Into the Swing Thing...

Keeping true to my word from the previous post I’ve been keeping it honest on the rock lately. Saturday was spent clocking onsights and ticking routes that I had never tried before. I had been so preoccupied with working projects that I had neglected loads of quality routes. Warming up with a 7b onsight up a powerful bulge I went on to onsight a 7a+, 6c+ and a 7b+ before finishing with a lap of an 8a that I have wired from previously working it. Caroline returned to work on her project and managed to make instant progress on her previous highpoint – result! Sunday I decided to take a break from trying Bloque as I felt I was getting limited returns from it. The lower half isn’t hard enough to get a pump going anymore and the crux is just so damn fingery and specific. With the cold wind biting I was hesitant to go snatching from crimp to crimp on the crux so instead revisited a neighbouring route that I had a quick play on before – Ex-Pat, 8a+. The top of this wee beasty is what put me off working it. The route starts up a couple of small tufas which steepen rather quickly to about a 45/50 degree angle and lead to a crux snatch to a crimp from some poor footers. Once you stick that and paste your feet back on it’s a match and snatch again; this time with the left. From here it’s just very sustained pocket pulling and the angle remains constant. Just below the lip of the overhang there are two decent four finger 1.5 pad jugs to clip from and maybe chalk up off before the final big move to the lip and a combination of slopey and sharp holds and a poor heel hook get you established on the upper wall. Toping out you feel like you’ve been climbing, put it that way (well I do at least). I gave this thing one quick working to the chains and one redpoint and managed to string the whole thing together very quickly, falling off the last hard move on the lip – mega psyched to do this and then return to playing on Bloque. Tuesday evening after work we when out again – this time all the keenness in the world couldn’t help the tiredness. I don’t know why but since Christmas we’ve both been exhausted. We tried to pick up our usual running and climbing routine but we just keep having relapses of this feckin lurgy or whatever. Energy levels seem low and it’s the classic catch 22 – I know I should rest but I hate resting and want to be doing something (preferably something that improves my fitness and climbing!). Ahh well…

Rest day today and shopping needs to be done. The tooth is better – no pain at all and I’m loving it! At some point the beastmaking will have to be up’ed a notch and the laddering too. I must drink more water and do more pushups. I see on the net that Neal is training hard for Siurana, Sharma is blogging, Paul Robinson continues to crush, Ondra working a new 9b in Siurana, Tom Bolger has sent 9a+ and onsighted 8b+, Doylo is developing new crags in North Wales and in lovely Wicklow boulderers are bouldering. 2011 seems to be in good order so far… nice!

VIDEO PROFILE: Paul Robinson bouldering in Switzerland from Black Diamond Equipment on Vimeo.

ADAM ONDRA - Working Golpe de Estado in Siurana from BERNARTWOOD on Vimeo.