the final.

The finals were a mix of steep and slabby in the new Downtown sector of the wall. Me and Hoppo were rooting for Neil to take down the British team in a spectacular underdog performance and he did well, running out of time on 2 of the problems and getting 3 bonuses but it wasn't quite enough as Ned took the Men's title by flashing the last problem using a sickening flexible hand to foot splits move to get out of the roof and on to the lip traverse before locking out to the finish.
Dave came a close 2nd after dispatching the brialliant first problem involving a dynamic double handed roof dyno catch and Gaz 3rd, just ahead of James after bonus holds came into play.

In the womens it was very close between Shauna and Leah with Shauna taking it down to number of attempts after they both did 3/4 of the problems. A mention must go to Laura too who made it into the final and then finished in 3rd ahead of a team GB member after crushing the slab problem (that Shauna didn't do!).

I'm looking forward to getting down to some more training tonight with Ged and the others and dissecting what could have gone better and what to work on in future. I was hoping to win the pair of Velcros in the raffle but failed and got a Yorkshire Grit vol 1 guide (if anyone wants it let me know!).

We celebrated in good style after the raffle and went for drinks on Lark Lane with Oscar as he was leaving for Sweden the next morning. This continued on into town and all got a bit bleary with me, Sean, Ged and Hot Dog being the last men standing at around 4am.

Sunday morning in work was not pretty but I came out the other side without being sick so a good end to the weekend!