Old man river's log

I had a sedentary Easter; my Mum visited me. She's not hugely mobile at the moment. I snuck in a little exercise:

Friday
Climbing, 2 hours. Decent, I got loads of v4s , (although this gym grades soft.)

Saturday
Probably about 6 miles walk, and a short lifting session (squat, bench and deadlift).

Sunday
7 miles walk.

Monday
Climbing, 2 hours. Another decent session.

Wednesday
Climbing. I was terrible. I got one V3, but it was a major struggle. 2 hours. Gravity was strong.

Friday
Swimming, 1.5 km.

Saturday
To compensate for Wednesday, gravity was lower today. I got a load of projects. They covered a range of styles; my favourite was an overhang jump-y one. I'm normally terrible at these, so it was a pleasant surprise to get it.

I spent the weekend learning caving techniques, such as how to bolt rock; how to move big rocks out of the way (violence is the answer); and how to survey. There was rescue training on the Sunday, but Joe and I got bored so did a quick trip to Slaughter Stream. It's an interesting cave; it's not got not many formations but its's Dolomite limestone. So it had loads of fossils.

Monday was climbing; I was quite good. I got a load of v3s and a v4. (This gym is relatively sandbagged to other London gyms at the moment.) It was a training session so we concentrated on volume; I did loads of routes in the 2 hours.

Today was climbing. Again, it was a pretty good session.

On Thursday, I lifted, doing bench, deadlift, hangboard and loads of pull-ups(probably around 100 across sets. Some were weighted, some used band assistance to practice one armers.)

Over the weekend, I went diving. On Saturday, we aimed for10 a.m. ropes off. But the boat was broken, so it was actually more like 11.30 when we headed out. It was 7 p.m when we got back. Condition were nice.

We only did one dive today to help with logistics. Again, it was a nice dive. My new heated vest is good.

I haven't logged for a while.

I went scuba diving over the weekend. Saturday was a highlight; we got a shed load of scallops in. We intended to barbecue them, but it was raining so we pan fried them. The wreck on Sunday only had one metre's visibility.

I went climbing on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. 4 consecutive days' climbing may not be the greatest plan; I was broken today. (I went flat out in every session; the average length was 3 hours.)

I had a couple of days off exercise, as I picked up a cold.

I went climbing today in a 3.5 hour session. It was good fun, I was in form.

I tried loads of dynos, and actually got all but one one them.

My logging has been weak; I have been active.

I have a GGO: all climbing gyms have a general gym area. The barbells are not often used, and doesn't seem to be hugely strong point for most folk. There was someone cleaning last time I was there, with what looked like 140 kgs in the bar for sets of 3.His form looked near perfect to me.

My climbing has been good recently; my movement has been pretty good. My strength has also been OK. I normally do a lot of slab, but my flexibility has started to suck donkeys' balls, so I've been doing more overhang. It's more fun.

I went climbing on Saturday. I was in very good form. I flashed a v4, and got two other v4s as well.

Yesterday, I swam a kilometer, did some walking, and destroyed the brambles which were taking over my garden. (I don't often garden, so this took 4 hours as they were quite extensive

Climbing again. An odd session, I became obsessed with a powerful v4 slab. I got it early on with a French start, and the quite quickly worked out how to do the start. But tiring it together took a while. I sent it after about 30 goes.

I did a 2 day course on side mount diving. It was good; it trimmed very nicely so the skills were easy.

I went climbing afterwards. It was odd, I feel off a V2 in my warm up and couldn't work out the route up. I became convinced I was climbing badly. Many v3s and a few v4s later, it seemed I may have just been pessimistic. I went back to the v2 at the end, and found it was indeed quite easy (I changed the foot work, giving up on a heel hook which was a hindrance.)

I haven't logged in ages. I went scuba diving in Galapagos. It was marvellous.

We saw many scalloped hammerheads; a tiger shark; mola mola; turtles; sea lions; Galapagos sharks; silky sharks; mantas; sting rays; underwater iguanas; reef shark; dolphin; eagle rays and probably stuff I've forgotten.

As I mentioned in the LC thread, the only unpleasant bit was being downgraded from business class to economy on the way home for a 14 hour flight. I haven't been paid any compensation yet.

I decided to test the well known theory that the best way of recovering from jet lag is caving. I got home on Thursday. So after working on Friday, I drove to Wales and did some gentle caving on Saturday.

On Sunday, we strolled up a hill to the club dig, which hasn't had any work since lockdown. I may well become a digger soon.

Here is me emerging from a small hole.

I went climbing on Monday. It was a high gravity day.

I went back to the same gym on Wednesday. It was fun, I got everything I fell off on Monday. Fot some reason, it was super friendly.

I went clubbing on Thursday. It was good, I wasn't in stellar form but it wasn't too shabby.

Sick picture!

I have a buddy that is incredibly into caving, but I just can't get into it. Being my height and having long limbs has been pretty disadvantageous the few times I've done it.

Thanks Monte - I find it relaxing.

I went caving on Saturday. We did Otter Hole, a tidal cave which is probably the prettiest cave in the UK.

There are two possible trips, between tides and through tides. We thought we had signed up for the longer through tide trip, but it actually turned out to be between tides, around 6 hours. The first 2 hours (and last 2 hours) were very hard caving: Very narrow, very muddy and quite a few hard climbs with shoulder deep water at the sump.

UK caves have a difficulty grading system I don't understand at all. I think the highest grade is 5d. This cave is 5d.

Then it was stunningly pretty. Amazing cave, I want to do the longest trip.

Sunday was a short walk in the forest.

Climbing. We practiced dynos ,(jumping movements). It was fun, I was in form. I always find it interesting when I do them well; there momentum gives you a lot of time to grab the target hold

On Wednesday, I swam 750 metres before breakfast, I went climbing in the evening. I stated off quite strongly, but ended completely pumped and barely capable of moving. It was a 3 hour session, which in retrospect may have been too long.

I felt a bit broken yesterday.

What's clubbing? I assume it's not going to a night club

It was a typo for climbing. I occasionally go clubbing, but these days it is a very rare event. (I went to Voodoo, a techno club in Liverpool, pretty much every Saturday in the 90s. But now it is more like once a year )

I did a 14 mile walk on Saturday, and then climbed for 3.5 hours. I had aimed for a rest day, and missed my aim by a lot. I was terrible at climbing.

I had a couple of easy dives on Sunday to get more used to sidemount. I did my kit wrong on the first dive, which was quite uncomfortable as a result. It was good on the second dive.

Climbing. 2.5 hours. I concentrated on my anti-style, run and jump dynamic competition style boulders. It was good, I got a couple of v4s.

I went climbing a lot in the week. It was alright.

I went caving today. We did Ogof Draenan in Wales. It was quality. The cave was stunningly pretty. We were running late, but managed to get to where were aiming in the cave (a pure white selenite sphere called the snowball )

Sunday
Caving. We couldn't initially find the cave we were after. So spent a couple of hours walking down a stream looking for it. It turned out to be a few kilometres upstream, so we went back to the car and tried again.

It was 5 p.m. by the time we got vaguely close. One in our group was too tired to do the cave, so Joe and went into some random little holes we found. We did 4 little caves in total, and will come back for our goal later in the year.

Monday
Climbing. This degenerated into basically parkour. It was really good fun, I actually successfully did some of the jumps.

Any pictures? I have a good friend that's really into caving and recently did a pretty involved trip out West, but generally the most I'm up for is a quick trip with the kids in a relatively small cave or seeing pictures afterwards.

Amy had her GoPro in the cave, but the videos were apparently too large for WhatsApp.

So at the moment I only have a handful of pictures from outside the cave. It was a lovely evening when we emerged.

Here is a decent picture someone took of the cave I was in a couple of weeks ago. (The photo is not from my trip). The formations were massive, you can see a caver next to one of the stal bosses for a sense of scale.