48 hours of Punishment!

I have had a really cool week. After my grueling training sessions on Thursday, Sunday and Monday, I went to the barn to go do some light bouldering on Tuesday. I set a new problem on the 45 wall at the boulder cave which is really gymnastic and tough. Will hit it again soon.

Wednesday, Clinton and I went out into the kloofs of Magaliesberg for some hard trad. We warmed up on some easy stuff, Clinton did Barbara Streisand, a 23 on solid gear and I onsighted a 21 called Enemy Within. The best description for this line is SPICY. If you place your cams logically on your way up, you end up having nothing for the pod midway up the face. The result of this is a 8m lead out to take you to the 15m mark, where there is still only 1 piece of marginal gear for the next 5m. It's alright after this point from a gear side. Just don't fall off. It is pretty easy ground here with good feet and hands. Don't let the cracks fool you from the ground, there is no where to place gear in them :)

After this Clinton crushed Rhythm of Youth, opened by Peter Lazarus in 1989. Ningo showed me how to do the moves and where to place what. I cruised up Barbara Streisand and then moved into Rhythm of Youth's crux. I placed the pieces just fine, moved into the hard move perfectly and couldn't reach the lip :( on my flash or on any of the rest of the attempts. It is simply too far away, very MORPHO! I told Hector he'll crush it, totally! I discovered a really easy way to do the move if you're one inch taller than me but I'll have to dyno to the sloping crimp, all-points-cut-loose...

We weren't done yet. Clinton and I moved over to Richard Lord's Twist and Shout (28) which was opened in 1990. Heinrich Kahl did the second ascent two years ago, and I lapped up the 3rd that day. As Clinton headed off to solo the first pitch it started to hail! The hail stones were an 5cm in diameter and I was being pelted belaying from below a rock at the base. Clinton came so close to the flash, he was millimeters from gaining the hands-free kneebar at the end of the crux when he couldn't hold on anymore. He came down and let me have a go. I topped it out first go, good times. It made me feel very nostalgic, remembering all the good times I had with Heinrich. I miss you bud!

This was pretty much just preparation for the weekend! Clinton and Hector had plans to go to Blouberg and attempt to free an aid route there, the pitch is a 19A3 with two 22 pitches leading into it. We had a brilliant time. This is the math for the weekend off of my facebook status:

So look at these numbers: in the last 48 hours, we drove 9 hours, we hiked 9.5 hours, we climbed 16 hours, we changed altitude from the parking to the top of the ascent by 1.4km, we climbed a total of 700m, 200m without ropes. That means if you remove the 3 hours we used to set up camp and prepare food. we got 10.5 hours of sleep within that time. 

 So that was what I had to work with. I worked out a bit later that we did a total of 3.4km of altitude change in total! Wow. The climbing was amazing too. I felt like I could do laps on the routes all day and night and be fine, but the hiking was tough. "Silly sport climbers moan about everything" is probably what you're thinking, which is kinda true but at least I got out there and now I'm psyched to go back.

Here's how the whole thing happened...

It started on Friday night when I picked up Clinton from the train stations at 17h00. Hector picked us up at my place just after 18h00. We arrived in Blouberg at 22h00. The hike was quite a grueling pace. I struggled mentally for the first half hour and then I found my groove and the heavy metal (As I Lay Dying) drove me up the mountain. The 8km hike has a 1km altitude change. Some sections were quite steep but it was mostly just a really fast pace trying to keep with Hector's really long legs. He is a true ninja I tell you, especially in the kloofs or on a hike. Don't blink or you'll lose him. Ningo can attest to this. The plateau burned recently so the entire area was scorched and black with ash; we were filthy within a few minutes.

We arrived at base camp at 00h00 and got camp ready. We were in our sleeping bags by 01h00 looking at the stars in the sky. Was a beautiful night and I was tired. I fell asleep fast but awakened around 02h15 wondering why I was up. I couldn't get back to sleep for another hour which was really annoying. 

At 05:30 we were up. Two packs of oatmeal later and we were ready to get the packs and gear on our backs. The hike was just little over an hour long to the base of the route. We gazed upon Dogs of Thunder (30A0) as we walked past it. Clinton reminisced about his past attempts to free the line, coming up one move short of freeing every pitch.

At the base of the climb we stood, I was in awe at the shear magnitude of the wall. Hector and Clinton were psyched. We were in unexplored territory as we added a different start to the route to try and straighten it out a little. 2 pitches and 116m later we were on a big grassy ledge which resulted in a grade 7 40m traverse to the first challenging pitch. Clinton grunted his way up the first 20. The gear was quite sparse and it involved moving left to a roof and then traversing 8m under the roof. It looked great. Hector followed his path and I went straight up the other rope. My route wasn't quite as adventurous but it was significantly harder, perhaps 22/23. I thrashed my way up it, a little less than elegantly, but I think that was the theme for the day regardless. The second pitch of 20 was much less interesting and very straightforward moving through some mild overlaps. 

The fun was about to begin with the first pitch of 22: the midget proof pitch. It was quite a zigzag for 55m but the rope only goes out 35m. The last few moves are really delicate and reachy well above your gear. We were biting our nails watching Ningo, feeling a little happy that it wasn't us out there. The follow felt pretty insignificant difficulty-wise, but was great fun. I didn't walk the move though, I has to downclimb it and restart the sequence.

The Yosemite Pitch is a 22 crack system that had Hector squealing for joy the whole way up. It has perfect gear and finger cracks/hand jams the whole way up! Fantastic.

This brings us to the business pitch 19A3. Ningo and I watch Hector climb/aid his way to the first bolt which was a thoroughly rusted 4mm home-made thing that left all of us chilled to the bone. Hector hand-drilled a new 10mm bolt next to it making the moves safe. There were about 5 hook moves on the pitch. After Hector sorted out a top rope for us, Ningo set off to try and figure out a sequence to free it. It looked desperate. We managed to find a way to skip some of the aiding right away. After the two of us worked the pitch there was only about 1.5m of unclimbed terrain. Neither of us had decent shoes on though, I had brought my old shoes as they are a little more comfortable for the long climb and Ningo's just came back from the Valley. He was convinced he could do the moves with better shoes and I concurred. The thought is that the pitch would work out to be 33/34.

Now we were at the top of the route but there was still a 100m scramble through dense brush and boulders above us. I was a little nervous at first to do it unroped but I quickly understood why we weren't using a rope. It was a nightmare up there. Took the better part of an hour to do this bit and another hour to walk down.

Now we were starving! Hector brought some dehydrated food and I brought a pack of pasta. Between that the three of us were really happy. I think we got to be around 9 and were up again at 3:30. We started the hike to Big Corner (21) at 4:30. We arrived and scrambled 100m (up scary, loose terrain) and were roped in at 6:00. The first pitch was to get us on to the original route (we skipped 6 pitched of 14/15 through the scramble) and it was spicy and loose as Ningo moved up the 16. I led the second pitch at 18 and was fantastic to be leading. I walked it but placed a nut that felt out as I tried to shove my knee in the crack. No worries, I led it out a while and placed a solid nut higher up. It was great fun. Hector led the crux pitch, then Ningo the first of the 20s which ended up going through this awesome squeeze chimney at the end! I led the second 20 pitch and linked it into the 16 afterwards. It was a piece of cake. The 20 consisted of really solid gear taking mostly Aliens and nuts in the finger crack of the slopey open book. I was grinning the whole time. 

 

 

Hector took us up to the final chimney which was really fun and casual leading us to the top out (so much better than the other route's top out). At 10h00 we topped out and had a lunch of tuna on provitas at the top and started the hour long hike down to camp. We packed up and by 12:15 we started the hike down to the car. An hour and twenty five minutes later we were at the car! Nice. Jogged a bunch of it. 

Steers outside Polokwane was a godsend. King Steer burgers went down! Two for Hector! Good times. I was home in Pretoria by 18h00, 48 hours later. HOW COOL IS THAT? What a weekend. Now it's Monday and real life just isn't what it used to be!

Starting some training again...

This is what I've been up to lately...

I LOVE THIS PIC! PSYCHED!!! Gustav you have brilliant ideas!

When I arrived home from Waterval Boven I started to get back into indoor climbing. Yvette and I started going to the Barn to do some route climbing, I thought that it would be a good way to start getting my endurance back. This was shortly after the Youth Nationals and I was very excited to try out the new lines.

Some of there were really cool, others were really confusing, overall I've had some good sessions there with Yvette.


Other than the barn, I've been spending a bunch of time climbing at Chosspile with Paul from the Barn as well as Brendon Salzer and Tiffany. I was asked to hold a mentoring session for the GP Youth Girls. Sam, Gillian and Tiffany spent this past Saturday with Brendon and Me at Chosspile. We had a very good day working on some tough lines there. Gillian and Tiffany put in some work on Grimslade (27), both of them did very well. I think that Tiffany will crush the route in a few more goes considering how fast she worked out all the moves. Sam spent some time on Gollum with Brendon. She did the moves really fast and with just a little more confidence she'll nail it. Brendon almost got it second go, falling off on the last reachy move... Next time dude.

I've also been tradding around with Hector. We had a really brilliant day in Mhlabatini! I managed to onsight Quick Silver (19), Nothing Ventured Nothing Gained (22) and Egowhip (23). I couldn't manage to claim the long-standing bounty for Soulcrusher though... I read the beta right but after 3 hard pushes and downclimbing I decided to go for the move but couldn't quite stick it. The day was absolutely brilliant though and very inspiring. I can't wait to get back there and investigate some Steve Bradshaw lines such as Twighlight Beauty (32) and Rivers of Rain (27), not to mention the unclimbed crack right next door to Rivers of Rain which gives me goosebumps...

But on the other hand, I've been having a pretty sticky time. I have been feeling a bit weaker than usual, but this can be expected from the lack of training over the last few months. I'm quite happy that I've finally found some more psyche to help me get back in the swing of things. I've managed to do Bully and Halfling a few times as well as repeating Fossil Fuel second go. Shadowfax and Anduril are still projects of mine. I'm having a tough time with both lines in my weakened state.

SOOOOO.... The training, what about the training...

Thursday was my first formal training in months and I shared it with Frankie and Ilse. Good times!

We focused on stamina and finger strength training and then pulled out a big core routine.

Basic warmup of 15 minutes of silent feet climbing at the boulder cave.

Next we played add on until we had a route of 20 moves.

We then repeated the line 10 times starting every two minutes initially and then decreasing the resting time. We kept the route reasonably easy, but I would alter the moves from time to time to create a deeper pump in the arms.

After we were done with this, we took 5 minutes off and then moved into an Encore Routine:

We used the campus board which has a sloping rung to do 5 sets of encores.

We used various hand positions each set, beginning with straight arms, then bent at 90 degrees and then fully locked and REPEAT. This is done 7 seconds on, 3 seconds off for 1 minute.

Rest for 2 minutes, change grip position and repeat the encores.

I used:
open hand 4 fingers
open hand 3 fingers
devil hang index and back two (only half a set before changing to a better grip)
back 3 fingers
front 2 fingers closed crimp (couldn't complete, did 4 of 6 then switched to 3 fingers)


Afterwards we did a core training session

Paul's "D Session" for Burl :) For the "Hops" we used a flat bar over a door frame to lock off and move back and forth. I would lock off at 90 degrees then match hands, move back to a wide grip, then match the other direction --> do this for 20 secs. 45 degrees seemed to be the toughest for us.

Body Tension and Burl		10/04/2011	13/10/2011
crimp-4 finger pock hops. 90 degrees	20sec	6	20
crimp-4 finger pock hops. 45	20sec	8	20
crimp-4 finger pock hops. 180	20sec	15	20
Rail match front lever kicks	10	10	10
crimp undercling front lever kicks	10	10	10
Rest	5min
One arm L from bent with pause bet	10	4	5
One Arm R from bent with pause bet	10	6	6
past pullups.	10	10	10
Rest	1min
R arm encores on big pocket	1min	5.2	0
Rest	2min
L arm encores on big pocket	1min	6	0
Rest	1min
R arm front lever kicks assist door frame	10	5	10
Rest	1min
L arm front lever kicks assist door frame	10	5	10
	136	90.2	84
	Percent	66.3235294	93.12639
Rest	3min
Right star platform	1min		1 min
Left star platform	1min		1 min
Standard platform	1min		30 sec
lower back strengthener	1min		1 min

This is a very good program. We skipped the 1 hand encores as we just completed two hand encored earlier in the night.

On the 16th I did a 20minute bouldering warmup at the barn, flashing all but one of the boulder problems in the cave.

Afterwards I spent a good amount of time on the campus board. I would make sure to not rest any longer than a minute between sets ensuring that I would be constantly building on the previous set. This is for a slight bit of power-endurance training and not just top-end strength which requires you to be slightly more rested before starting the next exercise.

Large rungs first

1-3-5-7-9-11 complete
1-3-5-7-9-11 complete
1-3-5-7-9-11 complete
1-3-5-7-9-11 complete
1-4-7-11  L     complete
1-4-7-11  R     complete
1-4-7-11  L     complete
1-4-7-11  R     complete
1-5-10     L     complete
1-5-10     R    failed 10 didn't quite commit properly
1-5-10     L     complete
1-5-10     R    complete
1-6-1       L    complete
1-6-1       R    complete
1-6-1       L    complete
1-6-1       R    complete

Medium

1-3-5 Complete
1-3-5 Complete
1-3-5 Complete
1-3-5 Complete
1,2-5 Complete
1,2-5 Complete
1,2-5 Complete
1,2-5 Complete

Small

1-3-5 Complete
1-3-5 Complete
1-3-5 Complete
1-3-5 Complete
1,2-5 Complete
1,2-5 Complete
1,2-5 Complete
1,2-5 Complete

Good stuff

17/10

Min	Type of hold	Exercise	Sec/Rep
1	Jug	Drops	5 rep
2	Medium Edge	Drops	2 rep
3	Small Edge	Negs	5 rep
4	Pocket	Pull-upp	5 rep
5	Medium Edge	Hanging	20 sec
6	Jug	Pull-up	10 rep
7	Medium Edge	Hanging	20 sec
8	Small Edge	Hanging	20 sec
9	Medium Edge	Pull-up	5 rep
10	Jug	Hanging	40 sec
11	Medium Edge	Hanging	25 sec
12	Medium Edge	Hanging	25 sec
13	Small Edge	Pull-up	5 rep
14	Small Edge	Hanging	20 sec
15	Jug	Hanging	1 min

Grip	Goal	Goal
just off straight	jug, rail, 2pock, crimp, 2pock, med	6
90 degree	jug, rail, 2pock, crimp, 2pock, med	6
full lock	jug, rail, 2pock, crimp, 2pock, med	6
Rest, 10 small pulls	30 secs, 10 small pull ups	10
Rest	10 min
just off straight	jug, rail, 2pock, crimp, 2pock, med	6
90 degree	jug, rail, 2pock, crimp, 2pock, med	6
full lock	jug, rail, 2pock, crimp, 2pock, med	6
Rest, 10 small pulls	30 secs, 10 small pull ups	10
Rest	5min
just off straight	jug, rail, 2pock, crimp, 2pock, med	6
90 degree	jug, rail, 2pock, crimp, 2pock, med	6
full lock	jug, rail, 2pock, crimp, 2pock, med	6
Rest, 10 small pulls	30 secs, 10 small pull ups	10
Rest	5min
just off straight	jug, rail, 2pock, crimp, 2pock, med	6
90 degree	jug, rail, 2pock, crimp, 2pock, med	6
full lock	jug, rail, 2pock, crimp, 2pock, med	6
Rest, 10 small pulls	30 secs, 10 small pull ups	10
Rest	5min
just off straight	jug, rail, 2pock, crimp, 2pock, med	6
90 degree	jug, rail, 2pock, crimp, 2pock, med	6
full lock	jug, rail, 2pock, crimp, 2pock, med	6
Rest, 10 small pulls	30 secs, 10 small pull ups	10
		140

17/10
Warmup, this felt very easy today

Min	Type of hold	Exercise	Sec/Rep
1	Jug	Drops	5 rep
2	Medium Edge	Drops	2 rep
3	Small Edge	Negs	5 rep
4	Pocket	Pull-upp	5 rep
5	Medium Edge	Hanging	20 sec
6	Jug	Pull-up	10 rep
7	Medium Edge	Hanging	20 sec
8	Small Edge	Hanging	20 sec
9	Medium Edge	Pull-up	5 rep
10	Jug	Hanging	40 sec
11	Medium Edge	Hanging	25 sec
12	Medium Edge	Hanging	25 sec
13	Small Edge	Pull-up	5 rep
14	Small Edge	Hanging	20 sec
15	Jug	Hanging	1 min

Grip	Goal	Goal	17-Oct
just off straight	jug, rail, 2pock, crimp, 2pock, med	6	6
90 degree	jug, rail, 2pock, crimp, 2pock, med	6	6
full lock	jug, rail, 2pock, crimp, 2pock, med	6	6
Rest, 10 small pulls	30 secs, 10 small pull ups	10	10
Rest	10 min
just off straight	jug, rail, 2pock, crimp, 2pock, med	6	6
90 degree	jug, rail, 2pock, crimp, 2pock, med	6	6
full lock	jug, rail, 2pock, crimp, 2pock, med	6	6
Rest, 10 small pulls	30 secs, 10 small pull ups	10	10
Rest	5min
just off straight	jug, rail, 2pock, crimp, 2pock, med	6	6
90 degree	jug, rail, 2pock, crimp, 2pock, med	6	6
full lock	jug, rail, 2pock, crimp, 2pock, med	6	6
Rest, 10 small pulls	30 secs, 10 small pull ups	10	10
Rest	5min
just off straight	jug, rail, 2pock, crimp, 2pock, med	6	6
90 degree	jug, rail, 2pock, crimp, 2pock, med	6	6
full lock	jug, rail, 2pock, crimp, 2pock, med	6	3
Rest, 10 small pulls	30 secs, 10 small pull ups	10	0
Rest	5min
just off straight	jug, rail, 2pock, crimp, 2pock, med	6
90 degree	jug, rail, 2pock, crimp, 2pock, med	6
full lock	jug, rail, 2pock, crimp, 2pock, med	6
Rest, 10 small pulls	30 secs, 10 small pull ups	10
		140

I totally pinged at the end of the 4th set and couldn't finish

It was a real fight to encourage myself to do the core training at the end... Once again I didn't do the one-handed encores due to the earlier training...

Body Tension and Burl		10/04/2011	13/10/2011	17/10/2011
crimp-4 finger pock hops. 90 degrees	20sec	6	20	15
crimp-4 finger pock hops. 45	20sec	8	20	18
crimp-4 finger pock hops. 180	20sec	15	20	20
Rail match front lever kicks	10	10	10	10
crimp undercling front lever kicks	10	10	10	10
Rest	5min
One arm L from bent with pause bet	10	4	5	3
One Arm R from bent with pause bet	10	6	6	2
past pullups.	10	10	10	10
Rest	1min
R arm encores on big pocket	1min	5.2	0	0
Rest	2min
L arm encores on big pocket	1min	6	0	0
Rest	1min
R arm front lever kicks assist door frame	10	5	10	10
Rest	1min
L arm front lever kicks assist door frame	10	5	10	10
	136	90.2	121	108
	Percent	66.32	88.97	79.41