Green Shoots 13:08

After I'd scripted yesterday's rather depressing blog I sat down and had a serious think. I pondered whether I was talking myself in to retirement, I'd already decided that my climbing career was over as my professional career took off. I was mentally conditioning myself into thinking it was all over, done and dusted. As I sipped on a beer I heard a quiet 'ping' on my phone, a comment on my blog post:

'shut up and go climbing'

Exactly what I needed to be told, so that's exactly what I'm going to do. Thanks to which ever reader posted it, shame they did it under 'anonymous'.

Here's a couple of inspiring little vids, the perfect antidote to depressing blog posts....

'First Try Friday' at Red Feather with Dave Graham and Jimmy Webb from Jon Cardwell on Vimeo.

hueco tanks 2010|2011 from emi-moosburger.blogspot.com on Vimeo.

Now where's that training diary....

UPDATE

If you were the one who posted anonymously I wouldn't own up, I went climbing and fucked my back. Can't even bend down to pick up a chalk bag, bad news.

Looking Back In The Future 14:14

Campusing 1-5-9 (original 1-5-8 1/2), one arm campus on large Metolius rungs, jumping and hanging a small campus rung with one arm, one arming a small campus rung, back two encores & repeaters on the small Beastmaker pockets, hanging the sloping Beastmaker pockets with back two for 5 seconds, 5 one armers on a 5 cm edge.

You've just read my list of climbing achievements and you've probably noticed they are nothing but feats of strength.

Sure I've ticked a few 7c's quickly, I've done a fair few problems below that, but I've never done anything note worthy, never done anything worth writing home about - I've never lived up to my potential. There have been reasons for this: I didn't get strong until I came to London, I rarely get to climb outside & my work rules my life. I've come very close to a fair few classic hard problems, but for one reason or another have always come away empty handed, but I always thought I would get some hard stuff ticked. A fear has now gripped me that this may never be the case, I may well be destined to look back at my climbing history and see a list of underachievement.

After taking last year off I thought this year would be my year, I was ready to get back training hard, but this is starting to look less and less likely. My career is why I moved to London and I love what I do, I've given up a lot to drive my career forward and it has taken a lot out of me. As a result of a lot of hard work my career is now at a place I thought it would be in 4 or 5 years time. I've got a new role, a role which will hopefully include travelling to far off places, places where you may well need a flak jacket and the least of your worries is having 'poor skin'.

I can't complain as this is what I have always wanted to do and I'm proud to be stepping up to it, although I fear that it will leave little if no time to try and climb, to try and fulfil my climbing potential.

I may be wrong of course, I may get time to train and I may get some things done, I truly hope so because a list of feats of strength is not much to look back on. The only plus side is that unlike some people who claim achievements on rock, I have witnesses for mine on wood... not much consolation though.

That Fresh Feeling 12:29

I can't believe it has taken me well over a year to get back to enjoying climbing, ridiculous. I woke up this morning having trained 3 days in a row and the body felt good, as I lay in bed sipping on coffee and staring out an open window I realised that it was warm not cold air coming through. The tide is turning and limestone season can't be far off? Is it here already? I started flicking through my diary checking days off, getting psyched to get out and get crushing. I've got a list as long as my arm of things I want to get done on Limestone and in North Wales this spring/summer and a new rota I'm moving on to at work gives me four days on four days off, so plenty of time to get out on rock.

In the meantime I've got to hit the plastic....

As I've been off the scene for a while this vid may have been seen already by most of you, still got me psyched (even if it does seem to involve a bunch of old men salivating at the chance of catching a grope of a pre-pubescent boy as he falls off a boulder problem).

Paul Robinson: PlasTic'n from Prana Living on Vimeo.

To the wall...

Psyche 02:16

Psyche is a strange thing, for me it comes and goes with relative ease but normally always lingers somewhere in the background. Often it'll remind me it's there through a quick trawl of climbing videos or a glance at UKBouldering, but sometimes it just seems to disappear completely. The last year and a bit it has evaded me, I've had no psyche, nothing - I've flatlined. In a year and a half I managed to drag myself outside to climb once, to Wales for one weekend, I ticked a few font 7a's and then drove home psyched... to... well... get home again. Granted many a time I've blogged on here, often with some title saying something like 'I'm back', but not once has that blog been written with any psyche behind it.

Until now...

I'm pleased to say the psyche has well and truly returned, I'm back training, back on the campus board and back on the Beastmaker, but most importantly I'm back climbing and loving it. I've been training properly for two weeks now and my base level seems to have got much higher than it once was. A solid year of training in 2009 seems to really improved my finger strength. My first couple of sessions on the Beastmaker saw me crank out full sets of repeaters on the front two and back two on the small pockets and two full sets of encores on the back two on the small pockets. This is a much greater level of finger strength than I ever had before and can only improve as I hit my new regime hard. This last week I've managed one campus session and 4 Beastmaker sesssions, that can only be done with a good dose of psyche...

Bring on the training.

Business Time 04:02

I've barely touched climbing for the last year, I been incredibly slack and my body has suffered as a result. Work's been my life for the last twelve months, but now finally the time has come for me to get back in to the sport I love. I've missed it, I've missed the movement and that feeling of crushing problems. I've also missed blogging.

Now however things have changed.

I'm back training, training hard. This last two weeks I've made a solid effort to get back in to shape. I've dieted hard and managed to hit the wall 5 days a week. The 'flow' is returning and problems are starting to go down, progress is being made, the weight is coming off and the body tension is coming back.

I've come back to climbing with new vigour, I'm now more focussed than ever to get outside and send problems. Ultimately there is no point training hard and getting physically strong if you don't go out and do something with it. So I've already booked up my first three trips of the year and I'm psyched.

The game is well and truly afoot.