At Last!

This week has been the highlight of 2010 so far with Monday's cave session ending in success on Pit of Hell after so many failures to get both hands matched on that uneven slot.

Sunday 24th Jan

The weather was dire and looked ripe for condensation on the coast, so myself, Mark and the Gibbon headed to Tom Sugden's City Block in Leeds. First impressions are that it is a bit underwhelming when compared to walking into the Depot but after an hour of circuiting we found the problems were excellent. The setting is equal to that of anywhere I have been and will definitely be going back.

Next visit I will avoid trying to do all of the greys, yellows, greens..etc before attempting the Salmon World Cup problems as I found them utterly desperate after doing ~50 problems beforehand!

Monday 25th

Ken rang me up on Sunday evening and was psyched to get out. I had intended to rest feeling a bit tired from The City Block day but thought I may as well go the cave with him and potter about.

To my surprise I managed Pit of Hell relatively quickly and had plenty of energy in the tank at the end which is no doubt a result of doing many, many failed laps.

I had said at the start of the year I would only treat myself to my wine rack for each 8a tick, but rather than getting stuck in when home, I decided to put it on ice until Tuesday eve.

Tuesday 26th

I went back to the cave the next day with Dave Pinnington (aka Smiley Dave) and we had a decent workout, as the cave was in even better nick than Monday.

Dave got to the end of Pit of Hell but didn't quite manage the match due to him losing his finishing sequence a few times (something I sorted out only on the last go of my previous session!).

I thought it would probably be wise to look for a distraction from anything heading into rockatrocity...

I had a couple of brief attempts on Cave Life but found that my skin was too thin when matched and getting my feet across. My hands just kept making the holds go black and I kept sliding off in frustration. Third day on Crouch skin is probably up there with the worst in terms of butter production!

Seeing as everything else was pretty much out, it was back to sitting in the dirt at the In Hell/Life start. I have managed to get through to the RA start a couple of times before but never found it particularly easy. Being tired after no rest for 2 days previous, I didn't expect much and was quite relieved to find it ok, doing 3 laps into RA one after the other with short rest times. I was worried about getting a bit weak lately by just doing laps on a long problem and no real strength training.

If I can get it in the bag this year it would amazing and hopefully it won't suffer the downgrade anytime soon. It would be great to go up another grade on last year but also finish this line of resitance out from the back of the cave and improve as a climber so I can get on things in Magic Wood this summer and not feel unworthy of trying them.

Next weekend

This weekend coming should be a good laugh as there is a 20 strong crowd of Merseysiders and friends heading to the Ysgo for Si's annual birthday bash. I went a couple of weeks ago with Ben and Ken, so ticked off what I wanted to get done already, meaning this should be quite relaxed unless the temps are good and I get psyched to try Tide of Dreams. Hopefully Dolph can provide the beta first hand and my skin will withstand more than a couple of goes!