Funny Email and quite topical

THE DIARY OF AN ENGLISHMAN LIVING IN THE HIGHLANDS

"Our First Winter"

DEC 20th It's starting to snow. The first of the season and the first we've seen for years. The wife and I took out our hot toddies and sat on the porch watching the fluffy soft flakes drift gently down clinging to the trees and covering the ground. It's so beautiful and peaceful.

DEC 24th We awoke to a lovely blanket of crystal white glistening snow covering as far as the eye could see. What a fantastic sight, every tree and bush covered with a beautiful white mantle. I shovelled snow for the first time ever and loved it. I did both our driveway and the pavement. Later that day a snowplough came along and accidentally covered up our driveway with compacted snow from the street. The driver smiled and waved. I waved back and shovelled it away again. The children next door built a snowman with coal for eyes and a carrot for a nose, and had a snowball fight, a couple just missed me and hit the car so I threw a couple back and joined in their fun.

DEC 26th It snowed an additional 5 inches last night and the temperature dropped to around minus 8 degrees. Several branches on our trees and bushes snapped due to the weight of the snow. I shovelled the driveway again. Shortly afterwards the snowplough came by and did his trick again. Much of the snow is now a brownish - grey.
JAN 1st Warmed up enough during the day to create some slush which soon became ice when the temperature dropped again. Bought snow tyres for both our cars. Fell on my arse in the driveway. Went to a physio but nothing was broken.

JAN 5th Still cold. Sold the wife's car and bought her a 4x4 to get her to work. She slid into a wall and did considerable damage to the right wing. Had another 8 inches of white shite last night. Both vehicles are covered in salt and iced up slush That bastard snowplough came by twice today. Where's that bloody shovel.

JAN 9th More fucking snow. Not a tree or bush on our property that hasn't been damaged. Power was off most of the night. Tried to keep from freezing to death with candles and a paraffin heater which tipped over and nearly torched the house. I managed to put the flames out but suffered 2nd degree burns on my hands. Lost all my eyebrows and eyelashes. Car hit a fucking deer on the way to casualty and car was written off.

JAN 13th Fucking bastard white shite just keeps on coming down. Have to put on every article of clothing just to go to the post box. The little c*nts next door ambushed me with snowballs on the way back - I'll shove that carrot so far up the little bastard's arse it'll take a good surgeon hours to find it. If I ever catch the c*nt that drives the snowplough I'll chew open his chest and rip out his heart with my teeth. I think the bastard hides around the corner and waits for me to finish shovelling and then he accelerates down the street like Michael Schufuckingmacher and buries the fucking driveway again.

JAN 17th Sixteen more fucking inches of fucking snow and fucking ice and fucking sleet and god knows what other white shite fell last night. I am in court in 3 months time for assaulting the snowplough driver with an ice-pick. Can' t move my fucking toes. Haven't seen the sun for 5 weeks. Minus 20 and more fucking snow forecast.

JAN 18th FUCK THIS, I'M MOVING BACK TO LONDON

:o)

Note: I however still love the white stuff and "Snow Days" off school!!!

My Favourite

I’ve been going to our local climbing wall in Brymbo on and off for the last couple of years now. And I have come to love the Moon board. It has without doubt become my favourite angle to boulder and train on – pure genius! Fair dues to Ben, it’s a brilliant concept – a regulated board, hold spacings, angle and specific sets of holds specifically designed for the terrain. Some may argue that moon boards are elitist in some way but I think their pro’s greatly outweigh their cons. Being able to get problem ideas with grades from the moonclimbing website and set them yourself on your board – sharing your latest creation with a really wide audience and potentially getting feedback from climbers around the world. I have to admit I’ve never tried any problems off the website nor have I shared any of mine – but that’s just because I have never suffered from a creative drought while using the board! The holds are just perfect to pull on! Small yet finger friendly – and the angle... oh, the angle! Steep enough that you need a lot of tension but not so steep so that your feet become useless. I’ve found that with enough time and cunning even the most improbable moves become doo-able – and if they don’t yield to technique then you just need to get stronger! If I was building a board of my own and had the money – I’d build a 45 degree board to the specifications on the moon website and fill it with moon holds – spread a few jugs, slopers and pinches around for some variety and enjoy getting strong! The only thing is I don’t know how well it’s working – 10 weeks of easy training under the belt now and I feel strong and happy in my own world – but still very much in my own world. I invent a problem, work it, send it – know it’s harder than anything I’ve done before but don’t get a lot of feedback from others and have no idea how hard it actually is (and of course it’s set by me so it will suit me) – it’s a bit frustrating at times. I’ve started to record some problems like they do in the Dublin Co-ops using the grid system – hopefully some people will try them and I’ll get some feedback. Nick Dixon is running a improver class at the wall so I’ll see if he can be tempted onto the board – Wad!

The master plan

Heres the session planner in the Fringe room... not too much detail on this but it's good for seeing the overview and putting things into perspective. What has been done and how far (relatively) till the next trip!

2010

Hello out there!

Well as you can see from below, I tried taking the easy option to blogging by posting a few videos – but to be honest my 7 year old PC just can’t hack the video editing so I’m leaving that for now and thinking about getting back to some writing/rambling. I don’t really care if anyone’s out there reading anymore – in fact it’s kinda nice to think that theres not anyone reading it.

So – 2010 huh? Well it’s started with a bang already!

Lots has happened but why bore you and myself with trying to summarise every little detail of what has made up my life over the past couple of months – lets focus on my current state of mind… Training!!!

Font in October was a turning point methinks. I’ve been fully psyched ever since. Plus the route in Llanberris (E-whatever!) in September was a bit of a landmark for me too. Both events gave me wholly new experiences. The trad route gave me a glimpse of a non-reversible position and a “frozen time” moment during which I had to acknowledge that making or missing the next move would result in a serious accident or land me even further away from the deck without gear. It was strangely calming but brought an edge of seriousness into climbing that I’d never really felt before. It was an acid test of current confidence in my ability and I passed. I suppose every other route I’ve ever tried was totally safe – either the protection was sound – or the climbing was well within my ability. Font was my first pure bouldering trip and I loved it! Pure fun. But throughout the week I was continually assessing and comparing my climbing – what was I lacking, what did I do well, What am I shite at, can I fix this? It was fun, there was no agenda for problems, lots of things were tried and I had a taste of some success. Returning back to the UK and work and shite weather – I was ready to try training for the first time too.

All along I had been working towards getting into a position to allow training consistently and sustainably. Long months of building a climbing wall in my spare time for a local company had finally yielded dividends and I had a nice enough juggy systems board at my disposal – 1 min walk away and free! I already had the fringe board in the flat – at 35-40 degrees overhanging and populated with smallish holds it is perfect for short finger intensive sessions. And of course a trusty finger board – often hung from never used with any focus or plan…tisk, tisk! And finally, slight improvements in our financial situations put us in a place at last to be able to afford a weekly trip to a lead wall!!! Woo fricken hoo!!! Only 5 bleedin years later!

So the plan..

I was going to use 6 week periods to structure a phase based training plan. Each phase would build on the last with a focus on route fitness.

Phase 1 – 6 weeks (pre-Christmas) of letting the body know what it was in for. I wanted to regularly use each training venue/technique so that the body would adapt to it and not get too shocked when the training kicked in fully. Holding back but being consistent was the focus of phase 1. Mon and Wednesday were for short interval sessions on the 30 degree board – jugs only. Just enough to initiate a mild pump. Tuesday and Thursday were low reps on the fringe board – crimps only but just 5 moves – 10 times. Not even enough to feel like we’d done anything – but knowing what I know from past attempts to train I wanted to really give the body a long and gentle lead up – like acclimatising. Friday or Saturday was Awesome walls day – 10 leads each with no grade targets – just raw mileage.

Phase 2 – 6 weeks (post-Christmas). Training starts in earnest. Same weekly plan but proper sessions. Timed Stamina pyramids on jugs, longer crimp sessions on the fringe board and leading 8 routes in the 7th grade after a 2 route warm-up. Most sessions supplemented with a fingerboard session – 5 sets of 5 reps of 7 on 3 off (varying holds) – or pull-ups. Throughout this stretching and corework is introduced and the hammer twist and writs curls become a habitual preventative measure against chronic injuries and RSI. Also as a side note – I came back from Ireland after Christmas a massive 85kg!! The Doc telling me not to run due to back problems in November didn’t help there, let me tell ya… well with a little care and attention to diet and some stubbornness I’m back at 80kg 4 weeks later – averaging 1kg a week is sustainable I feel – 75kg would be a goal to hit before Siurana at Easter.

So that’s were we’re at! 12 days in Siurana at Easter during which I’d like to hop on an 8b just for laughs. Caroline is the most psyched I’ve seen her in years for climbing – I think she’d fancy 8a as soon as possible really and her training is building with mine nicely – still nothing you’d class as a mega arm busting session yet but it’s regular and sustainable and hopefully that’ll make a difference long term. The main goal is to be fit and healthy for 5 weeks in Ceuse this summer! If I can break under 75kg and keep training till then I wouldn’t have a clue what I’d be up for trying! But that’s a lot of “if’s” and the “when” is a while away yet too – for now lets just stay psyched and injury free and enjoy the climbing.

Fontainebleau Oct 2009

Sylphide from Dave Ayton on Vimeo.

We went to Font - it was awesome!