Shenanigans is a good word. Well maybe not a good word to read but it sounds good and has a good meaning. It was one of my brother’s favourites when we were younger. Possibly ‘cos he kept getting bollocked for his shenanigans.

So, Bank Holiday. I’m not a particular fan of the “necessity” to get away and do something spectacular on BH weekends (apart from destinations that need 3 days to justify the journey, of course). Traffic jams, hordes of bumblies, lack of accomodation, etc etc. And the usual British guarantee of the weather being unguaranteeable. Better to save the special trips away for quieter weekends and let the weather dictate the timing rather than fighting against it. All about successful trips rather than fitting in with the status quo.

Anyway I have no idea what the weather was like in the UK this weekend because I wasn’t here. I had a cunning plan and nipped over to Valencia to visit Fiend 2 before it got too hot. A long overdue and fun visit and naturally I managed to sneak in a couple of climbing days at Costa Blanca crags that were just over an hour from the city.

The hot sunny weather dictated shade, my elbow dictated some moderation in what routes I climbed, so I chose Bellus and Pena Roja. Both had good shady sectors and plenty of nice F6s. Last time I was sport climbing in El Chorro I was on top form and managed to push myself to flashing a few F7as (SMALL NUMBERS! :)). This time I had a vague notion of flashing a couple more but common sense got in the way and I stuck to 6s. Led 9 routes including several nice 6b/6cs in a couple of afternoons….there would have been a time in the past, pre-Chorro, when I’d have been happy with that. And indeed I was this time too. Good climbing.

(I was thinking of ranting about how - having been on several Euro sport climbing trips - the feel of climbing over there is getting pretty samey. Because, to be honest, it is. I felt that quite strongly on the first day - all pretty familiar. But on the second day, again the same stuff, I didn’t notice it. It might be homogenous, but it’s still FUN in it’s own way.)

Incidentally, just like going to Font, it might have seemed stupid to go sport climbing when my elbow is tweaked. It probably is somewhat stupid, but careful icing, massaging, warming up, not pushing too hard, and listening to any warning pains alleviate the stupidity a bit. Plus, it was only a couple of days, and I really want to take advantage of climbing in different places.

More pertinently, now it’s getting too warm to boulder effectively and to sport climb abroad much (restricting the options anyway). So this will be my last strenuous climbing for a while - back to trad and choss over the summer, and hopefully the reduced physical intensity should help my recovery.

 (Also: http://fiendophobia.blogspot.com/2008/05/bank-holiday-shenanigans.html , including more rambling and waffling.

Just back from a flying visit to Font :). Was in email contact with amusing veteran curmudgeon JCM off UKC, he was heading over for a weekend trip with JCM Junior, and invited me along. Obviously I had to meditate long and hard about my elbow injury, including deciding and changing my mind several times… But in the end the ease of joining in on the trip, the lure of La Foret, the unlimited easy bouldering potential, and the welcoming enthusiasm for my presence on the trip (something which I value highly), won me over.

So:

Friday: Leave Sheffield mid afternoon Friday. Arrive at JCM headquarters just before rush hour. Leave in JCM mobile in the middle of rush hour. Get delayed on M25 car park and end up in mad rush for ferry. Arrive 10 minutes after last check-in and board immediately. Breath sigh of relief. Arrive in Etap motel hours later and listen to techno to fall asleep.

Saturday: Wake up and ensure JCM Jr is adequately fed. Go to Apremont and climb easy reds. Fail to flash La Science Friction and decide to sulk instead of any serious further attempts. Laze in the sun instead (and realise later how well cooked I’m getting). Potter some more then retire to cafe and France’s largest hot-dog for late lunch. Head over to Canche Aux Merciers in evening. Feel appreciative of the amenable forest vibe there. Feel less impressed with with tiredness, painful fingers, and draining heat. Any serious exhertion seems to result in a general throbbing sauna-like feeling. Find a good looking red roof traverse and do that. Retreat exhausted to swank dinner of magret de canard aux sauce poivre and a pleasingly large amount of JCM Jr’s scarcely touched boeuf carpaccio. Yum. Admire sunburn and listen to techno to fall asleep.

Sunday: Wake up and steal as many fruit compotes from motel breakfast bar as pockets will allow. Decided finger skin might dictate an easy mileage day and shoulder skin might dictate a lot of shade/suncream. Go to 91.1 and get rather giddy about the number of great looking red problems. Spend entire day within 30seconds walk of initial drop-off point and do lots of good problems. Fun! Get photos of JCM Jr on a quality micro slab that looked amazing if you’re 6 years old and 3 feet tall. Leave feeling well battered. Attempted mad rush to ferry slightly spoilt by clear fast roads North of Paris - arrive in plenty of time. Eventually get back to chez Fiend at 3:45am zzzZZZzzz…

Here’s a photo of something or other:

Kinda cool really. The elbow dictated a gentler trip than before - but not as much as the heat dictated a gentler trip than before!! Lovely weather but too warm and next time I go I want it below 0′c ;).

One thing to rant about: Font slab grades are utter toss. It’s always been obvious they are toss, when a Font 5 slab is clearly way harder than a Font 6b wall and not much easier than a Font 6c arete, but I hadn’t really had a way to put the pomposity of such non-grading in clear perspective, until JCM said about La Science Friction “you wouldn’t really want to find this part way up Downhill Racer”. The same was said about La Gratitude and Ingratitude at 91.1 - comparable propositions.

The point - well put across by JCM - being: Font 5 = V1 = English 5b/c. Which clearly these slabs bloody well aren’t.

Now I haven’t done Downhill Racer but I’ve done enough slabs from the Culm Coast to Caley, I know what they’re like. I have done, say, Poetry Pink E4 6a and the crux of Grips Of Wrath E4 6a which would seem fair comparisons, both in the style being safe but hard slab cruxes on small holds, and more importantly in the difficulty. Both of these I think are solid 6a.

Solid English 6a = V3 = Font 6b. Which these slabs bloody well are.

Personally, I’m not interested in the historic so-called grading scale that has the sole purpose of allowing a bunch of geriatic old Bleausards to sneer at the donkey footwork of les Anglais before dousing the place in poff and dancing up some faux-easy slab that they’ve got more wired than Adam Long has the Plantation. I’m interested in grades that describe the actual relative difficulty of the problems and I see no reason for Font to be exempt just because they invented one bouldering grade scale.

Still, climbing is bloody good, irrespective of toss grades :).

(Also here: http://fiendophobia.blogspot.com/2008/04/font-again.html )

http://fiendophobia.blogspot.com/ 

Will mirror climbing posts here for a while tho. More soon. …ish.

I’m not a good patient, being injured. I’ve managed to take over a week off climbing, attempting to improve my elbow through some total rest (although I’m not sure how much rest non-climbing is anyway, I seem to aggravate the injury in odd ways, sleeping on it funny in particular). But despite that I am not being very good at letting it heal properly…

The problem being, I think I love climbing too much. Sure I like other things too, sure I can take time off it, sure I realise that for the greater good of keeping climbing in the future, resting an injury is crucial. But when I’m out there and there’s  quality rock/routes/problems in front of me, how can I resist. It’s just too much FUN, moving over rock.

Actually, the problem being, I think I have no willpower :S.

Take yesterday, for example. I went out with a couple of mates in the evening - quite an incredible evening in fact. It was light until well after 8, but in the breeze and the shade, utterly outrageously cold, equal to the best and bitterest winter days. A real “stick to anything” grit day, except possibly even too cold, my fingers never got past painfully numb. And yes I kept my clothes on.

Anyway I wasn’t really there to climb much, more to hang out, spot, potter around, and feel the grit. I’d spoken to another mate (a veteran of training hard and getting past various tweaks) earlier about my elbow injury and he’d warned me to stay away from anything except slabs. Cool, slabs! So, okay, there was this neat little slab at the crag to play on, and naturally I got sucked into it. Unfortunately there was a slight technical hitch - it was pretty much at my limit, and the steep angle and nature of the holds required one to pull fairly hard, for a slab. Thus, after a couple of times at my highpoint (locked off on tiny pebble and a non-ripple that you wouldn’t even use as a smear yet felt “good” in such baltic conditions, eyeballing the finishing hold but no free limbs to grab it with…), my elbow felt familiarly achey and I felt familiarly regrettful that I’d set the healing process back yet again.

So I need to be more diligent and more disciplined…

Hmph!

I climbed a new route on gritstone the other week.

Hmmmm. That doesn’t sound right.

I climbed a two star mid-grade new route on Peak District gritstone, up a completely obvious pure line, on a bit of rock that’s five minutes walk from the road.

There, that sounds better. The honest truth, guv. Well, the churlish might say only one star, but the line is good, the sequence is very good, and the genre - bouldery moves just above bomber gear - is also good.

Two things stick in my mind about this personal event:

Firstly, it’s rather exciting discovering something like this in such a popular area of the country. The Peak is so well-developed and so heavily scoured by prowling, rock-hungry teams, that for a mere mortal to find anything worthwhile seems quite unfeasible. Nevertheless, I went for a walk to this particular venue, and after a bit of scouting around, was shocked at what I found: A clear, independent new line, accessible and logistically simple, on good rock with only a good brush required to clean. This came at a time where a lull in my interest in local grit and my elbow injury had dulled my enthusiasm a bit….and it was instantly rekindled. I’m not a particular new route whore but I was distinctly excited!!

Secondly, I headpointed this route. I cleaned it on abseil - absolutely essential. Then I worked the moves from the top down on abseil. A couple of moves took several goes to work out what to do. Then I attempted it on lead but bailed out due to nerves, darkness, and poor skin. A couple of days later I worked the moves on abseil again, then led it easily. A true worked, pre-practised, headpoint ascent.

[Ethically, of course, there is nothing of interest here. New routes have always been an entirely different genre to repeating existing routes. Without a grade, description, guidebook hints, knowledge that it’s been climbed successfully etc etc, a new route justifies different tactics (even aside from the the necessary cleaning). The sequence on this route is tricky to work out and if I’d attempted this ground up, it could have taken me a dozen or more goes and nearly as many falls, trashing gear, ropes, and my pelvis. Now it’s done, described, and fairly graded, it’s up to others to climb it in the normal style.]

What IS of interest is my experience and what pleasure I gained from this. When I finally led it clean, I felt a little bit of satisfaction from having done it, and I enjoyed the quality of climbing (indeed, repeating it immediately to get a video, I enjoyed the climbing just as much). But I didn’t get the deep, involving thrill that I usually get from good climbing. Having practised it, actually leading it almost felt like a formality. I realised quickly that the most exciting part of the process was first abseiling down, trying the moves, and discovering they were possible, they were good, and I could do them. The joy of discovery - this is what I usually get en-route, on the lead, on normal trad climbing. Here I got it on an abseil inspection, and once it was discovered, actually leading it was rather diluted. No regrets though, just an interesting feeling.

Details “soon”.

Font….a lot of people are into it, and with good reason. It really is bloody marvellous, in all ways. The rock is great, the lines are great, the setting is great, the landings are usually great, the sheer amount of choice is great, and the climbing is great. Simple as that. I’m usually a cynic about popular, hyped, areas, but in this case, on my first visit, on my first day, I realised everyone is right and it really is all it’s cracked up to be.

(Though it is worth noting that two other of the “World’s Best Bouldering Venues”, Castle Hill and Rocklands, are very nearly equally marvellous and utterly bloody inspiring).

So, I’ve been a few times now. And I’ve found My Way of doing things out there: A blend of running around like a dog with seven dicks just finding the most beautiful lines at a reasonably doable but thankfully vague standard (all thanks to the circuit colours), and of going along with other peoples’ plans, inspirations and suggestions. I don’t go out with goals and I don’t go out with ticklists. I just look, listen, and climb. This suits me fine: I climb lots of great problems and a few hard problems and some hard and great problems, and usually I don’t know names and grades (which are complete random toss anyway!!), just the quality which is self-evident.

This time I did 3 days of that and mostly had great fun (apart from Elephant, which still doesn’t inspire me - where are the sodding LINES there??). On the last day I went off on my own with the intention of ticking things. I blame the Eagles for that, his bad influence is rubbing off. So, I followed a guide and followed a grade that should be doable but a good challenge and a good “tick”.

Hmmmm….

Well I did a couple of nice things but rapidly became jaded. Looking at grades instead of lines - *shakes head*. The tail wagged the dog and the dog put it’s tail between it’s legs. Oh I suppose tiredness from 3 days on, sore skin, warm conditions, and swarming hordes of tedious English students with bad haircuts, matching t-shirts and a f*cking guitar didn’t help the vibe. Nevertheless I realised a bit too late that I’d been….well to continue the theme, barking up the wrong tree a bit. By then it was time to go home anyway.

But it was another confirmation (I’ve had many, both ways) of the importance of doing what is True To Oneself (and generally I think it’s good if what that is comes from the deeper pleasures in climbing). Although it did get me thinking about bouldering and what it all could mean - more on that later.

So next time I’ll go to Font, I’ll stick to what is inspiring. I have thought though, it might be useful to know my way around a bit….but equally to still not know too many names and grades. I think what I’d like is a collection of just maps to Font, showing parking, approaches, boulder locations, and rough circuit directions. I suspect the only way to do that will be photocopying and printing though.

I’ve just(-ish) got back from four days in Font. I think four days is all one needs - I cut the last day short due to trashed skin (down the sides of my knuckles, rather than the tips as usual - what have I been doing??) . The joys of the intensity of bouldering meaning that a mere 4 hours a day for 4 days is plenty.

This was a last minute trip (literally, the ferry was booked about an hour before I had to start driving to catch it), requiring a lot of driving on my own and a petrol cost I don’t even want to think about (there are big numbers and BIG numbers). But I was inspired by the forest and my friends, and frustrated sitting at home whilst everyone else was going away, so…. Well it was worth it, despite afternoon showers sometimes hampering my style. Meeting up with friends, climbing in the forest, it’s all good - leave Sheffield at 8 pm, drive through the night, sleep on the ferry, arrive at the Eagle’s gite at 9 am and have a strong coffee pressed into my hand, chill out, and go bouldering! Simple pleasures…

Further, my elbow held up surprisingly well. Sure I was living on ibuprofen and trying to look after it with ice, massage, and warming up, but I also climbed plenty, pulled hard, and didn’t feel held back by it. I’ve been off the ibuprofen for two days now and it’s feeling a bit tweaky in certain movements but not that much worse than before. Sure I’ll have set the healing back but I think it was worth that, too.  

This general climbing/elbow success includes climbing the hardest problem I’ve done in the forest, and quite possibly the best too: El Poussif. This was a good challenge but also a great, genuine inspiration - I’d seen this problem on my first visit to Font a few years ago, wandering around Isatis with Jim and Dense from UKB. It looked awesome then and it looked awesome on this last trip - a subtle, sinuous, bulging, flowing rib (quite a lot like Brad’s Arete at Eagle Tor, cross with a, errr, crocodile!). Not only that, it climbs as good as it looks - beautiful, flowing, switching movement, leading to a captivating mantel crux that tests the body in under-used ways. That is, if you DO IT RIGHT. I had a look on Bleau.info (link above) to remind myself of how stylish it is, and what do I see on the videos?? All sorts of inelegant, deviant and obscure methods, that usually seem to involve avoiding the true start, and/or a lot of slapping and lanking past the crux. This is really not on. Yeah sure, occasionally some method might be a fraction easier (one of our team found a good gaston method for the start), but it really is missing the point of the problem - the line leads you to climb it in a certain way where the flow of the climbing matches the flow of the line, and trust me that is the finest way to do it:

Left hand on sharp side-pull, right hand palming off a faint mound, left foot on obvious big hold. Pull on leaning right, smear right foot, and bring RH into sidepull crimp. Switch to leaning left, RF on higher smear, LH to faint dimple over bulge. Switch to leaning right and bring RF through to good nick on rib. Layaway up to get pinch with RH and bring LF through to decent nick in face. Paste RF on high smear and switch to leaning left in order to turn LH into palm down on faint dimple or just above. Start pressing out into mantle, then press some more…..and some more… Then fall off and make vow to take up yoga. Repeat above steps… Eventually get LF onto smear below LH palm, find a balance point and reach for sloper with LH. Keep laying away off RH pinch to bring RF up and reach finishing jug.

THE AUTHORISED SEQUENCE: Accept no substitutes!

Actually this might be the second finest tick I got on the trip. The best being on-sighting the drive from Dunkerque to Font AND the drive back from Font to Dunkerque. No wrong turns, no getting lost (unlike some regular visitors *cough*), and all on my ownsome. Big ticks…!

Back to El Poussif… One thing I should have done was got a video of myself doing it (incidentally I watched a Swedish dude try it with a similar starting sequence, which reinforced how good the sequence is). I think there might be photos. But not enough photos and not enough videos. This has nagged me in the Font trip. I had a camera, a load of beautiful problems, and lots of people milling around, and I got no bloody photos. What am I playing at?? This is the ideal opportunity! Am I supposed to be a photo whore or not?? I’m not going to get guidebook cover shots or magazine spreads by not getting photos of myself posing and preening. I’ll be losing my narcissistic edge, sheesh.

Still, the climbing is good

Well I’m definitely injured. The tweak in my elbow is a tear in the bicep tendon where it joins the elbow bone, caused by tweaking it on one particular move down the wall a month or so ago, and accentuated by not resting it enough in the weeks following. I’ve been to see Ozzy at The Clinic, Sheffield’s foremost sanctioned torturer aka physio, who gave that diagnosis but was confident - particularly since it seems to be an acute rather than chronic injury - that it would heal soon. In the meantime I’m restricted in what climbing I can do, and have to be particularly careful not to aggravate it (as I did on a gentle circuit down the wall the other night).

So I’m writing about being injured. Should I turn this into a blog of shoe-gazing woe, the blog equivalent of whining, soul-dampening indie music?? Droning and mumbling on about the mundanities of one’s life and luck and lack of climbing, without any concern for how bland it all is??

Perhaps not eh. It DOES dampen my spirit, but that’s for me to deal with! It is what it is (pushing oneself physically whilst climbing being so intensive) and I just have to work with it. No real way around it, and I can still potter around, especially on trad. In fact, recently I managed some wonderful routes like The Phantom at Gradbach Hill and Flashdance & Blinding Flash down in Torquay, so I won’t complain. Though, I miss the social scene down the wall, funnily enough!

What is of some interest to me is that I seem to be getting more injured these days. Two tweaks in two years, as opposed to one A2 pulley injury in the previous 4 years - it feels quite odd to be “injured again”. A function of getting old? Or of just pushing myself harder? Or maybe or just climbing a lot while doing less “balancing” physical activities? Or probably all three. A lesson to be learnt: I should be taking this increase in susceptability on board, and being more aware of it. Prevention better than cure and all that.

Another plus side, all my previous injuries, I’ve recovered from and got back to feeling as strong and fit as ever. This one too, I hope.

Warning: Egocentric rambling ahead (well, this IS a blog…) 

I had a realisation the other day:

I have now been fighting fit and climbing well continuously for the last 2 years.

 That, I think, is quite thought-provoking. I looked in my logbook and saw that it was early February 2006 that I started properly getting back into grit climbing after many months off with a broken foot. Later in the month I had a decent trip to Barcelona….then some increasingly good days on grit….then a good trip to Pembroke with The King….then “that” weekend in North Wales where my climbing dreams started coming true. Since the start of 2006 I’ve had some low points, periods of bad motivation, periods of atrocious weather, times out due to minor injuries - but they’ve all been pauses in the flow of climbing, rather than stops. Even last year, being hampered in spring by a shoulder injury and in summer by the monsoons, as soon as the shoulder healed and the weather cleared, I got out, got fit, and climbed well.

It’s generally regarded, particularly in a highly intensive (physically and mentally) activity such as climbing, that maintaining a high level of performance over a long period of time is unlikely to happen (the mind and body need respite). I’m making no great claims about my performance, only that it is good FOR ME. But the point is, it’s still good now…

 (Even recently, I’ve felt my strongest indoors on bouldering and routes, I’ve onsighted my hardest sport climbs outdoors, climbed my hardest boulder problem, and recently climbed my first grit trad routes since November - it took a few goes to get back into it, and I didn’t push myself that much, but I managed to climb with confidence on some routes and tackle fine challenges on others, and kept learning more throughout - not bad!!)

 …even 2 years on. If this isn’t “supposed to happen”, then maybe there are explanations.

 Firstly, the enforced mini-breaks I’ve taken might have let mind and body recover for a renewed assault. This need for respite is something I’ve become aware of, and thus I make sure I don’t push things at inappropriate times and thus get jaded or too wrapped up in climbing.

 But, secondly, more interestingly, maybe this isn’t some straining, pushing, performance peak. Maybe this is my NATURAL level. A level that suits my climbing, my abilities, my desire. And to be honest, that’s what it felt like, that’s why I was striving to climb how I climb now - because I felt I could, I felt it was the right level for me to reach and be inspired by. And sure, it was a long, bloody battle to get there, but what I felt in 2006 was more like “I am climbing as my true self” rather than “I am on top of my game”.

 Less of a “peaking”, and more of a “maturing”?

What happens from here, I don’t know. I’m quite happy not knowing. I’m still as psyched, yet less pressured. Maybe I will climb harder or climb better (not the same thing, of course!!). Maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll improve more in different areas, maybe I won’t. Maybe something with go cataclysmically wrong and I will climb very little. Maybe I’ll improve a lot by devious, circuitous methods. Maybe I’ll just plod along doing the climbing I enjoy. 

 Right at the moment, I have a bit of a tweak in my elbow. I’m being careful - it’s not too bad and doesn’t seem to affect climbing too much - but I’ve been taking it easy, sticking to outdoor routes where possible and avoiding the physical strains of indoor bouldering. So not, right now, 100% fighting fit, BUT it’s okay, and I’ll get past it, and just see where things go…

From JIMBO’s blog (link on main blog page): 

I have been continuing on my regime to return as a fully functioning climber, back at the grades that I was once achieving some years ago. I have been reading around and from sources such as Training for Climbing and from my own profession it is clear that target setting is the first stage to realising your goals. However, to coin a teaching term (possibly borrowed from American corporate bullsh*t) they need to be SMART. Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-bound. For example; I will do 1 one-armed pull up by Easter with my left and right arms. This hits all the criteria for me from this model, being specific in the exercise that I will perform (could be a route or a grade), measurable in that I must do 1 on each arm, it is attainable as I have done them before, realistic in that I am not far off it now and the time frame is long enough to achieve it and time bound in that I must do it by Easter. Having looked at Fiend’s blog it is clear that some of his targets fall short in one or more of these ideas and may lead to many left unfulfilled.

Would I be right in guessing this is Jimbo Kimber, beefy Portland guru from a few years back??  

I’m somewhat entertained that a serious climber read my blog and thought enough to mention it (although a comment on my blog would have been useful). He may or may not have a point about my goals - although I do think my goals are in a different genre to some peoples - and since I quite like an online climbing discussion challenge, I’ll try to justify my goals in that context:

1. Climb the remaining routes E2-4 in the Lleyn section of North Wales Rock.
5. Climb at a few of the inspiring places that I didn’t manage to visit in 2007, specifically: Baggy Point, Nesscliffe, mid-Wales, Pembroke, and a bit of grit.

These two are more specific goals and do fit into the SMART criteria
S - Yes, specific places and specific routes (I have lists, but little desire to post them here).
M - Yes, whether I visit those places and do those routes.
A - Yes, subject to weather and partners.
R - Yes, all of the are accessible and routes are realistic targets.
T - Yes, have made them goals for this year in particular (although Lleyn would be up to the next bird ban). I can’t have specific deadlines set because it depends on: weather, opportunity, people to climb with, bird bans, and other factors.

2. Go on a climbing holiday to Scandinavian granite and/or German/Czech sandstone.
6. Climb more in Scotland.
7. Go on a climbing trip to Ireland if weather allows.

These three are all general destinations are the SMART criteria is not applicable to them. As above they are subject to weather, opportunity, etc etc, but more specifically to having the right people to go with. I will try to find the right people to go with, and to be able to go at the right times, but these trips are too external-factor-dependent to be more “SMART”.

3. Join with more climbing and bouldering trips abroad.
4. Climb more with my friends, old and new, and join in their climbing plans.

These two are climbing….scene? I guess….desires, and again the SMART criteria is not applicable to them. They simply depend on what other people are doing when, who is available, who wants me along. I’ve spent a couple of years being focused on my own specific desires, to good effect, now I am happier to join in with other peoples’ plans, in the knowledge that there’s bound to be something I’ll want to climb and enjoy doing.

8. Push myself more in bouldering and deep water soloing in different venues.

This one, perhaps is a bone of contention - it is performance / challenge / progression desire, and as such could be considered SMART suitable. But…
S - not really, no particular problems, no particular routes, nor locations.
M - not really (although a vague hint to boulder the next grade up).
A - yes definitely. I’m sure I can climb a bit harder.
R - yes definitely, ditto.
T - this year??

Maybe this should be SMART?? Maybe I should be saying: Boulder V-whatever on grit by April and onsight 3 E-whatevers at Portland between July and October.

The thing is, it boils down to my initial impression: I have a different genre of goals. Although a few are specific routes and specific challenges, most of them are exploratory venue-based goals: Get away with some mates to somewhere new and find inspiring stuff to do there (these might well be unfulfilled but that’s the nature of climbing trips!!). And the progression goals?? Well, I’ve spent the last decade focusing on progression and the last two years succeeding in it. I’ll always want to progress but at the moment I’m happy to do so in a “see how it goes” way.  The point of that is not about being vague, it’s about being relaxed and being confident in my groundwork of climbing that I can tackle what challenges I feel like without having to be quite so obsessed over Specific (etc etc) details. And - it’s worth noting - I still train for general challenges, I still push myself in what’s relevant, work what I need to and work my weaknesses, but again I do that in a “looser” way. It doesn’t mean I’m pulling any less hard though!!

Finally…

Last weekend I did my hardest graded boulder problem ever. I hadn’t had it as a specific goal, I hadn’t used it as a measurement, I didn’t know for sure if it was attainable or realistic, and I set no time-limits on it. I’d just seen the line a couple of years ago, it inspired me, I thought I might be able to do it, and I did (it was piss, took a few goes and I could have possibly flashed it if I’d used the best starting hand-hold). Was a great problem BTW.