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!

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.