Accepting Weakness

I don't want to start off with a long rant/moan about how shit I am... so I'll begin with a roundup of the last 6 months.

I've had a fun time climbing this year and visited many new venues as well as the familiar old places both at home and abroad. There hasn't really been a great focus on achieving anything or breaking into a new level of personal performance and nearly all my time has been spent just trying to tick off lots of problems.

Trips Abroad

July and September were the most productive months where I went on a 2 week trip to Magic Wood with Ged, Mike and Shauna and a later 1 month trip with Laura to Chironico, Cresciano, Magic and Font. The first trip was a case of trying lots of things but not getting up anything until the last day of the trip where I managed to finish off Voigas and then did Right Hand of Darkness in about 15 minutes effort. The highlight of this trip was finishing off Piranja, a nemesis of mine that had been repelling attempts since 2007!

Left Hand of Darkness

The second trip with Laura was a more relaxed affair as the first week was spent in hot temps pottering about Chironico and Cresciano, chilling in the van near the river at Schattental and then on the more luxurious campsite complete with swimming pool :) I rediscovered my love of Ice Cream in Bellinzona and we then moved on to Magic Wood.

The weather in the first week was good but we struggled to get much done. It wasn't until week 2 where I decided to start trying a muerte on Left Hand of Darkness, a problem I kept getting to the end of and punting up. It wasn't until session 5 on it, that I discovered a subtle trick to the left foot toe scum which allowed me to get the go again move and complete the problem complete with damp topout in the rain. Sadly the weather stayed both wet and humid and we left for font.

We lucked out with the weather in font and managed to climb every day.. good for me but not so much for Laura after she split several tips on some of those glassy patina edges which I always avoid. It was good to check out a few new venues and get a load of new 7s done. I especially enjoyed the steep stuff (surprise!) with the highlights being Gargantoit assis, Satan m'Habite assis and Symbiose.

Gargantwat

I've got most of the problems above on my youtbue channel, so go have a look if it is o any interest! I apologise for the minimum level of editing that has gone into these efforts. I still quite enjoy watching things unedited without a soundtrack on and abhor the pointless driving to the crag/putting on shoes/slo-mo blowing chalk clouds scenes, that can be found in so much climbing media today!

Crouch Punting

Back in the UK

I have had maybe 3-4 trips to the cave all year, the last of which was way back in April and haven't really had the motivation to go back, which is strange seeing as my number 1 goal for the year was to put time in on Louis Armstrong.

I had a decent first half to the year of attempting shorter blocs in the Lakes in order to gain strength that may come in use on LA for later in the year but I never really followed it up. It was a combination of not being ready to dedicate the amount of time which would likely be required to bring success and being more keen to get out and get some new stuff done which was satisying up to a point but has left me feeling pretty weak and a million miles away from achieving the 8B pipe dream.

The straw(s) that broke the camels back was the last month of failing on multiple 7A's outside on the shitstone and getting beaten in a round at the hangar by someone I would consider to be very weak!

Winter Training



Albert Beckles best watch out!

Today I took it back to the good old days of 2007/8 and began super basic strength training of slow pull and lowers, 1 arm pullups, 1 arm lockoffs, pressups, leg raises..etc.

I'm going to mix it up with some heavy low rep weights and systems style steep board training and aim for 4 sessions a week to 1 outdoor day. If I can keep this up over 4-6 weeks, I'll hopefully start to see strength gains and move on to campussing and project specificity in training on undercuts with poor feet on the 45 and barrel cave.
Hopefully I can snap out of this lull and get on track to boulder hard in the UK instead of swanning off to Switzerland to get ticks!

The love of my life (on the left I think! ;))

A Final Thanks

To Laura for being the most patient girlfriend in the world. I know I'm hard work most of the time with my obsessive climbing habits and I will aim to be less selfish in future! Sorry for being a pleb xx