Saturday 30 November 2013

So many things to tell you...

But how to make you see?
The actions of my past?
Impossible.
You'd turn away from me.

I've been holding holds and climbing
But what? I'll tell you soon.
continue reading onwards follower.
Are you singing this in tuneeeeee?


See, that's why you tune in. It might have taken 2 months, but when I get my arse into gear - you get gold like that.

So basically, I cant really remember what I have been up to. I mean, it has almost been 70 days since I last wrote on here and a bunch of stuff happened.

In vague order of chronological order:


  1. Injury
  2. Font
  3. Brean
  4. Training
  5. Blokfest

1. Injury

So basically, I have spent the last few months being a little bit injured in a lot of places.
The first place is the long standing shoulder injury that is now mostly better.
The second is my right foot big toe, I hurt this waaaay back at the end of summer and it hasn't really sorted itself out. It's not a big issue when I am climbing, but it kinda hurts when I take my shoe off.
The third is my back. I spoke to Rupert at TCA about it, and he thought it might just be some strain. Not sure how I managed that, but it has been trundling onwards for a fair while now. Again, doesn't stop me climbing, but I wish it would just sod off.

2. Font

Despite these injuries, I decided to head out to font in the October half term with a group of peeps from TCA. I had hoped that given the late time of year, we might be blessed with cold temps, superb friction and perfect crushing conditions. Unfortunately this was not the case. Instead, we had warm weather and damp conditions.
C'est la vie!
No matter, I had a great time stomping round the forest climbing 6a's and b's. Toward the end of the trip we had a beautiful day in Franchard. After a damp start in the morning, the sun decided to show its face and we were blessed with some incredible light in the afternoon. I so inspired, I even decided to have another go on Angle Ben's, El Poussah and El Pousif! <--- at="" did="" exclamation="" i="" least="" make="" mark="" might="" nbsp="" of="" one="" p="" that="" them...="" think="" understand="" you="">No.
I did none of them.
But I reached a new high point on them all! Hoorah!
Psyched to return and give them another shot in even better conditions now. Who knows when that will be though...

3. Brean

Brean, oh Brean!
Sea of aquamarine
was ever a place
as lovely as Brean?

Yeah, probably.
The last time we went, the telephone wire in the campsite had fallen down and was lying in the middle of the road prompting a call to the local police and skirting round it warily. The queue of traffic behind us was held up by a van that could quite decide whether it would be able to squeeze through. When we finally arrived at the crag, it was completely empty. Great!
Unfortunately about 30 minutes after we arrived it was then became massively overcrowded around storm warning causing a terrible bottleneck for Pete, who looked good to crush Brean Topping.
Fortunately I didnt really have any aims, and decided to give Tide Rising another shot. Graham stuck the clips in, and tried to work out some beta before retiring to the ground to try and warm up again.
I had done the route a few weeks before with Pete, so I went up again to warm up, and tried to remember the beta so that I could share it with Graham. Eventually, I worked out the incredible beta I had chanced upon for the top moves and, after giving it all a good brush, I descended to the ground.

I could bore you with the specifics of the ascent, but suffice it to say I did it second attempt and moved onto Bullworker, the last remaining 'honest' (non linkup) 7c I have left on the crag. Again, I could bore you with details, but I am well up for returning to fire this one off at some point. It didnt feel too hard after I worked out the moves, it will once again be a matter of stamina, but I think I can win this one if I climb efficiently enough.

4. Training

Carly from TCA has recently moved back to the South East(ish) and is psyched for training, so we are climbing together on Monday/Wednesday with Joe and Robin to try and build back up some stamina for route climbing. Everything seems to be going quite well. I'm not sure what I think of 4x4 routing. The problem I'm having, is that easy indoor routes have a tendency to cause flappers, and I am really not psyched for them. Flappers suck. So I think I may start running some harder laps with downclimbing inbetween. It all just seems a lot more relevant. And it works for Pete, so by god I will make it work for me.

I climbed on wednesday this week, and despite feeling like I wanted to murder everyone and everything in the centre when I arrived, I actually ended up having a really good session on the white 7c on the comp wall. Indeed, after I had my first burn, I thought it might be possible to do it in two halves by the end of the session. Imagine my surprise then, when I did it next attempt! Apparently, only 4 people have done this route now.

  1. Mark Croxall (setter and wad)
  2. Pete (Polish crusher)
  3. Graham (who climbed the 8a!)
  4. and myself!
I wont lie, it wasn't easy, I went full on Sharma scream for the last move, and skipped the clip before it just to be able to keep moving. Nevertheless, I have done my first Craggy 7c! I claim that as one of my best ascents of all time, and probably one of the hardest. Very pleased.

5. Blokfest

I'm going tomorrow in about 8 hours, so wish me luck!

I'll come back and write some stuff and add some photos in a bit.

Toodles!