I thought of a new title!

After all of 10 minutes thought I came up with this brilliant name.

Let me explain;

Archibald the Koala obviously has the same name as me (bar the koala bit).

Koalas climb, are generally lazy, and eat a lot.

A crimp is a style of grip used in climbing, and one I favour.

Archibald the Koala uses his high powered detective brain to figure out problems - and, digging into the bottom of the barrel, I use my high powered intelect to solve bouldering problems.

Archibald is also well spoken and gentlemanly, I hardly need to make a comparison here...

In other news I climbed another 6b+ today then repeated it twice more for good measure. I did loads of laps on the start/end of a 6c sloper problem, linking the moves loads of times but never actually sticking the whole thing together...meh...doesnt really matter when it comes to fitnessy rehabby ribbish but I was pleased.

I can crimp and I can use slopers. Hopefully I will be able to get my confidence back in holding things with the hand...still nervous about dynoing/deadpointing to it...

A New Look

I would like to thank Jack Smith Keegin (perhaps the only person who actually reads this rubbish) for my new background picture.

I would like to thank myself for the genius of poor design.

I need to think up a new blog title too as that one is a bit generic and not very impressive.

I'm sure something will jump up and strike me with a pointy stick of inspiration.

6b+ what?

You read right enrapt readers!

Climbing at Craggy cured my creaking tendon.

'Terrific' I hear you cry!

'what did you climb?'

Well nothing too hard.

Started easy with a bit of traversing on a 4, then upped the grade significantly to a 5.

From there shit escalated and I went a bit crazy, and carefully cruised a cantankerous 6a, cutting the comp wall to its core.

I then followed up with a juggy style 6b through the roof which resulted in a bit of a pump near the top.

After that we headed round the back to play on a slightly less angled wall where I sent another 6b, a 6b+ and rounded the performance with a final 6b.

I am really happy with this ticklist.

It is comprised of several different angles, quite a lot of routes, and several different hold types.

And my hand did not complain on any of them.

My hand feels ever so slightly tender still, and obviously I will be taking it carefully- just like I didnt with my A2 pulley - and continue easing it back in. The Help for Heroes competition is next month on the 25th and I think it would be great fun to compete.

Development on the hand situation!

Bizarrely the way my hand injury feels has suddenly decided to change...

I shall start at roughly the beginning.

On Monday I went to the climbing centre at Surrey Sports Park and checked out the wall there; really quite impressive. I was planning on climbing on easyish stuff but ended up pulling on some stuff a bit harder than expected.

I felt ok for the session, and infact I felt alright for the evening too, but the next day my forearm aches, like a muscular ache...For some reason I feel this is a good thing. At least now I know where to ice my arm and stick on some gels.

I also got hold of my protein from Bath, I dont know if this will help healing, but it cant do any harm, apart from making me feel ill whenever I catch whiff of it.

I also had another short fives session today playing topstep into the buttress. I think I got my spin much better in the short session and I am also much more proficient in volleying with both hands. I think I need to work on playing backcourt shots into the buttress now, I can play a cut style shot but a straight in shot generally seems to go down. I am trying to hard to play the perfect shot and instead delivering something worth nothing...

Adieu.

2 Months Later

So, here we are.

2 Months to the day after I suffered the tragic injury.

I went to the SSP centre in Guildford today and it was a giggle. Couldnt really do too much, but found myself trying things, that if I had been sensible, I probbaly wouldnt have tried.

On the good side, my finger doesnt feel worse.

Sore - yes, but not broken.

I also think I identified the place in my forearm where it started to hurt later on. Perhaps I can massage this in some way to aid recovery, seems like it might be the insertion point to the muscles.

Following on from the vague advice of the physio, I wonder if the pain I feel in the hand is somehow connected to the insertion point. Which would also explain why icing the hand doesnt seem to do much good. I shall start icing my forearm instead and hope for some improvement.

1 more month?

Who knows?

Dying a little bit inside

I'm going to write this in a style

not well known for it's class or it's guile,

you can tell I am bored

do you want an award?

I might go and change my hairstyle.

For that seems to be what I do,

when I dont have something to view

I watched Shutter Island

American Dad and-

I think I preferred number two

My finger is still not much better

so I thought I should write out this letter.

To my blog I shall post

nonsense of no note

perhaps I should go make it wetter.

I've tried taking pills and icing,

I've tried liquid gels and erythromycin.

Neurofen works

my tendon just smirks

perhaps I should just stop this whining

My life, of course, could be worse

I could be lying still in a hearse,

or worse even still

I could be really ill

I hope that don't bring on a curse.

Right...after 5 passages of garbage I am going to stop and write something sensible.

or not...

I dont really have anything to say...

Welcome to my insanity.

11 days on.

And still not much improvement in the hand.

I keep myself occupied with other stuff and try to forget about climbing for now. It seems to be working. One of my most fun days so far was last Monday at the Westway centre.

For the first time in a year and a half I played fives. I also went home with an 0-4 record...not awe inspiring but considering the competition I dont think it was too bad.

I ached for a week afterwards and could barely do anything with my right arm but it was well worth it.

I am going to go back this monday, and I think I will try and get in some more training in during the next few weeks to see if I can compete in the U25 championships in a month or so.

Fortunately I can play on the nearby courts at cranleigh. Cycle in, play some shots, cycle back. Easy as 1,2,3 and with any luck I wont embarrass myself on the 19th.

I also attempted to swim for the first time in absolutely yonks. It was fine while I was in the pool, but once I got out the hell started. I have some sort of allergy to chlorinated pools and Cranleigh is heavily chlorinated...so I spent the next 5 hours (at which point I went to bed) in a state similar to a bad bad cold. My nose is still raw from the number of times I wiped it and I will not be trying that again any time soon...which is a pity because I really enjoyed myself. Oh well.

A climb!

I went for my second rehab climb at craggy island today,

Did some lead climbing on some very easy routes and my hand doesnt feel too bad so far, very happy in a way.

I realised how much I love lead climbing again, I looked in my logbook today and the last time I did a lead climb was almost 2 months ago on the same day I tried my first 7c.

Today I was just climbing 4s and 5s but I still had a lot of fun getting back to what I love doing, nothing hard, nothing tough, I hung around on big jugs looking for methods of doing way harder routes for my partner and just pissed about mainly.

I dont think I have been missing that with my normal climbing sessions as such, but it was nice to have a solid reminder that I really just enjoy being on the wall, with some fall potential below me, some nice moves above me and problems to be solved.

I would also like to wish Lisa luck on her travels, may she be lucky on her routes and not get any injuries.

In other news

this dyno is sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet

http://vimeo.com/13865479