Small Gains

Saturday

It has been a fairly steady last week since I last posted. Trips to North Wales have been avoided with the rather poor weather and obviously being close to a couple of things I wanted to get done this year has made this doubly frustrating. This was remedied to some extent by a full weekend outside giving a couple of friends the tour of Roche Abbey and it's glorious low 7's circuit where I managed to warm up getting the retro flash of everything whilst saving energy for something I wanted to try!

When the action moved to the main buttress, I had by far my best attempts on Fallen Idol sliding off the sloper with a full 4 digits on it, sadly it wasn't to be as my skin thinned rapidly as well as the crimps greasing up something awful in short time. I know it is pretty much in the bag if I can get back with good skin and temps (but a bit of interim training on fingers and explosive pulling wouldn't hurt!)

Sunday

Sunday saw a change of temps and medium, where we transferred our pulling skills to the technical horror shows of Earl Crag. I swore not long ago, to never return to this venue where 2 previous visits had shut me down completely, with my less than insulated body unable to cope with the savage micro climate.

It was (as expected) absoultely numbing with a bitter cross-wind keeping temps low! Determined not to be defeated I crushed the warmups including some 6C+'s I thought felt about 6A! A good start, so I moved straight to Underpants, having only seen it on Stick It I was quite suprised to get stood up on both footholds and slapping at the rail within a couple of goes. I thought I had it at least twice but my hand just kept losing contact. I wasn't too bothered as I had no agenda other than to try some good looking lines and destroy Australia Roof (V4?) which had somehow shut me down on 2 consecutive visits!

We moved across to Desert Island Arete and I managed to get stood up around the left arete with left hand on the rail and right hand moving up to the sidepull when my left foot popped and I fell off losing the flash. Gutting. My mate Rich nipped in for a quick beta flash and I flailed about failing to regain my high point.

After 10 mins I couldn't handle the rest periods which involved shivering with chattering teeth in a bitter wind of icy death. We moved swiftly on to the far left and up to Sloping Beauty. I recalled trying this a long time ago and matching the slopers only to fail miserably on moving in any direction other than down. Well two goes later and I was topping it out after an amazing swing to the left and Earl Crag suddenly didn't seem such a harsh place to be! Rich had a few goes but gave up and then he got interested in Hanging Groove around the corner which I pointed out was the biggest sandbag I had ever done (on a par with Paul's Bulge in the pass). He spent a confusing 15 minutes getting the full shutdown whilst I was in hysterics eating my posh sandwiches (stolen from the Ivory).

On the return to the main crag I got Desert Island in the satch in 1 go, noticing a subtle change in my left hand once I had the right hand on the arete allowed me to pull around easily and get established on the left hand rail. What a great problem.

We moved back to an old nemesis of Grape Nut, I quickly got up to the gaston and the left foot on the smeary edge. I locked in and felt totally solid reaching up with the left hand to a good rail when my right hand exploded off and I flew back narrowly missing the rock with my head! Slightly perturbed I chalked up and tried again only to have my left foot pop every time I had my fingers on the rail. I got a bit angry and sacked it off to go try some new things.

Rich worked out Ron's Slab quite fast then flashed Ron's Arete with ease making a mockery of his year out from bouldering! (Hatton is still my grit hero) I noticed over yonder a small roof and it reminded me of unfinished business...

Booted up and less than psyched I pulled on and swiftly reached the lip, got some beta off Dave to throw a left footlock in and suddenly it all made sense with the reaches through obviously piss instead of desperate snatching off toe presses. I surmounted the top and wondered what the hell I had been doing but glad I didn't have to go back on this piece of choss again!

To round off the day we had a play on Andy Brown's Wall and after a lack of success in getting the high right sidepull a local pointed out a crafty bit of foot beta, next go I was slapping at the top of the wall! Skin was wearing very thin, so we headed off for a pint and I am quite psyched to return knowing Underpants and Andy Browns are definitely achievable given good weather and skin.

Tuesday

Today was a well chilled rest day after having worked and trained yesterday all day making it quite a taxing 3 days in a row! We had a guest around for dinner and my mum made a superb beef bournignon with copious amounts of onion and red wine with vegetables and potatoes as trimmings. This was followed by a fantastic lemon merangue by my sis, which went down quite well! During the second course I was rudely interrupted by a certain Ghost Face Miller on the phone who had some good news about a possible training facility in the pool. It sounds more than promising and I'm going to go check it out tomorrow with him in the afternoon.

Reading dobbin's blog today I could totally relate to the person climbing in a small pond of fish at the local wall... climbing seemingly well by dispatching everything with ease but being generally pathetically weak in the grand scheme of things! This new training venue will hopefully be the dawning of a new era of training on things I can't do without an epic struggle and a lot of time investment, as opposed to the auto pilot mode I can fall into at the local wall. Dispensary mk2 here we come?