And Now For The Last Two Months

The Past two months I have been very busy getting out in the good weather for climbing. Most of my climbing happening in Dorset but also getting away for a weekend twice, first to Cheddar and Avon and the second to Cornwall for Lands End and Sennen. The majority of my climbing has been based in clocking up the mileage on routes that I can get within one or two tries. But lately I have been trying to push into the 7’s by working routes.  My confidence has improved somewhat in trad but there is a still a long way to go.

With the great weather we have been having over the past month or so my training has become less important. I am averaging two trips outside a week so my indoor training sessions have been reduced to about 1 a week. I am finding the outdoor climbing is helping me improve a lot more, this is most likely from improving my technique, route reading and outdoor leading confidence.

My SPA training course has really helped me with my technical, rope and group skills. Along with the SPA course I also had a chance do two days of my own climbing. The first was in cheddar where I mainly did mileage but also got PB’s in both sport and trad with a flash of and E1 5b and a flash of a 7a. In total I did 12 routes through the day.  Then I had a two day kind of break where I did the course, and then it was time to hit up Avon. I really proved to myself that when I put my mind to it I can dominate my head game with a head point of an E6 6a Smoove Groove. Then finished the trip off with a multi-pitch VS 4c which gave me a chance to utilise some of the rope work skills I learned over the weekend.

Back in Dorset I have been getting a few more High 6’s and 2 more 7a’s ticked with the routes Things That Make You Go Hmmm 6c, Silver Bream Machine 6c, Insanely Yours 7a and Peppercorn Rate 7a. All of these routes except Insanely Yours went with only a few goes to work the moves. Insanely yours took me 5 days of work to do. This is the first route that I have properly worked. On the first day I had to dog up to the third bolt and could not get through the crux, but as time went on through the days I started to piece it all together. By the fifth of working on it I had the start dialled so much that I was at pretty much full strength for the crux. My first go on the fifth day I blew because I second guessed my grip on the small crimp and tried to re adjust and then did the same mistake on the following attempts. It went on my fifth go. One thing that helped me was that I was working on this project with a climbing partner climbing the same grade as me. This meant that we could bounce beta off one another and get the most effective way of doing the moves.

The last thing I want to talk about is my trip to Sennen. This was a chance to experience climbing on a new type of rock (granite) and practise my trad skills. We only had two days of climbing so we had to make the most of the time. The first day the weather was not on our side, we had light patchy rain throughout the day. So we decide to do some easy climbing. The first climb we did was Lands End Long Climb which consists of 8 pitches and is graded VDiff. It was a really good fun climb and a chance for me to have a play with gear placement on the new rock type. Also a nice chance to practise my rope skills for setting up be-lays. To finish the day we two more climbs at Sennen both of which were sopping wet. The next day it rained in the morning but became brighter in the afternoon and the rock was dry. We did an HS and a VS 2 pitch routes and I had a go on an E2 6A called Samson Arête but had to give up on. This route taught me that I need to improve my confidence on trad and to trust good gear. Before leaving this climb I made sure that I took my first controlled fall on trad gear. I am aim to consolidate a bit more on trad routes before pushing myself again.

End of comps, Here comes the summer season!

Ok so SIBL is now over and with a disappointing end for me being that I positioned 4 below my goal. I could spend my time making excuses, or coming up with reasons for this but I believe my time will be better spent look at what I want to get out of the summer season.

I am looking at the positives that I can get out of my low score in SIBL. It’s given me a lot of drive to improve and push myself, so that when I return for next seasons SIBL I will achieve my goal.

I have been a lot more active in my climbing this year as opposed to any other year. My mind set on what I do when I go out doors has completely changed. where as in previous years when I went to a crag I would do a few easy route then maybe work a hard route or just chill out with the result being only getting two or so climbs in a trip. Lately I have been just trying to get the most of a crag. I have already surpassed my last year’s total climbs and it is only April. My last outdoor trip I managed 15 routes in a day. The routes I have been doing have mostly been consolidating at the mid 6's because before this year I had only done 4 6a+ and above, now I have increased that to 12. With this I believe it is time to start pushing into the 7's.

This coming weekend I have my first more than one day climbing trip of the year. It’s a four day trip and I am really psyched for it. Its four days, 2 of which are my SPA training. The other two I am aiming to really push my climbing experiences. 1 day in cheddar then the next in Avon. Cheddar will be a day of mileage and working a 7a, my limit. Avon is a time for some multi-pitch!

It has been a while!

It has been a few weeks since my last blog post and this is for a few reasons. Firstly with not getting outside much it is hard to measure my progression. In the last competition I went up to 21st but still was positioned among the same crowd. But the main reason was boredom of training at the same wall, doing the same routes.

So the first thing I want to discus is monotints climbing. For the size Bournemouth University's climbing wall is very good but there are only so many routes that can be fitted in the space of the main wall and different variations made on the boulder area before they feel the same. So for the past few weeks I have been caught in this limbo of doing the routes I have done before or failing at the ones I can’t do. I’ve noticed that quite a few climbers get this same feeling.

In the past few weeks I have been rethinking my climbing and what I want out of it and how I am going to gain this. I have recently realised that I have not ticked as many climbs as I should have from the time I have been climbing. So my goal from trips outside has changed now. I have changed my focus from trying to get the grade above what I have already achieved to just getting out there and climbing as much as I can. This focus has also moved into my training, to keep motivated I have been making sure each session has a different challenge. Such a working the feature routes or setting climbing projects on the wall.

Looking to the Future

With Sibl coming to an end next month I have been think about what I want to gain this year in my climbing. The first achievement I want to gain is as I have already stated to finish in the top 20 of Sibl and being positioned at 23rd now I have good feeling that I will achieve this. Lately on my outdoor trips I have been looking at some routes that I want to do this year to push me into the mid 7's. There is one route in particular has inspired me at the moment. It is at The Cuttings and called Plyrometrically Specking. It has a really hard boulder problem after the second bolt then rest are just really big rock overs. It’s graded 7b+ with allot of people saying it’s a 7c. But this is just one of the projects I have for this year.

I find setting goals and having projects really important to keeping me motivated in my climbing. For the past two years I have set really easy goals for myself and surpass them easily but this year I hope to really push myself forward. So I have set very ambitious goals for this year.

Some Home Truths

Having only scored 79 points at this weekend SIBL round has driven to rethink my training. Prior to the competition my training was going well. I had completed 3 of my boulder problems I had set on the Bournemouth Climbing Wall in on session. I felt that I was climbing the best I had ever climbed and this feeling kept going into the weekend with an outdoor trip on the Saturday before the competition. I was determined to have an easy day. So I thought getting another 6b tick would not be too much of a challenge. Doing it on my second attempt was good for me and showed me that my lead confidence was defiantly coming back.

Sunday, the day of SIBL Round 4. Going in to the day I felt strong and was confident of gaining a good score. I signed in, got changed and was ready to start. The competition was very crowded and the bouldering area was smaller than I expected. The first problem went down with no problems then the next 4 were ticked with the only problem of having to wait 10-15 mins between them in line. After this the routes went from juggy moves onto more technical moves. The next 2 problems I tried went down without a hitch either.

At this point I was feeling confident but the next few problems I tried I was barely getting off the ground. Again and again I would struggle on the second or the third move. Frustration was settling in instead of the confidence that I once had. The frustration made me mess up on a problem that I should have flashed and cruised on my second attempt. I decided to take a time out and think about why I was not achieving as I should be. Many of the competitors were doing about the same as me and were saying this was the hardest round yet. Also almost all the problems were on a much steeper section of wall than what I have available to train on. So I changed my perspective and decided to see this as a chance to have a really good training session. I focused on the moves and tried to make each one I could do as crisp as I could and those that I could not just kept pushing trying to get as close as I could. Towards the end of comp I looked at bagging as many bonus points as I could. All 4 that I had not already gained seemed too hard for me to gain. But I managed to get one with the use of really focusing and then just jumping for it.

 With my final score of 79 this still sent me up the rankings 23rd. I am now 3 places away from my goal and hope to use the knowledge that I have gained from the reading round to make sure I achieve this.