A rare day of success!

Cave in the afternoon

On a whim, I decided to go to the cave Friday day time before the Stoke bouldering competition even though the forecast was for humidity, rain and no wind.

My psyche clearly rubbed off on Laura who decided to come along for moral support after finishing uni early.

We found the cave quite greasy but fairly busy with a small group of die hard locals and visitors playing on various things.

After warming up slowly I had a decent first go on In Life getting to the two slopers and taking my feet off very easily totally killing any swing but locking off too hard and not being able to rotate my feet round! I hung this position for several seconds before letting go bemused.

After a couple of close attempts Laura managed to get into the high sidepull and then to the glorious high finishing jug on Bust Lip for her first non slab/vert 7A+ tick! It was great to see her trying hard and being seemingly unaware of the possibility of a foot lock staying in above head height should she have failed to grasp the sidepull :)

The second redpoint on In Life saw me grasp the pinch on Left wall but then fall trying to go through to the fingerjug with the holds not feeling very dry. I feared the worst so had a longer rest than usual and fanned air on to them as well as chalk.

Laura tried to get Parisella's original done but couldn't quite hold the foot swing from releasing the heel-toe. Her efforts inspired me to pull my finger out and on the 3rd redpoint I managed to fall into the fingerjug screaming and slap out to the sloper. I scrambled across to the low flake almost falling at every move as my fingers unravelled and arms lost all feeling but thankfully the sanctity of the kneebar rest came just in time!

I didn't hang about too long and got the job done not feeling too bad on the end section and letting out a sigh of relief that I wouldn't have to crawl into the dirt any longer! Joy.

The sending spree gathered momentum and shortly after, Ducko breezed across Rockatrocity making the end look piss and not suffering the fate of many others on that horrid last hand move :)

Comp in the evening

We went directly from the cave to Stoke wall to see Youngy and have a play at the winter bouldering league. I always love going to new indoor walls almost as much as new outdoor venues as change is always a good thing and keeps things interesting.

After feeling pretty heavy on the warm ups I gradually got into things and had managed to flash 21/25 by about 8.30. With an hour left to try the last 4 I had to start resting for long periods of time just to summon the energy to pull on and make more than a couple of moves! I clawed my way to a couple of the bonus holds but fell off a couple I am sure would have been flashed had it not been such a long double day session.

The atmosphere at the comp was really nice and the locals friendly. There was a good bit of banter with the fellow comp hustlers from Stockport and even though I had puntered up at the end, I managed to sneak victory by about 10 points from one of the Stockport crew.

Needless to say after a victory beer, I slept like a corpse!

Build up to font

After my physio sessions and a lot of fairly boring but ultimately back rewarding exercise, I have managed to rebuild my creaking carcass into something approaching a climbing adoni... healthy human being.

OUTSIDE

There have been many visits out on the grit and a welcome return to cave sieging which has been a lot less frequent than in the previous 2 years.

A need to try and broaden my skill base and volume of climbing on different rock has been suggested by others, so I have been giving it a crack and thoroughly enjoyed it so far, even if the warm weather and my recovering back has meant staying away from hard climbing.

I have had a great few days out in the Peak and Yorkshire with the best being a trip to the Cliff after finding midgies and grease at Caley. Andi E put together a good little clip with a classic soundtrack and some nice imagery from home:

http://vimeo.com/31219796

Back in the Cave I've gotten back to the same point as I had just before the wobbly block was pulled out of the roof, falling off with both hands on Left Wall on In Life.

Hopefully it will go soon when temps drop ever so slightly and strength endurance improves!

INSIDE

It has been a fun start to the winter bouldering rounds and I've done ok so far in the Hangar and Awesome Walls ones coming provisionally 2nd in one and 1st in the other. Admittedly the strength of the fields is quite low so the real challenge will be doing well in the first round of the NIBL in a couple weeks time.

There is also a coaching session coming up this weekend with Nige Callendar so I'm hoping to pick up some tips and see what can be improved upon the most to help achieve my goals both immediate and in the future.

FONT

My current mantra is not to push too hard before we head off to font on the 18th November for a week of *fingers crossed* cold and dry weather. It should be both inspiring and dismaying watching Web Parsons/Puccio/Coxsey and Garden warming up on personal projects but I'm just looking forward to being there and getting some classics done. Amazingly, I haven't written up a detailed list of problems for a change... and I'll see how going with the flow works out when we get there.

Physio trip

After having a horrible re-occurance of my back spasm whilst serving a customer on Sunday, I made the effort to get Tuesday evening off and I went to see the recently installed Tuesday night physio Hannah down at the Hangar. Luckily she was able to help me out with some stretching/ROM exercises focussing on getting my lower back working again and then strengthened.

I've been given homework to do 3-4 times daily to help speed up the process and have also purchased a rather fetching hot water bottle from the evil Tesco empire to help warm the old lower back up before I do any gentle stretching. I road tested it before whilst driving to the Hangar this afternoon and it was pretty damn amazing!

Hopefully with careful dedication to these specific exercises, things will be on the mend by next Tuesday and I can maybe have my upper back looked at which was been dodgy (bit of a locked up and tender bruised feeling either side of my spine) for the last 2 months. She didn't want to touch that for now as the lower back isn't yet strong enough for my upper back to receive some un-knotting, it is unsuprisingly a bit of a mess from years of training and never having anything done to ease it up!

I then have a 5 day window from Thursday till Monday to get out and do some rock scaling with my good friend mr Skyner Weeks. We are both quite keen to do a bit of grit volume at the moment so we will probably hit both the Peak and Yorkshire. There are lots of high classics I am keen on but these will likely have to be postponed till normal back strength/mobility is restored. Fingers crossed for a cold and dry October :)

You know you're getting old when...

You hike uphill for 20 mins, warm up at the crag on some easy solo's and then pull your back whilst pulling on the loops of your sending shoes!

It seems I only blog about injuries and rehab these days and sure to form after vastly improving on the shoulder front, my lower back went yesterday in the most frustrating of ways. Right at the start of the session after driving up there solo and hauling 4 pads up to Warton.

Monday 26th

I went up to the South lakes with Mike and Sam on a Woodwell mission. Sadly it was pretty minging at O'ert Road and Tom's roof but pulling on with a towel and skipping holds allowed us to warm up on Angel Deelite. Mike did it after a bit of trouble with the top section and Sam didn't quite manage it. I worked on the Flying Finish going rightwards from the flat jug but couldn't work it out. I tried spanning across the lip but it felt wrong and then attempted it using the undercut on Backhand Roof, a left heel to hand and then throwing wildly over the top for a distant hold but kept spinning off with the angle feeling weird.

We moved over to Tom's and there wasn't much dry for Mike and Sam to try but I hadn't attempted the Footless Marathon before today, so thought it would be a fun thing to do, which wasn't quite true as it was sharp and wet but I got through it and just about held on to the last big slap for the flash.

We headed to where we knew would be dry and the Shelterstone face didn't let us down. Mike and Sam took turns trying the Pit Problem and I almost did The Buccaneer in a couple of tries only to hold the swing and then fall off matching the lip. About 45 mins of sweating off, swearing and nearly giving up ... I managed to hold the swing again and made no mistakes on the 4b top out!

Thursday 29th

After a trip up to Warton the day before with Laura and J Railton. I headed back up the M6 on my billy no mates in White Beauty. Rather than leave Ebenezer Goode till another time with yesterday's afternoon heat being draining, I got there a little earlier before the sun could come around on to the buttress.

As you may have read at the beginning of this post, I hauled up several mats and arrived feeling good. A few Solo's and a strained back later. I was prone on the mat trying to stretch it out and it didn't feel too bad immediately, just a bit stiff. I was a bit angry at the prospect of the petrol cost and pad hauling being all for nothing, so did the clever thing and got on my project anyway to show it who's boss!

It wasn't looking good 2 goes later as I felt a bit achey and had fired off the lip dish twice. The next go I somehow scraped through panting and grunting to the sidepull at the end but couldnt summon the energy to get the kneebar in and slid off. I knew it would go in colder temps and the sun was starting to shine on the hold so I swore a bit, brushed the holds and gave it my all.

I battled through to the same position and managed to get the kneebar in just as my fingers were uncurling from the painful handswap hold. I shook like a shitting dog laybacking the crack without being able to feel much through the pump and was mightily relieved to reach the break and lean into the corner to take a 2 minute rest before topping out!

I hobbled back down gingerly and dragged myself and pads back down the hill feeling every single step shooting up my back.

The drive home was uncomfortable and I could barely move when arriving back in Merseyside!

I wisely dosed up on various creams and pills and went to a BBQ at a friends where copious amounts of red wine and food seemed to ease the pain. It was a lot better this morning once I got moving and had a hot shower but has started to feel bad in the shop bending up and down to get shoes for customers!

A cocktail of Naproxen, Diclofenac, Ibuprofen gel and Paracetemol should hopefully help... I can't wait to see the physio next Tuesday!

Some welcome News

The reason for being a little quiet of late is down to another shoulder injury!

Fortunately it hasn't been anywhere near as bad as the ones that I had to fix for 2-3 months at the end of last year/start of this.

I spent a few days resting and then got straight on to the usual routine of assisted movement, stretching and then gradual strengthening with the theraband whilst trying not to get too down about all the oh so near projects that would have to wait a bit longer than anticipated.

Looking at my activity diary, it was quite clear I had been overloading a bit in terms of climbing/weights at the gym but I am pretty certain I caused it during the comp on the grim corner mantle presses. I quite enjoy comps now and again but this is about the 3rd time I've picked up an injury in the last year directly from comp style pressing.

Once fixed, it's tempting to pack it in and stick to climbing on more basic stuff which doesn't involve contortionism, relates more directly to what I want to do outside and is less likely to cause further anguish!

Rehab Day 1

After about 8 days of rest/theraband I had a great day out in Wales with Laura and a poorly Dexter the dog who nearly spewed all over the floor in V12! We started off at RAC bumping into Shauna and Skyner Weeks.

It was the ideal place to do a bit of volume as well as ticking off guidebook gaps in my lifelong quest to tick the North Wales Bouldering guide (Sadly minus roadrunner cave!).

The highlight was managing to drag my unfit corpse across the Pump Traverse sans cracks at the mighty grade of 7a. Laura flashed a load of the easy minor classics and we drove over to the pass.

Rather than get bored on the roadside face, I suggested we go check out the highball stuff at Pont Y Cromlech where I had ticked off the Seam and a quality V2 a few years back.

Laura made a casual flash of The Seam and then flashed all of the other stuf up to V3. I ticked off the up lines apart from the high and scary V4(E2?) rounded arete, where I found myself stood up on the undercut and unable to reach the hanging crack high up. The fall trajectory would have been super sketchy with the 3 small pads, so I bailed off left and saved it for a big balls day!

We finished off at the roadside where we met Rich and Bertie and Laura agonisingly dropped the top of Johnny's problem from the sitter several times, before we went to Pizza and a Pint which seems to have an exponential price creep of late!

Indoor Rock Scaling and Cake!

Since that day out I've just been circuiting indoors at the Hangar and only tested the creaking joints on some slightly harder stuff yesterday, including winning a brownie for getting the first ascent of the grim vertical traverse (problem 21) on the blue 4-6 circuit.



Next week brings 3 days off work and hopefully a chance to get out on some real stones if I can find a willing crew to share the petty costs! I'm really keen to go try and finish off XXXX at the Bowderstone and Ferrino with no pockets in the cave but they could both prove a tad ambitious/burly in terms of rehab problems!

Ater all this chatting shit, I re-read the title of this blog and realised I didn't actually expand upon it!

The welcome news (with my usual situation of a new injury being just around the next pressy corner) is that the Hangar has drafted in a physio who will be down there every Tuesday evening to help cure us of our ailments and hopefully put us on the road to normal human posture! I am obviously excited by this and looking forward to getting a sports massage having had a perma stiff back for quite some time. It may be £20 well spent which would otherwise be splashed out on 2 bottles of red from my current local shop of choice.

Lakes Trip and The Hangar Comp

It's been a busy couple of weeks since I last bothered to post, maybe longer?!

On the August Bank Holiday weekend, I took a break from weights training to embark on a learning to climb again trip with Laura, Mark, the Hoppo crew and two strong geezers from Stockport.

Fri 26th

Wales looked well dodgy as did venues further south, so we headed north to St Bees. Without having booked anything, we eventually found a quiet campsite about 20 minutes drive from St Bees village that had plenty of space as well as a very unique bathroom/shower setup built into quaint sheds about the size of kids playhouses.

Friday was spent at St Bees South and having never been before, we opted to walk along the coastline and check out area A en-route to the better stuff. It looked pretty poor, so we went straight across to the Kraken area.

After a warmup on some great technical walls, we moved over and all climbed the missing corner block which featured big pockets and a great kneebar move. The Kraken could wait no longer and after watching Michael have an attempted pull on, I patted some chalk on the holds and flashed the normal version, before he swiftly followed. Mark then cruised along it after getting untangled from his long legs underneath the rock. I climbed the Kraken LH straight after which shared the same start and then a nice delicate rockover left onto and up the slab.

We moved round the corner and I flashed the sitter to Black Hole using a very sketchy high left heel to get to the good pocket. Michael repeated this by simply campussing about 4 moves in a row!

We decided to get off early and get an ice cream, when I realised I hadn't tried Killer Bee. The others sighed, so I threw down 2 pads and had a great flash attempt pulling on, getting a left knee scum and slapping up again LH only to overshoot the small crimp and slide over it. I wasn't to be denied and on the 2nd go I caught the crimp and then slapped through to the top. It's a great couple of moves but probably a bit on the soft side?

Sat 27th

The day dawned beautifully sunny and we made an early start over to St Bees North via Morrisons.

After getting lost looking for the easy route down so as not to make Ma Hoppo flip her lid... Ian found the path and we all rushed down and across the boulders, which took a bit of time but was preferable to the death descents.

We warmed up around the Apiary area with the lids making short work of Headbanger. Despite it being in the shade, myself, James, Tom and Michael all got shut down on Clash of the Titans. This must be the hardest 7A+ I have ever tried bar the infamous one at Franchard Sablons. As that is the 3rd time I've been and left empty handed.

Thoroughly warmed up, myself, James and Tom all got up Chipper's Wall but only after sacrificing a pad to the water pond to the left to avoid twisted ankles.

James crushed the grim mono crossover problem of Dan's around the corner Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and I did the direct on the left. We then both tried and failed spectacularly on Power of RAA but felt it might be a tad easier not in direct sun and +20deg heat. My best effort was getting up the layback bit and left hand on the very thin scoop gaston trying to move my feet up and right on to poor smears. Keen to go back for this.

Everyone shifted down to Fisherman's as Ma Hoppo sunbathed and Ian did a spot of fishing.

A few of us flashed the basic jump and campus problem of Parky 93 and James did the very tricky arete problem. Laura crushed the dirty crimp problems on the wall around the corner and I got Fruits de Mer ticked in a couple of goes from a hanging start eliminating the block underneath but unsure if this is the correct method?

As the sun disappeared and a massive wall of rain headed towards us, we knew it was time to bail.

I got a bit of running beta off Tom and after a couple of warm up goes, I got hold of the crimps on Lateral Mindset and made the massive slap up to the sloping ledge above. It was great to do such an amazingly unlikely problem which I had written off as not possible a few years ago.

Me and Mark cajoled Laura into having another go on Fishermans dyno after a slight tantrum/hissy fit had shocked us a bit! :P Luckily she persevered and managed to make the heel stay on long enough to grab the high jugs and it was in the bag.

Unfortunately as we topped out at the lighthouse area, the Wall of rain caught up with us and we were drenched from head to toe by the time we reached the farm!

Another night of good food and plenty of ale in the pub made up for this :)

Sun 28th

The weather was about to turn so we headed across the Lakes for a brew and cake in Keswick before heading down Borrowdale to the mighty Bowderstone.

Most of the guys hadn't been so I gave a bit of a tour and managed to upset some others who were already there who left shortly after our arrival. I guess they were expecting solitude on a bank hol?

There was a lot of attempting but not much achieving as we kept getting spells of rain soaking the lip holds on a few things.

Laura managed a great 2nd go ascent of The Crack Direct and Youngy likewise. James ticked through everything I showed him including Impropa Opera 2nd go and managed to drop the last move of Grand Opera on the flash purely down to wet holds!

We both got Slapstick done the dyno way which was also has a great crossunder move after sticking the initial sloper.

As the weather got worse, we stopped climbing and then had our overdue BBQ under cover after being denied it at St Bees. We finished off the day in the pub down the road and camped overnight hoping for better weather.

Mon 29th

James and Tom had to get off early, so the 4 remaining decided to have one more quick session at the Stone.

After a hard 4th-day-on warmup, Michael got agonisingly close to Impropa, dropping the last hold a few times.

A guy from down South was trying the low left sitter into Phantom and gave me a great piece of beta for the last move on Grand Opera. With this new knowledge of dropping the left foot off to make the last move, I managed it in a couple of goes. Another down in the quest to tick the Operas!

I had a long rest and then tried my main aim on the Stone, XXXX. I quickly worked out where to put the feet for the moves and then had a couple of good goes at linking the whole thing. I had 1 good attempt with fingers on the lip but not quite enough to hang on and bump! The goes got gradually worse slapping further away from this high point but I was getting into this slap move every go. Hopefully I can get a trip back up there sooner rather than later if the shocking weather abates.

Me and Michael got back to Liverpool still motivated and after a subway, crushed a load of the new pink v6-11 set that Shauna and Ged had been setting before total collapse occured.

End of Summer Hangar Comp

After Mike psyche couldn't turn up due to work commitments, I was installed as the favourite to win, which is never a good thing!

On turning up in the afternoon, my nerves were made all the worse by seeing Nathan Phillips had turned up and been entered into the mens to make it more competitive in the U18's.

I made sure to use some tactics learned on previous comps. I went round and checked out the problems and then warmed up fast on some intermediate ones and got the big pumpy roof out the way early on as to avoid failure later.

I got on the greasy sloping horrors earlier than usual before they got too grim and managed to get through to 26/30 flashes by 5.30. The last 4 all looked hard so I chose the one I thought looked the most basic and flashable! I'd seen Nathan come off it earlier as well as James the beast so knew it could be tricky. I opted to swap Velcros for Dragons and it paid off as everything felt precise and I hit the holds perfectly to setup for the crux. I jumped over off the small crimp and caught the middle of the pinch, twisting into the move and making the hold better. I let out a bit of a scream and managed to just hold on before jumping over again to the top hold.

I knew I was in with a chance of doing well now and had 3 left to go. I watched Nath dispatch the desperate looking groove into dyno problem which nobody else had got close to. I tried it shortly after and after getting bunched into a ridiculously small space, I made a pitiful attempt to grab the hold on the face before flying past.

I knew I wouldn't get up it this way and thought Nath would surely crush the other one I had done next go. Luckily for me he fell off twice more meaning a max of 1 point if he got it in 4+ goes. I decided to try something a bit different and got back on the groove start. I wound up and made a massive backwards leap towards the face hold and got all fingertips on the edge of the hold before continuing backwards and nearly into the assembled crowd.

A short rest and I knew it had to go down if I was to get near to winning. This time I managed to generate a bit more power from the chicken legs and got right on it, holding the violent outswing and then campussing up to the next rail. I got a high foot and then just about made the slap over the top lip to match a relieved man.

I got absolutely shut down on the hard slab managing to get hold of the penultimate hold but not move my feet any further. Nathan got super close hitting the top hold but not sticking it a couple of times and I was grateful Ged had put such a shit hold on!

The last problem was a steep roof with a lot of burl, toe hooks, greasy slopers and endurance. Nobody got close on their 3 point scoring goes. I took a half hour rest and then went back to try and just get a single point incase it was necessary and dropped the very last hold. I was knackered but had still won by a slim 3 point margin!

In the women's event, Becky from our comp team came in 1st, followed by Laura who was having a bit of an off day :(

In the Juniors, Hoppo had tied with Sheepy and they had to do a horrific timed climb off on the orange linkup. Hoppo had no chance as he is a stocky chest and Sheepy is a whippet-like route climber and he won by a comfortable 10+ seconds.

Mon 5th Sep

Myself, Hoppo, Mike psyche and Millso went to the cave.

Conditions weren't too bad and we met Dan Turner in there along with a non ginger Freeman brother!

He had just done Cave Life and was currently having fits trying to do Pit of Hell, finding Rockatrocity a bit hard going, with a grasp for sequences as bad as Mills and Mike.

I greased off on Cave Life Short and knew this wouldn't be a good day to try In Life, so switched attention to trying some moves. I quickly did the sequence for Ferrino sans pockets from the rail on Lou F and was suddenly full of psyche realising I could now do the end every go from the pinch and rail.

I had 4 redpoints and managed to latch the penultimate sloper hold before the finish slot but not quite good enough to move off. It's definitely a realistic goal for next visit conditions permitting.

We met Doyle (who had plenty of filth to spout!) and Tommy who decided to get off and do some more routes rather than join the pebblewrestlers.

We got back to the Hangar for 7pm and I ate 5 chickenwings and a bag of potato wedges from the ASDA hot counter, before embarking on a very poor comp style session on the yellows followed by core which nearly ended me.

Branching Out

After a semi successful trip to Switzerland bagging a couple of 8A's and a few 7C/+ it has been a bit of a mundane return to climbing back in the UK.

A mixture of heat and rain has killed the psyche for hard bouldering and I have found my interest waning of late.

I've had no regular pattern of training or climbing outdoors and it really has been all a bit of an effort. I've not been to team training for a few weeks and just pottered indoors and out achieving nothing harder than 7B since getting back over a month ago, the highlight being Rigpa over at a sweltering Nescliffe.

Rather than battle through shit conditions I decided to be lazy and have enjoyed several games of golf with Mark at Allerton and Fiddler's Ferry, trying to regain some old skills and put to use the slight extra bulk gained through bouldering the last 5 years or so in hitting the ball an extra 30 yards per club!

As well as the golf, I've been out fishing a couple of times with the esteemed TC Mills over on the barren shores of New Brighton. I was promised epic catches of Ray but so far we have managed a few whiting and a plaice (and thankfully no blanks so far :))

I have to say I'm highly excited about the new premiership season kicking off and seeing how Liverpool get on with so many new underwhelming signings. The psyche is high too, to try and usurp Ian Thomas at number 1 in the UKB league after him beating me down into 2nd place for the last 2 seasons!

As well as the golf/fishing/football I went down to a proper back street weights gym in Garston with Hoppo and had a great time this morning trying to see how many machines we could max out. I managed to max out 4 then we had a good free weights session followed by some weighted pullups and boxing. I felt destroyed after and am keen to make it a regular feature 1-2 times a week to help with overall strength conditioning whilst the weather is turd and for £3 a session it's way cheaper than most activities.

On a more climbing related note...

I went to the cave for the first time in ages on Monday and had a half decent return getting to cutting loose on the slopers on In Life before slowly sliding off them and then nearly climbing Left Wall high at the end of our 5 hour session after never being close ever! I hate that shuffle so much but figured if I get it wired it opens up High Life and In Heaven for later in the year once In Life is put to bed!

I'm nowhere near strong enough to link Louis Armstrong after being so slack of late but am keen to get back on it later in the year once I've tested out a weights&strength training phase to feel stronger on the undercuts!