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!

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: 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! 

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!