New cycle begins

Gaz Marshall on Strongbow V7, Laggan (classic problem!)

The sprint to the finish line on Seven of Nine seems to have left me feeling rather burnt out. Or has it? For the past five days I’ve felt unexpectedly lethargic, sleepy and ineffective at more or less anything.

Time for a change of scenery. Almost every year I get a few days in both May and September when this happens. Whether it’s down to the change of season, natural cycles of training or something else, who knows. It doesn’t matter. It only lasts a few days and then I usually feel good again. This morning I woke up feeling normal again and psyched to start the routes season after yesterday’s false start.

After sessions at Laggan, running laps on Sky Pilot for Cubby’s camera and then a day of failing miserably to climb anything at Tunnel Wall, I can see it’s time to phase out the boulders and start getting pumped on routes. I’ve got 6 weeks to get in shape for the start of the route project period. I’ll start off with a bit of Tunnel Wall and Steall, and then hopefully a bit of tradding. It’ll be interesting to see how quick the transition from strong to fit goes.

Nice unclimbed overhang

Boulder hunting

Laggan outlook

Tunnel Wall and the Coe

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Seven of Nine

Seven of Nine V14

I still can’t believe the Sky Pilot project went down last night! I was buzzing so much I was unable to go to bed until 5 am, and lay wide-eyed until Freida burst into life at 7. The crucial difference after all those sessions? Several small but crucial ones.

First, I had genuinely detached myself from expectation of success. When it’s at your limit, time and time again this seems to be crucial for realising true focus of energy at the right moment, free of interference from the conscious. I read with interest Chris Sharma’s comments about also having to re-learn this lesson over again during his recent project victory at Margalef. I find that in order to achieve this state, it’s impossible to focus on ‘not being attached to success’. I’m not sure you can think in negatives like this easily, if at all. Rather, I found that focusing completely and exclusively on enjoying the effort, movement and routine of each and every attempt, that I could relax and begin to really climb.

Second, I went back to the sequence. No matter how well you think you know the holds and the moves, when it’s limit and your a hair’s breadth from success, there is nearly always something new to find after going back to basics with the sequence. In this case a simple change in order of foot movements and a tweak of timing tipped it my way.

Lastly, I’d clocked up the necessary hours to be all over it. Daily training for several hours, careful diet, careful rest, careful thinking over time and the destination finally appeared.

Nothing new here, but still important.

Cubby climbed the original route here ‘Sky Pilot’ (E5 6b or these days a very highball V5) in 1981. He also tried the project a decade or so later, but didn’t do the moves. He was the catalyst for me looking at it, telling me it would be a brilliant short solo and hard compared to other short routes in the UK -  harder than Hubble, which he had done the moves on. 

It’s a funny climb, somewhere between a highball and solo. I certainly wasn’t at all keen on falling off above the crux, and had to go all out to avoid doing just that. Grade wise I don’t have much to compare it to since I haven’t bouldered much for a couple of years, except that it’s definitely harder than any of the V13s I’ve done and seems harder than some V14s I've played on a good while ago now. Or is it? I’m not sure if it’s my style or not. 

Anyway, what a great feeling to be able to pull hard on holds and do some training again for the first time in a couple of years. A big milestone for me..

A little video below from my compact propped on a stone of the first ascent and another new line just right of Sky Pilot:

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New horizons

Anna enjoying Sky Pilot bouldering

Spooky forest

One of hundreds - no joke

Straight out of Switzerland

Cave of granite crimps - yesterday’s prize

Progress on my project has been up and down. I got past the main crux another three times and felt like it was right there, only to fail convincingly on the next move every time. It’s well hard. And sadly, now it’s too hot. Today it was 19 degrees and it felt like I was climbing it with a rucksack on. And that’s despite feeling super fit from daily projecting or running. I’ve not had a rest day in three weeks though, so we’ll see if a day off will fill the tank again. 

To adjust on the sloper or not, that is the question… On the rope it feels slightly easier but uses a lot of energy that I maybe don’t have on the redpoint. But then I keep failing without the adjustment. A dilemma to ponder on the next run.

My runs have been great. On the past two, I’ve found more unclimbed crags and boulders than I could climb in a lifetime. Just endless new lines to do. It’s amazing! All of them are within 30 miles of my house. Only problem is that a good chunk of that is walking in some of the most remote glens in the highlands. Hence they have remained undeveloped by climbers. Could do with a bike/boat/helicopter. 

I could go on about caves full of flakes and crimps, 50m high overhanging crags lining the glen, perfect gneiss, hard granite, lovely views… Hopefully I can get to climb some of them soon and I’ll show them off.

Maybe yesterday’s run was a little overcooked. I had a time limit to be back home for engagements with the girls. My quest for the granite boulders took me 5 minutes over my turn-back time and as I turned to run the 6 miles back the savage headwind hit me. I nearly face planted on rubber legs as I got back to the car.

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Highpoint and psyche regained

Another good session on the project. I got past the crux again which totally regained the psyche, which had been suffering after the last four sessions. I was totally unable to execute my beta for the move after, and fell straight off. So that’s cool - I’m pretty sure it’s hard. I’m back to thinking maybe it’s too hard for me. That last hard move on the link feels just nails, even though I feel really strong on all my warm-ups. At least I learned something new about a mistake I was making on the crux. Tomorrow it’s back to running and resting.

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Consistently not good enough

Today was the third session in a row of things just not being quite right for making progress on the project. Well, really I have made progress as a subtle change of beta should help tip the balance in my favour if I can get past the crux again. But the last time I managed that was about 18 attempts ago now! I feel close to doing the move every single time. Consistency is good except when it's consistently not good enough.

For a collection of reasons I’ve been a couple of percent less strong. Bad skin, and just not feeling quite as steely as before for whatever reason have been the main problems. Another thing I’ve realised is that I’ve actually started to introduce some new errors unwittingly, by trying to control it too much. 

I’ve been convinced I need to pull as little as possible on the holds to save all the energy I can for the crux move. But it seems I’ve overdone it and caused myself some problems for getting my body set up in the right position for the big move. The last couple of sessions have been a little frustrating as the easier ground above seemed so close but now seems like it might still be unreachable. I’m hoping now I’ve got over this I’ll be better placed to just concentrate on focusing completely on the moves and nothing else.

Man, my arms are a mess after today. Tomorrow; running.

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April Showers, Scottish style

Fresh snow on Sgurr a’ Mhaim yesterday

As predicted the west of Scotland deluge has been pounding Glen Nevis. Cubby and I squinted out of the car window just long enough for an eyeful of rain and sleet and sacked it off. But on the way home the end of the first front arrived, so I hung back and read my book for a bit and then walked in. Unbelievably the severe gales had seemingly blown a lot of the rain over the top of the crag and my project was mostly dry. As the sun came out I felt good and started trying to warm up.

Today’s excuse quickly emerged from this. ‘warming up’ was not possible. The snowline was dropping with each shower that went through and the wind tunnel effect through the overhanging crag was doing great for drying it but sucking every bit of body heat out of me. I still had 7 good tries to the crux and feeling strong. But ‘glassy’ skin from the icy wind and numb fingers, together with a glassy crux sloper are not a good mix and I just couldn’t stick it. Rests between goes were spent cowering from wild blizzards of hail and snow passing through and chasing after mats and jackets picked up by the gale.

Returning home I felt totally wrecked once again. Once on the couch I couldn’t move. Before the evening was out I noticed a ligament in my knee getting progressively more painful after a bad landing on one attempt. Not sure what’s going on there yet..

Such is projecting. I’m close enough to only need one really good attempt. So I should keep the warpaint on. I think the continuing downpours will have the last word for now though. I’m expecting it’ll be wet until at least next week. So the debate is whether to go back to the board to try and top up strength levels. Or should I rest and be ready in case the rain isn’t so bad??

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New wall in Oban

Checking the new climbs at Atlantis, Oban

Had a fun day working in Oban setting problems at the new bouldering wall in Oban at the Atlantis centre. The wall was built by the hard work machine that is Scott Muir and his company Dream Climbing Walls. He’s the only man I know that could give Tim Emmett a run for his money in terms of sheer overflow of physical energy. 

Modern climbing walls still amaze me - they are so good! It’s great how an intricate design of tapering or expanding shapes influence the constraints for setting really interesting moves. I guess the more experience you have as a climber, and especially as a route setter, the more you appreciate this. 

There is so much room for movement variety in climbing though, and for personal tastes. I’m not sure if it’s because I climb outside a lot and digest a lot of varied, undulating surfaces, but I’m often a fan of large areas of flat panels on climbing walls. I guess it’s just a nice change. The Oban wall is the best designed wall I’ve set on that has a complex shape. It’s weird - sometimes the shapes just don’t seem to work for making aesthetic climbing moves. This one does though! Looking forward to going back for my coaching sessions there soon. 

Much as the setting day was great fun, it did my head cold caught the day before no good at all. So it’s an extra rest day today before I’m back at Sky Pilot. Cubby reckons it’ll be soaking after the deluge, but I’ll show up anyway, armed with towels and ready for a training session on it..

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Within a move

Holding the crux. A good feeling

Right now I’m totally locked on with my highball project in the glen. Progress has been superb and It’s gone from a distant prospect to feeling very possible in a short time, thanks to all that training. It’s really at my limit though, so I have to accept that every good session might be the best before I lose ground. It doesn’t matter - I’m enjoying trying, a lot.

It’s only when really committed in a die hard way to a project that the windows open up to learning new things. It surprises me that the learning doesn’t stop even though I’ve been here before - maximally motivated, maximally stretched and close to both success and failure all at the same time.

It’s good for me to experience this on a hard boulder line for the first time in a few years - the levers of progress are so different from what I’m used to. Over the past two years, I’ve not really been able to train as I’d like due to injury, so most of my climbs have been trad. I missed hard bouldering and hard boulder training intensely, and have relished the last four months of it. The past three sessions on the project have been the culmination of it. Last session, I held the crux sloper. Tonight, I touched the next hold. If I hold that, I’m on terrain where I would only fall If I made an stupid error, which is just as well as it’s getting into soloing territory up there!

On a boulder, so much extreme effort and focus is distilled into millisecond adjustments of movement and timing. There is very little room for finding what’s necessary during the climb itself. This is the land of the intuitive. Recording that you’ve made a movement decision only just keeps up with actually making the movement. Conscious thought is way too slow and clunky. But it’s not intuitive adjustment out of thin air. It’s adjustment of a model of how the move should go, and how the effort should be timed and focused that’s been refined hundreds of times in your mind. At the level where the real enjoyment comes, it’s a heuristic process of visualisation; you don’t always know why something is right, you just feel like it will be.

To illustrate this blog post, I scrolled through the video of the attempt, shot on my compact propped on a stone. Looking through it, frame by frame, it hit me that I have a record of several movement decisions in my mind’s recording of the move, for every frame of video. 30 frames/sec is too slow! How great is it that movement on rock is so subtle, and that the mind is so expertly geared up to analyse and refine it. You can see how it gets addictive eh?

Hopefully I have the program sussed for that final hard move, and weather, and muscles allow me to get back to it in a few days time.

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Homing in

Best session yet on my highball project in Glen Nevis today. Wow it felt nice to be able to get up to that crux again, and this time have space to attack the move. Trouble was I think I need a session of getting used to falling from there so I can focus properly on sticking that sloper. Thankfully I seemed to be missing the boulder in the landing zone and rolling in the grass. 

It didn’t help that I left a mat stashed at the crag from yesterday but someone had nicked it. I think a backwards fall onto that boulder could be a rib breaker without at least 4 pads. It’s a bit too much of a trek for 2 trips or carrying that many from the road. It sucks that you can’t leave a pad overnight well covered with rocks without someone nicking it. You always hope climbers wouldn’t do it. They even took the foot towel out of it and left that behind.

Tomorrow I’ll have a day of prep for the next session. Come on!! Time to home in and get down to proper battle. Still no idea if it’s realistic for me. I’ll only know once I stick the sloper if the next move isn’t totally impossible on the link. It feels limit for me on the rope, just having pulled on at the crux. Soloing Sky Pilot next door I realised that falling on the British tech 6b territory above the crux is not an option. I’m not sure how I feel about going for it if I linked through the crux when there by myself. But then, you’d have to, wouldn’t you?

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Must get light

Two frustrating but still good days on my highball Glen Nevis project lately. A persistent split tip is demanding a break from tiny sharp crimps, just when conditions are getting brilliant. Nevertheless, I worked out some more sequence tricks and feel my arms and fingers have reasonable power. There’s only one ingredient left really - must make my body lighter. It’s getting close to time to switch from training to performance mode.

Hey, I’m still nowhere near doing the thing. But I can see that I could be. Time to focus. For now, it’s laps on the board with split fingers taped. 

The moves feel brilliant - I can see they are starting to flow. I know I’m climbing them close to as well as I can, it’s just pure strength-weight ratio on the crux move now.

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