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