The art of Rest

I've probably had the most rested week of rest weeks in a long time and it was with trepidation that I went out to North Wales with O yesterday to meet up with Kev from Pembroke.

I recall previous days out after a 3 day rest where I felt heavy, lethergic and generally unable to wake myself up from the relative hibernation-esque period of rest. A bitter wind was making life hard at the RAC, which was our warmup venue of choice and it was not long before we just sacked it to the pass to meet Kev at the roadside. We decided to make the warmup walk into Lizard King a bit more of an epic by strapping multiple pads together, with the intention of creating an unmissable landing surface incase things were to go awry!

A brief warmup by doing the slap to lip and topping out, I was ready to go. I managed to stick the first move with power to spare and cruised through to the lip only to have my feet pop off when I had my hand right on it! I was relieved it felt so effortless but a bit nervous about possibly wasting my limited energy reserves on my first go by gripping a bit too hard.

Owen quickly warmed into the first moves and also got the top out sorted (as he had never previously bothered). Kev was having a bit of a reach related nightmare in figuring out the reach to the lip seeing as he had roughly 12" of deficit in the lank department (ah well... short people are generally way strong to compensate ;))

After a quick walk about and a bit of banana, I went for attempt 2, and failed to do the first move, I had a quick gripe about trying to wake my body up.. pulled on again and dispatched! It flowed, the moves felt fantastic and the top out was glorious, probably the best problem I've done this year in one of the nicest locations.

I rewarded myself with a bit of coffee then took photos and encouraged the others to get it sent. Owen didn't take long in cruising it with ease 15 mins or so later. Kev worked out how to make the lip move and I'm sure he'll get the whole problem quite fast given a proper session on it.

We moved down to Jerry's roof and had a quick play on the main event, linking the moves but feeling a bit heavy and mentally drained in general from all the walking! The roof looked ok but felt a bit like grabbing on to bars of soap, so we made another epic mission up to Wavelength to meet up with the Pembroke crew and ended the day pottering about as the sky quickly turned dark. A great day out.

This coming week may see a Tuesday return to the Cave and I will hopefully recommence battle with Lou F if I feel up to it. I reckon O should do well on Left Wall High seepage permitting.