Bounceback

It’s funny when you are feeling wasted how the little hole you’re in seems much deeper than it actually is. Since Freida arrived last week, my non-climbing life has been fantastic. The best it’s ever been, despite the adjustments and sleep deprivation. But the importance of my climbing life doesn’t just go away. It doesn’t change at all, in fact.

I used to think it was psychologically dangerous to be dependent on my lifelong habits of the outdoors, exercise and training I do through my climbing. As time went on I realised this was silly. I think eventually it becomes a part of of you that is hardwired. And thats fine. It is amazing it takes 30 odd years to realise it’s ok to be yourself!

Naturally, I’ve put a lot of thought, work and planning into how to balance my climbing and non-climbing life. I’m certainly not perfect at it let me tell you. But I have been doing this all my adult life and it’s worked out well so far. Some of this is really practical basic stuff - having a top-notch climbing wall next door to the nursery, living in the heart of the places I want to climb and having a flexible work schedule to take advantage of good conditions. These are the key ingredients for sure, and maybe the hardest to secure - over a decade of hard work for me. The others are more subtle.

Yet despite the planning, I did get the fear last week after having several absolutely crap training sessions in a row. Sure, they were performed in a haze of sleepiness, but was tiredness really all it was? And even if so, is that it for the foreseeable? I could see, for about a nano second, while falling off a ridiculously easy circuit the other night, how someone could give in to tiredness and permanently lower their expectations in order to avoid such disappointment. I thought previous experiences might insulate me from this weakness. But it’s amazing how being knackered lowers your guard.

All very gloomy. Until it wasn’t... All that was needed was a little extra sleep. It’s being grabbed an hour here, an hour there. But add it up to a critical level and lo and behold, the performance returns. This week maybe I’m getting to grips with the new routine of snatched naps. And all of a sudden tonight the power returned to my arms like magic and I clawed my way up a couple of my hardest creations on the wall. I forgot how well the body adapts and bounces back to change. What a lift!

Yes Yes I know how silly this post might read to someone who doesn’t share the same addiction to training. And I know the challenges for me are nothing compared to Claire right now. But everyone has to have something to keep them keen. And for me it’s this. I’d rather go without food for a week than training. Since this is primarily a climber’s blog, I’m just going through the little ups and downs that go on while in the bubble of the climbing session. But once it’s done, I take off my rockshoes and go back to the important stuff - Claire and Freida!

Freida MacLeod arrives

On Tuesday, our daughter Freida MacLeod was born. Claire and I are over the moon. Last night, we came home from hospital after a rough week for Claire and all MacLeods promptly passed out for a much needed sleep, not that it lasted.

A healthy chubster at 8lb, 3 ounces, I wonder what adventures are coming her way in life, with a mum who jumps out of planes for fun and a dad who climbs cliffs and generally lives life in the elemental outdoors and mountains. I’m certainly happy that we’ve been able to get to where we are in time for her arrival - a house that is surrounded by nature to grow up in. It’s really lucky, for all of us. 

An extra cup of tea was certainly in order before the days training session today. But I don’t think I’ll ever suffer from lack of focus to fire off a bleary eyed training session. The highs of watching a new life arrive certainly reawaken the sense of need to get the most out it. Baby bouncer bolts are placed in the roof of the climbing wall for a bit of bouncing and swinging when Freida is ready for it.

Asgard Jamming review

While on a rest day on a trip recently I watched the Asgard Jamming DVD and liked it so much I’ve been meaning ever since to get some copies in from the Favresse bros for the webshop. I got round to it!

I think even if you have no intention of ever climbing a big wall never mind walking 600km in a single trip just to get to Mount Asgard, you’ll find this film very entertaining. It’s certainly the best piece of big wall filming I’ve seen. It follows Nico and Oliver Favresse, together with Sean Villanueva, Stephane Hanssens and Silvia Vidal on a brilliant adventure to Baffin Island and after their epic approach, 11 days of fine looking climbing on the wall.

It totally reminds you why you go climbing, how much fun it can be and how exciting things can get when you really go for it. Nico’s looong whipper that you see the first half of in the trailer is great viewing. When not entertaining us with hardcore granite pitches, the mandolin toting Belgians are showing us how to have a party on a big wall in style and generally make a massive big wall look like 11 days cragging, except with a drop of justice underneath. Great stuff!

It’s in the shop here.

Training diary

Training was going damn great until today. A finger is hurting so hence I am writing instead of training today. In the last week I’ve been starting to experiment with having two sessions a day for the first time in over a year. I’ll need to introduce them gently!

My routine at the moment is a good couple of hours of shoulder and hip flexibility and end-range holding work to kick things off, then my usual injury rehab exercises (various), then get on the board. I’ve not managed to reproduce 100% of my best ever form about two months ago, but then I’ve been going at it quite hard with little rest, so I wouldn’t expect to anyway.

After a full boulder session it’s onto the circuits but I’m still in the early stages of these and not really had any gains to speak of. In six weeks time it should be different!

I’ve had a couple of days off training here and there, going winter climbing and going to some classes (more on that soon).

It’s been interesting last week to try pull-ups again this week. I’ve not really done a complete pull-up in over two years since I injured my elbow. But now they are almost completely better I thought it was safe to see how I was. WEAK! I can still do one complete one-arm on either arm, but well down on my PB of 5 before I got injured. It just shows that it’s not important for rock climbing, but I know I’m certainly weak on ice axes.

My short term priority is to improve my full crimp strength for my boulder project in Glen Nevis. My thumbs have always been really weak. I’ve got another 6 weeks or so until the boulder will be likely to be in condition. Ideally that means 30 sessions of hard crimping on the board between now and then. But things are never ideal as today has proved. I’ve just been writing about the messiness of ‘real life’ training on my training blog here.

I’m not expecting success on the boulder when the spring comes. It’s so hard for me that any progress will be brilliant. But although I’m not expecting success, I’m sure aiming for it! After that I’ll try and ramp up the endurance work to try a sport project I have - hard 9a. I’ve done the moves. F8c+ into a Font 8a/8a+. Maybe too hard? Let’s find out.

All I know is if I get a good run at these projects, the trad lines for summer will finally fall. The key to all this is maintaining that good base of uninterrupted training right now. Roll on tomorrows session..

First winter route of the season

Fine high pressure weather on Ben Nevis this week

Snow bunting enjoying the views and climbers sandwiches on the summit

Lovely morning in Observatory Gully

Ines leads off up an excellent thin ice slab on Triple X VIII, 8

With physio exercises commenced on my hernia I felt OK to try a day out winter climbing. So I teamed up with Ines Papert and Charly who are visiting Scotland and headed up the Ben. After a brief wander about with me pointing out various new route possibilites, we settled on a look at a new icy mixed line based on the summer route Rolling Stones.

Charly set off, getting past a slightly sketchy thin crux bulge and embarked on a long traverse above our heads. It looked tricky. It was kind of bold to second as well as lead after I (being last on the rope) took out the backrope runner at the start of the traverse.

Next up it was Ines’ turn and she headed off across a very thinly iced slab which looked great fun. Ines was looking very at home on the ice and we enjoyed following a lot more than the previous pitch.

Last up it was my turn and I joined Ian Small and Ian Parnell’s new route from last year, Faith Healer VIII,7 at the start of it’s crux pitch. The steep chimney was great fun and nice to be reacquainted with the absorption of winter leading again after ten months or so since I last wielded my ice tools on a mixed route.

Triple X, VIII,8 gave us three nice pitches and satisfied an urge to open a new line on this nice little face that I’d spied while wandering about near Echo Wall in the past.

The line of Triple X

Next day it was back in action on the bouldering front. I managed to do the crux move on my highball project in Glen Nevis again which is getting me excited. I feel like I have a good sequence for most of it now and all I’m needing is a few more kgs worth of raw crimping strength. Next week’s forecast looks good for concentrating on the crimping strength, rather than braving the storms...

Seismic shifts in Lochaber

My alarm had just gone off at 6am and I was working up to getting myself moving after another late night working till 2 when there was a bump in the night. Well, more of a shaking. As everything around us started to shake more and more, we looked at each other and Claire was the first to come out and say “Is that an earthquake!?”

A bit of vibration was all it was and it took the BBC news later on to confirm it was indeed an earthquake of 3.4 magnitude. Their news report said some peoples cats around Lochaber had gone mad. Ours wasn’t fussed at all, but I’m not sure what that says about the cat...

On Carn Mor Dearg yesterday with the Mountain Equipment winter skills course.

May be spared the knife?

The consultant reckons I have an internal oblique tear but the damage is in the muscle belly or MT junction, so I may yet be spared surgery. Good news, although I’m not 100% convinced he’s right. For now at least it’s an all clear to try some winter climbing and see how I get on. 

Meanwhile I still feel good in training, although cabin fever is reaching breaking point. It’s amazing how daily exposure to the outdoors and empty spaces becomes so hardwired it drives you quite nuts in even the most temporary withdrawal from it. I sometimes say in lectures that I love training so much that if I was somehow restricted to only climbing on my board I wouldn’t mind too much. Hmmm, maybe that’s not true after all! It’s nice to know that a balance of both keep mind and body healthy.

That said, aside from the finger strength gains, the time at home has been great to get everything in order for the coming year. It’s so true that if you don’t take time to sort stuff out and get organised, it tends to get in the way later on when you need to be in full focus. 

I'm an obsessive type and cant stand to leave things unfinished unless it's unavoidable (hence I have a respectable ticklist in redpointing). But that's only half of it. I remember listening to the Forum's 60 second ideas to improve the world while driving down Glenfinnan and one related very strongly with me. It was to abstain from multitasking! I do my fair share of multitasking and occasionally it's totally the thing to do, such as when working with slow computers or mundane tasks. But most of the time, it actually slows everything down rather than adding efficiency. And usually, you end up with crap work into the bargain.

People often roll their eyes, or criticise my all or nothing, drop everything else approach. But I must say that every accomplishment I've made in my life has come via this approach. I'm addicted to it and have yet to find a better substitute for focus.

Mega training session

Yesterday we completed our journey home from my lecture in Shrewsbury and we were both feeling kinda knackered. But after two days enforced rest, mostly spent driving, I was in severe training withdrawal.

The rest had certainly allowed my body to bounce back from the previous long stint of daily training. I had my strongest session ever, climbing all my hardest problems on the board in one session. Three weeks ago, I was barely managing any of them. Brilliant. 

I gouged my finger open from a loss of concentration while going for a sharp hold and bled everywhere. Emerging from the boardroom at 1am half covered in blood seemed a fitting end to a mega training session. Bring on today’s session.

Evidence of improvement

With the crags looking drier I went out rock climbing for the first time in several weeks today, to my project next to Sky Pliot, Glen Nevis. I’ve totally enjoyed the past three weeks of focused training and writing. I feel like I already have a good base of strength for the coming year.

That project was ideal as a wee tester of how I was getting on after this little spell of uninterrupted training. At my strongest ever, in October 2009, I was getting up to the crux with difficulty, and could do the crux move in isolation a few times in a session. I had just done an intense month of training on my board then as well. But right as I was going my best I made a couple of training errors and got injured. I never went back to Sky Pilot, not feeling strong enough really.

I’m pretty sure the project is at least V14 and I know I need to be a few percentage points above that 2009 strength highpoint to be in with a chance. Most of 2010 was taken up with trad, partly because that just what I fancied doing, and partly because I was still struggling a bit with one or two injuries. I normally spent the whole autumn, winter and spring bouldering, but I only started in December this year.

But armed with the knowledge I’ve gained about elbow injuries from the past year of study and all the physio work I’ve done, I’m feeling able to train at full pace for the first time in over two years. I can’t tell you how nice it is to be limited by full body tiredness from training instead of going at the pace of injured tendons. It’s also great to be able to move with confidence too.

So today it was great to feel as strong as I’ve ever felt on the rock. On a few of the moves I maybe felt a little stronger than before. But nothing dramatic. I feel like I’ve just caught up my bouldering strength to where it was. More weeks on the board are needed. Days where you realise some real progress has been made are still the best.

Well excited.

Diagnosis, sort of

 Today I got up, drove a few hundred miles, saw the physio, then the doctor, dowloaded about 20 research papers and read various relevant chapters from the textbook tower. Stuff it. After the diagnosis I’m breaking open the Christmas biscuit tin from Marks and Spencers and necking a few cups of tea before I head into the wall for training.

As suspected over the last three weeks it seems likely I have annoyed/torn the aponeurosis of my external oblique. In other words a ‘sportsman’s hernia’. Damnit. Just a little niggling pain on cutting loose which disappears once warmed up. But I don’t want it getting any worse. And if the surgeon confirms it in a couple of weeks time I might need a wee bit of ‘invasive’ treatment involving knives, bits of polypropylene mesh and my abdominal wall. I’m going to bite the bullet and get a private consultation to make sure I get prompt treatment from the right person. They told me dourly on the phone to “bring my credit card” Gulp!

Causes? Who knows… Could have been the roof aiding mission in prep for the Great Climb. Could have been over energetic wood chopping, or heavy rucksacks, or training, or genes or whatever. Lessons for others - don’t let rectus abdominus (six pack) get too strong while neglecting the obliques. Don’t train when you’re knackered. Don’t carry three ropes and three racks up a mountain in one go. Chop wood like a samurai, not a caveman. Actually I’m sure even cavemen would be disgusted at my technical prowess with the splitting axe.

At least it’s still a small problem. I’m set on keeping it that way. I’ll let you know how it goes. In the meantime, I felt stronger on my board than I’ve ever done last night. All I need to do is keep my feet on and all is fine!