Rock Crawler

Back from the dead.

About 6 months ago I accidently dropped the database behind this site (and quite a few others).  Doh.  Poof.  It all disappeared.  I shrugged, tried to remember the last time I posted and decided not to try and fix it.

Today it occurred to me that I could actually recover most of this as I’d been using a cross poster to post all the entries to the twinned livejournal account I have.  So this evening I fixed it..  kinda!

Some of the entries are probably missing images/videos etc and may be a bit corrupted.  I may work through them later and fix them.  In the mean time, I’ll start posting again I think….

Outdoors in the Sun!

Been getting loads more climbing outdoors this year so far. Great fun! More info later (hopefully!) but if you want to see what I’ve been working on, check my ukclimbing log

Oh yes….

I’M GOING TO FONT NEXT WEEK! Bit of a short notice holiday, but hell, why not!

If you know ANYTHING that might be helpful, add it as a comment to the Fontainebleau planning page.

*squee!*

Oops.

I seem to have entirely failed to keep my blog up to date. Ah well! I’m not going to recount all I’ve missed, that might take too long. Instead I’ll continue as I was going….

TARGETS! I’ve decided my targets for 09:

1) Lead a 7b. Ouch. I’ve managed a couple of 7a’s in the past year, and they’ve remained hard, but I’ve not been able to push harder than that. I really need to work on pushing through this and get to the next level, hence the upgrade!
2) Lead outdoors. I’ve really failed to do much outdoor climbing since I’ve started, mostly due to the weather. However, I’ve already made it out this year (see below) and I really enjoyed it. I’ve not actually seconded or lead on one of my excusions, so it seems a good target.
3) Score 100 points in a bouldering competition. This is a tough one. It will really involve a step up in gear on my previous bouldering comp scores. Cross fingers eh?
4) Take more photos and videos of climbs, especially outdoors!

So, what else has been happening? Quite a bit of climbing! Last weekend saw me climbing on Friday, Saturday and spending the whole glorious, sunny day in the Peaks climbing. I’m still fairly achy from it now, but it been great. My little circle of climbing associates has a new person in it (Hi Kiri if you read this!) who is encouraging more climbing which is good. Sunday in the peaks was all her fault and it was great. We started in Stoney Middleton, climbing on Morning Crack which was HARD, we then ended up at Baslow Edge doing three more climbs. Central Crack was really demanding for me, needing a really strong layback to get up it, which I’m really not comfortable with doing but managed. The top bit involved me doing a really inelegent belly flop. I think I’ll try harder to avoid that next time!

What about indoors? Part of trying to hit those above targets has meant I’m changing my approach a little. I’ve starting doing stamina climbs once a week, where we do 3 climbs in succession, or an Up, Down, Up climb. I’m also aiming to climb on something far outside my grade every week to try and push myself.

Videos/Photos-wise, check this out:

This is Simon completing a nice over hanging 6b at The Foundry.

Doh!

My lift is ill! No Redpoint for me today. Probably good for my chances at beating 82 tomorrow at The Foundry…

Epic Week?

This week is a little manic from a climbing pov. Although I dropped out of my normal climbing session on Wednesday due to feeling a bit rough from an incoming chesty cough, I made it to the Bouldering competition yesterday. I’ve just got back in from another bouldering session at the Foundy, and on Sunday I’m planning on going to Redpoint in Birmingham to do a session on the BMC Leading Ladder.

Just to cap it off, Monday is the next part of the Foundry Bouldering league. I’m wondering if I’m actually going to be able to walk by then….!

…but I have a note from my Mother

So, I probably should have gone climbing this morning. However, I have 3 really good reasons as to why not:

1. On Friday I went as usual, but went bouldering instead. It’s been ages since I bouldered properly, and as a result I really _really_ ache. Diane (who came second in the uk womens championships!) was showing me how to do some of the routes on the overhanging wall which did most of the damage I think
2. The above hard work opened a set of flappers on my left hand. They’ll heal pretty quickly, but I don’t want to open them again
3. I was out rather late last night watching them demolish the Tinsley cooling towers. The event was at 3am, and the huge numbers of people there meant we didn’t manage to escape and get home till about 4:30!

See the cooling towers fall!

I shall redeem myself by climbing tomorrow instead! (as well as starting week two of the 100 pushs challenge.)

100 Push ups - The initial test.

I just did the first test of the 100 push ups program. I was expecting to manage about 20 or so being as I used to have to do push ups as part of my Long Fist Kung Fu training. Turns out climbing is good for push ups, as I managed 40! Guess this sets me well on the way for the 100, and puts me at level 4.

So, week one starts on Monday!

100 Push ups!

I just signed on to do this thing:

Wish me luck

Remembering how to run

It’s been about a year since I last went running, and something came over me last night to start it up again. So, I grabbed a running partner from work and went for it. My handy Garmin 205 captured the following:

My running route
Not so bad for the first run in about a year. I’m viewing this as a way to build up my stamina a bit. Expect more running posts on here I guess.

AC joints!

Had some xrays. Seems this is the culprit:

http://orthoinfo.aaos.org/topic.cfm?topic=A00033

You could see in the xray that the bone in the picture with the red arrow was misaligned. Apparently the Doctor I was seeing had done this to both his shoulders and was rather unconcerned.

It doesn't impede me and I don't notice it when climbing at all. Just need to keep my eye on it!