Old man river's log

It has been a while since I logged.

Here is some recent stuff:

29 December
I flew to Barcelona to visit my brother. Yellow Spider, a climbing gym, is sort of en route to Gatwick. So I stopped off for a 2.5 hour climb before the flight. It was good, I was in form

30 December
I visited the Sharma climbing gym in Gava. It is massive. I was in mixed form. I got to the final hold on a 6c a few times, it will hopefully go if I can make it back. That is around v5, so it would be a very good send.

31 December
Via Ferrata near Vic in Catalonia. This was really good fun, around 3.5 hours in total. We started at the bottom of a very tall hill and got to the top. The Nepalese bridge wobbled a lot and was terrifying. (This is three strands of wire, 69m long, in mud-air. You have one strand for your feet, one for your hands and a spare one to clip into.)

1 January
Day off. So 11 miles walk.

2 January
Climbing, again at the Sharma gym. I got the 6c, and a couple more I fell off last time (in the 6a-6c range bucket; my guess would be 6b for them).

Here is me on the Via Ferrata. I am second in the line, smiling.

Cool picture! Looks petrifying.

The bits on rock were pretty chilled. The climbing was all very easy. The wire bridge was the scary bit.

I went too slowly early on this, which caused a lot of wobble. One I started to move quickly enough, the wobble became manageable.

I went climbing on Thursday. It was an odd session. I got nearly all the v3s at the gym (around 20 of them). I flashed about half, but the one I found hardest took around 20 goes. I only got one v4, which was so slabby it probably doesn't count.

I really am pretty poor at logging.

Here is some recent stuff:
Wednesday
Climbing, 3 hours. It was a high gravity days; I was out of form.

Friday
Climbing, 3.5 hours. Decent, I got a load of v3s and one v4. I also probably did around 12 miles' walking; due to a slight miscalculation about where the gym was.

Saturday
14 mile walk and 2 hour's climb. I started pretty well but faded; I got loads of v3s but no v4s.

Sunday
Rest day, so 9 miles' walk.

In other news. I put on weight over Christmas; reaching 148 pounds. I've been slowly cutting in January; I am now around 144.

Modern music is surprisingly good. We need jungle, I'm afraid

This may better if you're from the UK, so the University Challenge reference makes sense.

Dude. Everyone thinks you've died from getting lost on a walk or have fallen off a cliff or drowned in the ocean when you don't post.

Do us all a favor.

I've had a relatively boring January, hence yhe relatively infrequent logging. I managed one caving trip, which was very chilled. However, my friends are complaining about it the cold and dark, so haven't wanted to go diving. (This is strange; January UK diving is the nuts.)

Anyway, Friday was climbing. I was not in good form, although I was OK at slab. (Slab is not real climbing .)

Saturday was domestic nonsense, which entailed moving loads of furniture.

Sunday was a day off exercise, so I did a 10 mile walk around Frensham Little Pond. It is a bit of Surrey that looks like the Highlands of Scotland; absolutely stunning.

Today was climbing. It was my best session in ages; I got three v4s. Vaux East had been setting relatively tough recently; I assume this means the new set is soft.

Here is Frensham:

Climbing, 3 hours.

Good fun. I was stronk. I was good at thuggy, strength based climbs; normally I find them hard, but they've been easier the last few sessions.

I lifted last night. It was my first lifting session in a while. I had a bunch of miscellaneous nonsense in my shed recently, whilst my kitchen was being rebuilt. The kitchen is now done, so I can use the shed again (where my weights etc. live).

Since it's so long since I've lifted, I decided to start light. I'll do a linear progression until things get heavy.

• Squat 3 sets of 5, 60 kgs
  
• Overhead military press 3 sets of 5, 20 kgs
  
• Deadlift 2 sets of 5, 80 kgs
  
• Hangboarding, 6 second repeaters on 10 mm ledge
  

That last one is pretty solid; my fingers are probably stronger than ever.

I got my first two scuba dives of the year in. It was just in a quarry, so no too exciting.

The air temperature was nice (12 centigrade), but the water was a distinctly bracing 5C. Two dives, both shallow (15m max), both around 45 minutes.

Sunday
Lifting. Carried on my linear progression from very light weights. (Squat 70 kgs, deadlift 90 kgs, bench 40 kgs, loads of hang boarding).

Monday
Climbing. I was in terrible form and fell off everything. My attempt at a bat hang was fun, though - I'd never even tried one before. (You hang upside down from your legs with no handholds.)

Tuesday
Broken. See Monday for likely explanation.

Climbing, 2 hours. Gravity was back to normal; it was really good fun. This gym (Yellow Spider, previously called Craggy Island) is easily the most friendly of the London gyms. Maybe it's because it is more local, so the same people go regularly.

Climbing. 2.5 hours.

We did a fun drill. You find an intense climb you expect to get. You climb it as many times as possible in 5 minutes, doing press ups between reps. You rest for 5 minutes, and then do the same on another climb. We repeated 6 times, so that it took 60 minutes. With warm up and stretching , it was 150 minutes total.

My arms are still sore today.

Wednesday
Climbing, 3 hours. Meh session.

Friday
Swimming. This was before work, so I only had time for 750 metres.

Saturday
Caving.
4 hour trip. It was just a gentle nimble around OFD top , and it had been very damp and this bit of cave doesn't flood

Sunday
Caving.
A 5 hour trip, also around OFD top. This was more strenuous and more fun than Saturday, with more climbs, squeezes and traverses.

Monday
Climbing, 2 hours. Good, I got two of my medium term projects.

Wednesday
Climbing; 2.45 hours. Good fun, I got some hard routes. The one I'm most proud of is actually quite easy (maybe V3; it was graded V2 to v4). I couldn't work out the last move, so I climbed up to it on easy holds to find a body position that worked. Then I could work out how to move off the penultimate holds.

(I needed my right hand on to the top bit of the lower of two bad slopers, and to flag my right foot to near the left, which was on a good hold. This let me rock over the left foot and reach up.) This boulder probably took 20 attempts.

Thursday
Lifting.
Pull-ups. 3 sets of 8. My strength is still lower than before, but improving so it is nice.
Hangboarding.
Bench. 3 sets of 5, 40 kgs.
Squat, 3 sets of 5, 70 kgs.
Deadlift. 1 set of 5, 80 kgs.

Bodyweight: 145 pounds.

Friday
Swimming. 750 metres before breakfast.

Saturday
Climbing. Decent session, I got 3 v4s including a flash. The one I'm happiest with was a V3 overhang which is my anti-style (It was: a jump start to two small jugs with no feet; a campus move to bump up the right hand; a swing with the left leg to a chip way out left; throw the left hand to decent hold which is quite far; cut loose with the feet; plop the feet on starting jugs. Then the last couple of moves are easy.)

Climbing, 2.75 hours. Fun session; I was in good form. I went through a recent phase of not really getting any v4s at this gym; I now get a few and most of the v3s. That said, there is a V2 which requires either being tall or being flexible which I didn't get. (You need to plop your right foot somewhere near your head, which was beyond me.)

Wednesday
Climbing.
Good fund, I was in decent form. It turns out that I can't do upside down crack; I may go back for more pain and misery. 3 hours.

Thursday
Swimming, 1km

Saturday
Caving. We did Swildon's Hole. We aimed to get to the first symp. But it was very, very damp. Bits of the cave which ared normally dry had medium sized waterfalls. The 8 foot climb down a waterfall wouldn't have been safe, so we bimbled around the top instead.

Sunday
Caving.
We did Eastwater. Much of this cave is a bedding plane, where you are sandwiched between two bits of rock. You need to wedge yourself in to avoid falling to the bottom. It had virtually no standing passage in the bits we did; not being able to move my head due to the narrowness was common

Good fun; I will go again.

I have missed a bunch of logging.

Tuesday
Climbing. I was terrible. 3.5 hours.

Wednesday
Climbing. I was decent. 2 hours.

Thursday
Swimming, 750m.

Friday
Climbing, 2 hours. My best session in ages

Saturday
Climbing, 3.5 hours.
Odd session; I was terrible for the first two hours. I then sent a project and went on a sending spree.

Sunday
Walk, 24 miles-ish with many hills. It rained all day; I didn't see any blue sky all day. It was very muddy. I did the Three Peaks of Surrey (Box Hill, Holmbury Hill and Leith Hill).

Here is the tower on top of Leith Hill:

I went climbing on Monday. My heart wasn't really in it; I think I pulled a muscle in my right leg on the 25 mile hike on Sunday. It meant i didn't really commit to any of the jumping moves .

I went swimming today; 1 km. It was nice; I think my leg injury has recovered.

Wednesday
Swimming 1km

Thursday
Climbing. I was poor, but way better than Monday.

Saturday
Caving. 8 hour trip. Here is Sue going down a waterfall.

Sunday was more caving; a short trip (4 hours).

Mark may have broke a rib early on. He is retired; but ex-military and hard as nails. We had the option of walking passage or a 20 minute crawl on the exit. Mark chose the crawl, swearing the whole way.

Monday
Climbing, 2.5 hours. I concentrated on strength training. I was way worse than many others in the group; but most of them can easily bang out 1-arm pull-ups. I can't.

Tuesday
Swimming; 1km.

Wednesday
Climbing.
3.5 hours, decent session. I got almost all the v3s at the gym; and a couple of v4s.

Saturday
Caving. A training session; I learned how to rig. It turns out 4 knots are sufficient (double figure 8; clove hitch; overhand and bowline on a bite.)

Sunday
Caving. Sell Gill; I had acrack at rigging. Good fun; I want to go more. 5 hour trip

Monday
Climbing. More strength training. It was fun.

There is a v5 I got too the penultimate move on. It may go eventually; it's max effort so I won't get many attempts per session, though.

Tuesday
Climbing, 2.5 hours. Decent session, although I faded a bit towards the end.

Thursday
I didn't have time for climbing. So I did some hangboarding and pull-ups (5 sets of 10 with 60 seconds rest between sets.)