Testing the waters

With the dreaded feeling of Sunday's Louis session being a big fluke, I returned to the cave via new Bizzle picking up Monsieur psyche and Hatch of Hatchatrocity fame up along the way.

We got there for a casual 2.15pm and warmed up feeling a bit shoddy whilst Hatch went in search of some big game hunting atop of the Orme.

I did the post crux to finish feeling sketchy as anything but it took only a mere 3 attempts to stick the crux again and climb to the finish.

I then set about just going for the redpoints but something would always go a tiny bit wrong, mostly matching the left undercut poorly, which meant a lot of energy sapping adjustments before I could position the feet and make an attempt at the crux slap to the lip.

I had 5 tries always hitting the lip but not having the beans to keep my right foot on. A brief rest and then the litmus test of seeing if the crux still felt possible with some fatigue. To my relief, I managed to catch it 2nd go and get to the finish yet again.

I went for a final attempt to see if I could go one better than last time, but I had ran out of steam and had to concede defeat for the day. It felt hard on the back and arms and I clearly could have done with more than 1 day of rest since my last session on it.

Mike managed to look really weak on hatchatrocity and ferrino, then with a bit of goading, he joined me on Louis and absolutely rinsed the start getting a French blow in on the 2nd move before getting confused with the crux, which he realised would involve some dynamic effort on his part.

We left just as the light faded and went back to the Hangar to join Matty D, Youngy and Laura in trying the black comp set from Friday. I was completely spent after managing 28.5 of them.

Looking forwards...

I had a brief chat with Dan and he agreed it would be a good tactic to try and link matching in to the undercuts, through the crux and to the finish, rather going for the redpoint every time, as I can do it fine in separate halves but have yet to stick the crux from the start.

Regardless of if I succeed or not this year, I am feeling a massive surge of motivation just at the right time and I know for sure, that I am capable of climbing something difficult at long last. Time to knuckle down and put the effort in and not accept underachievement... aka climbing for joy! In the words of a wise man, "success is temporary, failure is forever".