Wednesday 28 July 2010

BMC Open Comp / Training Camp

The BMC held a 5 day training camp at EICA Ratho which the junior French team were invited along to with their coach Francois Legrand.
Day 1
The training started with a 10am start on the Thursday where we all met in a room to find out what the plan was for the next 5 days.
We were put into groups and had a few routes of 7b / 7b+ until another meeting at 5pm then we were introduced to the new team sponsors Mountain Hardwear and The Epicentre who handed out our new team kit.

Day 2


Was an open competition which the junior French team joined in, the competition lasted all day, I managed to finish in 5th place in my group which I was ok with as we were competing aginst some of the best in Europe.

Day 3
We had a morning off, so after a longish lie in we headed to the wall for 2pm where we had a chance to have another go at the routes we were climbing on at the comp yesterday.

Day 4
Was a mock competition, we were put into isolation, came out for a route preview before back into isolation to wait our turn to climb. After the climb we headed over to our group to cheer on our team members as they came out to climb.
 Unknown to us we were being assessed all day and given marks out of three for various things, ie: Route reading, behaviour in isolation.
The day finished with a party along with the French team as they were leaving in the morning to head back home, the party went really well and gave us a chanch to mix with the French team.

Day 5
We got to climb a few routes before getting interviewed by team managers, Ian Dunn and Jane Newman asking us how we thought we had done over the last few days, they also told us our scores we got at the mock comp the previous day, which has tought me a few things that I need to alter and be aware of before my next comps.
I really enjoyed the 5 days and now know how much training I need to be doing before the Worlds in September.