Peak limestone drizzle tale

The weather in the Peak district has been clement over the bank holiday. This is something of a tradition for the UK and this bank holiday did not break it. It was also a good five degrees cooler than it has been over the weekend. In fact, it was actually quite reasonable conditions for climbing on Peak lime. I climbed saturday morning at the tor where I made some progress on Staminaband. Have basically decided to go back to the egyptian beta and its working much better. I cant decide whether to rest on the starting powerband slots or not. Chatted with Robin Barker about this and he says if you are fit then rest, if not then push on. But I think I need to have a bit of a shake and some chalk - its just that those slots have a sharp edge on them and they cut you, especially if you are shuffling around in them. Anyway, four goes to the middle of PB which is good. Perhaps the next stage is to climb PB from the undercuts?

 

Saturday afternoon she and I had a nice walk into town, punctuated by coffee and cakes on the way. Popped back home to collect the car and went to see 'Black snake moan' at the cinema. This is not a great film, dont rush out to see it - the title isnt quite as descriptive of the content as you might think, although Christina Ricci does spend a large amount of the film wearing just her underpants and chained to a radiator. About 6/10.

 

Sunday morning we were up early to take her to a farmers market in Ashton. She had a stall to man and I was going to head to Longridge, but the constant rain threatened to be seeping through and I headed back into the Peak. On the way I decided not to go to the tor and to head to Rubicon for a change, plus - as mentioned above, it was much cooler. Only takes 40 minutes from Ashton. Arrived at pretty much dead on 10am and set up camp under the three easy traverses. Did obligatory warm up circuit and moved camp to Kudos - what a treat to be back! conditions on the rock quite good, but almost torrential rain in the dale. Did the press, did the kneeling start, had a coffee and then did bigger splash (thats the stand up on Tsunami right?). Cleaned all the holds and started trying from the sloper - had decided that I was going to try to see if this gay heel hook beta could work for me - perhaps I could get an ascent if its easier - its not - again, could be that I needed to get it wired, but it doesnt work for me! Anyway, after some getting it dialled and brushing and so on I am slapping the finishing jug from the sloper. Pleased. Decide to try the start but the sloper seems to get greasy and not take well to my need to adjust on it. Psyched to get back to it, but given that was an unusually cold day and it was still a bit on the warm side then it might not happen until September.

 

Should have trained in the rings last night but she wasnt Gyming so I had a nice rest! Found ourselves at the cinema to watch 'This is england' which is brilliant. 8.5/10. This week I am going to run tonight, will be at the Tor tomorrow, works thursday and then probably out saturday AM again.