The British summer has been the wettest for years but I have been making the most of the dry days. Two more routes have been ticked off my pyramid, Ken Wilson's Last Stand took a few more sessions of working but went and I also was able to tick Mindmeld a 7a+ which is at The Cuttings. I have been working Valcanites a 7a and have been very close to ticking it. I am not where I wanted to be on my pyramid but I feel confident that I will complete it but maybe over two years.

This year I have been able to experience sport climbing abroad for the first time with first a trip to Frankenjura and now I am currently in the Dordogne area of France. My first climb in Frankenjura threw me straight into the deep end with a 30m route with a thread and 3 bolts then the lower off. I hoped that this was not a taste of things to come and luckily it was not but the many of the run outs were not what I was use to. This did wonders for my head for climbing and confidence in my climbing ability. I was also amazed by some of the really step routes there, the three dimensional climbing really captured my imagination. Frankenjura is also a beautiful area of Germany that is full of climbing history and would recommend it to any climber for a trip.

The Dordogne does come across a steeply graded area but the climbing is amazing and seems a very quiet area. We have had the crags to ourself mostly except for Mountain rescue and the French army training. Many of the routes are of excellent quality and just like in Frankenjura the crags have very little approach.

Photo by Sam Ferguson

I have successfully ticked of two routes off my pyramid. Both have been at my local crag of Winspit. The first one was Ancient Order Of The Freemarbles graded 7a which took me 3 sessions to tick off. My second route was Smiling Assassin graded 7a+ which also took three session of work. My head game seems to be holding me back the most at the moment but I continue to work on it by doing mileage and taking practice falls.

On another note I have just got back from a Dave MacLeod lecture and found it really inspiring. Got a long way to go till I catch up with him!

So it is the third month of the year and my efforts towards my years goals have not produced fruit yet. But this has not got me down because its given me the chance to try a lot of possible projects and find the routes that suit me best . The route that I have been on for my last two outdoor trips is a 7a called Ken Wilson's Last Stand and is at Dancing Ledge. I have now done every move on the route which consists of  powerful bottom section into the crux reach then into the 6a+ to finish. To make sure I stay motivated on projects I will only spend three days in a row as a maximum before trying something new and coming back to the route. So I have only one more session before taking a break from this route.

So it has been a month since I installed my Beastmaker 2000 and with at least one session a week on it along with my other training I have noticed some improvement in my grip strength. I can know use the holds suggested in the training plan.

With my ambitions goals for the summer I have had to look at another angle to improve my performance. I have started to do three runs a week in the hope that this will help me drop some weight. My goal weight is 12 stone which would mean losing a stone. My previous attempts to run regularly Have never lasted more than a few weeks but this time I have sorted out a running partner to help make sure I keep it up.

It seems the cold weather and fewer days out climbing have taken their toll on my stamina. A weekend at Brean ended with only a red point of a 6c+ but I have had a play on a few other routes that will hopefully go down on my next visit. I have decided to spend this year red pointing hard. My goal for this year is to complete a climbing pyramid which is a thing a couple of my other climbing friends are doing to. By the end of this year I hope to climb four 7a's, three 7a+'s, two 7b's and one 7b+. If I achieve this I will be very pleased with my years climbing

First Beastmaker session

I had my first session on my new Beastmaker last night and it highlighted how much improvement I can make in my grip strength. Below is a link to the program I am using and it is the intermediate program;

http://info.rockrun.com/articles/beastmaker-2000-fingerboard-training-plan.html

The holds it was suggesting to use were beyond me at this point in time and the intensity was too fast for me but after the session it felt like I had completed a good work out only going through the plan once when you are meant to do it three times!

A link to the Beastmaker website:  http://www.beastmaker.co.uk/

An Overveiw of the Last 6 Months

A lot has gone on in my life since my last post, especially in my climbing life. By the end of last year I had climbed 209 new climb which was a dramatic improvement from the year before. I have now ticked five 7a's now and I am very close to getting my first 7b. I got my first V4 boulder problem and have got a few more trad leads under my belt. The comp season is well under way and I am ranked 22nd after the 4th round of SIBL but I hope to finish in the top 20 by the end of the competition.

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I have just installed a Beastmaker 2000 into my house and hope that the time that I will be putting in on the board will pay off in both the comps and outside.

I will talk about my training on it in later posts!