In reply to Dandan:
Thanks Dan, good idea. I rejoined the day after that thread last year. My 2016 goals posted at the time were as follows - these were pretty ambitious given that my previous best grades were 7B and 7c and hadn't been on a sport rope for 18 months (although I knew I was very close to 7B+ in bouldering terms):
- Maintain a weight of around 11 stone (ideally 11 stone flat on a Sunday night, which implies 10 stone 12 when I wake up Monday morning - a couple of pounds more than this is acceptable though.)
- Jan/Feb: Jerry's Traverse (Cratcliffe) and at least 3 other grit 7Bs.
March: Do Crazy Horse (7B) and either Magic Bus or La Barre Fixe (7B+) in Font. After Font, do Moffatrocity if it's dry, or Wright's Traverse (7B) if Moff is still wet.
April: Moffatrocity if not done in March, then Eastwood Traverse (7B+). Start doing some limestone or Churnet bouldering in the evenings again once the clocks change.
May/June/July: Do a few more Font 7Bs on limestone or sandstone, and do Arch Enemies (F7c+)
August: Continue bouldering and, if Arch Enemies went well, try the moves on a couple of F8as (obvious candidates would be Powerplant or Free Monster)
September: Do the F8a.
October: Once finished (for good or bad) with the F8a, I'd like to try Paint it Black (Ft7C) at Blackwell Dale.
November/December: Finish off Paint it Black if it feels doable and stays dry for long enough. Then get on the grit, goals being a Ft7B+ and maybe try Tetris (Ft7C) if we have good weather/conditions.
The weight goal was a success up until the end of August. After a splurge in September/October it was harder work than expected to recover. I've made some good progress since late November but then this last week has been a disaster again(!)
The grit bouldering goal was a success - I had to postpone Jerry's Traverse due to shoulder issues but came back and did it last week. In Jan/Feb I think I did 4 7B/+s including Flatworld, my first 7B+.
Font was semi successful. I did Crazy Horse and another 7B but didn't get on Barre Fixe and couldn't do the crux move of Magic Bus. Good trip though.
I did Wright's Traverse and Moffatrocity. The latter meant a huge amount to me after all the effort I had put in (11 sessuons at the time.) This was a big success in ticking off my only major unfinished business from 2015.
Eastwood Traverse is the one that got away - after 12 or 13 sessions I still haven't done it, so it'll perhaps carry over in to 2017. I've fallen off trying to bring my feet across prior to matching the rail at least 5 or 6 times? Once I managed this but dropped it doing the match, something I hadn't expected (I think that was probably about session 8.) A frustrating experience if I'm honest, it really got in my head and became stressful to attempt; the one downer on the year.
Arch Enemies was interesting as my route endurance was a real unknown. I had tried it in summer 2014 but not got close. On first re-aquaintance I immediately felt much closer, which was great, but then proceeded to fall off the same move near the top for 3 whole sessions. It took some training advice and data comparisons with Ally and Andy, followed by 3 weeks of foot on campusing to improve my aerobic endurance, and suddenly then I did the route pretty easily.
Free Monster (first 8a) was great and went in only 4 sessions; it could feasibly have happened in 3. I was obviously really chuffed with this.
Paint it Black (first 7C) then took me a total of 10 sessions in October/November but was another big success. This was certainly much harder won than Free Monster if I'm honest, but the two achievements feel equivalent in my mind.
I did add another goal at one stage of doing another 7C, The Mentalist, but this I had to put off as I tweaked my right flexor unit on it. Another for the future maybe.
For this winter I've made a good start on the grit and Tetris is definitely still an aim. I'm pretty fed up with injuries right now but keeping things crossed that they'll clear up soon.
Overall a great year. I think the main achievements really have been realising the benefits of the strength gains I made from bouldering so much in 2015:
(1) in further increasing my bouldering grade by improved tactics and trying even harder/longer on my projects, (2)
(2) in finding that I could apply that increased strength effectively on a rope, and in finding a way to quickly fill out a bit of endurance to go with it (for which I'm really grateful to Ally and Andy - without their perspectives on my training I'm not sure I'd have managed either of the routes.)
Next year is a funny one. Eastwood is a goal if only because I want to get it done. I'd like to do Powerband and I want to have a good grit bouldering season and Font trip. Come the summer I should really be aiming to do another 8a and trying an 8a+, but life and work may well reduce my climbing time in comparison to the last two years, so I'm not yet sure.
Thanks fitclub for all the continued psyche and motivation!
Si
Post edited at 11:24