Wild ginger horses

I've never regretted starting this blog. Its fairly non intrusive and possibly theraputic to write and I can use it to my advantage arranging partners, escapades and missions. Its fun to occasionally be controversial but the best bit is without doubt the associated comments. Some of the wisdom that gets imparted through such a tenuous secondary channel is just ace. Highlights almost always come from the likes of Kershaw, Fullwood and Littlefair - just see yesterday's rambling nonsense from me and associated pearls from them for an example. I have joked about producing a book of the highlights from the blogosphere (i.e. not this blog), and undoubtedly most of such a weighty tome would come from the comments. Perhaps inside front cover could contain this from yesterday :

"To climb anything anywhere near your real limit you need to be able to fly the plane through deep fog with both engines on fire and still make a perfect landing on the runway."

Thats what I'm talking about. Genius. So, round 1 of the sheffield walls climbing comp thing last night, and also R1 of the foundry's league. Despite claiming to have retired from comps, Monday is a training night anyway, and Dylan was out and about so there was no option of the board and plus, Roy had been on to get some support for Neil - who's put much time and effort into organising, and it was great fun. I think I was super relaxed and happy not feeling any pressure and not being arsed. Ned also turned up early and it was really good to hang out with him, as since I let him graduate the school of Morton he rarely returns to such lowly circles. Dan and Rob had stripped the whole wall and set some really good problems. Not that they dont always, but when its just gaffer tape over existing holds it doesnt feel very special. With less skilled setters what happens is that everything bar one possibly impossible problem goes down. There were 25 to do and 24 got done, so on paper it appears thats what happened, but its not. 18 were pretty straightforward, 2 were easy to slip off, 3 were tricky and 2 were brick hard. When I left, noone had done one of the two hard 'uns, and only Ned succeeded on the other.

It was really good to see the Foundry heaving, and people vying for goes on problems. I worried about the Foundry when the works opened, but in Sheffield there is room for both to exist. Both provide different experiences and both are valid. Roy looked mean and terminated all but the two hardest problems, Ned was just Ned with his in built ginger brilliance (he let on that he's 12 stone, but its all beef - he looks super lean and ripped!), Justin 'I look like a vagrant' Plumtree turned up and looked well strong - does justin own a shirt? Those were your three contenders. I dont know that justin actually takes part in the comp, but I would put my money on Ned. Justin as I say looked very strong but he is a midget and might have struggled to put some of the sequences into action. No idea on final scores on the doors, but Ned was 23something and I was 221.

Dan Varian turned up clad in Wild Horse Adidas trainers. I actually thought for a horrible moment he was going to do one of the evil brick hard problems sans warm up and in the aforementioned adidas. I would have had to run him over (repeatedly) if this was the case. Its great having retired from comp climbing. I'm so relaxed and having fun now. This is how it should be. I'm happy to do the Foundry comps, as they are on a monday and I would be climbing anyway. But I'm not tiring my self out for the weekend on a friday night one.