Believe In Better 10:42

Yesterday after an early morning yoga session I hit the wall. When I was going well early this year I considered myself light and flexible, times have changed - yesterday I was about as light and flexible as a six foot log. I spent so much time last year working on my weaknesses, my finger strength and my flexibility. My felxibility seems to have completely dissapeared. Coupled with the fact I have lost all my 'flow', the going has been exceptionally hard.

I worked through some problems yesterday, slowly but surely moves got done and things got ticked. They were by no means hard and I was a long way off where I have been, but I needed to see some progress. The belief that the strength will return is what I'm surviving on at the moment.

After all, I've learnt in the past that in bouldering half the battle is believing.

Here's a good little vid from my friends over at Louderthan11 which shows why you need to believe, 3 years he took to do this problem, 3 years...

ROSES AND BLUE JAYS: the Final Chapter from Louder Than 11 on Vimeo.

Three In 10:17

Three sessions in one week, I can hardly believe it. There was a time a year ago now in the run up to my disasterous trip to Font that I was training 6 days a week. I pushed my body hard and it could handle it. Constant Beastmaking, Campussing and bouldering, it didn't matter what i threw at it - my body took it and got stronger, substantially stronger.

Now though things are different.

I managed three sessions last week and my body was broken, my forearms felt strained - a feeling I hadn't had since I first began climbing. There were some positives: I could still crank a one armer, but more importantly my fingers felt strong. I'd put so much time into my finger strength last year as it was the least strongest aspect of my climbing. It felt good to see that my fingers were still in good shape. It also felt good just to be back climbing and hanging out with mates. Today is the start of the regime proper, one month of fitness and conditioning before getting back into structured training.

I'm also going to be back blogging and am going to have a root through my video archive and see what I can dig up for your viewing pleasure, so keep 'em peeled.