UKC

Sorry Fit Clubbers - I'm a bit off the pace and won't complete tonight, so hope you will forgive the delay until tomorrow morning...

Feel free to report in if wished.  I know some of you will be itching to file...

Thanks Derek. Yes I'm itching! Got back from Pabbay this evening and so to help me unwind here's my report on the last week (I've included last weekend too - sorry to be greedy and sorry its so long).

Sat – Left Sheffield 5.20am, arrived on Pabbay at around 10pm

Sun – Three routes to get going at the single pitch Poop Deck, leading Walking with Giants (E3 5c), and following Illegal Alien (HVS 5a) and Wetter Than a Day at the Beach (E1 5b). Buoyed by the perfect rock and continuous supply of mega-jugs we moved to The Banded Geo for the 2 pitch 4 star Endolphin Rush (E3 5c). I found this alarmingly steep but managed to get into a frame of mind that set the tone for the week of not ‘faffing’ and being willing to run things out on overhanging ground between good gear.

Mon – The route of the trip for me. Prophecy of Drowning (E2 5c) on the Great Arch exceeded expectations. In 115m there wasn’t a single meter of less than perfect rock. Even the shattered ledge in the description is completely solid. A strong contender for the best summer rock route I’ve done in the UK. We’d been a bit keen so got on this before the sun got round and learnt a lesson that the sea grease which burns off within minutes adds a grade and the fatigue this added was felt when still hungry for rock we climbed Corncrakes for Breakfast (E2 5c) which I found pretty taxing.

Tues – Realised I needed a rest day. I was the only one in our team to take a rest day all week, but I think it paid off the following day.

Wed – Warmed up at the short but steep Bay Area, seconding Stoney Middleton Lip (E1 5c) which I found hard but knuckled down and got on The Roaring Forties (E4 6a). I suspect I climbed the crux with poor beta but found myself committed trying to squeeze past a very sharp roof. Somehow I got through but gave myself 5 big lacerations including one round my neck and squashed my rib cage re-niggling 18 month old fracture scar tissue leaving me feeling battered for the rest of the week. Sleep in particular was very fitful after this, as I couldn’t get comfortable. Still running on adrenaline we headed over to Hoofer’s Geo where after seconding Bint There Dun It (E1 5b) I got on one of my dream goal routes for the trip Sugar Cane Country (E4 6a). The experience leading this was one of the best I’ve had. All my faffing, falls and doubts on so many routes this spring evaporated and I was able to climb with complete focus and commitment.   

Thurs – Back to The Bay Area for Jesus Don't Want Me As a Shelf Stacker (E1 5b) and Rum, Sodomy and the Lash (E3 5c), then over to the mighty Grey Wall Recess with its dramatic 90m free hanging abseil approach. We did U-th (E3 5c) a beefy overhanging jam crack variation on the summer classic 3 pitch U-Ei.

Fri – In some ways a slightly more chilled day at the lovely Big Bloc Sloc, a 25m wedge of perfect rock rising right out of the water. The arete of Let Sleeping Storks Lie (E4 6a) proved quite an intense lead with RPs protecting the crux section. Seconding the lovely wall of Immaculate Conception (E2 5b) was a nice wind down.

Sat – Our final day and I couldn’t resist a visit to the massively overhanging Pink Wall, this is home to The Ancient Mariners (E5 6a) the E5 I had earmarked back when I first joined Fit Club at the beginning of the year. The crux is supposed to be reaching a break a quarter of the way up, and I did that twice but couldn’t manage the next move on flatties to a big boss just out of reach. Still, I was able to down climb each time and preserve the onsight for the next visit. Realising we now had to get out of there to catch our boat later that afternoon we opted for the 3 pitch Where Seagulls Dare (E3 5c), felt by some to be touching on E4. This proved a massive battle and by the time I reached the belay at the end of the 40m continually overhanging 5c pitch I was feeling quite faint – my batteries completely empty.

Sun – travel home from Barra

Reflection - I’ve written too much already so won’t rabbit on. But thank you Fit Club for your kinship and support. The last 20 weeks of training was a bit of a rollercoaster but I feel I got myself into a state where I climbed better than I have for many years. The key thing – being able to climb with confidence – a kind of controlled daring, which felt essential to be able to tackle such steep intimidating terrain efficiently.

Wildlife sightings – Family of Orca! dolphins, golden eagle, great northern divers, sandwich terns, bonxie, Eider ducks and snipe. Others in our party saw white tailed eagle and corncrake.

Holiday reading – The Zen of Climbing by Frank Sanzaro. I’ll write more about this little book at some point, but I found it really useful and I think could be essential reading for lots of climbers.

Wow! What a week! Nice one Ian. So glad it all came together -a good return on investment from the last few months. 

Brilliant stuff Ian!

Wow, what a week!

Sounds like a great trip Ian. Even with a rest day that’s a lot of climbing!

Wow, sounds amazing!

Wow, brilliant week! 

A new thread is posted each week on Sunday for anyone to jot down their previous week's activity. UKC fit club is a rich community with posters sharing their goals, noting successes and failures and offering support to those struggling to maintain motivation. Anyone interested in starting is very welcome to join, but to get the most of UKC fit club you should aim to post each week, every week, however little or much you have done. By making such a regular public record of your activities and by restating your goals every week this new habit will hopefully improve your training habits and drive you towards achieving your goals whatever the level of your chosen activity.

Link to last week’s thread:

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/walls+training/ukc_fit_club_week_846-7603...

Lots of people on holiday at present, but some great results from those who are on proper trips!

Ian Parnell:  You were right about Beeston!  Generally speaking, I would be up for Peak Lime either evenings or Mondays (your day off I think?), so let me know when you are free.  I’m actually all full this week, but should have plenty of time thereafter, though I do tend to book things in ahead.

The tent stress was a bit of a last-minute challenge for a trip to Pabbay!  Glad you managed to undertake some repairs at home and get something that was functional in time for the trip (we will no doubt see!). 

I suspect the week ‘off’ would be a good way of preparing for the trip.  A bit of running is always worth posting (I would say this as it is all I have done lately!).  Looking forward to hearing about the trip.  

As expected, you were bound to be eager to report in and understandably so - that was a great trip report and a lot of truly outstanding climbs done.  You must be buzzing!

Tyler:  Yes, I suppose the travel means that people are tempted by the big crags, but there is something special about places that are less well-trodden.  It remains high on my list of destinations.

You’re having a decent spell and great to see you ticking some boulders after a series of somewhat despondent bouldering posts.  The photos of Boysen’s Groove looked excellent and great to see that you hooked up with AJM.

Getting The Groove done was really good, though it sounds like a fairly full on experience with vegetation and looseness.  I have been shocked myself lately regarding trad time and energy demands when I spent three days with sore legs from the relatively short walk up to Pavey Ark and where the warm-up seemed to take forever and reduced us to a fairly ineffective team thereafter!

Build up slowly with the DWS acclimatisation – an extra nano second each week should do it…

SSB:  Excellent to hear that you are tidying up more of your Stoney targets.  It is a strangely alluring crag.  I haven’t seen anyone on Our Father for years.

You did well with the alpine start day and Troutdale Pinnacle / Gillercombe Buttress by 10 am!  They are hardly adjacent to each other, so a fair bit of walking to connect them up.  That will have been a big day of uphill as you rightly noted.

Sounds like a great Lakeland trip generally with plenty of good walking – the kids are doing well to be ticking off some big hills on a regular basis.

Great work getting The Groove done though it sounds like a special type of fun really.  Plenty of vegetation visible in the shot of Tyler and both of you seemed a bit shocked by the state of the upper reaches.  Another brilliant session on Tryfan to finish an excellent week.

The Sheep:  Your report are getting more alarming, so really hope that the pain has calmed down a bit now?  I think the advice is always to keep moving, but it sometimes isn’t possible when muscles are in spasm.  I always feel climbing helps – presumably helps the spine lengthen and the movement is probably varied enough to help.  Certainly works for me when I have been tight.

FYI I have finally decided to put some running targets together so am building a bit of a more serious training plan.  Would like to get to an intermediate type of standard for my age group over the next few months.

Randy:  Thanks for feedback on HR and zones.  Yes, these things are probably imprecise without proper testing, but I thought it worth comment.  I agree with your point that zone 3 does have an effect.  I guess some of the trick is to train in a way that pushes the envelope of zone 2 upwards anyway over time.  Certainly, from an effort point of view my HR reports higher than my estimated top of Z2 even when I feel the pace is really relaxed, though it may be inaccurate wrist-based reporting anyway.

All this aside, good to see that your putting some good runs together with regular 5:00 per km pacing.  I have this as a bit of a target to reach this year for a single km, but then it is a bit harder to get there at my age though I was close enough last year.  You’ve got four runs across the week so bound to have an impact on your fatigue levels, especially as these are fairly pacy runs.

Some great strength work in the week with the weighted pull ups and the one-arm lock offs.  49 kg is impressive though it sounds as if the doubles were already testing you.  It is still a very impressive number and I’m really interested to see how your test goes.

AJM:  An excellent week of holiday fun and with plenty of time on rock mixed in – good weather no doubt helped!  Some great results as well with the flash of Boysen’s Groove and a load of other boulder problems across the week.  It sounds like a pretty successful trip overall, with two destinations across the holiday and plenty of variety accomplished – not bad with youngsters in tow.  There is a lot to be said for gearing the day around what they might enjoy and then taking whatever opportunities come along while they are enjoying themselves, though I remember a lot of fairly careful planning to carve up each day into slots so that everyone felt that they were getting something they wanted out of each day.  It often meant pulling over at a roadside crag at picnic time, so I could get a couple of things done while they munched and played in a stream.

Good work with Looning the Tube.  Fist E1 for a while gets no grade arguments from me – after all, that’s why they are called holiday grades!

Mattrm:  I realised in rereading the thread that holiday euphoria had meant that I stated some running goals.  I’ve now got back and realise I might have to deliver them!

Thanks for the offer about starting the thread – next time you may be called upon!

A pretty quiet week in terms of your actual training, but it is holidays after all.  I am quite looking forward to you getting back on the horse with some revitalised goals after your illness put paid to your ultra plans.  I’m in the same boat really, in that holiday has disrupted progress, but I now know my work schedule so can get on trying to achieve a productive summer.  It includes running, starting tomorrow with 5 km, despite the heat.

Steve Claw:   It wasn’t a challenge!  You didn’t have to produce a quiet week!  Very unusual for you, but nice to see a proper rest week on the schedule as it might have helped with your elbow issues.

Holiday weight gain is probably a good sign, but a bit shocking how quickly it can pile on.  I‘ve got back heavier – also by about 1.5kg – so have set about shedding it off as quickly as possible.  For us, it was probably change of diet and long sessions enjoying the evening atmosphere (aka drinking wine) at Villajoyosa while watching the strawberry moon rise from the sea.  Of course, moonrise gets about an hour later each day, so we had to stay up later and later to watch it…

SteveJC94:  A brilliant Cuillin Ridge time achieved in hot conditions.  Amazing to be considering a ‘next time’!  Leaving the rope behind is probably something that familiarity allows, but maybe a bit testing first time through, particularly as tiredness creeps in?  Anyway, that and the other bits completed on Skye look like a great end to the trip and all achieved in fantastic weather – the sort of thing people wait years for to arrive.

Good to see you back on the bike and also to know that you are onto a Lattice plan shortly.  A good start to your return to fitness after the accident skiing.  The main thing is that everything held up really well so not much to hold you back now.

and part two

Ross Barker:  No worries Ross re offering to cover.  I decided that a lot of people were either away, or preparing to go away, so that’s probably why the offers didn’t immediately flood in!  Anyway, it was reasonably easy to get the prep organised, but I didn’t want the faff of uploading while I was away.

Interesting goals with the three 7a+ ish stuff back to back.  That would certainly be delivering a bit of endurance really with a fair bit of hard climbing – more than on most routes, so should be good grounding for your DWS goals – coming up this week I see.

Good to see that you have tidied up your Dugout transgression.  Important for me to maintain standards I feel 😉.  Good work on the longer link which sounds like it got quite close, despite your observations about the quality of subsequent attempts.  As above, 15-20 move sequences are quite a bit to put together really.

AlanLittle:  Great to see you outside again and back on a long-term target and now with a project to work at – excellent and with some real challenges involved by the sound of it.  You’re probably right, more than two goes should be possible, but PE is the commonest untrained area, so not surprising really that you power out quickly.

Your Kilterboard work looks productive and will probably help the power needed for the project.  Good to see you reporting that you are enjoying this process – clearly a worthwhile discovery, despite the challenges of finding the board free enough to focus.

It is always a balance with projects and getting something done.  I haven’t got through the mental hurdle of coming back with no results yet, but I have a strong sense that I won’t like it!  That said, getting up something genuinely hard for me would be a great result, so got to be done at some point.  I identified a couple of things this week that are not likely to be onsights, so beginning to get excited.

Good to get the bike out more than once and to keep working the pull ups carefully.

Tom Green:  Great to finish off the Cuillin Ridge in a chilled style after you previous efforts, though you appear to have paid for it with a bad dose of something following your return.  It makes for a very strange weekly write up from you as I think we are all getting used to some pretty impressive reports that mix up big mountain days with some consistent delivery on your sport climbing targets as well.  I hope recovery is now complete and a shame that you have cancelled your Alps trip as a result of illness and a bleak forecast.

I’m liking the revised goals, though there is a lot of ‘training’ on there to integrate.  This is fine, but you (quite rightly) prioritise getting out and about, often to far flung destinations and I suspect it will be hard to fit everything in (?).

I can’t help noticing how keen you are to engage in discussion on the threads.  This is the sign of someone keen to take on the stats when I finally tire of it… actually, I have only committed to one day of work each week for the summer at least, so I feel reasonably relaxed about continuing for the time being.

Inglesp:  Pull ups already going along well – as discussed previously, doing sets of ten is a pretty strong base already, though it sounds as if it was a bit of a grind to get there.  Mix up the approach a bit – try doing pyramids for example.  A pyramid from 1 to 10 and down again is 100 pull ups.  Or do something like sets of six, but ten of them, which would double your current volume.  Other things would include travelling pull ups for variation.

Wintour’s Leap is clearly the top destination for you and good to get to grips with a couple of your list.  I’m wondering if Ban Y Gor will appear on the list at some point, although maybe the sport focus isn’t such a big draw for you this year?  Plenty of good routes at Wintour’s of course – quite an extensive crag really with a fair amount of varying styles as well.  Summer evening meets a great way of ensuring that you get out regularly and there will always be someone to climb with as well.

Running continues to be quietly impressive and provides another set of times to drag me along! 

Climbthatpitch:  Oddly enough, not scary as it was so sudden and I landed on my second on the rope stretch, so we kind of fell about laughing partly because of the timing – it coincided exactly with me saying ‘these holds are weird, but they feel really solid’.

Another one reporting a holiday week – lots of that around at the moment and perfectly timed with the weather.  Despite losing four days on the beach, you have managed to get a couple of reasonable days in with the sport climbs at Tirpentwys and a trad session at Shorncliffe.  Regarding A King’s Ransom, there are a lot of comments about blinkers / avoiding all holds to left or right / etc. so you are probably right – I must admit that I can’t stand that level of artificiality and am inclined to do exactly as you did yourself – pull up the obvious holds and ignore the route thereafter!

Planetmarshall:  Nice to see you pop up on the thread with a guest appearance!  Hope you managed to get to Scotland though I didn’t see many takers?

Small Step:  Not sure familiarity with Stoney Middleton is a FC requirement, but you could do worse than follow SSB’s recent trips up the Extreme Rock classics at the place (probably more to follow).  It is a love / hate kind of place with a strange, compelling attraction despite polish and some patches of pretty poor rock.  It also used to be very noisy in its pomp with quarry workings opposite, but is now a bit more tranquil.

Great to see that you were out again on real rock and had a good time at Dream Catcher (paradoxically a decent route at Stoney) and even spotted some future targets.  Not a bad week for you with indoor, outdoor, walking and three ‘training’ days!  The hang board sessions sound fairly intense so good to be working this despite being in the climbing season now.

Have a great trip and we will see you back on here after your return.

Biscuit:  I’ve been quite inspired by Raven Scar reporting as it isn’t one I have visited and it has a bit of trad as well as the bolted sectors.  As noted before, dripping with stars, though these are typically of the Yorkshire variety where adding bolts to a trad route automatically ups it from one star to three!  You must have almost worked the place out by now!  Anyway, it is on the list of possibles for tomorrow as gets a bit of shade as well.

Presumably work was causing the tiredness as it certainly wasn’t the intense training loads!  Sometimes that it just how it is and I’m sure you will be back on it this week.  I expect you will be up in the hills with the weather set fair?  Conditions should be bone dry everywhere by now, including places like Neckband and Scafell, so should take advantage really.  I’ve got a mini trip coming up, but probably heading to Wales for this one. 

Lastly, I did note your Pembroke query.  I don’t know if you are sorted, but I would be interested and now know my work schedule for September.  Plenty of time available and a lot of target down there, though need to get going better over the next month as I have had an odd year so far.  Anyway, it is an option for you to consider if needed.

Ally:  Quite impressed with a report from you given the recent disruption at chez Smith.  On top of the fact that you have managed a report, it is actually a really intensive week of weights and board work, so you are clearly hammering it as a substitute for not getting out much in current circumstances!  Good to see your ‘daily minimum’ concept is working well – as noted before I really like this idea and now I’m back from holiday will have a think about what would work for me.  I like the idea that it includes rehab, which is easy to ignore when you are planning a ‘proper’ session.

Yves lifts looking strong with 69kg working sets.  Also noted the density hangs at plus 20 kg – an interesting thing to be working as they don’t appear often on anyone’s reports.  I did have an exchange on these with UKBShark a year or two back and tried them for a while, but wasn’t sure they delivered much.  Changing the stimulus is always helpful though, so perhaps another to consider and they might fit with the daily minimum idea.  Hmmm.

Liam P:  On his holibobs.

Crikey that’s some tick list, you’re the poster boy for just getting on the routes (a lesson I will, once again, fail to learn).

Thanks Tyler. It's not something I always manage but a combination of perfect conditions, a really chilled out fun group of climbers in our team (most of whom I didn't now before) and the momentum of growing confidence during the week did the trick. 

Thanks Derek, great job on the stats again.  Some of us were commenting recently on how well you've really pulled the group together, thank you and well done.

Mon - rest

Tues - good conditions at Crag X for some bouldering.  Did all the moves on Jericho Road eliminate sit start but will be hard to link.  Also did the move I've struggled on before on Batman but was too tired for a full burn by this point.  Stuff to come back to.

Wed. 5x5 pull ups +10kgs, 5x5 bicep curls (+10kg on each arm), 3x10 press ups. 14km run, 350m ascent, 5.50mins/km.

Thurs + Fri rest - busy at work.

Sat. a couple of 6s onsight to warm up then tried Mortlock's Arete.  It was 27 degrees (according to the car when we got back) and in full sun which turned out to be a complete disaster!  I got really pumped fiddling in gear at the start (the stuck wire is gone now) and had to lower off pumped.  A couple of ground up goes later I was sweating my way up the top flake but was just too sweaty and too pumped and eventually had to dog my way up the last bit.  The feet felt aweful, the rests not very restful and I'd gone way too far into the red zone to recover, then there were some shambolic scenes of dropped nuts and a generally high level of fear!  That aside though the climbing is actually also really quite hard (felt two grades harder than Resurection).  On the plus side I'm glad I had a go and at least I know some of the moves and gear for another day.  My partner had a gentlemanly sit on the rope too when seconding, just to make me feel better, not because he was struggling too, honest!

Sun.  Long walk with the kids in the sun, Margery Hill from Fairholmes (18km!).  Little legs going well after the Lakes Trip last week but too hot and had to dunk both kids clothes in the stream on the way down and put them back on wet to cool them down - more parenting lessons learnt.  Same upper body routine as Wednesday in the evening.

I haven't reported in myself for a couple of weeks, largely because of holidays, so...

Went out to Rylstone Wednesday before departure.  Gritstone of course.  I remember why I find it hard work.  Did a bunch of routes, but generally got a mauling.  Much stuff very dirty.

A week in Spain.  Truly excellent.  Took Julia to the 'wine club' where I hadn't been for about 18 years.  She loved it despite having to sing for the assembled guests.  Got some dancing in.  Added about 1.5kg over the week as diet difficult and too much wine waiting for strawberry moon to appear each night.  Did press ups and stretching by the pool.

Friday this week - Lighthouse Crags.  Haven't climbed much for nearly three weeks, so got spanked really.  Did three 6a+ things and all felt hard!  Not really much to warm up on or get back in the groove down there.  Went on Hom Day Wall (6b) I thought, which felt really hard, but discovered on reaching the ground that I had been on Gender Fluid (6c) instead, which explains things - anyway, fell of breaking a tiny hold (still useable) and could have fallen off more as the rock is shoddy.  Top groove is hard work and ran out of draws, so faff to organise for last bit.  Very droppable finish.  Not many ascents recorded.  Spotted a project or two, so keen to go back.

Back on training from Monday, so something more conventional next week.  New work schedule!  I have only agreed to one day a week, which feels like retirement!  This is potentially all I will do through to December, though I will get asked to do more.

I appreciate the comments 🙂

That's really confined to the last pitch which is 4a so, as long as you take your time, you shouldn't come to any harm, just a bit concerning for the leader. The rest of it was surprisingly clean and unsportingly dry!

I've made my peace with the amount of time trad climbing takes and, besides, I still average more ticked routes per trad day than I do per sport climbing day

Didn't even manage that!

The wheels have really come off this week which, by every measure other than frequency of getting out, has been dismal.

M: Feeling lethargic but had an offer of a belay from Fi. Went on some unfinished business from last year which I couldn't do a move on as it meant low pressure for me and Fi. Eventually got a sequence I was happy with and cut the evening short to preserve skin.

W: LPT, dumped my rope at the bottom of my route and went off to belay Joe. Came back  to find someone stick clipping the first bolt and they didn't seem keen to share so got on the Refrain and so accumulated more unfinished business.

S: Managed to OS Beaverbrook (6c) to warm up which was the highlight of the week. Forgot my microbeta from Monday and so wasted a few goes on Captain Fingers before getting through the crux, fumbling the clip above and grabbing the draw (I need a "What would Ian do?" wristband!)

S: Elbow sore but had some friends on Pen Trwyn so went out for a social, failed to do the crux on Night Time Rendezvous so ended the week on a new low.

Diet was so poor that on Saturday I went and bought some emergency veg for tea, the week up to that point: KFC, omelette, McDonalds, Burger and chips in the pub and Fish and Chips from the chippy. Another new low (or high depending on your PoV!).

Thanks Derek. A quieter week for me - a bit mentally tired after two try-hard weekends in the Frankenjura.

STG: depends on local weather & conditions
MTG: tick any of my local long term projects and/or a new-to-me 7a 
LTG: Be a confident, well rounded low to mid 7's sport climber. For measurable definition see Fit Club 823
LTG: Winter 24 or 25 - do an actual off piste ski tour.

M: 
T: MTB an hour in the woods. Because let's face it, being in the woods is a lot nicer than being at a climbing wall.
W: 
T: Wall, Thalkirchen kilterboard. Easy stuff at gradually increasing angles to warm up - but possibly too much at too much of an increased angle, since my projecting attempts on "Power Hour 7A" were then weaker than last week. And beta Video Guy's foot sequence doesn't work for me at all - back to Plan A. 
    20 minutes on the rings afterwards, including my first ever successful straight arm false grip hangs
    2 hours bike: to the wall & back, then a quick hour in the woods

F: Hillwalking. Have finally found the most scenic way up & down the Hohe Kisten, my nearest alpine foothill. A very pleasant day out.
S: 
S: Climbing, Brauneck. My intended climbing partner for the weekend was injured, but I managed to pull off another win in the facebook climbing partner lottery. Climbing with a stranger in an area I don't know well, so no projecting today. Mileage instead, with half a dozen onsights/flashes on longer routes in the plus-or-minus 6b range - probably good for both my endurance and my head. Brauneck is also a relatively recently developed area and the bolt spacing is almost Kalymnian. As previously discussed I wouldn't want it to be like that everywhere, but it's a refreshing change after a few Frankenjura weekends.

I have booked myself on a "shoulder health for climbers" workshop next Sunday. I have persistent slight shoulder niggles - although rarely as troublesome as last year's big flare-up - which is one reason why I steeered clear of any upper body pulling training for a long time. But now that I'm - carefully! - back on the pull-ups wagon, I want to make sure I'm doing everything I can to keep things working properly for another decade or two.
 

A thought...

We have earmarked weeks 900 and 1000 as significant.  Other than that I haven't thought about it, partly because it is one to three years away.  I think week 1000 would be nice to extend an open invitation to all previous clubbers to contribute a one-off update.  We could think about a big meet.

Week 850 is written up on Sunday 2 July.  It might be worth targeting this week for special significance in some way?  This is just a heads up, partly because I need something to kick me into gear for the year!

...I am under-reporting here.  I also did a session on the Tuesday before I flew that included a 4km run, max hangs on slopers - 3 sets with increasing weights, stretching, push ups and HB1 and 2 exercises.  A bit minimal, but it wasn't nothing...

What a brilliant week - jealous of the wildlife sightings as much as the climbing! 

You certainly give full value and effort Ian.

A great trip, well deserved.

Hi Derek. Noted re Pembroke. Yes I'm still keen., let's see what develops.

We took advantage of the weather to make a trip to Scotland.

I changed things about this week and Wednesdays are now a strength training day rather then more climbing specific. 

M - Good gym session. Upped my weights all round but it still felt OK. 26 sets x 6 exercises. RPE 6. Need to increase this now. 

30 mins continuous climbing

T - Board active grip session

10 reps with 3 min rest - first time I've felt a real difference. 3 times I grabbed a hold and turned it from an open hand to a crimp that I'm sure I wouldn't have been able to do before.

30 min run

W - Gym session - 30 sets x 8 exercises. RPE 6. New exercises. Will increase this week. 

T - Drove to Scotland

Stretch

F - Centurion (HVS 5a) Cracking route and an all round amazing day. The 2 x 5a pitches are amazing. The top pitch and the 4a pitch were a bit rubbish, but I'm being picky really.

S - Spider (HVS)  We didn't have the legs for a another day on the Ben and PollDubh was likely to be midgey. This had a breeze, but it was baking. I had to take my shoes off 3 times on the way up. Description is very hard to follow as well. Good route and the rock is much better than it looks. I was quite nervous to start as it looks very black, dirty and broken. But it was all solid.

We did a severe after to go back up and get our gear on the ab. I did it in my approach shoes as my feet were so sore.

S - Back home. 20 min jog to shrug off the hours in the van.

I will be able to get out this Friday but then I am busy this weekend so I'll have to keep everything crossed for the weekend after.

Cheers Derek. Spanish ‘Wine Club’ sounds good fun! Decent training week for me, although rain on Sunday scuppered a Portland visit.

Mon

Antags & Core

• BA Planche: 5x 10s
• DFlag negatives: variety of tuck and straddle then managed 3 sets of 1 full rep.

Tue

Wall

• Micros 8mm BW 3x 12s (+2s on last week)
• Micros 8mm BW Pullup (still need a thumb press on the side but might start going for reps with this method)
• Hour on the woody
• OAPU (assist hand on shoulder) 3x 1
• Hanging Wipers 3x 8

Fri

Fingers & OAPU

• OA Hangs: progressed on to the 25mm edge and got 6x 7s (90%BW)
• Lockoffs 3x 3 at Top/90/120 (90%BW)
• DFlag 3x Tuck/Straddle/One Leg/Full

Sun

• 90min drive to Portland - rain - 2:30 drive home!

Wall

• 3x 2 8mm Pull-ups
• Campus 30mm 1-4-6
• Hour on on the woody
• Hanging Wipers 3x 15

Weight isn’t coming off as quickly as I’d hoped (although still heading in the right direction). 82.2kg this week (-0.2kg). Sub-80kg is proving quite tricky!

On the weight thing I find that I have to go fairly strict to lose weight.  I think that once a fair bit has dropped off, the tendency is to relax somewhat and it doesn't take a lot of carbs - a few extra grams - for ketosis to be prevented.  For example, I can rely on it on a climbing day, because I eat salad, vegetables, some protein and fat at around 2pm to 3pm, which is usually 19 or 20 hours after my last food - just about guaranteed ketosis though I've never tested.  If I climb two days a week, that will have me losing weight and one day climbing keeps me stable.

I've also started running again and usually run quite late in my fast period, so ketosis is also likely then.

Test went quite well . I managed to get +57kg and got somewhat close for 60kg, maybe 2-3 inches were missing to get my chin over the bar. Maybe i would have been able to do 60kg, if i would have done a taper week as i still felt a little bit fatigued from all of the maximum strength work in the last 2-3 weeks, but i am still happy with that number. Body weight currently is 74kg, so that puts my one-rep-max at 177% BW, which should be enough for a one-arm-pullup. So i now just need to invest some time in finetuning my technique in order to have a good chance of getting there. Probably will start with one-arm-lockoffs and negatives during the next 1-2 weeks.

Recap last week:

Mon: Indoor bouldering, elements wall; some easy boulders for warmup followed by weighted pullups, 5x + 20kg and 3x + 37kg for warmup, then 2x2 at +49kg which felt quite good; 10 minutes break, Kilterboard 40°, 6b,6b+ flash for warmup, then 10x6c, 5 of them were flash, the rest 2nd or 3rd Go including a couple of problems that i could not sent on the last sessions; felt really strong and was definately the best Kilterboard session that i ever had

Tues: Threshold run during my lunch break, 45 minutes at 4:15/km with negatives splits: 10km: 42:09, 5km: 20:46; hear rate 161 on average and about 170-175 at the last 5km. Originally i wanted to do a faster steady run at 4:30/km pace, but felt good and and decided to push a little bit more. Probably could have gone even faster, effort level was hard but not maximal. Nevertheless, i was completely knackered afterwards at work, so i think it was wise to not push even harder

Wed: Rest

Thurs: Indoor bouldering, elements wall; Weighted Pullups max test: warmup with bodweight pullups, 5x +20kg, 2x+37kg and 1x + 49kg; + 57 kg which was hard but not limit, and one failed attempt at 60kg; 10 minutes break, Kilterboard 40°: 3x 6c's after a couple of tries that i have tried before and could not sent in my previous (aka they were probabyl on the harder spectrum of 6c); did not felt as good as on Monday, but was also quite wrecked after the pullup test. Somehow doing maximum 1 rep effort is way more tireing than doing a 2-rep maximum.

Fri: 25s, 20s L-Sit, Handstands, 2x12 Pikepushups, 2x8 Fingertips Pushups, 20 pushups with 10kg added, 45s V-Situps; 50 minutes steady run at 4:45/km with 141 heart rate on average; Handstands felt good and i am continuing to improve there; the run felt also good and easy despite a higher pace

Sat: Indoor bouldering, elements wall; Kilterboard 40°; 6a+ (flash), 6b (2nd Go), 6b+ (couple of tries) for warmup; one 6c second Go after choosing the wrong beta for my flash try, 2x 6c+ flashes (problems were definately soft), got close on another 6c+ but could  not link it and send another 6c+ after a couple of tries; Single Arm Rows: 3x12x28kg; did not felt 100% recovered from the last sessions but nevertheless it went alright, grades felt a little bit over the place as usual, the two 6c+ that i flashed felt easier than the 6b+ that i did, but the other 6c+ that i did was definately a proper one

Sun: Long run, 70 minutes, 4:51/km with 141 average heart rate, i had planned to run a little bit slower, which seems to be a reoccuring problem for me , but the pace felt really easy so i don't think that it was a big issue.

Strong week and despite all of the running i am really feeling very strong on the Kilterboard and i could imagine that i am to close to being in 7a/7a+ shape. Unfortunately, i had to pay a little bit of a price for it, as my left ring finger felt aggravated on Sunday when i woke  up and is still a little bit swollen. Hence, i will take a deload week for climbing, which was probably needed anyway. Fingers crossed that is only a small niggle and nothing major. I have been icing it religeously since yesterday and it has already gotten a lot better.

On the bright side, this finger should not effect my running and a little bit more recovery time might not be too bad. Plan for this week is to increase the mileage slightly from 36km last week to around 40km. Apart from that, i plan to add one threshold run though i will probably keep it a little bit shorter in order to not get too much fatigued.

Wow!  Some excellent performances all-round - single rep max, kilterboard and the running.  Very good.  Take care of that finger!

Thanks for the excellent statting.  I'll whack down some rough goals:

STG - 5k - 30 mins

MTG - 10k 1 hour

LTG - Come up with better goals!

M - Rest

T - 1.2m run

W - Rest

T - 1.2m run

F - S - Rest

S - 1.2m run

The tuesday run was a bit faster than usual, 11:30.  So there are vague improvements happening.  I suspect the first 5k this week will be closer to 45 mins, but it is going to be mostly offroad.  Getting my excuses in early.  But otherwise I'm quite happy with this week. 

Good to see goals Matt.  I did my first 5km for a year today - 31 minutes.  Using my age-handicapping system, I think you need to run a hilly 23 minutes to compare 😂🏃

Thanks Derek. Yes, it was cracking weather for it, couldn't have asked for more. Such a good trip that one of our summer options is simply rinse and repeat.

As probably unsurprising, a quieter week this week. Unpacking from holiday plus catching up on a certain amount of admin following the half term and before that a run of fairly busy weekends in May.

I did a bit of circuiting on the board at the weekend but that was basically it, although various other things like trips to work, hedge trimming, lawn mowing and other stuff kept me busy.

With "creating the opportunities" being a key enabler to getting things done these days - I can't really just assume climbing (beyond the "take the kids to some accessible bouldering" level at least) is a thing that will just fall into my lap, I need to lay a bit of groundwork - I tried to do a bit of planning ahead this last week. We have started to narrow down options for the summer, I have a long weekend planned for the end of this month, and I've also looked at what a pre Christmas trip might look like. Still work to do to land all that but steps along the way at least.

Good evening all, excellent stats as always Derek.

Yeah, it's probably good training for the sort of endurance you'd need on rehearsed redpoints, but perhaps not so useful on tentative soup-up DWS challenges, where I think a good aerobic base with solid recovery on rests will be of much value. The dugout is too fierce to train that sort of thing, the best training is probably onsighting actual routes.

Yeah, it's quite hard going stuff. Kudos to Ally for having done so many of these sorts of links there.

A decent week from me. First Moonboard session for 6 or so weeks and succeeded on some old stuff, so I'm probably getting stronger! Picked up a tweak on the left index finger but I'm not too worried, and this week I'm away on a family holiday so probably no climbing to happen.

Last Week:

M - Rest.

T - Weigh-in at 76.5kg. AM and PM very light hangs. Evening Moonboard. Caught up on three new 6B+ BMs, then got on the ol' proj, "School's Out". Three attempts, one falling at the last move. Saw off two old newbies I never got round to finishing, "Laika" and "Broad Maude", first and second go respectively, so who knows how hard they are! Ice baths before bed.

W - AM and PM very light hangs. Ice baths before bed. Left index A2 and PIP feel slightly tender. Very vague, hard to pinpoint. No pain loading isometrically, so maybe it's some aggravation if the FDS/FDP insertion? Hopefully it doesn't develop into anything more...

T - AM very light hangs. Evening Too Long for Ross Barker (f7C). 4 RPs, only one reached same highpoint, the rest were woeful. Found a hands-off kneebar at the base of the crack but it's painful and strenuous getting in and out. Also if I slip out I'll land head-first on a rock! The main thing I'm after is resting the right hand, as it's constantly under load and is very tired by the crux of Doug. I didn't have dinner beforehand like usual, so that may explain poor performance. However if I get just enough stamina I could stick the last move, and then give the right hand a little respite. Ice baths before bed.

F - AM very light hangs.

S - Ice baths before bed.

S - Nant Gwrtheyrn. Head wasn't in the right space for the main lines, quite tall but good water. Mostly just chilled and enjoyed the day. Had a couple low falls.

Next Week:

Eating loads of food and ice cream, probably. Maybe a bit of swimming for good measure.

Goals:

Improve ability on tiny edges.

Work on PE.

Oberth Effect Proj.

Harvey Oswald SDS.

Hi Fitties. Derek, thanks as per, for the quality statting -especially as they've been holiday write-ups!

Well, I don't know about that, but I probably owe a stint. The rest of summer won't be much good as there'll be a few periods where I'm out of comms, but if you can hold out until Autumn I'll be happy to take over.

Yep. My problem used to be not enough climbing, but over the last year or so I've been pretty good at getting out (thanks to a widening group of awesome partners -including fellow weekday warriors) so now the problem is maintaining training consistency. At the moment, I feel like I'm still in the position to get improvement from simply climbing more, but there may be diminishing returns from this in some areas of my climbing, so I need to get better at balancing the two.

I don't like climbing tired, so tend to avoid training ahead of climbing days; but then I don't like training tired either! This means if I'm getting out and about I drop planned training sessions. I could probably be smarter about doing small sessions that won't need too much recovery and complementary double-sesh days. Something to work on...

Week 23:

Continued to feel awful, so dropped most planned sessions.

M: Lurgy.

T: Lurgy.

W: Lurgy.

T: Alpine start/finish for work.

F: Trad at Burbage North -an awful idea given the weather! Felt shit, out of breath on the (non-existent!) walk-in, but managed to get half a dozen routes done. Highlight Right Fin (HVS 5a).

S: Rest -had intended on doing some big mountain route links in the lakes but, based on the previous day's lack of cardio capacity, decided to give myself another day off.

S: River swim -less training and more trying to stave off heatstroke.

Week 24:

M: Climbing.

T: Climbing.

W: Prehab.

T: Core and strength. Prehab.

F: Climbing/Hill day.

S: Prehab.

S: Run. Core and strength.

STG (End June):

Average 2 core sessions per week.

Average 3 prehab sessions per week.

4 of my 'big mountain day' list.

MTG (End July):

Two routes off my alpine bucket list.

Thanks Derek, excellent stats as always. Hope you managed to have a good trip the other week! 

My thoughts exactly, can't believe how lucky we were over the fortnight! 

Monday

Rest

Tuesday

Lattice pre-plan testing. My numbers are a fair bit lower than when I finished my last plan in January (and depressingly most of the numbers are lower than my baseline before starting the last plan in November 2022), though having been out of action for the best part of three months it's not much of a surprise - I'm hoping to see that as a motivator to get back in shape again! 

2 rep max pull-ups

• Jan 2023 - 101kg / 155% bodyweight
• This time - 90kg / 141% bodyweight (11% decrease)

Max hangs (20mm edge, half crimp, 7s hang)

• Jan 2023 - 94kg /145% bodyweight
• This time - 89kg /138% bodyweight (5% decrease)

Power endurance (60% max, continuous 7:3 repeaters)

• Jan 2023 - 226 seconds
• This time - 183 seconds (19% decrease)

Box splits

• Jan 2023 - 152cm
• This time - 152cm (net neutral)

Bodyweight

• Jan 2023 - 65kg
• This time - 64kg (1% decrease) 

Wednesday

Rest

Thursday

General bouldering session on the Depot yellow circuit 

Friday

Zone 3 ride. 20km / 66m ascent / 40min / 30km/hr average

Saturday

Ticking a couple of classics at Stoney on a very hot day! St. Peter (E1 5c) and Om (E1 5b) were both great

Sunday

Zone 2 ride. 72km / 388m ascent / 2hr 34mins / 28km/hr average

That's really cool, certainly no end of interesting routes and terrain to explore round your way. Will look forward to hearing about the progress 

Well after a crap week the next one managed to take a massive nose dive! Although happy to report improvements towards the latter end of the week.

Monday saw me visit my local GP as i wanted to get to try get the ball rolling towards a referral for a scan to see what the actual issue is with my back. They were having non of it so got sent away with another prescription for pain killers to treat the neuropathic pain aspect. Retrospectively this was a really bad idea!

Took my first dose of the new meds  Monday night and spent the entire night in pain not able to sleep. So tired and in pain Tuesday morning I made the brain addled choice to double dose on the pain killers to try get some relief. Boy did that one bite me on the arse, Managed to get up mid morning to go to the loo but pain was so bad that i had to crawl back to bed. After that my leg just went into complete spasms of pain and couldn't swing it off the bed and weight bare so effectively immobile. 

Phoned my wife to come home and help and also the Dr's to see if they could send anyone to help to which they said someone would phone. By the time my wife got home there had been no phone call and i was still immobile and in huge amounts of pain so we took the decision to call for an ambulance. Happily the crew arrived really quickly and were fab. Got me dosed up on gas and air sufficiently to be able to move me and get me into the ambulance and off to the hospital. Intra muscular morphine injections then did the trick and knocked the pain on the head completely. Turns out i reacted really badly to the neuropathic pain relief which effectively amplified the pain so dropping a double dose was the worst thing i could have done.

Happily the morphine and rest cured all the muscle spasms and was back to normal the following day so could go home! The normal pain meds are happily doing their job so from then on recovery has been going. I have been able to drop out the naproxen from the pain relief schedule which is good as that can attack the stomach lining.

Friday i took my daughter to work so took the opportunity to visit the pool and managed an entire 10 lengths, small steps and all that.

To get back into running i have decided to follow a couch to 5k program so that I take a pragmatic controlled approach to getting back into it as i know what im like and have previous for trying to do too much too soon....

Anyway Sunday was my first outing and happily  completed a 30 minute walk/run with my wife as her ankle is getting better too 

Onwards and upwards from here!

Blimey Sheep - a full on week!  Glad that you are moving gently again now 🙂

For someone to return from a world-class destination and then go on to describe St Peter and Om as 'great' is surely a wind-up?😂😂

Anyway, Mani is the pick of them around there.  Take care, Stoney is addictive 

Week 23

M – Mk2 arrival by Caesarean.  She’s a cute little thing, but so tiny at 6lb 3oz (2.79kg). The C-section was far less traumatic to witness than Charlotte being born with associated damage/stitches for Rachael.  Home by 9pm for whiskey toast (18yr old Laphroaig) with her parents.

T – Amazingly quick turn-around; discharged from hospital after 24hrs.  Daily minimum. 2x12 Internal rotator rehab. 2x12 Assisted half lever-lifts.

W – Found it very hard watching Rachael in pain with a thumping headache from muscle spasms, though thankfully easing after lunch.  Very grateful for midwife who helped to make Rachel more comfortable whilst feeding.  5x7 BW pull-ups on-the-minute. Yves style 20mm edge lifts in half-crimp. Progressive warm-up, then 4x working sets of 2x reps @70kg. Max effort with R, but less intense for R, so quickly tried the BM2K central slot and boshed out a 7s hang with BW+5kg (2.5 assist, 7.5 extra load).

T – Tough day; more horrid headaches and sad news of Rachael’s granny passing away. Daily minimum. 2x12 Internal rotator rehab. 2x12 Assisted half lever-lifts.

F – Took advantage of having the g-parents about and got in a 27km/56min road ride.

S – Board – managed about 60% of the Crimpd “Board10” session before little un woke up.

S – More anguish from Squiggle falling the full height of our stairs. Thankfully only a few small bruises, but evidently need to work on my parental “yes in the back of my head”.  30min fingerboard. Rocka mimics. BW-2.5kg. 6mm 5s BW+10kg. 3x10 leg raises thrown in.

Congratulations, fab news 😊

Well I guess it's all relative! I must be a bit of a masochist as I've got a penchant for Peak Lime - there's clearly something wrong with me! 

What a rollercoaster of a week. Obviously congratulations but sadness and some stress/worry in there too. I hope things settle down for you.

It often takes a few goes to find the correct neuropathic pain relief. It's normally a case of it being ineffective, or making you feel a bit spaced out rather than the reaction you had. That must have been terrifying.

I'm glad you're on the mend.

Thank you Derek,

I swing around 2kg quite a lot depending on what I am doing.  My ideal weight is 73kg which is light but not unhealthy for me, I think I could drop to 71kg for short periods, but it would be hard work and not good for me long term.  I can often rise to 75kg+ if I eat too much rubbish.  Currently it comes back off fairly easily once I return to the standard diet.  I am currently "low carb" most days which means normal food, but half (or less, or none) of the carb part and double the protein part.

Good week back, but no E5 from the ground this week unfortunately, but good hard sport find

M - New sport 6b+ and 6c

T - Avon - 7a+ (onsight), 2 x easy trad routes and led Tarzan the Magnificent (E5 6a), only RP though as TR when I cleaned it a few weeks ago.

W - Mendips - 6c, 7a and 7a+ (all onsight) Also found and worked a new line, at about 7b+/7c.  Took a while to get the moves working lots of different bouldery beta's until a working set of holds was found. From a workout point of view, this sort of thing is massive, as I probably did (and failed) using much harder holds loads of times before getting a beta, then 3 goes on TR to refine it.  Only about 12m, but I must have cranked all the moves 10-15 times.

T - Lots of DOMS, installed some top anchors in the blazing sun, racing about to get to the next location before the glue nozzles go hard.

F - Nothing (just work in the full sun)

S + S - Rest (too hot)

Quiet week incoming, as away with work.

Maybe week 850 is a bit close for any goals that aren’t a bit arbitrary… we could use 850 as the week for stating goals for week 900? 900 seems a long way off, so I guess there’s no excuse for the goals not to be big and ambitious!

Bloody hell Ally! That’s a lot going on. Hope this week has been a bit more boring for you. 

Thanks for the stats Derek

Just a quick one from me because I realised I have forgot to post all week and I only have a spare 10 min.

Felt like everything was going backwards at the beginning of the week but I did have a good end of the week.

m - Wintours leap, Backed off Split Flies (E3 6a) because I could not work out the crux so I down climbed and went up the top pitch of the split instead. Defiantly an endurance work out holding on and climbing up and down (or thats what I am telling myself).

T - Yoga and weights

W - Went to Taffs wells west, did  not feel like I was climbing well at all, 2 6a, fell off a 6b+, Tried Bristol Beat (7a) and fell off a few moves from the top.

T - Yoga

F - rest

S - Went to Burbage to drop the grade and learn to Crack climb, done lots of classics. Decided to jump on Long Tall Sally (E1 5b) in 27c heat which was entertain, I got up it but my feet were killing by the top. Best route of the day was Amazon Crack (HS 4b) though would of liked it to go on forever.

S - Back to Burbage, more crack climbing.

Lee

Sunday morning: a new record for cutting it fine?  No need for a detailed response Derek!

Mon -- pull ups: 3 x 10.

Tue -- stretches: hips + legs.

Wed -- indoor climbing.  Couldn't even do the moves on a 7a I'd worked on previously, but then flashed a 6c slab that my stronger friends all say they've struggled with.  Maybe working on flexibility is paying off?  If nothing else, it's got me thinking about different ways of using my lower body.

Thu -- to Shorn Cliff.  Highlights were Bitter Battle Tears (HVS 5a) and then coaching a new outdoor climber through his first trad lead (Acoustic (VD)).

Fri -- pull ups: 3 x 10.

Sat -- hot + hilly 12km run.

Sun -- stretches: hips + legs.

Oh, and I've really enjoyed reading everyone's trip reports!