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!

Climbing Training Update: To wednesday!

Didn't have time to get out last weekend but I finally got the cleats all settled with the bike shoes on friday and I have to say I'm pretty impressed! Haha, It's a completely different style of riding but it's still good. Had some falls onto my left hip which were pretty dodgy but whatever; I've managed to get a whole bunch of cardio in. Memory's slightly rusty so some of these numbers might be a bit off, but here's the training log:

Saturday:

• 10km ride in the morning to test the new pedals, which worked pretty nicely. Managed to hit 70kmph on a downwards stretch! Awesome!!
• Another 20km ride in the afternoon to the gym.
• Got about an hour of bouldering done. Mainly working to see if the moves on some of the new boulder problems were possible, and they are! I think I'm finally beginning to crack into the grade 4 properly.

Sunday:

• Can't remember. More bike riding though; I think I did another 20km bike ride, and got some bouldering in at St. L. Same sort of thing - working on the same problems.

Monday:

• Cycled to uni; was pretty horrifyingly tired by the time I got there considering I'd been doing bike for the last couple of days - and that was the uni ride, so all up 40km. I got home and thought I'd do buggerall for the rest of the afternoon, but...
• Ended up going back to climbing at 2pm with gerald, just to have a look at some of the new walls that had cropped up at St. L. + some light bouldering. I got some of the moves on the 4D though which I thought was pretty sick; so there's some good stuff that I'm beginning to work my way into.

I've taken the last couple of days off to have a good rest, but I'm back to it tomorrow morning - probably a boulder and climb before I make my way to uni for the day.

Feeling great! And pretty excited for the end of the year for upcoming Nowra and Blueys trips, and possibly climbing in HK as well. 

Anyway - keep training :D More training logs soon.

Climbing Training: Tues-Thurs

All things considered it's not going too badly, been absolutely exhausted on some days so I've been sleeping a bit more. I figure it probably has something to do with not really been that motivated to study and just waiting for the end of the year to roll around so that I can have some free time to actually get out and do some outdoor.

Tuesday:

• Basically got some light climbing done; I didn't end up doing any cardio/bike on tuesday although I have to say that the diet's gotten a whole lot better, which is encouraging :) I'm very much looking forward to seeing if there's any more of a substantial improvement with the eating habits that I've been picking up; but I'm still opting in to binge at least once a week just in case I'm not having enough throughout the week and need that little bit more.
• Also tried the lead again at St. L and couldn't get through the roof; I'm far too pumped by the time I get there. Having said that though, I'm powering through the middle section without much difficulty so there's been a vast improvement in terms of the climbing strength there, which is really encouraging.

Wednesday: I think wednesday was probably the most difficult day of my life because it was a complete rest day. I took the entire day off and didn't do anything, save a touch of core work. But I put a whole bunch of stuff up on the website and put some things on as to the direction in which I want to head with it, so that's been pretty useful.

Thursday: Huge day.

• 6am: Got up and had a trip to Narrabeen; we were limited by time constraints but managed to get through a couple of walls, including Into the Void (19) - that was a very interesting climb. Had a bit of a rough fall on Iron Chef (23) nearby where I scratched up my hand on the biner. That sucked. I'm just not understanding the grade 23 moves I think; it's also a bit weird falling on slabs because there's stuff you can hit on the way down as opposed to slightly overhanging... 
• Rode bike to uni; it's getting to the point where I'm finding it easy to ride now :D
• Bike back to the gym. Total for the day came to about 36km (I took a longer route to uni).
• Insane Cardio Session in the evening. My brother and a guy from the gym want to work on our overall cardio fitness so we chucked together a circuit - mainly runs with bodyweight training in between - and junked through that for about an hour and a half. It was pretty tough but I'm feeling really good now, so it must've been good for me. Definitely feeling a lot of the burn in the evening but honestly I feel like I could still get through a bit of a workout today. 

Might go climbing at St. P today; although if I don't get onto that, then I'll likely just take the day off.

Oh - and bike shoes came today! Awesome :D

Climbing Training: Last couple of days - Tiredness, Lethargy, and Bike Training

Man - haven't been feeling it in the last few days; since the last saturday I've been feeling slightly off. Having said that, I've still been focusing on the training in the gym - got a session in on Saturday and Monday as well.

Saturday:

• Lots of running around with things to be done for work purposes, but got an 11km cycle in the morning on my way to work. Not the best form of cardio for the day, but I'm not complaining.
• Bouldering in the evening for a couple of hours. Been sequencing some of the harder moves on the 4's and just trying to consolidate the 4A, 4B grade. I'm also trying some 4x4's to see if I can translate some of the strength from the 4's across. Got some climbing in afterwards, but felt absolutely pumped by the end of the day! My skin was also feeling pretty sore by the end of it.

Had to cancel the session I had planned on Sunday, but got a new pair of Miura VS's. To be honest I was pretty intimidated in the shop at how super tight they were; it's really not that fun wearing them and breaking them in as a shoe, but I can also feel that as time goes by they'll go from painful to snug... Hopefully...

Monday:

Probably one of the longest days of my life, in terms of getting exercise done. Got up early to hop on the cycle to uni, then cycled to St. Peters, climbed, and got home. Details below:

• Cycling: All up I finished 51km for the day. Not a bad crowning achievement, and I thought it was pretty impressive. But by the end of the day I was outright buggered. I've never felt so tired in my life. Not only that, but the WIND is so annoying! Especially when you're getting back onto the road; there was literally no point riding on the road apart from trying to play Russian Roulette with cars. It was super frustrating having to battle with the wind; everything just felt so much slower.
• Climbing: Got to St. P pretty soon after finishing my classes and tested a whole bunch of walls with the new Miura VS's. It was painful to be in those shoes, but the bouldering was really good; I've really consolidated my way into grade 3 (wow that sounds so sad... such a low grade :\ ). But I'm working on the moves in grade 4 and hopefully I'll have some of them at least consolidated by the end of the year. I took an hour off in the middle and then hopped on some walls, but climbed outright terribly. I felt great at the start, but by the time I got to my 5th/6th climb I found my strength was fading fast and the shoes were agonizingly painful to be in, hence I called it quits pretty soon after that.

I think yesterday (Monday) was one of the only days I've felt that feeling where I was like "Man screw this." It was pretty humbling and disappointing to have come from last week's work where I was projecting the moves on a 26 (5.12c) to falling off every 22 (5.11a) in the building. But I suppose that's how training goes, and I'll be back in the gym later tonight. 

Finally; as a bit of a side note; super excited that I got some cycling shoes coming in with the cleats - they should arrive within the next fortnight and I might chuck a post on here for that - just because I'm super excited about it all! 

Wednesday and Thursday Climbing Training Log

Holy hell I'm absolutely buggered. But the last few days have been really good in terms of the climbing training; I think I'm still getting used to how the sun rises super early and haven't yet adjusted to that, so I've been really tired. But that hasn't put me off training and I've been up to some good stuff over the last couple of days.

Wednesday:
Pretty much had a whole day of clinic but got some training in the afternoon. Decided not to do any cardio because I'd rode bike the day before to uni and back, which totaled around 46km. Cleats are coming soon so I'm pretty excited!

• Got down to Lindfield Rocks in the afternoon and just got through a whole bunch of climbs. I think the bouldering's also helping mentally in terms of keeping my cool when I'm getting close to the top; I know Lindfield isn't that high but I'm hoping that it'll translate over to lead climbing and helping me keep my cool when I'm a little bit further and setting protection. Lindfield's also really great in the sense that there are so many great problems there; I've found a bunch of problems that are super awesome which I'm almost finishing(V4), but then I struggle on other climbs that are only V3? So I'm a bit confused as to how I can get through those (crimp strength? Just learning to climb outdoor better?) 
• Oo - on the bright side, I finished my first ever V4! Kim's Arete - a super super classic on slopers at Lindfield, which was super fun and really great to get through. (Yes, I'm feeling really proud about it!)
• After that; pretty much took an hours rest and got to the gym to get some more bouldering done; my fingers hadn't completely given out yet. Just working on the same projects; it's a bit odd because the route setters are alternating on the bouldering walls at the gym, and so one guy always sets super classics whilst the other guy is young and sets all these huge, super powerful moves. It's interesting to see the variation in style (and it's also really difficult to get through when you're slightly tired!)

Thursday:

Huge day. I had to bike around quite a bit today but all in all it was great. I think Bellevue Hill should be renamed Bellevue Mountain because there were two of the steepest hills that I've ever attempted riding up in my life. Hopefully the cleats make things easier.

• Well - what did that all total to? 56km of bike riding today. Shit yeah, so I'm hoping that's actually enough cardio to offset the pizza that I ended up devouring in the afternoon. On the bright side, the bike times are also getting faster which is pretty interesting as well..
• I decided to have a peek at the bouldering at USyd gym and can proudly say that I've come a long, long way since the start of the year. I also managed to get a pair of shoes from the desk and get through half an hour of bouldering which was sick fun, on some really great puzzles. Looking forward to spending a little bit more time in there over the last couple of weeks of uni.
• Lots of chest/core work in the afternoon. Still working on the tuck front levers and just overall core strength. 

That's it! I've decided that towards the end of the year, I'll take a full week of training and start working on the mental aspect of things, and working around how to just be more calm overall, especially when leading. Definitely something I'm looking to work on over the next year (and hopefully that will be the key in leading 22/23's over the coming months).

Keep training - Stay strong!

Sunday - Awesome climbing. Climbing Training's paying off!!

So the climbing training in the last month and a half has really been going well, and I think that today I definitely saw the results of a good last bit of climbing. Had a session at St. Peters today and managed to junk through a couple of warm up walls before getting convinced by Dom to hop on a few of the higher grade walls. Initially I didn't really expect much but I'd seen some of the holds over some of the past attempts that Dom had, and they really hadn't looked too awkward.

TRAINING WORKS. I'm fully excited about the results! I fell of a couple of the moves on my first 24 but managed to hop back on afterwards and pretty much finished the whole thing (I'll confess that I haven't yet because I peeled off midway, but only because another climber was on top of my holds on the right and I admit I didn't have the strength to stay on that "rest" hold). But having said that I'm super excited and I'm sure that the next time I step in that gym I'll bag that climb.

Also tried the moves on a couple of 26's and was actually quite pleasantly surprised that I could get through a lot of the moves; of course there are still the grade 26 moves which are out of reach, but not by much! The focus on chest/core work over the last month has really been key in a lot of the improvement and I certainly felt it throughout the day.

That was about it; I'm just happy that I'm beginning to crack into the realm of 5.12. I'm sure that over the next six months or so I'll be able to consolidate that and hopefully bring my lead climbing up as well.

Other training today:

• 4km run, just a light run to get the legs moving a bit.
• Balance board to rehab the ankle injury. (I tried squats on the balance board - that looks like a really good exercise for control. I think I'll work it into my regular progressions).
• Core work. Always more core work.
• Some stretching.

Feeling great. Stay Strong. :) and GET EXCITED!

Training Log; Friday and Saturday

Hmm. Pretty much going to change the way these entries go because I'll keep it simple and focused on the training with some comments at the end.

Friday:

• A couple of hours at Lindfield Rocks. Lots and lots of fun, I actually ended up climbing a bunch of holds. Didn't have a spotter so I didn't try any of the overhangs but got the traverse in. All in all a pretty fun and interesting session. (2 hours?)
• 20km bike ride. (Cannot wait until I get the cleats). In other news; what the hell is with drivers trying to hit you when you ride? That should be counted as assault, I swear -.-"
• Afternoon Tennis for a bit. Was beginning to feel it in the legs. Just testing the ankle to see how it's holding up, and it's good. Will start wobble board this week.
• An hour indoor in the night. Blasted through a few climbs and felt really really good. This last session for the day was mainly for climbing endurance and I am super glad I got through it!

Saturday:

• Couple of hours of tennis
• Half an hour of core. I'm trying to focus a lot more on the lower abdominal muscles by doing leg raises, V-ups, etc. I think they're weaker then my upper abdominals.

Seriously excited about the next month or so; I've got final exams coming up but I'm feeling really good and in condition. Then I'll be on holidays but I'm trying to sort some research out with university, to keep myself out of holidays. Am certainly looking to get a second crash mat and start doing a little more bouldering around the place to see what's available, but at the moment I'm continuing to work on Lindfield Rocks, but am hoping to look at Challenger,  The Fear Factory and The Spit soon. Also some really nice stuff at a fishing place I used to go to so hopefully I'll check that out soon too. 

Stay tuned; keep strong. 

Phegan's Bay and an interesting last few days..

Hey guys,

A pretty interesting last couple of days - got some training done. Mainly was a lot of fingerboard stuff, just working on been able to use the 35 deg. slopers and the pockets. Practiced a lot of clipping the other day but just really recovering from the sprained ankle - which is coming along pretty nicely. I got a few runs (actually ran my fastest km ever) which was awesome, and did some stuff on the erg as well.

On Sunday I got out to Phegans Bay with Dom and Justin; but it really wasn't great. We had some rope issues (refer to the picture for details) with some miscommunication, which took up a whole bunch of time, and the climbing just wasn't great; the routes were pretty short and I think that generally just took a lot out of the day. Personally I'm pretty sure it was the fact that I couldn't lead and we had no idea where we were/which climbs we were going up on, but it really took away from the day. That was also probably combined with the fact that the entire area was pretty quiet; it didn't look like it had a whole bunch of traffic going through it (LOTS of spiders....), and a lot of the holds were glued on.

All in all - not the greatest trip. Considering I only did roughly half an hour of climbing, my fingertips got absolutely trashed.

Today - got 40km out on the bike with the ride to uni and back, and completely forgot about the trashed fingertips, so I went back to the gym... only to remember that it was too painful to boulder anything difficult about twenty minutes in. But I got some core work in (still working on those tuck front levers), which is good. That'll be sore tomorrow.

Probably taking the day off tomorrow, I got a wine and cheese night which should be fun (and perhaps messy). I'll get some training done on wednesday (probably negatives and chest, with some fingerboard) depending on how the hands feel.

Lemming, out.

An awesome view from the top of the crag, which made us think the day of climbing was going to be awesome...

Rope woes... Don't miscommunicate!!!

Trashed fingertips.. Hopefully healing soon!

Back to it

Oops - when I was looking at the other couple of posts they seemed to reupdate themselves to be posted today - not what I wanted!

In any case, right back to it yesterday. I was originally going to take the day off but I couldn't stand it, so I got to gym and got bouldering and the ankle felt fine. It was so great to be back on the walls - truly missed it! I didn't get to project anything harder but that wasn't the point; I just wanted to hop on a whole bunch of routed which I did. Didn't get any climbing done though but no worries, that'll be today!

Also managed to get to the gym and do a 15 minute run - and actually set my fastest 1km time ever. Might not seem that great but I'm feeling good. I followed it up with our fastest 1km time at the moment, so yesterday was pretty sick in terms of getting things done.

Back at the gym this evening after morning classes - keep training hard and stay strong

Working around Injury

Yeh so there was no way I was about to just sit around for the next week and a half not really doing anything, and the ankle really isn't feeling that bad (RICER really does wonders), so I did some fingerboard last night. Pretty upset at how much strength I've lost with only a week off, but really glad to be back on the fingerboard.

Basically did warmup and fiddled around on a bunch of holds, and did a pair of frenchies as well on the 25 deg. slopers. There was a lot of sustained work on rebuilding stamina as well with a primary focus to be able to use the 35 deg. sloper with feet loaded.

I also did some work with the bands that I've set up - I'll post a photo of the training area that I have on the site later this week; it's simple but remarkably effective. I'm trying to do a lot of exercise now by removing all sort of leverage - many of the principles are just from witnessing how incredibly strong a lot of the climbers are with their isolation, so I'm trying to emulate that in my training.

There's also a fantastic article which I'm trying out half the exercises - it's called "How to build an olympic body through bodyweight conditioning". I've known this article for about 5-6 years now but never really worked on anything in it, and I plan to work towards been able to do a tuck front lever by the end of the year.

Goals for the end of the year:
* 35 degree sloper unassisted, set of frenchies.
* Tuck front lever for 40 seconds by the end of the year
* Forward planche w/o assistance of the arms for bodyweight.
* Lowest row of fingerboard.

If I can't reach those goals by the end of the year - no worries; I'll extend them out to the end of summer. But that's what I'm focusing on!

Keep training - get strong.

Damn it..

Well i have to admit that I might have been a little more enthusiastic then I would've liked to have been with my initial return to training. I was so super happy to be out running again that 2km into the run my body felt like the ditch was a good place to place my left ankle, and as a result, well.. there's a photo to go alongside.

Nonetheless this didn't stop me from finishing the 5km run (limping to the finish line) but I suspect that it'll cost me a few days of training - which is a bit of a shame because I was really looking to head back to the climbing gym tomorrow. (I think I will anyway. Just lots of RICER tonight!)

It also didn't stop me from getting on and doing some chest/core work which won't really affect any potential climbing tomorrow. Depending on how bad the ankle is, I might just chuck in a hangboard session or take the day off (but I really, really don't want to).

Thinking of getting new bike pedals and clips to go along with it soon (to improve the pulling strength when I ride the bike, which will ultimately help out with climbing).

Lemming.

Absolutely DYING to train.

This last weekend I've been pretty busy with some council stuff, but also I've been down at Nowra doing some climbing (post to be coming soon).

I've been slack with the training notices but now I've gotten a new method of been able to enter the information here, so I'll be posting a lot more regularly!

At the moment - I'm just absolutely dying to train. Those couple of days at Nowra were really good but I really didn't eat anywhere near as well as I should've. I spent the wednesday running around and burning money, and spend the last three days doing nothing but sitting on my bum in council and eating, plus drinking in the night.

Not exactly the way I wanted to spend my holiday - but nonetheless very interesting for my goals outside of rock climbing. However, I'll be getting back to civilization (and medschool) tomorrow, so the workloads going to increase again - but I'm definitely going to switch my training over as well. I'm thinking that as summer's coming up, I'm going to switch back to interval and power training (just because the weather will facilitate it better then endurance). Still looking to include a big run on the sunday.

Hope all is well - I'll be posting regularly soon.

P.S, I've been going through some things on this blog and it's been fantastic looking at the things I had problems with earlier in the year. I have to say that I've definitely improved since the start of the year, and it's fantastic to be able to visualize that. Maybe next time you're indoor, video yourself bouldering and compare it six months down the track - you'll be happily shocked to see how much you've improved!

Woody - good to go sir ;)

Hey everyone,

Prepare to get psyched - there's too much awesome. Since the holidays started, I said I would want to get a slopeymon, right? But eventually I figured I may as well invest the time making a woody, since that would mean that I could just get a bunch of holds and do some training on it, right?

So that's pretty much exactly what I did, and over the last week or so I've set up my own woody. It wasn't too difficult, in fact it was pretty much more straightforward then I thought, and it was relatively cheap too. The reason why I say relatively cheap was that, had I gotten slopeymon and just installed him, then he would've taken about 150 all up. However, junking all the things together to get the woody cost around 180/190, which wasn't that much more expensive - and I had a lot of fun in the process! So here's how the woody developed.

There's the first photo of the woody after I had finished drilling all holes into the back. I used a 7/16 drill piece so that the T-nuts would fit in, and as you can see there are 18 holes in the training board. I spaced them 8 inches from each other, in that grid pattern (spaced about 8 inches from each other) - and it really doesn't take long to set all of that up. A couple of things to note - there are plenty of websites out there that are going to tell you exactly how to set up the woody, and they're all great - but don't worry about the T-nuts looking slightly unsteady on the back; when you're screwing them in, then they'll tighten right up - I haven't had any trouble with any of the T-nuts (yet), and we've abused the training board fairly well over the last few days.

The overall cost for the woody wasn't too bad; and it's one that'll stay relatively constant, especially if you're going to keep reusing it/make another woody after a while. We've got a mind to transform the specific area into an entire wall, which should be pretty cool and if we do there'll be a lot more info coming on that in the future. 

• T-nuts; 18 T-nuts; Had to get them in packs of 4; So about $20 for 5 packs
• Socket-bolts; have to get them from specialised carpentry stores; we got 10 (5x2inch, 5x3inch) and the Hex-Key for $30.
• Had the sheet of wood at home
• Screws, Power tools, etc. all at home.

Setting it up really isn't that difficult, you just have to make sure that it'll support your weight which we were pretty tentative about sorting out over the first few runs. Just pre-drill the holes into the wood and punch in the screws with the drill. We added the metal plates just to add some extra stability. 

We've used it now for a few weeks and it does great; just make sure you have a crash pad underneath you, and a spotter if you've got any sharp bits of brick sticking out. I'll add a training video later - I'm having some pretty awesome fun with it ;) 

Climming time!!!!

Exams are finally over!! And that means all the hours that were dedicated to uni work and procrastination now are going to be used for climming and procrastination! ^_^

Yesterday was my 1st day back after a 2 month hiatus and ZOMG everything hurts no thanks to Eugene. Today was another intense session with Mr. Len <3 and I think I am well on my way to rediscovering the joy of blisters, chalky clothing and topical lidocaine ^_~

Hopefully, it won't take too long to get back into form with a bigger emphasis on lead climbing now (outdoor gooo!!!!) and getting over our fear of falling.

<3

Birthday Present

I've decided that as an upcoming holiday gift for myself, I'm going to get myself....



A SLOPEYMON :DDDDDDDDDD

http://www.soillholds.com/slopeymon-hard

They look sick and I want to train some more on slopers, so that'll take the training kit that I have at home to the beastmaker 1000 and the slopeymon. Once this finger heals up a little bit then screw it - I'm going straight back to training. As another small piece of news, I can't be bothered waiting any longer so I'm going to get climbing this afternoon :D Awesome to get straight back to it and I'm super excited about the slopeymon :D

... Time off...

Taking time off sucks.

There's no other way to say it - having to wait for your body to recover is pretty bad especially when you think about climbing all the time :\ About a fortnight ago I punched a hold trying to get up; specifically, my fourth index finger knuckle on my left hand made contact with the hold, and that was pretty sore. Since the injury, I did some sloper stuff the following week but annoyingly I've now got some sort of pain in my proximal interphalangeal joint (the first joint after the knuckle) on the same finger -_-" which has made me take all of 48 hours off.

The only thing keeping me same is my fitness program and a newly bought, old-school bike which has turned out to be surprisingly good.... But here's to another couple of days off before I get back into it. I've been training pretty hard and started cracking into 4's in bouldering, which has inspired some confidence into me as well. In the near future I'm hoping to get a camera so that next time we go outdoors we can really get some nice photos/videos to ace together another climbing video, but right now I'm absolutely itching to get out. :(

GeTu river in china :D

Cannot believe how incredible the stuff in china is.... It's only quite recently that this has gone up - but look; China seems to be at the forefront of everything, and this is yet another incredible example.

--update 11/06/2012--

plus another great article on vertical life:
http://www.verticallifemag.com.au/get-to-getu-mayan-smith-gobat-and-the-petzl-roctrip/

Sloper Training

So I decided to start training with slopers since I jarred my finger the other day by punching a hold.... yes... that's a good story....

Anyway, my university has pretty neat-o bouldering walls and I quite enjoy the holds on them - they're pretty difficult problems in general and the yellows seem to be pretty tough - I have a tough time doing any of them (having said that I'm not super great anyway). 

So since it hurt a little bit to crimp, I decided that my project when I'm bouldering at uni would be this sloper puzzle I decided to just junk together myself. The green climb (all slopers) only has four or five moves, but it's too difficult; and the red is out of my reach, so I thought if I combined a few of the moves on these climbs it'd be pretty awesome. Videos to come soon.

Anyway - two photos; the original photo of the bouldering wall, and another one which I drew my route out :D I should've probably added that I'm trying to use only the footholds of that colour but it's outright impossible, and the videos will show that I'm already pretty pumped by the time I got round to it. Also a small note, the wall's inclined by about 10 degrees so it's not the easiest thing in the world.

Loads of fun nonetheless.

Original Photo of the Bouldering Wall

Route added on this one; start L on green, R on the orange next to it. L goes to the yellow, both hands on yellow, push feet up and then attempt to get onto next orange, then the one above.

Yeah baby <3 hahahaha I obviously suck at them, and I hope to get better at this before they modify the wall.

Small achievements

I remember the first few times I went rock climbing, or for that matter the first few times I actually knew what I was doing, and seeing the best climbers in the gym beasting out the highest level climbs. Actually - more specifically I remember seeing them holding onto these tiny little pieces and thinking "how the hell is that even possible?!?"

Well last night, after about a year and a half of climbing, I reckon I've reached the stage where I actually think "shit that's a pretty friendly hold!!!" - which just makes me laugh!!! What seemed to be so horrible before now seems like an essential part of the puzzle, and more often than not, it is!

It's just really pleasing to get to this stage; yet I can't help but feel the same way for a lot of other pieces in general. Slopers confuse the crap out of me (my friend can happily use the 35 degree Slopers on the beast maker and do frenchies on them, yet I have no idea how he does it) - I'm struggling with the 25 degree ones, and there's still a lot of footwork that confuses me. Nonetheless it's good to be where I'm at and climbing is going nowhere but up on my life enthusiastic list :)

Couple of Videos!

Absolutely amazing climber - Sascha DiGiulian, the first US woman ever to climb a 9A: Check this out:

Training

Hey guys training logs will be up soon. Pretty pumped because I hit a milestone - can do l-hangs on doubles. All will be explained shortly :D

Last weeks trip to the mountains!

For some reason I must be stuck in a time sink; I have no idea why the video is labelled 14/05, when that was actually a monday... :\ so it must've been the 12th. No idea why my dodgy calendar has been mixing that up.

In any case, last saturday we went out to the mountains for a straight-up amazing experience. We went to Dam cliffs, and even though many seasoned climbers have told me that it's a fairly dangerous noob-area, I had a bucket of fun.

We made a video on youtube which you guys can check out here - but otherwise, a rough summary of the day goes something like this......

8am left syd, driving on L's, got two apple pies, drove into a ditch, got pulled out by a winch (amazing), got wet feet :(, fell into a river, then climbed some amazing climbs.

The ones we did were:

• A Tale of Two Cities (18)
• Sisters of Fatima (16)
• Envirodandal (19)

I also gotta say that it's pretty scary watching the lead climber go up. 

On the agenda for things to do include learning how to do the anchoring. I also went lead climbing this last week but I haven't finished the course yet - and a writeup will go up in due course! 

See you soon!

... GET PSYCHED.....

.... What? A blog post about our blue mountains climbing trip soon? ... AND SOMETHING MORE... WHATTTttt? ......

Initiation!

HEY WORLD!

This is our official climming blog! Yes - we know the spelling is incorrect and it's meant to be that way for us; it's an in-joke of the entire bunch of us that climb. By no means do we profess to be the greatest climbers, but we've been in the sport since the start of 2011 and really loved every part of it.

As we're trying to improve and move our game outdoor, we decided to start a blog to track our progress towards the big outdoor walls. All of us are grad students so we're understandably a bit busy with other things, but we're making time to fit this in and make it a regular fixture for the rest of our days.

If you end up stalking us, that's great - leave us posts and let us know if you think we're terrible/great at climbing, whether you love/hate what we're doing, or if you want to get out with us! Either way, the purpose of this blog is twofold - to essentially document our progress through our rock-climbing ways, and to raise your awareness of how truly awesome this sport is.

Peace!

Lenn