A measure of progress

The Ring of Fire

Decided after yesterdays washout that due to incredibly good weather i should reward myself with a sneaked couple of hours at Eskdale bouders instead of DIY. Decision made i grabbed my kit and was in the car in minutes. I then turned round after a few minutes as i had no shoes - or mat. More haste...

I've not been since 21st of Jan so i was keen to see how i was going to get on. I was actually a bit nervous as to whether those few weeks of grind have been worth it.

I started badly with a few warm up problems, not much oomph in the arms it would seem, but cracked them all off in the end. I also did the traverse of the diamond starting from the bottom left. No real difficulties on it (5) but a really nice 'just highball enough' problem. If that sequence was to be found half way up a crag it'd be a 3* route.

The main point of the session was to see how my fitness was on a pumpy traverse called the Lipster. It goes at V4 and when i did it in Jan it took a few goes and had me pumped out to the max. With a quick check of the sequence i dropped into the sit start and ploughed through it in one. I got to the end and could have gone round again. No pump but a little struggle pulling through the crux move round the corner.

Good news: Real progress has been made in my strength endurance

Bad news: I haven't managed my strength well enough and have definitely lost some

Good news: I've got a strength phase starting next week

It's almost as if i have a plan.

I picked up a new project for the medium to long term. The Ring of Fire an awesome 7A traverse ( but feels WAY harder to me ) all the way round a block. It's strong, technical, pumpy and i am no-where near doing it. I reckon if i can get fit/strong enough to do that then 7b routes will start falling - he says before he's even done a 7a.

Decided on The Arete at Bees as my other project - 7A too but much more of a pure strength and finger test.

Bring it on. The psyche is back !