Celtic Goodness for the Soul

Feel the blood boil and race along gilded paths,
as the rhythm of the bodhran forces the clouds away.
The lofty highlands stretch far beyond the eye,
yet the Rock is all I see.

In the misty morning the pipes blow heavy against the thick air,
once again sounding the call to arms.
To the rock, to the rock!
To the rock, again, we must go.

But Oh! Cruel mistress,
we see once again your fickle ways!
What once seemed a noble task from the comfort of our well lit houses,
now appears to be little more than sharp crystals embedded in stone.

Short hours pass in your frigid embrace
till I am forced once again to unwillingly leave,
with tips on fire and body like heaviest lead,
I must depart, but the day is not yet o'er.

My mind is impinged with thoughts of what might have been,
what might have worked...
hold that - like this, or this - like that?
all must wait till the clouds roll out again.

The pipes sound up once more,
and the drum rolls out, the beat now slower.
More thoughtful, more wise.
Tomorrow the contest begins anew.


Or listen to it if you cba to read...





Goodnight all, Ice and rest.

Bad Fookin Times

Fate: Oh Heeeeeeey, how you doing there Archie?

Me: Yeah, not bad thanks, things been going pretty well with me recently, seems like things are starting to look up.

Fate: Oh, wow, good to hear that.
Fate: Listen, me and the other guys were talking earlier and figured that since you've had about 2 months of decent climbing we should really do something to celebrate?

Me: Cool guys, thanks! What were you thinking of doing? A big trip somewhere?

Fate: Hmm, not so much.

Me: Oh?

Fate: Yeah......They asked me to give you this...*Hands Letter*

Me: Erm, Ok? *Opens Letter*
Me: But...there must be some mistake...this is an order for a finger injury...

Fate: ...



I did a search for 'fate' on google images - and this showed up...

Cheddar

Done quite a lot recently,
many trips outdoors and the like.

1st - Cheddar

I have been outdoors to cheddar many times recently, trying various >7b routes.
I am pleased to announce that I managed to complete my first 7b+ of the year yesterday with a quick ascent of House Burning Down (3*). Top class route.

I tried it a few days ago as a flash attempt and it felt pretty simple until I completely ran out of gas near the top.
Yesterday however the holds all felt a little bit worse than they did before, but after I dogged it once to place the clips I felt psyched enough to go for a proper attempt.
I cruised through the bottom and middle, even running it out a little to make the clips a bit easier. I finally reached the big flat holds near the top, essentially a 5+, maybe 6a boulder problem with increasingly slopey holds to the bolts to finish out. Unfortunately I was obscenely pumped and this felt like the hardest part of the climb by a long, long way. I worked out a nifty rest position and took a few minutes to shake out and chalk up for the final 7/8 moves.
Wow,
I have never felt that pumped, I made the incredibly bad call to try and pull through the rope and clip from below the top...after pulling through a lot of rope I suddenly realised it wasn't going to happen that way and I would have to work something out, and fast.
I threw out to the previous hold and slapped wildly to the top slopers, hopped my feet up and stood up over the top where my forearms and nerves finally got a rest!

"I've never been so adrenalised"!
I don't think I am ready for another experience like this for at least a few days, just let myself come down from this mental high and then I'll head onto the next project!


House Burning Down




Carly Calmly Crushing




Carla blowing her nose.

2nd - Slacklining

I managed to get out a few times to victoria park in the beautiful weather to dick about on a slackline. I managed to solve my cube twice in a row on it with relative ease and juggled, picked up a dropped ball, turned around loads of times etc. etc.

3rd - Beastmaker

I think I am going to go and buy a beastmaker sometime soon, should give me that pocket training to use in font.

#*edit*#
Bought my Beastmaker today and it is newly mounted in my door, let the crushing commence.

Talking earlier reminded me.

Of this section of dialogue from southpark:



Randy: But, maybe... I'm just the kind of person who needs to have it all or nothing.
Stan: Naw. All or nothing is easy. But learning to drink a little bit, responsibly, that'sa disciprine. Disciprine... come from within. [Randy looks at Stan for a moment, then walks up to his side and kneels next to him.]
Randy: How did I manage to raise such a smart kid?
Stan: I've had a great teacher.
Randy: Thanks son.
Stan: No not you, my karate teacher. He's really smart.




Discipline is definitely something that I lack. Convincing myself to do something I dont really want to do is just about the hardest thing possible.
My body knows all kinds of tricks to distract myself, the most cunning of which seems to be an unbelievable sensation of tiredness whenever uni work rears its ugly head. I can't fight - I just can't keep my eyes open!

Anyways, the passage above seems to be my way of dealing with it. All or nothing. I learn no discipline but at least the task at hand gets accomplished. Specifically this is about my diet. I cant manage having biscuits or chocolate at hand otherwise the whole things goes. Therefore none must be present in the first place.

I ate two cakes this week! I'm a disgrace, I think I am actually heavier now than when I started my training plan back in January.

2 months to font.
By that time I am going to be stronger, fitter and lighter than ever before!

Recent Thoughts and a fun video or two.

So having written the title of this post yesterday evening I proceeded to do nothing with it.
Fortunately I am now bored enough to start writing. I even have some things to write about!

1! - It was my birthday yesterday and I am now old. I dont think I am young enough to be called a 'young upstart' if I suddenly became good. Unfortunate as this is I shall have to get over it.

2! - I finally found my power cord for my camera which means I can make rubbish videos for people again.

so here is one of them -
Turn up the volume because the talking (the important bit) is quite quiet





3! - Indoors
The mothership has been reset! Now there are loads of nice new tough routes on the front wall and I'm very much up for going back and keeping going on the power. Unfortunately I really shouldn't as I need to continue with the program I set myself at the start and get on with the endurance part. Oddly this part fills me with more dread than the primary section where I had to go running once a week! I guess I dont like the feeling of failure associated with not succeeding at at the level I want to. When I boulder I tend to pull on stuff that there isn't 'shame' in falling off. Definitely need to 9/10 climbers that attitude and suck up those feelings of inadequacy.

4! - Outdoors
Following on from the last point is the 'log' of my trip to Brean yesterday. I went down to 'check the grade' of Tide Rising for Ed who did it second attempt when he was down a short while ago. Unfortunately I was unable to complete the route in one push despite easily doing all the moves. As such the 'power endurance' stage of my training is no doubt essential to succeeding on this route and some similar ones. I am told that the stamina will come quickly if I spend some time training it.

5! - Since it has been my birthday recently I have obviously been eating pretty poorly due to cake requirements and generally treating myself a bit. Unfortunately once the cake is gone I must stop this and get back on the old diet.

6! - Font!
The hotel and ferry have been booked and paid for. 10 days from the 20th to the 30th of april. This gives me just under 2 months to train. Hard. With something to work towards hopefully these 2 months will go fast and be really productive. I need to mount a fingerboard on something and really reap some benefits without having to travel all the way to TCA for a quick session.

7! - Training has started already. I may not be the strongest climber in the provisional group but I sure as hell will be the manliest of the men!



I might make it look like an effort but I assure you this was quite possibly the easiest thing I have ever attempted. I think I could crack an apple at least 3 times this size!

Few things.

I'm suddenly feeling quite apathetic about writing on this blog, which seems a shame but there you go.

I shall continue to post when I can be arsed though.


1st on the agenda!

I guess the peak trip I took this weekend would be high on the list.
Unfortunately I didnt really tick anything much.
I performed a dayflash of deliverance to show Arjan how to do it - (the fact that he ignored my beta doesnt mean anything at all!) Which was pretty neat, last time took 3 attempts so I think I have this problem pretty much on the money.

I also whaled around on Captain Hook (which is a cool roofy, slopery thing near green traverse) while having a chat with Lorenzo from UKB, who seems like a fine gentleman but he kept calling me Rich till I corrected him :-P
Michele Caminati was also there and I even had the pleasure of spotting him on his onsight attempt of Ulysses Bow - which he backed down from...not that I blame him, it looks pretty sketchy.

Secondly!
I am somewhat vegetarian right now, not for any particular reason, I just thought I would see what happens if I dont eat any meat for a while... Apparently the answer is nothing.
Plenty of protein from pulses and frequent smoothies and loads of genuinely tasty meals - I figure it is easy enough to cut meat from your diet without actually affecting your life at all. If anything I probably spend a little less in wasted food now.
However I'm not about to become some sort of moral campaigner for the rights of animals not to die, and unless I am on a specific challenge not to eat meat (like last week) I wont be too miffed if the world conspires to deliver it into my diet.

I do find these people that inherently decide that vegetarian food is rubbish to be very close minded. I would perhaps have thrown myself into that circle a few years back but I must throw out a very big thanks to my good vegan friends in london who have certainly proved over the course of several trips that food without meat can be delicious.

I very much enjoyed making my own hummus the other day - that is, until it exploded all over the kitchen after I accidentally pushed the wooden spoon into the turning blades of the blender...a mere error of judgement there.....certainly not the act of a simpleton.

Thirdly!
I am feeling stronger again!

Hoorah!

I think that all the time spent doing various core exercise in the down time while I couldnt climb has helped a lot with my general ability.
This should really be my last week of power training and I should move onto power endurance next, which is a shame because I am really enjoying the hard bouldering at the moment.
I feel really psyched for just about everything, unfortunately my skin is too thin so climb for long so I am taking the next few days off to let it come back so I can put in a hard session at TCA or in the great outdoors.

Fourthly!

I took some pictures at the academy the other night and here they are for your viewing pleasure.


Joe cutting loose on the dyno of my newly set problem.


Hamish Potokar bearing down on a microcrimp.


Dave Pickford pulling through on the circuit board.

Tweaked my back!

Arrgh, trust me to pull a muscle doing pullups after a proper warm up.

Useless!

Ice and whatnot should help get me fit for friday.