Climbing Training to reach 5.12 on lead in two months time.

So far the climbing training's all been going well; mainly just climbing a lot now (2-3 hour sessions) and trying to get through difficult moves.

It's nice that the gym that I train at doesn't have the grading on the routes; they're just classed into easy (green), medium (blue), hard (yellow), expert (red), impressive (black). I've been really pleased with the way the year's been going so far as most of the reds are coming under my control quite nicely, with some of them still been quite elusive; and I ticked my first scramble up a black the other day although I fell off a few times.

Which, I must say, brings me to my first training goal over the next couple of months! Hitting 5.12a on lead :) I have to say that with just a little underneath a year of outdoor experience, I'm not sure I'll be able to do it but at the moment I'm quite sure I can sail up 5.11b (21) with quite a bit of confidence. It'll just be the mental aspect of getting onto lead.

Having said that, the things I'm looking to continue to employ will be the cardio to keep the weight down. I've also started to get things under control with what I'm eating as well (FINALLY), and I'm watching that a little closer.

In terms of climbing specific training, I realised that I was dying with the endurance aspect of some of the longer routes, especially when I've been on outdoor routes. In order to combat that I'm doing circuits on the bouldering wall at my gym to try to build up endurance at a relatively high level of strength. I'm also going to get a bunch of holds for home and set up a small board with holds hanging off it which I can practice off, as opposed to buying another hangboard (although I was REALLY close to getting my hands on the revolution grill, it just seemed a bit expensive).

Well - that's it for the time being. I'll let you know what training I get up to; but over the last two days it's just really been climbing. Stay safe :D

Nowra Trip, Day 2

After burning out a bit on Day 1, we decided that we should check out the rest of Thompson's Point as we never really ended up getting to the other end of the crag. It had been suggested that there were plenty of classics that we were yet to look at, and so that was one of the main priorities - to get on some of the more famous walls down at Nowra.

First, we started off with Vanderholics*** 25m (18), which was a fairly good climb. It was pretty apparent that I was absolutely smashed from the day before, and I didn't really have that much confidence going up the route, which was disappointing to say the least, but I still ended up getting to the finish. The cave was a particularly interesting feature but I've gotta admit, I've never really enjoyed climbing when there are caves around as it gives you something to hit if you fall.. same goes with slabs.

Next we hopped onto Birdsville Track*** 23m (20), which was a really fantastic climb :D I lead it again and it was great! Lots of concentration required for the first couple of bolts, and in the end it yielded a fairly spectacular route with a very interesting midsection. This is also the point at which I'm quite sure I figured I climb better on a slightly more difficult grade where I focus more on the climbing and execution of moves, as opposed to actually getting injured if something goes wrong.

The final climb of the day was Gun Barrel Highway*** 23m (19), which was also a great route. Dom led this one; lots of interesting moves and fairly sustained climbing to the top.

And that was it for our Nowra trip! We pretty much decided to bail at this point due to the sun beginning to threaten to start frying us, and the fact that we hadn't eaten lunch yet. But it was a great trip - certainly will be back for more fun times in the future!

Nowra Climbing Trip

Too much fun!! This was probably the first climbing trip we did which was focused mainly on looking at trying to see where we're at in terms of trying more difficult climbs and seeing if we're improved or not over the last couple of months.

To say the least, it went great! We drove down with the conditions looking a bit shitty but it ended up clearing up pretty nicely. First we thought we'd check out The Grotto area, since we'd only previously been to Thompson's Point for most of our climbing down in Nowra.

After looking through the guidebook we tried to find access points The Grotto area, and frankly it sucked. We couldn't find the proper descent path (parked too early in the road) and then when we did, we couldn't find the cliff-face or a good way to access it... So access pretty much took slightly over an hour.

With the clouds looming and the 20% chance of lunchtime rain looming, things looked pretty crap. But we eventually ended up identifying THE palm tree, which marked the Palm Tree Wall; and finally found the crag!

We ended up hopping on two fairly good climbs on the Palm Tree Wall, LHS:

• Backdraft* (18) 22m
  Essentially a warmup climb, and a warmup lead. Good fun; got a bit exciting with the finish having to step back out again. 
• Shmoken* (21) 22m
  Loads of fun. I think Dom and I were both kicking ourselves that the first pinch of the climb wasn't captured by a SLR, which we'll hopefully rectify in the future. The climbing on this wall was really great with super-balancy footwork and an exciting finish. I believe the lead fall I ended up taking as well was the first big fall that I've taken; probably equally big to the largest I've taken indoors. Just affirmed that the new quickdraws are sexy.

After we did those two, we moved over to the Gonads Wall and did Depleted Gonad Circumference *** (18), 20m; fairly interesting climb, wouldn't say it's a mega classic but was a lot of fun! 

By this stage the day was getting fairly late and we were getting pretty tired but Dom wanted to have a shot at a ridiculously hard climb (by our standards). We had a bit of a look at Bondage and Discipline; but frankly getting to the second bolt looked really shit and run-out, so we bailed. Instead we decided to look through the guidebook and we found Snowman and Kings Kross to be quite promising, so we headed on down there.

Snowman ** (23) 20m stands as the greatest thing that we've ever done outdoors. In terms of difficulty, it was certainly the hardest thing we've done outdoors; Dom spent about 30 minutes alone figuring out the first two/three moves. But it proved to be a nice testament to where we're at in terms of outdoor skill, combining a gutsy start with a lot of beautiful climbing, and an exciting finish :D

And that was Day 1! I'll do another post about Day 2 tomorrow :)

January Training

So far the new year's been pretty interesting in terms of the work that we've been doing. Just before the new year, we had a trip to the blueys to get some climbing done up there, and that was a great trip. We spent two days out there; the first at Barden's Lookout, where we got through a bunch of climbs (although we got roasted in the sun for a good part of it). The next day we went up to Shipley Upper and revisited a couple of really good climbs, and I managed to get through lead on Jack High (19) which I've wanted since the middle of the year, considering I backed out of it earlier. We then went down to Dam Cliffs to do some teaching and the less experienced people in our group got a chance to hop on lead and get some lead belay done.

It's been pretty great, and at the moment I'm just building confidence on grade 19-20 climbs. We had a short trip to Nowra shortly after the new year, and got some more climbing in there at Hospital Rocks and Thompson's Point - both fantastic places. We didn't really try chasing anything difficult in terms of grade down there; it was more to get Vic comfortable with heights, etc.

Anyway, as the new year's here I've started to work on some projects out at the St. Peter gym. There are a few climbs which are pretty awesome and they're grade 26 (although it feels pretty soft for the grade; I can't say I've completed those climbs cleanly but I am very close to grade 24! [5.12a] ). That's the goal for the time being; but the outdoor trips have actually taken away a little bit from the endurance and outright strength that I've been working on recently. I'm also continuing to work away at bouldering strength and the core work's been kept up as well; I've moved towards doing things off the hangboard and really focusing on been able to keep my legs up past 90 degrees when I'm on the hangboard.

Finally work on the site's been a little bit slow as of late, but I haven't been able to get any traffic in which has been pretty disappointing. I'm just cleaning things up at the moment before I submit anything big to any sites, etc. to have a look at the work that I've been doing, and hopefully people will appreciate it when it does come up!

Mt. Araps trip

Woo!

Just got back from Mt. Arapiles, and was there for about a week just learning the basics of trad climbing. It's been a really interesting week in just seeing whether or not I'd pursue trad climbing, and was definitely worth the time away.

It's also confirmed that trad climbing is certainly something that I'll be chasing - I haven't really come across anything more satisfying then a couple of cute trad placements, and it's wonderful to think that you've finished a route and not left anything on the rock face (unless you start losing gear)...

I'm pretty sure that the trad climbing will also really help push the mental limit with my sports climbing as well, seeing as there's a bit mental game to it. I'm feeling like I'll be able to get some of the grading of my sports climbing better over this coming year.

To sum up, I didn't really do anything in the last week that was harder then a grade 10 climb; the only exception were a couple of grade 15 single-pitch routes that we were attempting to see if we could do on trad lead, which we did! Most of the time was learning to set bomber placements and just get confidence in our skills of setting pro and the anchors at the top.

We also went and did a bunch of the boulder problems down there, but I ended up complaining about the conditions associated with the quartzite rock; it gets super slippery real quick, which is annoying to say the least.

A quick list of the climbs we ended up doing; by no means complete as I don't have the guidebook on me:

• A whole bunch of climbs around bushranger bluff, which were mostly introductory routes to trad. Amongst them that were slightly notable were ... the one I led (which I keep forgetting the name of), something like ... nope I can't remember -_-. But it was right next to Revolver Crack (on the right of it) and was grade 15. Also did Ghost of Melville (15).
• Our first multipitch ever! Was Arachnus (8), 4 pitches, 120m. So beautiful.
• And our second multipitch was Siren (10) which we did just two days ago :) Really proud.

Anyway; that sums up the week down at araps! Since I didn't really do much intense climbing over the last week or so, I'm getting back into training from today onwards :) I've got a few things in mind to get myself stronger for the coming year, and am coming back with renewed focus! Beware world!

Keep training and stay strong! I think I'll go for a big bike ride now ;)

1st week of December Update

Bleugh the training's still much of the same, and since we're aiming to have a few trips outdoor we're working on endurance and making sure we can get through a whole bunch of climbs when we go up there. As a result we've been working on 3-4 hour sessions of nonstop climbing close to our grade, and we've stopped projecting for a little while on some of the harder routes as well. It's mainly been at St. Peter's, and I've also gotten some campus training in as well.

I've also been biking a lot more since I had another ankle injury in the last week, and biking's definitely a fine way of getting about with the cardio. So far I'm doing 40km bike rides every even day, and it's a killer circuit in terms of the hills that I go through. Having said that, the hills are beautiful and I very much enjoy the ride every time I go, and I'm thinking of extending it early next year. I'm not really looking forward to when the weather warms up significantly but I'll see how my training changes once that happens.

I'll also be off to Hong Kong at some time later this month which'll be great fun as well! Looking forward to it, and will certainly get some climbing done there as well!

That's it for the time being; keep training and stay strong!

Climbing Training: Mid-Late November

Had some mixed results over the last month with the gains stabilising. I think I was getting a bit keen with the everyday climbing and I wasn't seeing as much improvement so I started taking the day off in between climbs and instantly noted some strength gains. I've consolidated the early 4A/4B bouldering grade but haven't really cracked into the grade 22 climbing yet at St. P which has been a bit annoying, but otherwise things have been mostly alright.

I've also been watching my diet much more closely although there have been no changes in my actual weight, but hopefully that's a sign of better weight distribution in the body (I've noticed a visible change at least). I've also amped up the cardio and the bike effort is much better (I've been using the bike as the main form of transport), and when I've got some more money next year I'm thinking of upgrading the bike to something a little bit faster.

I've also started swimming to facilitate my future efforts for the triathlon, which is still a piece of work. At least I'm not drowning in the pool anymore!

There have been a couple of trips recently, notable ones include to narrabeen slabs where we got through a couple of interesting climbs, and recently to berowra, where we got toasted in the sun. Hopped on a couple of good routes there; I particularly enjoyed eccles (20) which Dom led. Would've had a bunch of falls on that one at the crux move but it was a really great route (super crimpy).

Anyway, hope your training's going well - keep training and get strong!