UKC

So you've got 14 days off work in the next month and nowt to do except train.  Do you stick to the usual?

Go skiing. Or drinking. Or both!

Go on a trip somewhere? 

Nice ideas but the days are spread out and I can't go far because of other commitments

Same dilemma. I'm presuming my "days off" you mean university strike days? TBH I was just going to structure my days for this first block around going to the picket line, going to the wall, nap all afternoon and repeat. Hopefully the weather will pick up for the second block, and then a trip will be the way to go!

Exactly - except the first two days I've got a perennially useless trip to Scotland.

Picket and wall next week and fantasy day trips on dry rock the week after.

I hadn't thought of a nap - I'm not sure I could take the luxury of a nap but it might be worth a try... 
 

You could do the opposite: a crystal meth binge, just to see what it's like. These opportunities don't come round often. Enough time to recover before you're back at work. You could even get some training done while you were at it.

Train hard then have an empty afternoon and it always seems to happen to me. Fantasy day trips are what are keeping me going right now - pretty sick of this permawetness. BTW if you’re based anywhere north of Sheffield and need/want a strike day climbing partner give me a shout

In reply to Kanny:

Have you looked at the weather? There is no sunshine! 

It's a good idea but I worry I'd injure myself if I jump in at the deep end without a warm up.

I think I'll spend the first week on diet supplements and snake oil, then progress to periodised over-the-counter medication (paracetamol / ibuprofen / cough linctus) before looking to do alternate sets of crystal meth, pcp and strong cider.  I'm still worried about my tennis elbow though so maybe I need to keep up with the ibuprofen?

Identify a purpose and train for that. Could be to address a general weakness or for a specific route. 

What no list of DIY tasks that you never had the time to do before  ?

Spring clean the house/flat?

Always intrigued by your comments and have found your previous advice helpful.  I am stronger (max hangs) and my stamina (7/3 repeaters and 20/40s) is improving from the tips you provided on training.  Not sure I could identify a general weakness other than these and my assessment is based on how things used to feel twenty years ago!  The specific route thing is interesting, but perhaps only applies at a fairly high level (i.e. where mono's become relevant or some such factor).  However, I might try some things that are too hard for me with the aim of assessing these particular weaknesses.  As you previously noted, as long as things are improving...

I’m psyched that you’ve found some stuff paying off. I think the specific route thing can be at your personal “high level” rather than anybody else’s. For example, the route demands of a project might be hold specific (monos) but also might be more to do with energy demands that can be trained specifically. At your grade limit a long route with hard sections interspersed with good rests is trained differently for from a medium length route with no rests.

This makes sense of course.  I guess the idea of training for an individual route 'at my limit' is the concept that I'm not used to considering.  This is partly because of a long history of an on-sight approach, so probably spend most of my time well below my 'limit'.  It's an interesting idea though and worth exploring...

At the same time