Dieting

The diet began this week. I decided that the sore shoulder i have, and my general progress will be helped by losing weight.
My diet involves the following rules:

• Normal Breakfast
• Sandwich wrap (low carb) with no fat (chicken no butter) for lunch
• Small no fat dinner
• No snacking
• No booze other than friday and saturday

I am bloody starving all the time but in less than 1 week have dropped from 13st 8lb to 13st 3lb. I am targetting 12st 7lb and so far it looks like i will be below 13st next week.

Apparently I have to do this process quite slowly to avoid stressing the body and making it turn any food i do eat into fat.

One more session at the wall with Simon but didnt do great. More v4s but still no v5s. 4 day rest then try again. I did a bit of research on what I was doing when I went to Hueco Tanks back in 97. I did some v8s third go so I have a looooooong way to go to get back in shape. bummer.

Progress thanks to el fingerboard

Just had a nice week holiday in Corsica and spent the week before and after using the fingerboard. Have figured out how to actually make it work for me. Basically hang of the edge with 2 hands with feet on a chair placed through the other side of the doorway. This gets a really good pump going. Also doing semi-one arm pullups (left hand 2 finger pocket, right hand jug) seems to help.
Went to the wall tonight and really felt like there was some real progress. Did 3 v4's (couldnt do any before) and did a load of v3s which now felt pretty easy. Slight pain in shoulder. Must watch that.
Most noticable was that i didnt really burn out very quickly thanks to the fingerboard forearm training.
Onward and upwards!

Baseline trip to climbing wall

Went to the london bridge bouldering wall last night.
This trip should serve as a reasonable benchmark to judge my progress by.
It seems that over the last 2 weeks i have gained enough fitness so that my hands dont simply uncurl from jugs after a few problems and I can get a proper pump. But that is about it.
It seems I do better at the technical problems than the power ones (which is not surprising as i am weak as a puppy). I need to work on the power problems.
For reference sake, I was able to do technical V3's pretty much first go, but was unable to do any power V3's at all. I will see how the fingerboard\pullup training helps this.
I reckon I need to be able to boulder v7\8 to be able to do an 8a so a very long way to go indeed.
It was a fun trip though!
Let me re-iterate; this blog is very much for my own reference and motivation. I reserve all rights to make this blog as dull as dishwater, and am under no illusions that the info here is of any interest to anyone but me :)

Swanage - Getting my feet wet

OK, I have been back climbing at the climbing wall for, 2 weeks and it is now time to attack some real rock.

We went off to Swanage for the weekend with Caths brother Simon, and dragged the (many) kids to the crag. They were very accomodating and it was all rather nice in fact.

On Saturday Simon and I nipped off to conner cove to do some deep water soloing (new thing for me) and scared ourselved silly downclimbing to the bottom down a diff. We both did Troubled Waters (HVS 5a) which went ok, then I tried the Congar (E2 5c) which was soaking wet. Basically either I fluffed the crux or am totally rubish or perhaps both, but ended up in the brine (see below). It was a totally exciting experience and am really keen to go back.

Next day went to Hedbury and the kids did a route, Cath waltzed up a 4+ which looked really hard, and I did Moves For The Masses (6a+) which was really fun and went without too much bother. It was nice to know I can do 6a+ ok and it gives me a nice starting point to build from. Its a hell of a long way to 8a from here though.

Fingerboard!

Ok, I must be keen because for the first time in my life I have bought a finger board.
I am still trying to figure out what the hell to do with it but it is a step in the right direction.
Once I figure out a training routine beffiting someone of my physic and weakness I will post it up here.
I bought this one and it is currently bolted to the wall of our (rented) kitchen doorway.
If anyone has any ideas of good fingerboard training plans please let me know.

Once upon a time there was a fat man....

Inspired by Geraldine Taylor's achievement of climbing her first 8a at the age of 54, I have decided to undertake an experiment:
Is it possible for an overweight, London based, mid 30's family man who hasnt climbed in 7 years to climb an 8a? And if so how long will this take?

Basically on hearing about Geraldines remarkable acheivement I decided perhaps I should not write myself off quite yet. So before I begin let me give a bit of background:
Until I moved to London (the fateful 7 years ago) I had climbed pretty much all my life. I became reasonably good but never actually succeeded in climbing an 8a. I managed trad mountain routes to E6, grit to E7 and sport to 7c+.
I am 34 years old and have basically spent the last 7 years sat on a sofa eating pizzas and curry, and drinking wine and beer. It has been fun, but those days are now over.
Lay your bets.....