Climbing begins

Enjoying the chilled out finish of Austerity Lite (E6 6b) on the first ascent, Financial Sector, Neist Point, Isle of Skye. Photo: Chris Prescott/Hot Aches Productions

First post surgery route. Just a 6b at Brin Rock. It was raining, it was midgy, but it still felt great.

After a spell of climbing on my recovering foot on big footholds (and trainers) on my board, I graduated to putting my rock shoes on again. At first I just stuck to the board but I’ve now been on the rock as well.

Naturally it feels great to be climbing again. I have been noticing the extra strength from all the foot-off training too. There are some challenges still ahead though. My foot is weak and still a little sore on the odd move. Smearing on slabs is still requiring a bit of care, and I’m quite timid on jumps.

My outdoor sessions have only been the last week and so far I’ve been just doing mileage on easier bouldering up to 7B. Yesterday I went to Neist Point on Skye with Natalie. Nat made a fine lead of Piggy Bank (E3 5c), starting off in drizzle, finishing in full on rain. Just as we were packing up to leave, the clouds suddenly cleared and so I gave the arete left of Piggy bank a quick clean and led a new E6 6b, Austerity Lite. I wondered if it would feel kind of weird being on a trad sharp end, pulling on tiny crimps. But it was totally fine.

It is still difficult to hold back and be very gentle in my climbing, especially as I've been training myself to be explosive with the upper body with foot-off climbing for three months. During the next week I'm hoping I'll feel good enough to try something a little harder.

Alicia on the Ruthven Boulder

Nat starting off on a damp Piggy Bank E3 5c, Neist Point.

Going for the finishing jug on Potential 7, 7B, Torridon Boulders.

Campus notes

Dave MacLeod systemise campusing and 1-4-7 campus board from Dave MacLeod on Vimeo.

During my surgery rehab I have done a LOT of climbing without my feet. Unsurprisingly I have got a little stronger. I have been training more or less every day for 2-4 hours. Around half the work has been fingerboard and campusboard workouts. I’ve also done some foot-off bouldering on both small and big holds. 

Another big chunk of the time has been endurance circuits of around 30 moves, performed with one foot. I started off trying to do these foot-off, but the intensity was a bit high, so I’ve settled for one foot on but keeping my trainers on. I find that if I put on the rockshoe it feels too much like normal climbing and it torments me that I can't use the other foot. It will be interesting to see the effects of this training. On one hand, it’s still fairly ‘ugly’ climbing on one foot and therefore not great for improving your efficiency. On the other hand, sustained endurance terrain on powerful juggy terrain is a weakness for me, so it may have been useful. I’ll find out in due course.

The final big chunk of my time has been taken up with all the peripheral stuff that is A) not actually that peripheral, and B) normally gets missed. I’ve really improved many aspects of my core strength and arm strength and completed what rehab exercises I was able to do before getting to the full weightbearing stage.

I’ve been starting to use my foot progressively more on the board over the past few weeks now and getting pretty close to my resumption of outdoor climbing. I want to make a solid start to normal climbing, so I'm leaving it until I'm sure I can do that. As this gets close, yesterday I had a nice little milestone of getting 1-4-7 on my campusboard (small Metolius wood grips rungs, 22cm spaced). 

I have done almost no campusing for years now, Partly because the climbing walls I had access to when I moved away from Glasgow in 2007 didn’t have any, and then from 2008 after my elbows started to complain and I just stuck to climbing only.

When I built my new climbing wall last spring I included a campus board and used the small Metolius rungs which are a fair bit harder than the old S7 small rungs in the Glasgow Climbing Centre board I used to train on. I could do 1-5-8 on that one and 1-4-7 pretty easily. I stayed away from the new campus board last year while I built a level of resistance back up after the previous year without a board to train on while I was in the process of moving house.

Right after my surgery, at the end of March, I started to play on it gently at first, and progressively doing a little more each week. A couple of times I felt I’d overdone it and left it again for at least 5 days. In those early weeks, I couldn’t get near 1-4-7. So to be able to do it now is a clear strength gain. You don’t get too many of those after 20 years climbing!

My experience of really dedicated spells of fingerboard or similar organised strength training is that apart from the initial few weeks of rapid gains, the gains you make are so small they can be hard to notice, especially if you are fit enough to train every day and so not coming to the board in a fully rested state. The time you notice it is generally months down the line, when you have had time to go and integrate those new strength gains into your technique on the rock. 

So bring on the projects, the time is just around the corner!

davemacleod.com shop summer sale

In a first for the davemacleod.com shop, we are doing a summer sale with healthy discounts of 50-75% on lots of our climbing DVDs and clothing. Some examples:

Echo Wall and Longhope DVDs now £5. The BBC Great Climb on Sron Ulladale (first ascent of The Usual Suspects E9 7a with Tim Emmett) now £10. The Triple 5 DVD (5 first ascents between E5 and E8 on 5 Hebridean Islands in 5 days) now £10. Plus 50% discounts on some of our Mountain Equipment clothing.

Dispatching worldwide as always.