British Team Training Weekend.

This weekend I was down in Leeds, for the EYS tryouts. We were climbing at the Leeds climbing wall which is spectacular. These tryouts were important because it gave the British team's, management team an idea of who should be climbing at the Europeans this year.

On Sunday we went to the Depot boulder wall and had a training session. This was the first time I had been to the Depot wall and it was massive, my favorite part of the boulder wall was the overhanging roof. After about an hour of warming up/hard problems we had to do two hard training sessions.

• One of the sessions was on the campus board and we had to do 1-3-5 with feet on the screw-ons for three minutes, then 6 minutes rest. We had to do five sets of that (That was a awesome and solid session!)


• The second session was with Tom Randall and we were giving a hard boulder circuit, and we had to figure out 15 moves from the start of the problem then complete that 15 moves five times with 15 seconds rest in between. This training session was to help complete a hard boulder circuit, where you had to break the problem down into smaller sections to help complete the circuit.

After lunch we were told who was going to compete in three of the Europeans and the worlds this year. I was chosen to climb in the first European in Edinburgh. :) After that we got given our new team kit which is well smart and awesome! Thanks to Mountain Hardwear and The Epiecentre The British Team have a new website here is the link. The website keeps you up to date with what the Team are up to.

Climbing Strong

This last few weeks I have been really impresing myself as I have been crushing 7c's and getting an 8a at Ratho along with getting an 8a+ the other day at my local wall.
Last weekend was the YCS competition which I was demoing at and Neil Mcgeachy and Mark McGowan came up from Edunburgh to set for the competition, as well as setting a few harder ones for me to try. They set three 7a/+, two 7c/8a's and one 8a+, Mark set the 8a+ expecting me to take a few sessions working it while infact I managed to complete it in 4 ground up attemps! So I just hope in two weekends I am performing good on the day so I am picked to climb in the first EYS in Edinburgh.

8A, Done!

(Photo by Will Carroll)

Another weekend in Ratho. I went down to Ratho for a fun boulder competition, and finished 3rd. It was a awesome fun enjoyable boulder competition, all of the problems were awesome and I really appreciated them all.

After I finished the competition I wanted to go and try an 8a on the hanger wall I was on before, I was phyched for the route. I got on it and topped it out. I was pleased as this was my first 8a I had completed.

British Team Training

Friday I travelled down to Sheffield, England for the first British Team event of the year.

Saturday we were at the Climbing Works, a bouldering venue in Sheffield. The bouldering wall was massive and awesome with loads of circuits and boulder problems. The first thing we had to do was complete 40 problem circuit, then we could get lunch followed by doing an easy circuit as fast as we could then a fitness assessment. In the assessment we had to do several different exercises:

• Tap downs, for two minutes
• Sit-ups, as many as we could complete in one minute.
• Lock-offs, For 15 seconds on each arm.
• Pulups, 20 continuous.
  Type writers, 15
• Dead hang on the campus board, for one minute.
• Dead hang on 45 sloapers, for one minute.

Day Two

Sunday we went to the Foundry climbing centre which is also in Sheffield. Sunday morning started with a 30 minute jog around the Foundry climbing wall. The run killed me as I don't have much aerobic endurance which I need to work on. After the jog we were straight into training. Ian Dunn and Tom Randle set two training sessions which each lasted an hour.

The first training session I done was anaerobic capacity, which is when you find a 13-16 move boulder problem 80% of your maximum and do it 10 times with 3 minutes rest in between each attempt, you should not manage to complete all 10 reps, you should be failing around the 8Th rep if the grade is right.

The second training session I done was a core session. We were giving 8 different core exercises to do each lasting 1 minute, we had to complete all 8 of the exercises three times. This core session lasted 30 minutes.

For the last 30 minute of the session we were giving 8 climbing pacific movements we had to complete on a overhanging board.

After a morning of climbing we headed over to Sheffield university to get a lecture on sports nutrition from Audrey Morrison and some stretching exercises with Ian Dunn.

This weekend I have learnt a lot of different and new training methods which i can now use. My next event is next month in Leeds which is a semi competition and it decided who will be competing in the European competitions this year.

Awesome training day!

After a few months of training at my local wall and my 45 board, I have been feeling that my training has not really been improving my performance, but when I was at Ratho today I was proven wrong. I was at Ratho with the HYCC and I was doing on site climbing, I attempted 4 routes at my limit:

• 8A - Managed to climb past the 7c+ lower off and fell at the last section.
• 7c - Flashed
• 8A+ - Fail! It was on the long lead wall, and at the moves were really technical. The route was not my style.

After feeling so strong when I was climbing today I am now proper phyched for training. Woow bring on the comps!

EICA Ratho

Today I travelled down to Edinburgh to climb at the fantastic EICA Ratho. As its still winter Ratho was soo much colder than my local heated wall, and I found it harder to get warmed up and stay warm. The main overhanging wall at Ratho has been re-set and there is some fantastic new routes up.

My trip to Ratho today has showing me that I really do need to train on my stamina, soo all that 4x4s I hate doing, I must keep it up!

Home Boulder Wall

The boulder wall in my garage has been changed several times, from three flat panels, to one flat panel, 20 degrees over hanging wall, 45 board and a small 90 degrees panel on the roof. Its awesome to train on. Last summer I spent more time in my garage than I did at my local wall, I could put my music up loud and set as hard as I wanted to.

Today I spent the afternoon resetting circuits, so I can get back to hard training. When I am training on my 45 board I usually train for up to two hours, usually doing hard circuits!

Right now I am training for the British team assessment which is in March, it might decide who goes to the European competitions this year, its hard for me this year because I have all of my Major exams, but I will still try my hardest to keep up my training. Where I live there is only one climbing wall and the next is 150 miles away down in Edinburgh, and in my local wall the hardest route is 7c. It really sucks but I just have to train more on my 45 board and travel down to Edinburgh more often.