Last Week:

Monday:

 

Routes session at Craggy, climbed with Polish Pete for the first time.

Good session considering how much of a routes punter I am, I now have a 7b+ project on the front wall to attack. Did a little fingerboarding at the end of the session, but stopped when some bellend came along with his girlfriend and pushed in to use 'the climbing coach' to time his ridiculously punterish hangs on the sinker jugs...

Seriously. 

Tuesday: 

Went to Eton again to play the fives match that was cancelled the week before, started at 7:30ish. We lost quite quickly in a lousy fashion. I took painkillers before the match to combat a slight knee twinge, and ate before I got there. These things combined with the odd court dimensions lead to me being utterly shite and thoroughly disliking the evening.

Wednesday: 

I was supposed to go to Evo, but my knee hurt a bit too much from the night before to justify the drive over.

Instead, I shot some video in the lab and went to the school wall for a light climb and some pullups.

I didnt do a great deal of pullups before my shoulder (also effected by the night before) started making sad noises.

Thursday:

I had to run the Junior House Fives competition, 

came home and edited some of the video from previous days.

Friday: 

Last day of term, busy day of making sure everything was in its place for the holiday.

Came home and edited.

Saturday: 

Blocfest was today. I didn't go.

Instead, I waited for my skin to come back in time for a day trip to the Peak on Sunday.

Sunday:

I did not go to the peak - Omar texted late on Saturday to cancel.

Sigh.

Days Climbing : 1.5

Hangboard sessions : FML 0.5

Yoga : None

Evo Sessions : 0

Power Endurance (routes) : 1 (at least I did something on the list)

I have also been pathetic about the diet, if anything I feel worse now than I did before.

I really wish I had someone to train with/be driven 

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Personal Therapy session below - Stop here if you don't want to hear me talking the problems out of my head.

I feel like I should stop playing fives.

But I enjoy playing fives...

I think that a lot of my psyche comes from feeling good about myself, and lately I feel like I have been doing pretty rubbish at everything I claim to be good at. I think with climbing, I can blame the rock, I can blame conditions, and in the end I can just say that the boulder has beaten me.

There is no shame in being worse than a boulder.

But when I lose in Fives, or football, or Starcraft or whatever sport pits people against one another it seems far more real.

I lost, so someone is better than me.

I know I havent played competitive fives for about a month now, and I am still thrown into a state when I lose against the first pair from the Eton and Windsor team. I'm pretty certain that if anyone told me about the same situation happening to themselves, I would give them a fairly short answer.

I suppose the real reason for feeling down about it, is that I didn't play as well as I have in the past. I struggle to play things 'for fun'.

I was thinking this while I drove back from climbing today. 

I enjoy climbing, 

but I dont climb for fun.

I climb for achievement.

So if I am not climbing well, I have a hard time enjoying it.

What doesnt help is that when I feel a bit crap, I dont care about training.

The diet goes to shit and I stop caring about putting in the reps.

Then my performance wanes and the cycle continues.

I suppose what I need to do, is break the cycle somehow:

If I stop playing fives fixtures and screwing up my shoulders and legs, then I will be able to climb well, and have an uninterrupted training schedule.

If I stop giving a shit about what I think other people think I should be able to do on a fingerboard, and instead just do my best, then I will actually be able to work up to what other people think I should be able to do (which I dont care about - remember?...confusing that...)

I think I should read Macleod's book again, I think he covers this stupid mental game in some detail.

Giving up the Ego will be hard. 

Tired of being a Lardarse - Introducing the Targets!

Specific

Measurable

Attainable

Realistic

Timely

I'm not really sure on the difference between 'Attainable' and 'Realistic' but what can you do?

Woah,
I'm shocked.
I'm 80kg again!


80 freaking kg!
That is waaaaaay too heavy.


I was 75kg just before going to Rocklands!

Basically I am starting to feel like a bit of a lardarse.
I mean, I am technically down on my weight from a year or two ago, but I was really starting to see some gains from climbing.

What is interesting to note, is that my hardest boulder ascent and my hardest route ascent have actually both come at this increased weight.

I dont really know what to think about this coincidence, but I think I can confidently say that if I was lighter I would see benefits in my climbing.


This is Target Number One!

I will return to 75kg before our trip in December.

This means losing about 2.5kg a month over October and November.

In real terms:

2.5kg = 2.5 x 7700cal

=19250cal over 2 months

2 months = 8 weeks = 56 days

19250÷56 = 343cal/day

If I need 2000 cals to maintain my weight each day then somewhere near 1700 calories will work out well with extra cardio.

Simple.

Target number 2 is related to my climbing performance.

Initially, I was pretty psyched on the competition scene this season, but after spending a bit of time outside, I am suddenly a bit more interested in doing well on the rock.

I mean, I will still go to the competitions, but I think that at the moment I am going to prioritise the winter season on the grit.

Last weekend I managed to do Zippy's traverse - Tough 7B in a short session in sub-optimal conditions (still pretty good conditions.

I then failed on Brad Pit and The Storm.

I think that I am not unreasonable in proposing that I should attempt to do:

At least one 7C on each of Grit, Fontainerock, and Gneiss 

over the winter season

I think this is an achievable goal, especially given that I seem capable of 7B in a session.

I need to choose appropriate problems,

I think The Terrace at Burbage is a good choice for the grit

Dr Crimp on the gneiss would be a good tick, but perhaps not quite my style. 

I think 'Birds' is a better shout.

In Fontainebleau I really haven't got a project in mind.

Bigboss, Fourmis Rouges, Eclipse, or Deux faux plis en plats reéls come to mind

I suppose that will come down to who else wants to get on these things.

I will do at least one fingerboard session a week

Mainly focussed on locking off on small holds. I imagine that once I lose some weight, and gain some more strength then I will be able to do one arm lockoffs on some of the beastmaker holds, which will no doubt lead to even quicker gains!

I will do at least one yoga session a week

We have a really good sequence of yoga at the school wall which is pretty killer, we did a couple of reps of it a week or two ago but haven't done any since, probably because no one wants to. I will force myself to, it will help with stretching and core strength.

I will try to get to Evolution climbing centre on Wednesday Evenings

I have been finding it a bit hard to train at the school/craggy, and I think that if I can get down to Evo - home of the super strong - I will be able to get at least one solid training session a week.

I will try to do one session of cardio a week.

Be this a run, fives game, swim, cycle, gym. Whatever, this is an important part of the weight loss program and therefore (unwillingly) needs to be done.

I will try to fit in a session of power endurance training

In reality this just means doing some hard route climbing somewhere, although it can also mean some on the minute training for boulders. Ideally it will involve some tough onsight sport climbing indoors.

I cant think of anything else to say right now, and it is pretty late so I am going to go to bed.

G'night all.

Let the starvation commence!

Dandelion Mind

I saw the video of David Jones climbing Dandelion Mind (V14) on UKC today



and the name of the problem caught my imagination.

I understand it is the name of Bill Bailey's newest DVD offering, but nevertheless I decided to write something about it.

Unfortunately, I couldn't decide what it meant most, so now you have to suffer through two bad poems instead of just one!

___________________________________

We used to be so happy,
we lived without a care.
But what has happened since that time
has left my heart stripped bare

My dandelion mind,
began to fall away
what once was full, and round and whole
somehow went astray.

Your bitter words blow through me now,
and chill me to the core.
I wish my head would fill again,
and guard my heart once more.

____________________________

My dandelion mind
is flighty, bright and free
the thoughts that float around my head
remind me of a bee.

A bee that flies through summer fields,
of grasses gold and green,
of flowers yellow, blue and red
as if they're in a dream.

A dream that lasts from day to day,
filling life with glee,
I'm really quite delighted that my mind belongs to me.

_____________________________________

In other news, I went to Cheddar yesterday with Anthony and did my first ever 7c route!

I had previously tried it back in May with Tris but, despite getting the moves, I knew I would never be able to link them together.

Clearly there has been some sort of improvement, because I dogged up, cleaned the route, rested, then sent it within a few redpoints. It felt quite easy really, a little pumped at the end but otherwise pretty relaxed.

The fact that I was then hopelessly by the 7b across the road clearly doesn't mean anything...

Pessimism, Optimism, Self Worth

So I started reading Lore's Blog yesterday and I am psyched on writing again.

I'm psyched on training again.

I just read my last post, about having crappy sessions on the fingerboard and giving up and going for a run.

And I thought to myself - 'that is fucking depressing'
 Which is how I was feeling when that happened.

I think Lore gets the same sort of experiences, but looks at them, and approaches them in a different way.
 Feeling down and bummed out is a weakness in itself, and it is something that can be beaten and worked out of the body and mind.

I think I have been pussying out of acually improving for a while now, and while the gains have been coming, they could becoming much faster.
I am going to sit down and work out exactly what I want to achieve by winter, how I intend to achieve it, and then set about doing that.

Thanks Lore.


Yesterday evening was a prime example of how I should improve.
I competed in the opening round of the Craggy winter boulder league.

I climbed alrightish, I flashed 10 boulders and did another 2 second attempt, but I was pumped and weak by the last ones. I think this is in equal measure a case of comeptition technique, competition training and just getting stronger.

I could definitely have won, but I didn't. I even gave up before the end of the comp because I wanted to mooch around and talk with friends.

About 10 minutes from the end though, I realised I still had the chance to win and it really put the fire back under my arse. I ran to get my shoes, brushed one problem that I had failed to do first time and given up on, then flashed it with ease.

I was then 4 points behind with one feasible problem to go.

I had already failed on it once before, so I had 7 points available, then 4.

If I climbed it second attempt, I would win.
If I climbed it third attempt, I would draw.

I failed to climb it.

I was too pumped and weak to do it, even though I knew I could.

I hate that.
I really hate that.

This afternoon, I am heading down to the fingerboard to do pullups.

On small rungs.


I'll write again when I work out my training goals and plan.

Running

Just ran a 22.XX.XXX 5km and I think I can go faster with a little work and a warmup/stretching

I had a crappy session earlier on the wall and on the fingerboard.

My skin feels rubbish.

Urrph.

Competition at Sutton on Thursday, so tomorrow is a rest day in preparation (might do some core)

U25 Fives Nationals

This weekend was the Under 25s Fives Nationals, held at Highgate school in North London, and I was present!

I applied as a free agent of sorts and was paired up on the day with another player.

Fortunately, I was to play with a pretty good player called Joe Marks. Joe used to be a top player at Highgate school, and was fairly similar in standard to myself. This is important in fives, as a weaker player can definitely be taken advantage of in a competitive game.

This effect was actually observed in one of our group fixtures, where we faced off against one of the best players in the uk, paired with a good (but significantly less talented) player. By working on this weakness, we came out on top with some good play. Eventually winning our group.

I had been playing some fives earlier in the week (actually quite a lot  due to school training and then match practice with the brigands) and my shoulder was still in a bad way by the time I turned up on saturday morning. After the group stage, it was definitely starting to protest the continued usage.
Undeterred, I went to get lunch. While we were out, I picked up some painkillers and by the time we started again, they had begun to kick in. Unfortunately, I wasnt cutting with my usual power and spin, so we were rather less effective than usual when defending points.
I feel as though we would have done better if that was not the case, but we did fairly well given the circumstances.
The first game after the group stages were against some Welsh players, who were pretty decent players. Fortunately, they made more mistakes than us over the course of the game, and we accelerated away from them towards the end when we worked out how to best win points.

This put us through to the Semi Finals against a couple of my friends - the Bhattacharya brothers.
I have lost to Abs and Aroop before, but we were playing pretty well throughout the day, and despite my shoulder frustrations, I thought we had a good chance of making it to the final.
We lost the first game 12-9 due to some poor shot selection at the end of the game, but felt that we could win the following two if we put our minds to it.
The next game went much better, with a quick win 12-7.
Unfortunately it all went a bit pear shaped in the final game, with a lot of time spent swapping serves at 8-8. Finally Abs and Aroop won out with some quick points, to pull ahead and win the final set and proceed to the final.

I dont think it would have made a great deal of difference who would have made it to the final, as Laurie Brock and AJ were imperious in their tournament victory, winning easily in 3 games.

I expected my shoulder to feel horrendous this morning, but I think I must have looked after it well after I took the pain killers, because it actually feels less stiff now than it did on Saturday.

On an unrelated note
My hand still feels a bit crap after a climbing session at the start of next week, I havent climbed since about tuesday, so hopefully itll heal up soonish so I can get back to doing some training.

Cheers all.
Archie

The Rocklands Post

Rocklands 2012 writeup,

It has been a while coming, and that is due in large part to most of my time being spent either at work, climbing, training or editing the photos and video from the trip.

Naturally this means that I have a lot of media from the trip, some of which I consider to be quite good, some of which less so.

Now to start this off I’ll begin by saying that the area we were based in is absolutely stunning in terms of scenery, not to mention the quality of the climbing. However, it is only natural to encounter some small (and large) problems when engaging in a long trip (especially to a place as large and sparse as South Africa), but we’ll come to those in a moment.

I didn’t really do a great deal of research into the areas and the climbs that were out there, except for a slight perception of soft grades from quite a few people who have gone already (as you may have seen Michelle Caminati is one of the chief proponents of this point of view, and if you look at his 8a.nu scorecard, you will see this in action)

Anyway, I went out with the intention of doing only 3 specific climbs, two of which were at my current grade cap and the other was well beyond. Fortunately, after a huge amount of effort, I managed to do all three of them before the end of the trip. Which has left me a bit mentally drained for these last few weeks.

The list consisted of:

Pinotage (7B+)

The Rhino (7B+)

And Caroline (7C+)

Everything else was just a bonus after that, although I did manage to find some real gems while I was climbing with the rest of the group.

I don’t really know how to go about writing up the trip, and I perhaps should have tried to write some blog posts while I was actually out there instead of trying to write an overview right now. But now I have a great deal to write about, and I don’t want it all to get too long and boring.

So instead, I will let some of my photos along with captions and the trip videos do the talking.

My first picture is actually of a climb I failed to complete, but I think it does a really nice job of summing up our day to day activity out in SA. We would wake up, dirtbag it out to the crag at whatever time, and climb up way above the plain to climb in the shadows and sit in the sun.
And that is what we did for about 4 weeks.

Another fine example of the scenery that we climbed with every day, the rock has this incredible orange colour to it that just looks super inspiring when you are searching for new problems. The friction on the holds is generally pretty good considering the heat, this is because they tend to be quite incut, which makes for quite indoorsy problems with many sequences.

One day when it was bitterly cold and windy in the pass, we made our way down to 'The Rhino' for a few attempts before heading home. I got some perfect beta from a couple of cool sheffielders, shared some pads and I actually climbed it second attempt!

This was an incredible 7B+ arete called Zanzibar that I did fairly quickly (Caminati called it a 6C but hey ho...it probably was a bit easy) After I did it, I got into photo mode and got shooting. Just before the sun went over the hill on the other side of the valley, I managed to take this picture.

Sassies climbing area is a 45 minute hike up a sandy hill, but when you get up there you are greeted by some of the best problems in the Rocklands. One of them was this one - Pinotage.
I had to spend 3 sessions on this in the end, the first was with the strong German troupe of climbers with Julianne Wurm and Jan Hojer. Naturally they both pissed it and I was left flailing around as the sun crept round the arete.
The second session was a bit shorter still, as we had one of those problems I mentioned in the opening paragraphs. One of the larger types...largely involving Doug and an epic trip to the hospital.

Doug fell from quite high, maybe 6 or 7 meters, onto a distinct lack of padding and an unfortunate spotter. After a 4 hour rescue operation (remember the 45 minute hike uphill?) during which Doug was put at ease with a whole one ibuprofen and one paracetamol. When he reached the hospital (after a 2 hour 4x4 ride down the hike. Followed by a half hour ride in the back of an ambulance aka. converted van) he was given some of the worst pain killers known to mankind.
The upshot of this experience is that I have learnt not to break my leg when I am halfway up a South African hill.

Finally, Caroline. This was a huge step up for me, and it took a huge effort to achieve it.
Over about 6 or 7 sessions, I worked out beta, reworked beta, gave up permanently, tried it again, found new beta, reconciled beta with existing beta, made some links, made some attempts, caught the penultimate hold, got a giant split on my tip.

Gave up,

Waited,

Healed,

Drove 3 hours,
Warmed up,
Sent.

I was so happy, I felt like there was an overarching story to the trip that was at risk of going unfinished, and after falling so close to the end - a week earlier - and getting the split that I thought was going to end my trip, I was starting to get a little vexed.

I wasnt sure whether the call to get up early, and drive for 3 hours to potentially fail again was a good idea. But when I caught the top hold and scrambled over the top, any thought of the drive in, or drive back or petrol costs, or time invested were instantly replaced with a combination of happiness and relief at having finally clawed my way up a piece of South African rock.

After this, my psyche left.
Gone.
All gone.


I had drained myself of mental energy, and I didn't even know it could happen.

The next few days seemed to fly past, I wasnt really climbing much, just mooching and occasionally pawing ineffectually at the rock. On the last day of the trip we drove the 3 hour trip to Rocklands one last time to say goodbye and pick up a friend.

I managed to find a bit of last day psyche inspired by Dave Graham's incredible energy and did a bunch of classics before attempting the highball 7C arete - 'Tomorrow I will be gone'.
Unfortunately it was too hot for it, and I didnt have enough pads, or spotters and the psyche wasnt quite right. But next time we go, I am heading straight to that boulder because it is a beaut.

As you may be able to tell from the previous sentence, I thoroughly intend to return in the future.

The climbing was incredible, the people were not completely unbearable, and the scenery and food were superb.

I'd be interested in going elsewhere as well, but Rocklands is definitely towards the top of my list.

Anthony - we should have a chat about that bigwall idea of yours.

Rocklands 2012 from Archie CB on Vimeo.


Finally, this is the video I put together for the trip.
Some people have said nice things about it, some people have said that they dont like the typeface and that a couple of sequences are a bit long. I dont know because I have seen it all too many times now. If you have any comments, please do tell me, because I would love to make a better film in the future.

Cheers everyone!