End of the road

First up, lets get one thing straight - when I whinge on about being fat I am spouting off more than I am actually thinking I am obese. This blog is a sounding off post for me to vent my spleen about anything and everything - I know I'm not obese, so don't fret - I would like to be lighter as its a quick way to climbing harder, but I recognise its not an end in itself, and that if I am climbing ok then not to worry too much. Its also featuring at the moment as its in my concious, as she bought us some bathroom scales. Whilst i never knew before, I do now, and the novelty has yet to wear off. Weight and climbing is a balancing act, if you are too light then you have no beans and you feel faint and rubbish, but if you weigh too much you feel sluggish and can't use small holds. Nibs comment was right, you need to find the right weight for your size, where you have a balance of light and energy.

Ok, so Monday was a campus and rings session at the board. JoleSa, Vik and Nige turned up and I felt a bit generally tired and rubbish. Didn't put that much into the session, and didn't get that much out of it as a result. Mondays are a funny day for training, you should be fully rested after the weekend, but sometimes the horror of a 0600 start when you have been getting up at 9 seems to knock you back.

This week its Jon's leaving do on Thursday, so Wednesday/Thursday climbing has become Tuesday/Thursday. Last night I was back late from work, went home for a cuppa and then to train at the school on my own for a few hours. Sometimes the group psyche carries you, but sometimes you get on better by yourself. The plan was volume. 45 minutes of warm up finishing with some quite taxing problems followed by 10 sets of 5 easy problems with no rest between reps - 3 minutes between sets. Did the standard warm ups and changed to the cheating hooked shoes (V10) and failed on Driller killer (start of the harder problems) which didn't bode well. I haven't fallen off Driller killer in years. Decided to try the move on Total Recoil and after a couple of goes did it and carried on to the top. Felt like too much to ask to do Pego, so rested up and did Total Recoil from the ground. Pretty pleased with myself, I had already decided to give Basic Ben a stab, and after trying the move I suprised myself by doing it in good style. Did Basic Ben from the ground. Very pleased. Cleaned up a problem I did years ago called Peter Pan handle. Again, I suprised myself and did the hard move out left comfortably, then failed on the top section.

From here I set my stopwatch to meter out my rests and positioned myself by the fan in an attempt to cool my hands down. I must have had about 10 goes, each getting a move or half a move closer to the top, it was looking like it was so on that I was convinced I would do it. Only when I felt the quality of goes reduce did I let up and admit it wasnt to be. I really thought it was in the bag, so I filmed about three or four goes, which I shall spare you from having to sit through and leave you with the last one that was filmed. Yes, its a failure but felt I should do something with all this footage I produced!



So much of how a climbing session goes depends on your mental state. I dont mean like mental health, I mean, are you tired? what are your goals? why do you want to do them? - basically, are you psyched? This is where the difference between working and not comes in. I dont reckon non-working climbers do that much more actual climbing, but its that you've nothing else to concentrate on, climbing is the focus so its easy to be psyched out of your mind each time you go.

A good session. 7.6/10.