Oh yeah... Trad

Ooppps! Well what can I say? My lifestyle seems to be so erratic and un-planable lately that I didn't want to commit to any specific trad goals this year - I’m not giving up on Trad but I think I’m seeing it more in perspective or something. Basically I want to climb harder, more often - that involves Sport climbing, bouldering and training and lots of it... when I get a few weeks or weekends at trad crags I plan on using any gains I’ve experienced from sport climbing to improve my trad, obviously. So if I was to list my trad goals they would be to lead (preferably onsight) an E7 or headpoint E8 - but as for which routes and when I'm gonna do them, I can't say. Ethics don't come into it really - I’ve always not really had any problems dealing with the usual limiting factor in Trad - Head Games. In fact I usually push myself beyond my physical limits on trad due to a lack of head games, or my controlling of them. Instead I find what has always held me back was my strength, fitness and weight. Last year I onsighted some E6's (one in less than ideal conditions...Rain!) and managed to onsight some fairly challenging stamina cracks and powerful E5 6b's. But they didn't feel as hard as they used to... not by a long shot! I was doing laps on a route in Dalkey that I couldn't even begin to work a few years ago (and that was seeping through it's crux holds too!) and I had finally sent the remaining line in the burren that I had failed to lead cleanly (that one as a warm up!) - basically people who still spout on about ethics (or lack of) are being a bit short sighted - only with sufficient experience of hard climbing on any medium can true, pure ethics be displayed on the hardest trad lines. That means an onsight, ground-up ascent with full rack and no beta... thats the goal, but to achieve it im gonna clip a exceedingly large amount of shiny bolts! :)