UKC

Fit club 892

Hi Fitties. I hope you've all had a great week and managed to get some use out of what seems like the first break in the rain in 2024! I'll try not to forget anyone this 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_fitclub_week_891-76998...

Randy: An impressive set of numbers from the strength sessions as usual. You're definitely hitting spring with bags of raw fitness. Does it fit with your goals to swap some of the non-specific training for greater specificity now that rock season is (hopefully!) here? Maybe more board climbing for specific strength and more circuits for fitness? Hope the weather let you get out on rock this weekend.

mattrm: Solid week there -a decent number of training days after the holiday deload. Nice to see some more climbing featuring -setting you up well for the new routine spree! It's no bad thing to mix up the angles and terrain on the runs. I quite like pushing the mileage on easier ground, then transfer that back on to the hillier runs. Hope this week has been a good balance between bouldering and Project Ultra.

Derek Furze: Repeaters to dance music sounds like a winner! Between that and you're pull-up volume you are going to have bags of stamina -perfect for a big enchainment! What are your plans for the July link-up (or are you keeping them under wraps for now?!) Also, have you identified a project for your new sport goal? (Tyler's north coast suggestions sound ropey! Come and do something at Dinbren instead!)

Somerset Swede Basher: Sorry for the non-stats for week 891. I think last week firmly cements you as FitClub's Dave McLeod! Strong performances on the boulders and sport, then a pretty massive day on the Dinbren E2s, very impressive all round climbing. Now that a lot of your running is with the kids, do you have a plan for not going backwards on the cardio volume?

AlanLittle: Some real consistency with your weeks now that you're recovered/recovering from the lurgy. It looks like you're striking a good balance with training for your mountain goals, whilst still maintaining/progressing with your ongoing climbing training. Well done with the Kilterboard goals! (45 deg is horrifyingly steep!) Re: kilterboard... you say you have most to learn from the steep bouldering, and I guess this applies to your sports goals, but are you happy with the base level of endurance in the lead up  to Lofoten? I'm guessing you are going to be getting on some pretty long routes out there?

Ross Barker: Interesting self-analysis there. I'm intrigued by the individual finger data... It looks like the kind of data that could be really useful, but I'd have no idea of HOW exactly to use it! Have any other FitClubbers got numbers on this (I seem to remember Ally posting some up in the past)? It would be interesting to build up a picture of some 'norms' (or lack of norms!). How does your lack of wrist mobility manifest? I often get nasty tweaks pulling hard on slopers, but I'm not sure if that's mobility, strength, or poor technique!

Ian Parnell: How have those niggles been this week? I hope you've managed to tread the fine lines between rest/rehab and getting out having fun? Good work with the Stanage solos -sounds like a nice use of a dry hour ,even if you did feel a bit creaky! What is Carcing? When I read this last week I assumed it was a typo of Arcing, but then it features again this week!

Steve Claw: A good week of climbing -looks like you are in good form with things feeling easier than in previous sessions? Hopefully the weather will play ball for you to keep the momentum going for a good trad season. Are you planning on keeping some supplementary training going through the season, or will training only be for rainy weeks now?! Worth keeping some prehab going in the background for those elbows?

Tyler: Yes, I WAS hoping for dispatches from the trad frontline! Don't disappoint me this week! Good work with the big bike ride despite the DOMS... that's the kind of suffering we love to see! Did you manage to avoid DOMS from the log chopping? I find that kind of stuff always manages to find a muscle that you didn't know existed!

Tigh: Sounds like a good attitude to be approaching the alps trip with. As a veteran of disappointing alps trips, I wish I had embraced that mindset! I hope the bigger distance run felt good this week? Also, what do your strength sessions consist of?

Tom Green: Mixed week, but well done for being philosophical about the trad rustiness -it just reinforces the need for the process goals you had stated the week before. Stick to it and don't let SSB's permapsych derail the plan of moderate mileage... oh... damn...

planetmarshall: Big questions first... what was the decision for helmet design?! Lion, unicorn, welsh dragon?! I hope you haven't been too uncomfortable and that the rest weeks aren't doing your head in. Not sure if this is an issue for you, but don't worry too much about putting on weight during the period of inactivity... you can soon drop it when your healed, but I think the conventional wisdom is that you don't want to risk delaying healing by restricting food intake.

AJM: Sounds like a pretty successful trip from all angles. Good reflections though... I'm always impressed at how well some people are able to analyse the variables affecting their own performance. Have you got a specific plan/process in mind for increasing the all day work capacity?

biscuit: That's a shame... I was hoping you were going to give us all the good news that the secret to crushing is three days of eating and napping! Have you tweaked the training plan at all following on from this trip or has it confirmed that you are on the right lines?

Hope I haven't missed anyone? Honourable mention to Liam -get well soon.

As I am resting after another four hour shift in the garden, I might as well chuck in an early response.

My enchainment?  As I said, inspired by yourself so didn't think I would need to explain!  It is just a long summer day above Llangollen, Worlds End to Dinbren with hopes of doing a good route on each of six crags, so have to get going smoothly on trad over May and June.  Sport projects are really based around the crags along from Sticky Mix - things like Battleground, or Dinbren with Technicolour Yawn the goal.  A bit less at Dinbren in the onsight range, so I lean towards the Ormes.

Strange week, with weather affected plans meaning less climbing than intended.

Mon - good session though tired from weekend work on garden projects.  Repeater sets at 21.6kg, 60 pull ups at BW, 60 push ups and six sets of stretching and core 

Tues - work and childminding

Wed - five routes at Lawrence field with rain at times.  Quite cold.  Took my mat out of the boot for a spin.

Thurs - 5 km run at steady plod

Fri - garden work so only a repeater set in the evening.

Reflection:  need some midweek dry weather!  Three climbing days planned this week.  Running remains hard since illness, but persisting.  Weekend projects are exhausting which is possibly also impacted by late nights!

Thoughtful and intelligent comments as ever Tom, thanks.

My thinking re Norway is yes, there are long routes I want to do, but the granite appears to be mostly slabby/technical rather than pumpy. For big all day routes with the need to keep it together for long & complicated descents, I think long gruelling 10+ hour hill days are at least a relevant as how much lactic acid I can pump through my forearms. Ideally I'd do big scrambling days in the Karwendel/Wetterstein but we don't have the conditions for that yet - maybe see how it is in June. For now the remaining snow is making days out in the foothills quite gruelling enough.

The plan is to come back from Scotland throughly hill fit, then I have six weeks to get some rock mileage in before Lofoten.

The steep board stuff is more of a long term focus - the need to continue to at least try to maintain/develop power as we get older. And to continue stepping outside our comfort zone.

Hey Tom. Yeah long run felt okay. I did another long route today and it was tough. Hip flexors were painful for half the run so just struggled along. 

My strength sessions are ideally X2 a week and I do 2 slightly different programs 

A 

Barbell squats 4x5

Barbell step ups 3x5

Barbell heel raises 3x8 (this will come down to 5-6 reps in couple weeks)

BW Dips/Pull ups

B 

Same as above except I swap out step ups and do dumbbell Romanian split squats

I increase load by 2.5kgs per week for each ex but if I fail to complete sets I will go back down for another week. Obv I could be doing lots of other things like core and back/chest etc but I do these sessions before work and time is at a premium so the 3 leg ex's are always the priority. If I'm really tired ,like after a long run I'll have a rest and just do upper body/core. This might become more regular as I step up the mileage. 

Good weeks training this week so happy with that but also can't wait for a deload week! 

M- rest 

T - 8km easy pace run

W - strength 

T - 7 km easy run and a hill sprints session 

F - Strength 

Sa - 15km easy hike. 350m elevation

Su - 22km slow and painful plod! 

This week plan to do X2 strength and 2-3 runs plus hopefully get up to Brecons for a hike. 

Good week all 

Thanks for the stats Tom!

Weight - 14st 7lbs

STG - 10km fell loop in 1h 45m

MTG - 30 mile ultra (July 24)

LTG? keep on trucking?  stay fit? ummm

BHAG - F7A boulder somewhere / kickflip

M - Rest

T - 4k run

W - Circuit board - 1h

T - Rest

F - 4k run
S - Bouldering

S - 10k

Weekly kms - 18k

Diet status - Ok

Again another really good solid week.  Two bouldering sessions.  Got the harder of the V0-1 circuits clean this week.  Probably didn't really have a great session, but I did get further on some of the harder stuff, so I think it was ok really.  Went outdoors to a local crag and did some traversing along the bottom of routes on Saturday.  Still after 45 minutes on the circuit board, I'm toast.  Running was much better this week.  Pretty much just flat miles, but it was all fairly fast for me which was nice.  10k was about an hour which is a nice 'proper runner' milestone.

Next week is going to be a proper big fell run, aiming for around 25k ish.  That'll definitely clobber any climbing on Wednesday.  So I'll have to see what I can fit in.  Hopefully should be able to get some outdoor bouldering done.  But we'll see.

Thanks Tom, just need to get a whole number grade better and I'd be almost competitive! No plans to change the running. I'm really enjoying running with the boy and if that means 3 short runs rather than 1 long one on my own then that's fine. I've noticed that I climb much better when not tired from running so maybe itl be a good thing. A lighter week this week as I was back to work.

Mon. Rest

Tues. 3km run.

Wed. Circuit board session at the Depot. Laps up to 7b. Pumped!

Thurs. Rest, stressful day at work, had a drink and watched a film.

Fri. 3km run.

Sat. A long drive to Gogarth but worth it. Swung leads on Gogarth (E1 5b) then did Winking Crack (E3 5c). The first couple of pitches of Gogarth were a bit soapy and Tom put in a great lead on pitch 2, then the sun came round and it was lovely. I found the first pitch of winking crack pretty hard and got pumped gardening on lead. It felt very 'first ascent of the year' with all the vegetation and still a few wet holds. The top pitch was intimidating but overall I found it easier except the last couple of meters which were hard work. Somehow by this point it was 7pm and we decided that given our current rate of minutes per meter we probably didn't have time for another route!

Sun. Morning 3km fell run with the kids and some laps round the pump track on the mountain bike in the afternoon.

Yeah, generally it would make a lot of sense. The problem is that i was really short on time last week, so during the week the strength sessions were the only thing that i could fit it. This and next week was not better either, as i was traveling again.

Unfortunately, not really. Winter has returned and we even had snow

Mon - Tues: Rest and another business travel

Wed: One-Arm-Lockoffs: 6-10s at various angles, Repeater Lifts, various grip types for 10s at 90-95% of my max, shoulder felt better, but still not 100% recovered

Thur: L-Sit 2x15s, 2x12 Pike-Pushups, Repeater Block Lifts, repeaters, 20mm, 12x12x7,3 with 2 min rest at 16,5kg

Fri: Rest and Travel back to Munich

Sat: Indoor Climbing, Boulderwelt South, One-Arm-Lockoffs: 6-10s at various angles, short Kilterboard Session @45°, flashed one 6a+,6b,6b+ and then tried a couple of 6c but could not get them done except one after a couple of tries, tried a bunch of parcour boulders in the 6b to 6b+ range which i either flashed or could not figure out at all, finished the session with checking out a 7a+ Traverse and linking it in two halfes; felt a little bit tired from the travel and struggled on the Kilterboard to find enough body tension and lacked power as well as contact strength. On the bright side static finger strength felt good so i know what i need to work on

Sun: Indoor Climbing Boulderwelt Ost, tried the 7b+ from last weekend again but was way too tired to make any progress, did a bunch of easier traverses with short rest afterwards and finished the session after 1h. Having a rest day probably would have been better, especially after not getting a lot of sleep last night after birthday day of a good friend of mine. But i wanted to use the opportunity to get some more climbing volume in, as i won't have the chance to climb for at least the next 3 days again.

Not the best training week on an absolute, but probably high on the make the most of your circumstances scale. Next weeks unfortunately won't be any better, as i will be traveling a lot and will have a lot of stress at work. So i just need to make the best of the situation and make some smart training adjustments.

Hi Tom, think I missed last week, very busy at the end of the week helping mum get her partner home from hospital. 
Hospital visits have as usual the added side effect of getting Covid so have been up on bricks this week. Worst bit of it this time round has been having horrible dose of the runs along with everything else!

I have lost over 4kg in the week so taking the positives it’s been a self imposed retreat involving repeated abdominal contraction exercises, fasting and self induced colonic irrigation 😂😂

Thanks Tom

I was doing really well and feeling strong, but it does seem that whenever things are going well then something goes wrong.

Strong start to the week, so set out to shunt a benchmark route, but suffered a major setback when I mess up on a mono warming up and popped my left middle A3 pulley.  Really annoyed with myself as I have just put myself out of action just when the weather as dried up and spring is here.

M - Nothing

T - Avon fun with onsights of Oil on Canvas (E3 6a) and Intestines (E4 6b) with the later being tech 6b.  Also a quick TR on The Pact (E5 6b) which is also tech 6b and I got onsight.  All these were also unchalked, which made it quite an achievement in reading the rock for tiny holds, with "Intestines" being the best, as the moves are dynamic, so no chance to have a feel around.

W - Busted the finger pulley, heard a reasonably loud pop sound, so know its not good.

T - Cried in self pitty (not really), planned some new route development to keep me busy

F - S - Nothing

Well I was at the trad front line today but if it had been a real war I’d have probably been shot for desertion!

I’m more concerned about my elbows which suffered quite badly from this last year but I seem to have got away with it so far….

M: Nowt

T: After work to Mayfair Wall, absolutely Baltic, top roped the Bloods to “warm” up (couldn’t feel my fingers and despite falling off this is definitely a rarity for Pen Trwyn, a soft touch). Went around to the corner and top roped String of Pearls but even Wales’ most enthusiastic climber wasn’t enough to keep us out any longer. 

W: Forecast deteriorated so end up in Beacon again, new routes on the main wall sweetened the pill a little. 

T &F: lazy

S: For the fourth time in the last couple of years I failed to find a decent route on to the Heather Terrace so arrived at the bottom of Bastow Buttress Variant (Grade-3) knackered, late and facing a mutiny from Fi. On the route we were a lot slicker and the scrambling was harder and more continuous than expected (possibly on the route itself). Descended by Cwm Tryfan which was long and I was disappointed by how wiped out I felt. 

S: Still wiped out. Seconded Joe up Swallowed by Amazons (E4 5c) which he climbed in mistake for The Green Wall! Good but pretty serious climbing, I can see why it got upgraded in the definitive guide.  At my request Joe laced Nosferatu (E3 5c) and even then I nearly chickened out of leading it on his gear. Felt pretty straight forward in the end but I’m under no illusion I did anything other than flash a 6b+

Sorry to hear about the injury!  'Mono' and 'warming up' in the same sentence might be to blame!  Hope you are through it soon 🙂

Bummer Steve. If its any solace I've had a couple of 'loud noisy" finger injuries. One of which was a very quick recovery, although the other was longer it wasn't crazy long. Best not do fingers crossed - but you know what I mean - good luck!

Thanks for the stats Tom. I’m very jealous of your Gogarth day, I had to stay local this weekend but have a pass coming up and I’m hoping you haven’t used up our communal sunshine quota for the month.

Niggles are ongoing. I’m going to gingerly try a couple of miles run tomorrow. Fingers wise I think I’m going to have to get Biscuit on the case. Carcing is ARCing in the car! Not my phrase, as those who are as sad as me and listen to lots of climbing podcasts will know. It's basically a super low level endurance gripping/squeezing or crimping to try to promote capilarisation in the forearms. To get any effect I think you have to do it for yonks…like a year, and even then it’s unproven. But I just do it once or twice a week driving to work.

Mon – Nothing

Tues – An hour or so soloing at Birchen – 6 routes up to HS.

Awesome Walls autobelays 4 x 10 mins on 10 mins off. Rehab bits.

Wed – Rehab bits

Thursday – An hour's strength and conditioning shoulders and core. Rehab bits

Fri – 30mins Carcing

Sat – A couple of hour's soloing at The Roaches. Lots of wandering around looking for wildlife to photo in between 6 routes up to VS. Reminded me just how good this place is if you can go before the crowds arrive.

Sunday – Hour and half soloing at Stanage Popular end, early doors to beat the crowds. 8 routes up to HS. Beginning to get a small amount of confidence/flow.

An hour’s strength and conditioning shoulders and core. Rehab bits.

Reflection - As I’m a bit stuck with my niggles/injuries stopping me running or doing any ‘hard’ climbing I’ve decided to take the opportunity to sort my head out, in the hope that when I can run enough to try my run-climb challenge again, at least the climbing bit will hopefully feel as easy and in control as possible. Soloing used to be a big part of my climbing, but I largely stopped it since getting family responsibilities. This last week has been a reminder how amazing it is, with the need to climb something completely perfectly to be safe. It’s one of the few times I get to feel anything these days approaching ‘mastery’. Which even if it’s only mastery of a v-diff or severe, it’s still a tremendous feeling. Once this run-climb challenge is over I’ll have to consciously stop soloing again because it’s dangerously seductive.

Not as recovered as I thought as it turned out. I had planned a hillwalking deload week anyway; it was fortuitous that this coincided with a week of rain, snow and gales. Was also feeling rather under the metaphorical weather during the week - sore throat, headache - which turned it into a climbing wall deload week too.

STG: Thalkirchen 5.9 "easy" crack
STG: Rough Bounds Scottish backpacking trip in May
MTG. DAV Lofoten meet in July
MTG: Im Extremen Fels ticks    in August
LTG: Be a confident, well rounded low to mid 7's sport climber. For measurable definition see Fit Club 823
LTG: Winter '25 - do an actual off piste ski tour.

M:  rest
T:    MTB 2 hours in the woods, taking advantage of what is forecast to be the only decent weather afternoon of the week.
    Pullups, bulgarian split squats
W:  Had planned to go to the wall but was feeling crappy: sore throat & headache
T:    Ditto
F:    Feeling somewha better. Crimp block pick-ups, pullups, shoulders
S:    
S:    Had intended to do a short hike-up-lift-down hillwalk for a few metres of deload vert, but it turned out on googling around that every lift within day trip reach is closed for either post-season maintenance or adverse weather. That, plus still lingering cold symptoms, led me to give it a complete break instead.
    Went to Freimann for a play on the kilterboard in the evening instead. Dialed the angle back a bit to a more normal 40°, and had a slightly weak & tired but still fairly ok session. Including a recovering from an involuntary foot cut and carrying on instead of immediately letting go and dropping off, which is a pretty new thing for me.

Four weeks to Scotland
 

Good morning everyone! Hope you're all doing well.

I think there could be a lot of variance in the results depending on what edge (or sling) is used and whereabouts it's placed on the fingers. My first test was done with the weight far up the finger, similar to carrying a shopping bag. I don't think this isolates the tendon very well so I did it again earlier this week with a stricter half crimp, the weight placed a bit further down overlapping the DIP joint

Well, pushups can be a bit uncomfortable, but aside from that I hadn't really noticed before. I was speaking to Huffy and he suspects the lack of pronation is what has been overloading my ring fingers for so long, and thus frequently injuring them. I do think his prescriptions might be a bit on the conservative side but I guess we'll see how it goes.

A decent week from me. Finished off the Ippikins link, had a crap-ish session at the wall, then had an outdoor session where I had fun and made progress, but I'm not psyched to return!

Last Week:

Avg weight 79.6kg

M - Wrist pronation stretches. Pronated bicep curls, 6x5. A little lower body mobility work.

T - Mono testing again. Last time I think my grip didn't do a good job of isolating the tendon (FDS?), so this time the load was placed over the DIP rather than the intermediate phalanx. Results here:

Index R 10kg, L 10kg

Middle R 10kg, L 8.75kg (R almost 11.25kg but dropped form with ~4s remaining)

Ring R 7.5kg, L 7.5kg

Pinky R 3.75kg , L 6.25kg

Then went to Ippikins Rock for another session on the link. With a minor heel adjustment and a crisp wind it just about went, dubbed Fielding the Lip (f7B). I later repeated Bollo (f7B) to gauge the difficulty, and FTL does feel harder but I suspect it's a bit less my style. The opening moves of Bollo are very steep and tensiony, which I think suits me better. Had a play on some of the moves of Karfi (f7C) but not inspired, it seems a bit ratty, and one of the bigger holds is so narrow that falling off could cause your finger to cam itself stuck. Yeowch!

W - Wrist pronation stretches. Pronated bicep curls, 6x5. A little lower body mobility work.

T - Indoor bouldering. Did some pretty hard moves but also felt quite tweaky on some not so hard moves, on the left middle in particular, and the right ring a little. Unfulfilling session overall.

F - Birthday (p)rehab; Wrist pronation stretches. Pronated bicep curls, 6x5. A few sets of cake fork lifting as well.

S - Rest.

S - Wrist pronation stretches. Pronated bicep curls, 6x5. Evening session on The Mentalist (f7C). Managed more moves, but the pain on the horrendously torquey/rippy RH slot multiplies each go, it isn't long before it's too painful to continue. Can't fathom how people are motivated to siege this! I won't be coming back any time soon but it was a nice evening.

Next Week:

M - Rest.

T - Climbing.

W - Rest.

T - Climbing.

F - Rest.

S, S - More climbing!

Goals:

Rehab left middle finger.

Improve wrist mobility.

Improve lower body mobility.

Louisville Lip.

Rigpa.

Ippikins Link. Tick!

'Can't fathom how people are motivated to siege this! I won't be coming back any time soon but it was a nice evening.'

Yet people do apparently!  Quite surprised to see 110 logs and some people taking three years on it!  Good effort on your new thing!

Edited to correct number

Cheers. I know the guy who spent 3 years on it and you wouldn't think he's the type of guy to enjoy the pain!

Hi everyone.

Week 16:

M: Rest.

T: Strength sesh.

W: Run and climb. Weirdly unpsyched for running at the moment (not sure why?) so tucked the rock shoes in my running vest to give me some motivation to set off. Mediocre run (8.7km, 385m vert, 6:43/km -excluding climbing time) but fun solos of Big Phlash (VS 4a) and SPC (VS 4c).

T: Sport climbing. Got Slobberlob (7b) -another STG tick. This would have been my first 7b, except it has clearly never been 7b in it's life! Fun moves regardless of the number though.

F: Rest.

S: Trad climbing. Second proper trad day of the year was a lot better than the first! Great day on Gogarth main wall. After last week's jibbering, it was pleasing to find Gogarth (E1 5b) pretty cruisey. Also, pleased with my decision not to lead the second pitch of Winking Crack (E3 5c) (Dom's contagious enthusiasm is pretty dangerous!) as it would definitely have been too much, too soon! 

S: Rest. 

Week 17:

M: Strength sesh.

T: Run.

W: Rest.

T: Strength sesh.

F: Run.

S: Rest.

S: Run.

STG (end of May):

Average 35km/wk running.

2 off E2 list.

1 x VS Challenge Day.

2 x Sport Onsighting Marathon.

A Spade (TICK)

Slobberlob (TICK)

MTG (end of July):

Average 45km/wk running.

1 x Mountain Ultra (Welsh 3000s; Tea Round; Corris Round).

3 off E2 list.

Maybe sneak in an E3.

2 x VS Challenge Day.

2 x Sport Onsighting Marathon.

Yates' Layaway.

Eliminator.

Not sure I have seen or noticed the 'sport on sighting marathon' before?  Is this just a big day of ticking?

If so, that is something I normally have on the plan with stamina in mind (and speed).  Somewhere like Attermire for upwards of a dozen routes.

Yep, that's the plan. I'm conscious that spending a lot more time doing hard (for me!) sport over the last couple of years hasn't done my onsight skills much good (and I've never been particularly quick or slick at reading moves anyway!) I feel like this holds me back on trad, so need to do something about it.

I reckon there are pros and cons to the different ways of improving this... 

1. Get in a lot of trad mileage -good because it's clearly more specific and gives practice placing gear; bad because I tend to do less moves in a day.

2. Try to onsight more sport -good because I'll usually climb more moves in a day and probably onsight harder than on gear; bad because the rock/route type is probably not very traddy.

So I'm planning on doing a bit of each over the next month to try and get the benefits of both. Was thinking of trying to tick Trevor, one guidebook sector at a time. Each area has about fifteen routes, usually all below 6c, so probably a long day's worth of climbing. Let me know if you fancy joining.

Interesting.  Agree that some sport isn't very traddy, but there are plenty of places where it isn't so different in style, particularly at 6a/b.  Places like Pandy Quarry, bits of Penmaen Head away from the steeper area, loads of mid-grade in Yorkshire.

My other reflection (this may be my personal bias), is that Trevor is often a bit polished, a bit insecure and a bit badly bolted.  I find myself being fairly tentative above some of the rusty bolts!  However, it's an interesting challenge to adopt.  I have previously declared that I'm not going there again, but I will have a reconsider!

Haha! I know what you mean… of all the Clwydd escarpment crags it’s the one I’ve done least at because it’s, well, a bit crappy!

However, it ticks a lot of boxes for this training, and an arbitrary goal like ticking the crag is a good motivator to climb somewhere I wouldn’t do otherwise. It must have some redeeming features (other than the short walk in and low grades) as it’s always absolutely rammed!

Good points, well made (including the it's a bit crappy bit. 😂)

You're right.  A useful arbitrary goal to adopt.  Actually, there are some sectors that are decent and others where the style would support trad.

And it’s got a nice view!

depends which way you are looking...

OK.  I'm persuaded to support this madness.

Mind you, I checked...  Suspect has 23 and Over Yr has 18, so both quite extensive sectors and Suspect is also pretty mean and intense.

However, all other sectors manageable and if Furry (8) and Impact (6) are combined, it provides six days out.  This doesn't included the quarry proper, which has four or five at 6c and above... plus the classic trad.

Thanks Tom!

Good question. I'm not really sure. I don't have that much option to get full days out around the family, which compounds with the wet winter in creating the problem in the first place. The best I can currently come up with is to try to do more back to back days of training, and a bit more focus on big muscles - on the hope that training whilst a bit tired from previous days is a bit like doing stuff at the end of a long day. It'll take a bit of synchronising because I also want to get a bit of bouldering snap back, which would need to be done at the start of each x-day block. I don't know. Open to suggestions!

The start of my week was a bit taken up with getting back in the swing of things after holiday. I had a good wall session on Thursday though. 

At the weekend I was single parenting, so on Saturday I took the kids out climbing. Repeated a few routes, feeling a bit clunky but at the same time a lot of those easy cuttings routes always feel a bit ugly. My friend had to leave fairly early, which was a bit of a shame, but the shade had come round by then and I actually had a reasonable session working Pastoral (f7B), which with the new beta is 7A or 7A+ or something. Video here:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cqv6NzOv0JQkjV-2g5z9sY3mSPefNeJpVQ8UdI0/?igs...

I managed to get the small and very sharp hold out right, and get my right foot up, but lacked the oomph, pain tolerance or commitment to try to get the left heel in. Nice to get some tricky moves in, although the sharpness means I haven't worked out how psyched I am for the rematch.

Sunday - a fairly busy day, playing chauffeur, gardener, and also doing a few laps of the park with the kids on their bikes. No specific training as I have been to the wall today but certainly active.

'I managed to get the small and very sharp hold out right, and get my right foot up, but lacked the oomph, pain tolerance or commitment to try to get the left heel in. Nice to get some tricky moves in, although the sharpness means I haven't worked out how psyched I am for the rematch.'

Looks like you and Ross need a similar programme of sharp work putting on the plan!  Perhaps slightly at odds with the 'all day work capacity' goals though!

I meant Compact has 23!  

Nothing for a man of your calibre! 

Hah, thanks Tom. No decision yet on the helmet but it will probably be another Lion Rampant, with a few lessons learned from the previous attempt.

Weight has never really been an issue for me, I've maybe fluctuated 1-2kg either side of 70kg since I was about 20 years old - I keep getting told that it will eventually catch up with me but it never has. Just fortunate I guess.

I'm hoping to get back into the gym this week and maybe a couple of hangs on the Beastmaker, we'll see how it goes.

Thanks Tom.

I hope I'm not too late. I seem to be very busy at the moment. With all the right things thankfully, nothing stressy. Life feels in a good place atm and I'm aware enough to enjoy it while it lasts.

No tweaks to the training plan, but Kendal main wall has closed for refurbishment so we've been getting out on the slate and giggleswick type crags as they are quick drying. This doesn't feel like great training for my overhanging goal but it's lovely to be out.

Can't remember exactly what I did but we climbed on the slate once and I got back into going to the gym. The numbers seem good here and I think the time off allowed for some recovery.

My big announcement is that I have started doing some core. I must be serious about something if I'm doing that. So far I am avoiding traditional core (which I truly loathe) by doing rotational and anti rotational exercises (Pallof press variations and a landmine oblique twist) it feels good and aches in the places climbing does.

I've got a kettle bell routine to start - maybe next week......

We've been busy booking trips to Val Pennaire and a couple of UK ones. Hoping to visit  Dinas Rock for a few days in May.