Team Training

I'm finally back home after4 days of team training that's taken me to Sheffield, Guildford and Mile End (London). The first day was the hardest with circuit training and some bouldering afterwards.

I think I did really well that day and after weeks of not really climbing much because i had caught that cold that has been going around it felt great to be back on the blocs. The next day I was pretty sore but still tried hard at the campus exercises we had to do. That was a real wake-up call for me and I realised how much work I need to do in this pre-season just to get to an adequate base level. In a way I'm looking forward to getting Brno over and done with just to be able to start the pre-season training.

Saturday morning I was still quite sore and achy from the two days' training, but looking forward to climbing at Craggy Island's Boulder Bash. I won it the first year and couldn't climb last year because of a conflicting World Cup comp. So I was really psyched to give it my all again. Mark Croxall, also on the British Team, put together an awesome set of blocs. They were interesting and technical and I probably dropped a few that I should have flashed because of it! I climbed well and did 12 of the 15 problems, but I got 4 of them second go and scored 108 points out of a possible 150. Diane Merrick showed her 'Foundry strength' and flashed 12 of the blocs for 120 points and first place. The big money is in the overall prize and this went to Katy Whit who came third in the bouldering but won the speed and did well in the lead climbing too. I'm obviously a bit disappointed that I didn't win, but I'm really pleased that I lost to such good competition. It properly felt like a national level comp and I know that this kind of competition will keep me motivated to get stronger.

We went back to The Castle to sleep over. Some of the lads made up some new problems on the slab upstairs. Most of them hadn't been down there before and I hope that they'd want to come back to climb there sometime. My friend Laura came around with her massage table and sorted a few of us out. I can't even imagine how I'd be feeling now if she hadn't done some work then! That said, I didn't sleep all that well because I couldn't really shut off from work and I kept thinking about all the stuff I need to do this week at work...

So this brings us to Sunday and the Mile End round of SIBL. The organisers very kindly let the British Team in for free and I had a few questions from people about what we did as a team, where we were off to next and how to get on the team. I hope that this raised the profile of the team. Don't know if it was just being tired from the previous days' exertions, the gaping hole in my finger or not having a great comp but I wasn't in the best of moods during the comp. I didn't really enjoy being sandbagged on some greasy slabs and having to walk away from every 'British Team' problem because I couldn't even come close to doing them. Some of the lads did a few of those problems, but for the most part they were a bit too futuristic for us. Oh well. Hope we didn't disappoint anyone.

Good to be home again. A nice bath and cup of tea later and I think I can face the next few days before I'm off again to Czech!