climbdaddyclimb

Being a tightwad I thought it worth a punt on this stuff to see if I could prolong the lifespan of my shoes especially as daylight was just beginning to penetrate. Not good for repairs but could be used for other purposes. Could maybe modify some clothing / ice tool handles. Not sure of the ethics there though. The instruction video from 5.10 really shows this stuff being applied to enhance the toe of the shoe for jamming into cracks and the like which probably works quite well but for patch repairs it doesn’t really work.

Before

Thought this might be salvageable as the seam was just starting to expose.

Paint applied

Bit tricky applying this stuff and I wasn’t totally convinced of it’s integrity if I was toeing a small edge as the patches did not set hard like the existing rubber around them.

After a good days climbing at Bowden

As you can see the repair rubbed off pretty quick when subjected to some proper punishment so not worth it in my opinion. Better off adding another £18 quid and getting your shoes re-rubbered.

On the plus side the highlight of my day at Bowden was a flash of Stretcher Wall E1 5c. That beats my previous HVS 5c best at Bowden and that was my first trad of the season so pretty psyched for more now.

Finally the planets aligned and I got my first 7A this morning. Got on the route with John Coltrane playing in my head. First time I’ve ever climbed in a dream state. Weird. Before I knew it I was clipping the chains without having made a single error and wondering why it felt so effortless. Really wanted to climb this perfect and not thug my way up it so well pleased with the style. Finished the session with a very close flash on another 7a and a 6c onsight. Great morning. Now I can relax and enjoy my holidays. Thank fook!

Currently about 1 hand move and a heel hook from the chains of glory. Annoyingly close. It’s gotta go!

or it’s gonna be

Moving into the ‘peak’ phase of the plan this week. Time for the money shot! Over the last few weeks I worked up to a fatigue peak and have then reigned myself in by lowering the volume and increasing the intensity. Basically tapered down in preparation for the peak phase. Had a great session with Mark McGowan (Reach Climbing) on Thursday evening. Focused on tactics – specifically on rest points and pace of climbing. Got a few technical points worked out which I hadn’t been totally happy with. The result was that today I came very close to sending my project route and did far better than I expected. On Thursday night I felt pretty far away from sending the route but today I felt really close. Pretty crazy change over 3 days. Good decisive tactics showing their worth. Really psyched to get this sent on Wed night now!

Almost 6 weeks exactly after my latest injury I am feeling no pain in the flexor tendon when climbing. I’ve also engaged Mark McGowan for coaching and have just completed the first two weeks of a six week dual factor training plan. It’s taken a couple of weeks to trust my hand but I had quite an aggressive session on Wed night and it held up well. I’ve now lost about 3kg in weight since xmas and this is helping a lot. Pretty sure I can get to 75kg for week six of the plan. Feeling like a young Homer Simpson!

Spent a lot of time climbing very carefully whilst injured and my footwork and movement  is much better as a consequence. Strength feels pretty good to. As usual due to low climbing mileage my enemy is endurance but I’ve been back on the 45 board and getting some routes in and everything is on the right trajectory now.  Patience and hard work are the answer now and if I can avoid any further injury I’ll be able to finally make that 7a redpoint. I think I know almost every stretch known to man/woman now.

So I suffered a flexor unit strain of the ring finger on my right hand in my very last session before Xmas. Seems to be a very common injury but not a lot of concrete info for rehab. Dave Mac’s blog providing about the most useful info. Lucky for me I was away for two weeks over xmas and that my wife’s best pal is a physio in Germany. I did the whole ice (lewis reaction) thing and I believe that it helped a bit although it did nothing for the actual pain it did seem to help the mobility of ring and middle fingers in the week after. Didn’t really bother with drugs as there was no obvious swelling or pain when at rest. My wife’s pal gave my arm a good working over with trigger point massage stuff from the finger right through into the forearm. Difficult to know if this helped but after a couple of days and another session I felt I was able to apply more pressure on my fingers before the pain made itself known. Along with this I’ve been doing a lot of gentle stretching of the fingers/hand/forearm.

Really though, I suspect the key element has been rest but it’s good (for me anyway) to feel like I’m doing something positive.

So – feeling much better and quietly optimistic that the injury is not too bad I got out to Ratho yesterday – thorough warm up – cold finger defo equals more pain. Got the tape out and buddy taped the ring and middle fingers.

Warm up routes revealed big jugs ok but no hanger wall routes for the time being. If holding the jug required twisting the wrist a bit I could feel mild discomfort (suspect the ring finger being shorter felt the additional stretch more) Undercuts required a little caution and the worst discomfort definitely felt when open handing a shallow 3 finger saucer shaped hold – tried to approach every hold with a view to getting all 4 fingers on as this meant least pain.

I felt confident enough to carefully try getting onto a 7a for the first time in quite a while. As I suspected it felt hard but good and I got my butt kicked. Picked a route with decent holds and not too aggressive a gradient. It will be a worthy opponent over the coming weeks.

Got home and iced the hand and belly of the forearm (doing twice daily) and today it felt no worse than before the climbing. Excellent! Not pain free but no worse! I’m hoping the active rehab stage will put it onto the right track now. Many of the stories online and there are plenty, advise caution as still feeling pain 12 months down the line – zoiks – it’s a difficult injury to treat and manage.

My other strategy is to get down to racing weight to minimise the forces being borne by my digits and really focus on careful, controlled foot and hand placements – (no nasty shock loads)

My aim is too overcome this and actually be stronger and lighter coming out the other side.  Good opportunity to work other weaknesses.

Back out at Ratho on Monday night with a very patient and most likely, very cold Mark McGowan. The point of this session was to redpoint a 6C line up the competition wall which I’ve been working for a couple of weeks with Mark’s guidance. Conditions were much improved compared to Friday night – no waterfall on my route After some warming up and two failed attempts I managed to nail it on the final attempt. Felt so good.

Best nights climbing for ages! Feels like a long time passed without much success. So – totally psyched to get back onto 7a now and attention turns immediately to a good looking blue line on the comp wall.

Very grateful to Mark who has really opened my eyes as to how to climb better tactically. I believed that  my tactics were not too bad but in reality they were almost non-existent.  A lot of it seemed so obvious but the result spoke for itself. Lesson learned. Only bummer was I strained something in my right hand but after cold water treatments feels much better already. Got 10 days in Germany to rest on the horizon so all good.

Also my pal Grant Wilson (Prolific Scottish Fantasy Artist) has been busy attempting to make reality some of my fantasys about climbing on Mars. I’m sure there’s plenty of unclimbed lines left on earth but, you know, it’s good to have a bit of ambition.

Really enjoying climbing just now. Reading, musing and plotting goals for the new year. It’s become quite apparent lately (with Mark McGowans help) that my tactics have been quite pish and a lot of the effort I was putting in previously was not being fully harnessed. A bit like a poorly insulated house. I think I needed a bit of a kick in the pants and Mark has got me psyched up again. Was at Ratho on Friday night but conditions were somewhat grim -- A small waterfall running right down the 1st third of the white 6C on the hanger wall which I had arrived to redpoint that night. Holds were uber greasy and some had water in them, and a few clips actually soaked my hand. I still managed to get within a couple of moves of the end but it was interesting stuff -- I’m not sure I’d climb in that outdoors! On the plus side all the work I’ve been doing at home has definitely started to yield reward. Felt much stronger and much better control. Focusing on my footwork and hand placements is starting to bed in and taking bigger rests has been really making a difference. I think when you only get out to do routes once per week the tendency is to be greedy and cram in as many as possible. Cool the jets a bit and greater things will be achieved.

Got another fun session of PE in with Rosco at home today. Playing ‘add on’.

Seeing as my street resembled Siberia and no prospect of getting out to Ratho I spent the evening doing some power endurance on the board of doom. The baby you can hear crying in the background had just woken up and was hungry. No babies were neglected during the filming. My baby was with my wife.

I’ve been working up to the moment to commit myself to serious training again. Confess that I was pretty pooped after the last stint and it was quite good to take it a bit easier for a while. However, due to enforced lay off this taking it easier got out of hand. For the past few weeks I’ve been tagging along with Rosco (The Dude) and John trying to get some stamina back again but the scattergun approach to training is no good and I need to work on my own needs. I have been fortunate enough to be offered some personal coaching from Mark McGowan and spent a very cold, but very excellent evening climbing with him. Brilliant to get some new honest perspective and have identified some key areas to work on.

1 – Slow down my foot placements on approach, improve the accuracy as a result and really pull in with toes. (I had been trying to place fast and accurate)

2 – Mark noticed I have a tendency on a reachy move to crank down quite hard on the hold I was moving from with a bit of jerk and thus expend more energy than required. Focus now to really apply much greater degree of control when making these moves. Hands to be moved and placed cleanly and crisply. (suspect I have been trying to overcompensate for my own perceived lack of reach)

3 – Tactics – Mine have always been to get stuck in to the route and climb until total failure come what may. Method now is to break down the route into sections – get them wired – reduce the sections and then prepare for the redpoint. The time to apply my former tactical approach is on the redpoint.

4 – Due to enforced inactivity and being a greedy bastard I have gained about 3 kilos since last training phase – This will now be sorted in short order. (Back on eating home made rye bread with peanut butter most days – yayyyy!

Mark was reassured me that my general climbing is in quite good shape and that I’m not too far away from achieving my 7A redpoint. Now begun training on my new 45 board in my attic (see pic above). Savage stuff but exactly what I need. Trying not to overdo it but – it’s right there in my sitting room dude.  At least now I can significantly increase my weekly mileage. Loving it! Also awesome to get sooo many holds of the guys at Ratho (cheers Buzz). Saved me a large wad of cash!