Projects and Trips.

Its always good to have a project or a trip. Something to aim for makes the boredom of training worth it. Its always better if its a big trip, its easy to train harder and if you have fun along the way with good friends all the better!

To explain better I've booked flights to Boston in Janurary. I'm going here!

Cathedral Ledge, New Hampshire.

So motivation wise I'm doing pretty well. I've a big trip planned, all be it for two weeks. The flights are booked so I'm committed. Its in the States so its far enough away that I really want to make the most of it.

I'll be staying with Bayard who I met on the BMC meet nearly two years ago now in Scotland. I defiantly didn't think at the time that it who have such an impact on my life in terms of the climbing opportunities that have appeared and the people I met then that I keep running into.

Bayard on Daddy Long Legs, Northern Corries.

On the training side of things I've been to the wall a few times (boring) and I've been drytooling a bit. The quarries is as ever not very exciting but I've also been to White Goods twice this season.

The first session went well, warmed up on the wall on the right and got fairly high on Jaz first go with lots of beta from Si Frost and Dave Almond. I'm not sure I was really taking in all the detail Dave was giving me hanging on pumped stupid trying to lock off on a flat edge!

This weekend saw my second session at White Goods for the annual (this is the second time it has been on) White Goods meet organised by Dave Garry. A good crowd was there and the highlight of my day was an onsight of a deceptively steep M6+ on the right hand end of the cave. Defiantly a great route for getting used to torquing!

Si Frost going for axe retrieval.

With a few faces from the BMC meet I hadn't seen in two years and the meet based out of a pub Saturday night went sideways fairly quickly. I managed to fall off my warm up on Sunday two clips up and nearly fell again clipping the chains. Instead I managed to strain my shoulder and hang on, pull up and clip to finish.I was defiantly trying to climb it like in the quarries instead of using the sometimes delicate technique required. Oh and I was very hungover. I can confirm that alcohol defiantly affects performance! I only scared the crap out of poor Megan in the process. Still no one got hurt!

And failing!

I decided to feel ill for a while and watched Ramon establish Careful Torque a new M11 traverse of the lip of the main cave. It was really impressive to watch and defiantly has me psyched to train harder. It was a great event and I'm defiantly psyched to try a few of the harder lines. It was also great to meet some new people and catch up with some old friends.

Ramon on Careless Torque.

I've been sticking in a few runs recently and tonight myself, John, Sophie and Ruth headed up the Pyg track and down the Miner's path. It was moonlit on the way back and I managed to run without a torch! It is also getting very cold. I had been tricked into thinking that we were going for a short jaunt around the lake. Needless to say I was woefully under dressed and under equipped for a run in the hills up to 800m. An hour and a half and one mild case of hypothermia later I can confirm that its getting cold and trying to snow up high!! Winter is coming and I'm getting excited!