UKC

A new thread is posted each week on Sunday for anyone to jot down their previous week's activity. UKC fit club is a rich community with posters sharing their goals, noting successes and failures and offering support to those struggling to maintain motivation. Anyone interested in starting is very welcome to join, but to get the most of UKC fit club you should aim to post each week, every week, however little or much you have done. By making such a regular public record of your activities and by restating your goals every week this new habit will hopefully improve your training habits and drive you towards achieving your goals whatever the level of your chosen activity.

Link to last week’s thread:

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/walls+training/ukc_fit_club_week_881-7679...

Alan Little - Good mixed week and even better news re. Lofoten, is your partner for the trip a better climber than you?

Tigh - How’s the planning going for Mont Blanc, is that now nailed on?

Derek Furze - Well done on completing the Sharkathon, I managed two days! Hope you are feeling better and your cold didn’t develop into anything more. I’m seriously impressed with your weighted pull ups although I’m not convinced you’ve heeded Ally’s advice re. warming up….

Ian Parnell - Sorry to hear about the family trauma hope its been a calmer week, nothing like a bit of ‘real life’ to remind us how trivial this all is, talking of which…..I’m not sure 50 degree boards make much training sense unless you are pretty strong already, good fun though. I love the look of the Hardwood holds, ‘reassuringly expensive’ as they say about Stella Artois.

Steve Claw - Considering you recently flashed 7b the E6 must be top of the grade if you find it quite hard and there are potentially ‘consequences’ to falling off. Are the things you are training for new routes or repeats, I notice you’ve a couple of hard things cleanly top roped on your logbook.

Ross Baker - Were the new Rigpa holds enough to seal the deal or have you not been back? Is there a lamp session scene there? I went past Parisellas yesterday and it was soaked so I imagine you’ve headed Peakwards this weekend

Tom Green - From Slavic stoicism to piddling about on little bits limestone two feet above the ground, it really is a broad church! I think the try harder method will serve you well, it’s what separates boulderers from route climbers and something I never manage because soon as it gets hard I look for alternative beta.

Ally Smith - I notice there was a big gap between 2021 attempts on SubMoron and your recent attempts. Do you feel stronger and if so how applicable is it to this (or any other projects)?

SSB  - Good effort on the 7B, I’m surprised you’ve not done anything that hard recently the perils of being a renaissance man.

the sheep - the Foxton Hounds ultra looks like a nice event, when you say “the distance” do you mean 50 or 100km?

mattrm - Maybe you could join the sheep at the Foxton Hounds now your original objective is no more. Sounds like the deload week was the right decision but I’ll be watching to see you are not playing that card every week!

AJM - Agree low end aerobic stuff is suboptimal on a board. I’ve put three small volumes on my board which helps a bit and the higher one gives a good shakeout. I’ve also thought about making a removable kick board to reduce the angle, there’s also the option to out something on the edge to knee bar on or bridge against for a shakeout.

dave frost -I’ve noticed the term allostaic load cropping up in Lattice things a bit recently but not sure of it’s effect on climbing motivation. I expect that if it is something one is experiencing then climbing has already been pushed to the side by that point.

Randy - Is the ‘light assistance’ on the one arm pull ups coming down? Are you approaching your target?

biscuit - Don’t come on here with your videos of steep sunny limestone when we’ve had a month of rain and drizzle! The route does look mint however and certainly the sort of thing that should be relatively straightforward to train for having big holds and obvious rests.

SteveJC94 - To my untrained eye your cycling training looks a lot more structured that your climbing but there is enough frequency and variety to at least maintain your climbing levels which is good as I think your route grade went up last year?

Small step - The ‘more importantly’ with regard to outdoor climbing betrays my biases rather than anything else and not something you should feel the need to explain. Certainly, if I started climbing recently I doubt I’d bother going outside as I enjoy climbing indoors an awful lot. Unfortunately things like trad climbing, alpine climbing etc are a ball and chain I’m not able to break free from mentally even if I hardly do them.

Apologies in advance to anyone I’ve missed, keep going!

Weight - 14st 5lbs

STG - Maintain diet for Jan.

MTG - flat 10k 1 hour

LTG - 30 mile ultra (July 24)

BHAG - F7A boulder somewhere....

M - T - Rest

W - Pen-y-Fal and Deri loop, 16.5k, 588m asc about 3h

T - S - Rest

Weekly kms - 16.5km

Diet status - Average

I wish I could say I cunningly extended the route this week to add on a little bit of distance.  But I didn't, in the mist, coming off the summit, I missed a turning when concentrating on my running.  It added on 2-3kms or so, haven't bothered to figure it out exactly.  So it was closer to a 3 hour run.  Still had a nice run.  Getting some new shoes broken in as well.  Mainly cause my old shoes are pretty ratty.  Not 100% happy with them, but they're ok. 

Had a nice weekend in London visiting family and the Natural History museum.  Not entirely sure how I'll fit runs in next week as it's half term, but I'm sure I'll manage something.

Thanks Tyler, yes, I thought I was better than that too but the logbook suggests otherwise!

Mon. Stanage boulder lamp session, under dressed and it turned out to be much colder than expected. Just couldn't keep warm. Didn't get anything new done.

Tues. 9km run, hilly and fast, left my legs pretty boshed for the rest of the week.

Wed. Lamp session out at Burbage West. Managed The Nostril (f7A+) but not anything else.

Thurs. And Fri rest.

Sat. Roche Abbey session. Did Tight Hole RH (f7A+). Spent a while on Miller Times which I've tried before. I can get to the crux move every go and if I pull on after here I can do the top every go I just can't do that one move. I saw a video of (probably) Mike Adams on it and I think he keeps his feet on the ledge but I can't reach with them that low so it feels desperate.

Sun. Gentle walk up Bole Hill with the kids.

I've been pretty tired this week. Think I could do with a rest really. I'll probably get some work done tomorrow night then have a light session on Tues then rest my fingers til the wkend. One more week at work til half term.

Thanks for the stats Tyler. Thankfully, yes a calmer week. The reason I’m getting on the steep boards, is my long term goal this year is to get on Sanctuary Wall which is consistently 1 in 3. Obviously that’s not 50 degree overhanging and it’s noticeable how much better I can climb at 30 degrees! I do wonder sometimes as I’ve spent the last year or so mainly training weaknesses, as a result my strengths – endurance and head have gradually evaporated. I find it a puzzle sometimes to come out of all this work as a better climber. Anyway a mere 3 board sessions this week

STG (this month) – maintain a grip on daily life, get good weekly routine going. 1. Climb some nemesis grit E1-2s clean

MTG (next 2 months)– 1. Give me strength – shoulders and core. 2. Climb some safe grit E3 routes. 3. Six boulder problems 6B+ or harder by March (I did 4 in total in 2023) 1/6.

LTG (next 6 months) – 1. Give me strength – fingers, steep stuff and slopers. 2. Rheinstor Lower Traverse?? 3. Attempt 2 on run climb project. 4. Trip to Sanctuary Wall

Mon – Home board (20 degrees overhanging!) 70 mins. First session on home board for many months. Easy warm up problems then tried 10-12 problems from 6A-6C++. Tried 3 of new problems, one a really nice 6A, one a slippy 6B which I fell off last move several times, and one too hard to do individual moves yet. Pleased also to repeat first go the purple blobs which I can only ever do when I feel strong and conditions are on my side.

Tues – 2.5 mile run in woods. Easy, then 4 x 10sec hill sprints, 50secs recovery x 2 sets with 4min recovery.

Finger block lifts 20mm edge 20 secs half crimp. 5kg, 10, 15, 20, 25, 27.5, 30, 35kg (R 10 secs, Left 8 secs), 35 (left 5secs Right 7 secs), 32.5, 32.5.

Wed – Nothing

Thursday – Finger block lifts 20mm edge 10 secs half crimp. 5kg, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 33, 34 (Left 6secs, R 10), 33

Fri – Home board 80mins. Warm up then 12 problems, from 5+ to 6C++ didn’t manage 4 hardest. Decent session.

Shoulders, toe hooking and full body strength and conditioning. 6 exercises coupled in supersets 8 reps x 3 sets. Skipped 2 exercises as motivation and time low.

Sat – 3 hours 9 mins off road run 14.9 miles 480m ascent. Took me a couple of hours of prevaricating to actually leave the house as motivation was low. Middle section was particularly boggy. At one point my shoe was sucked off and it took 4 tugs to get it back out of the primordial slime. Full body tingles and achy teeth in the last mile and a half = classic bonk. Lesson; take more than 2 gels.

Sunday – Awesome Walls 80 mins, warm up then tried 12 problems on the Kilter Board at 30 degrees. 5a x 2, 5b x 2, 5c x 2, 6a x 6, flashed two of them then 3 or so attempts on others. Confirmed my feeling last week that the grading system at 50 degrees doesn’t work, likely because it’s impossible to set anything less than 5c/6a at 50 degrees. Good session considering how achy I felt from my run. Stopped as power waned and afterwards shoulder, back, left wrist and a couple of fingers felt slightly tweaky. Decided to skip planned strength and conditioning in afternoon.

Reflection - Only 2 runs and 1 strength and conditioning session this week, but did manage 3 board sessions, aware that that was erring on the side of too much, but de-load week coming up. Particularly enjoyed getting back on my home board, being very fingery at 20 degrees it’s a nice compliment to the big moves and decent holds of the Kilter board. Maybe felt tiny glimmers of strength on both.

I am just using the same assistance band and tried to increase the reps, though i am probably switching to a pulley system with adjustable weight this week in order to finetune the intensity.

Recap last week:

Mon: Rest

Tues: Still felt tired from the weekend. Normally i would have done nothing but with a short business trip coming i decided to do an easy session to at least get some training done: 4x10 archer pullups, 20mm Block Lift Repeaters, 16,8kg, 6x12,7,3 with 2 min rest. 

Wed-Fri: No training, but quite busy with traveling and working 12 hours so i would not consider them rest days

Sat: Climbing Boulderwelt; warmup on easy boulders then decide to go for a new one-arm-pullup low point starting at 120°, with my right arm i managed to do with a very clean shape and probably could have added a pound or two. Left felt also in control untill the last part where i had to fight a little bit to lock it out. Afterwards many boulders in 6a to 6b range with little rest and tried a 7a Traverse but with no success. Felt that i am already moving better than last session, but there were also many relatively easy boulders where i could not figure out the beta. At least whenever i failed it was clear that my strength was more than sufficient

Sun: L-Sit 2x20s, Handstand, 2x12 Pike Pushups, 50 Pushups, 60s V-Sit-ups 12 Lunges 30 Bodyweight Squats

Inching closer and closer every week to the one-arm pullup. I still have the feeling that i am a little bit too week in the beginning of the movement to do a clean one, but i am also sure that if i manage to get to 90° i should have big chance of locking it out. Strategy for the next 3-4 weeks is to work in the 2-3 rep range and maybe also add some one-arm lockoffs and negatives. Afterwards, i will decided if i feel ready to try it, but i am rather being a little bit patient than rushing the process.

In the end i have been training for this goal since more than 5 years, so it is does not really matter if it is takes one or two months longer.

Based on my experience grading at 50° on the Kilterboard is completely off till around 6b+/6c. My theory is that people who use the board on this angle are usually very strong, so the grading of their warmups is often off. 

Going with a group. A couple of the guys are stronger sport climbers than me but with much less trad experience. Vestpillaren Direct (n6) would obviously be the big target, but we'll have to see how the first week goes getting used to the style and the grading to see if that's realistic.

Meanwhile ...

STG: Regain full health and resume normal training
STG: Kilterboard 5C @ 45°
STG: Thalkirchen 5.9 "easy" crack
MTG: Rough Bounds Scottish backpacking trip
MTG. DAV Lofoten meet
LTG: Be a confident, well rounded low to mid 7's sport climber. For measurable definition see Fit Club 823
LTG: Winter '25 - do an actual off piste ski tour.

M:     Looked in Dave MacLeod's Make or Break for what to do about my elbow trouble, which appears to be a brachioradialis strain. I've had this before, although not as badly, and it seems like I'm already doing the right things: massage, stretching, pressups, hammer curls. So I did those things, but nothing else today.
T:    Wall, Thalkirchen. Back to Tuesday night routes session with my DAV crew, for the first time (iirc) since pre illness. Fairly gentle mileage being careful with the elbows, which seem to start complaining as soon as the wall gets properly overhanging. So mostly vert. 5b 6a 6a+ 6a 6a 6b 6b 6b 5.10 - my easy crack project was occupied, so had a brief & feeble go on a harder one.
W:    Bike one hour; elbow rehab exercises & massage
T:     Bike one hour; elbow rehab exercises & shoulder mobility
F:    Actual rest day
S:    Boulderwelt. Lightish bouldering session being careful with the elbows: no boards, and nothing else too hard either.
    Bike, shoulder & elbow p/rehab
S:    Mountain bike in the woods 4 hours. Very muddy.

A week of consistent rehab exercises and no board climbing seems to be improving my sore elbow surprisingly quickly. No disrespect intended to Biscuit's admirable profession, but I generally take a fatalistic view of injuries and am surprised when rehab actually works. I'll try to resist the temptation to get back on the kilter for another week or two - don't want to risk turning a niggle into a chronic problem.

Is Sanctuary Wall really 30 degree overhanging, that’s outrageous and steeper than pretty much anything I’ve encountered. Sport climbing at this grade is all well and good as you are constantly on the move but hanging around to fiddle in gear…..

Thanks Tyler. Absolutely, I still managed to make some gains on sport last year so I'm hoping to maintain that level into the spring to set me up nicely for a trip to Cornwall. 

Again, more of a focus on base cycling fitness than anything else last week:

M - Rest

T - Zwift Sweet Spot intervals: 30 minutes at sweet spot, alternating between 88% and 92% of FTP in 5 minute blocks

W - Boulder pyramid: V3, V3, V4, V4, V5, V5, V6, V7, V5, V5, V4, V4, V3, V3

T - Zwift Sweet Spot intervals: 35 minutes at sweet spot, alternating between 88% and 92% of FTP in 5 minute blocks

F - Rest

S - Zone 2 base ride with sprint intervals (1hr Zone 2 into 3 sets of: 5x 10s sprint/1min50s Zone 2. 5 minutes rest between sets. Back into 45mins Zone 2. 62km / 2hr27mins / 310m ascent / average power 145watts / normalised power 192watts

S - 2hr board session, focusing on 6C+ to 7A volume 

M: 20 mins yoga

T: 20 mins yoga

W: Beacon, drudged my warm up and then jumped on a burly route too quickly. Downhill from there really.

T: Nowt

F : 20 mins yoga

S: Warmed up on my board, dropped the last move of yellow-red reverse again. Tried to hang my crimps and made no impression and decided to act like a boulderer by trying really hard and managed a couple of hangs where I managed to take my weight for a couple of seconds. Afterwards went on Traverse of the Gogs which was soaked but for the crux so I spent 90 mins pulling on and trying to snatch my hand in from one side pull to another. It was futile and offered no training benefit but plenty of encouragement to elbow injury

S: DIY project got out of hand in the AM, was going to do some training but worried about my elbow so settled for 20 mins yoga. 

I assumed it was a Devonian term for holds that I wasn't familiar with...  Like many others used to describe holds!

Thank you Tyler,

Current training is mostly to get better on longer routes (15-30m).  Routes in question are a mixture of new route projects and also a few established routes such as Labour of Love (E6 6b)

I have increased training this week, but treading a very delicate balance with the elbow tendons, which are making themselves known.  Hopefully I can increase the training intensity without too many issues.

M - 4 x 15 press ups.  Tried sets of pull ups on BM jugs, but elbows didn't like it.

T - Indoor Autobelays - Sets of the hardest 2 routes together (eg 7a+ then immediately 6c+).  4 x 15 Press ups

W - rest

T - Indoor Boulders 2 hours at V5-V6

F - 4 x 15 Press ups

S - Indoor Boulders with my 2 boys.  2 hours V5-V6

S - Indoors with my little girl.  Autobelay new sets.  This weeks - Training in trainers - 5+,6a,6b+6c+. Then rock shoes on for onsights 7b, 7a+,7a

Alas, I have joined the ALAS (Alan Little Appreciation Society) by having the longest running episode of feeling rough that I have ever had!  Frustratingly, only just managed to scrape through work with desperation carrying me through, but have managed zero training - physically not possible.  

Managed a quiet night out on Saturday and two days on garden project, so light activity becoming viable.  No overnights this week, so hoping to resume some sort of schedule this week, including a day out on Thursday.  Fingers crossed.

Quite disappointed to fall off the training wagon so brutally.

On noes. Get well sooner than me!

Hey Tyler and the gang. 

Yeah from a logistics point of view planning is sorted. Trip is booked. Fly out 28th June. 

Will climb Gran paradiso first with two nights hopefully in huts. Then it's on to the Big Lady. Gouter Route. I'm also trying to stay pretty relaxed about the trip being all about MB as the weather will play a huge role in whether I can even try to get up her. Seeing some of the data for successful climbs each month it can fluctuate wildly. Approx 60% of groups get a chance to try to summit - the drawback of these short window trips. 

A decent weeks training. I won't bore you with detail but Strength session at gym Mon, wed and sat. Runs Tues and Thurs. 

No climbing again this week but I did go to Whittakers Fine Lines presentation. It was very enjoyable. Some beautiful climbing in Norway. 

On the bus now to Scotland for some Winter Skills training this week so I'll report back next Sun. Have a great week all

Good evening everybody, hope everyone is doing well and lurgies are improving where possible.

Not been back, stuck to the deload and the weather was mostly pants during the week anyway.

Sort of, occasionally plan things with other locals but if you just rocked up there's a low chance you'd bump into anyone else at night. Parisellas may have been soaked but a bit of sun breeze seemed to dry out a lot of the pass yesterday.

Good week for me, deloaded well and performed well on the weekend. Rehab fell apart midweek due to life stuff but that should be sorted now.

Last Week:

Avg weight 77.5kg

M - Ice baths before bed.

T - AM light density pickups. Evening woody sesh. 2h but long rests and chatting, probably only pulled on 15 times. Ice baths before bed.

W - AM rushed light density pickups.

T - AM light density pickups.

F - Rest.

S - Pac man boulders. Sampling the classics, enjoying all the lovely holds! Highlight was probably a cheeky flash of Karma Sutra (V5). Swung by the Cromlech later, with just enough energy to finish off Ultimate Retro Party (f7B), some cracking moves on that one, the crux climbed like a mirror of Louisville Lip (but a couple grades easier!)

S - Rest.

Next Week:

M - Rest.

T - Climbing.

W - Rest.

T - Climbing.

F - Rest.

S, S - More climbing!

Goals:

Rehab left middle finger.

Manage session load and build better habits.

Improve ability on tiny edges.

Louisville Lip.

Rigpa.

Hi folks. Thanks for another great week of stats, Tyler.

This week actually saw me break the bouldering rule of 'stop faffing about trying to find easier beta and just pull harder' -I found better beta! I recognise this is the exception not the rule though!

Week 6:

M: Skiing. Strava reckoned I did 29km, but I reckon all this proves is that it can't cope with measuring tiny distances on an indoor slope! Trying to perfect deep powder technique on a short indoor groomer is probably a fools errand, but I'm hoping there is some carry over, to stop me tomahawking down the vallee blanche!

T: Prehab. Skipped run as ran out of hours in the day.

W: Strength sesh.

T: Skiing. More mileage trying to perfect my carving.

F: Nowt. Big work day.

S: Climbing variety pack! Mix of sport, trad and bouldering. Fairly easy mileage helping a beginner mate with his first ever sport project (success!) whilst mopping up some unticked adjacent routes in his rests.

S: Bouldering then trail run. Quick sesh to finish off Square face traverse (V4) -went relatively easily with new beta for the last moves). Then 10.9km, 486m vert, 7:27/km. 

Week 7:

M: Skiing.

T: Strength & Core.

W: Skiing. Run.

T: Strength & Core.

F: Run.

S: Nowt.

S: Nowt.

STG (end March):

Maintain finger strength -average 2 sessions/week. 

Consistent strength and conditioning -average 2 sessions/week.

Get ski practice in: 5+ sessions Dec-Feb. 

2+ off Scottish VII list.

1 off Slovenian Winter list (FAIL).

1+ off Alpine Winter list.

Another week! thanks for the write up Tyler. At the moment im very much trying to achieve a safe and comfortable balance in life and the allostatic load idea is just, for me anwyay, a tool to make me think about thinks holistically and stop me breaking wither mind or body

I suppose this is the reason im still only getting to the wall once a week. Physical capacity would allow for more but the mind already has more than enough. Waking up at 3.30am wondering if the latest order from the builders merchants has enoguh plasterboard and PIR board or if ive forgotten anything is a sign for me i think.

Although that said it feels very nice to see progress even with my once a week wall session and in quite a short time.

Sat: 4 x 5C, 3 x 6a, 1 x 6a+ plus some short 5a/b/c warm up top ropes

Back down to Barnstaple Wednesday for anther week of work on the house. Its going to be a mess as the electrician has done first fix of the house re-wire.

MTG: This summer repeat some routes on the north devon coast: Sacre Ceour, The Smile, Lunakhod

LTG: This summer explore Hartland and Morwenstow and try to find some E4's which are safe for a fall. I have to admit north Devon isn't traditionally a place i've considered has any routes which are "safe to fall off" but there must be some.

VLTG: Pentire - Black Magic and Darkinbad.

Cheers

Dave

Thanks Ash,

Unfortunately, I wouldn't say that any strength gains between '21 and winter '23/'24 sessions resulted in progress on Sub Moron The alternative foot betas helped massively, but the move from the lip to the break remains elusive on the link, i.e. I've only managed it thrice in isolation.  Gonna get henched shoulders and crush that mutha.

Week 6

M – 2x50 sit-ups, 2x50 crunchies and 50x 8kg core rotations.

T – 5x5 20mm edge pull-ups as warm up for max hang testing session. Crimpd protocol of 7s hang in 4-finger chisel. 8 sets of gradually increasing load; +16kg, +31kg, +46kg (1st 3x sets as 10s half-crimp; then move to 7s chisel for remainder) +61kg, +71kg, +81kg (slip after 4s), +81kg, +83kg, +85kg!! –> just scraped in the 7s.  Massively psyched with progress here and a new total hang PB of 163.4kg (+14kg improvement on previous best of +72kg at 77kg BW mid-pandemic). Awooga!

Back to earth with a bump trying to 1-arm hang the same edge – finger strength is obviously there but rotated off after 3-ish seconds on both arms, and same result on the BM2K central slot. Shoulders shoulder shoulders from now on!

After that decided I’d have a play on my 4mm micros and managed 3x pull-ups – again a massive PB as I’d only ever managed to hang them for 5s, let alone doing a pull-up on them.

W – 3x100 crunchies.

T – Evening board session; L shoulder feeling a bit worked from Tuesday shenanigans. Despite this, felt pretty front-wheel drive warming up and had a good session with focus on non-BMs. 8x 6B+ to 6C+ warm-up flashes.

• “Goon 4” a Joe Kinder “7C” problem. Should have flashed, but came up 1cm short of the finishing jug. Steady 2nd go.
• “Thick and Thin” another “7C” problem. Flash.
• 4x goes on “Shoulder Move” and unsurprisingly the weakened L shoulder prevented any decent attempts.
• 3x short goes on “Big Cross” 7C+ BM, making good headway on the eponymous move. More of an up, then cross move.
• 5min play on “One Armed Bandit” 8A BM. Hard. This, SM and BC highlight my weakness in getting into a small box and rocking over without pushing hips away from the wall = Something to work on.
• 7A+ warm-down flash “Tmyru Chopp”

F – Nothing but evening stretches

S – 20min youtube yoga.

S – Evening board session; L shoulder feeling back to full strength. 8x 6B+ to 6C+ warm-up flashes.

• “For those about to rock” another non-BM “7C” flash.
• 5x goes on “Shoulder Move”. An improvement on Thursday, but the same outcome.
• 3x goes on “Mississippi Queen” 7C BM. 2 moves left to fine tune, but feels more likely than Shoulder Move.

Some fantastic PBs there Ally!  I mean *fantastic* in the sense of incomprehensible, mind-boggling, jaw-dropping and such-like!  A bit humbling that you have added weight to your PB that appears quite a way up my own steady progression!  I did wonder if I wasn't trying hard enough, but my top hangs (while 10 seconds on the times) are pretty close to failure (RPE 9.8 and redlining).

Good job I'm ill, otherwise I'd be back on it, though it looks like a futile game of chase to me!

Some very impressive stats there.  Its not often someone in fit club actually gets better!  You and Ross are certainly managing it though.  A big success story for board climbing.

Yes, it hadn't escaped my notice that these two are our board devotees!

Cheers for the compliment.  As has been observed, the gains in finger-strength are most likely from consistent Moonboard sessions for the last 3 years, rather than my pretty inconsistent fingerboarding. 

The biggest difference in the last 3 years though, is rest.

I now appreciate that historically I was under-resting and at times probably fitted the definition of "over-training", with much of that due to excess volume in prescribed training plans (and not forgetting a fair chunk of allostatic load).

Consistency over months and years will trump the odd guilt induced session when ill

The geeky chart below shows the inconsistent nature of my 10s max-hang sessions over the last 3 years (blue lines) and yet absolute finger-strength has increased (red lines for 7s test nags) courtesy of bi-weekly board sessions.

Indeed.  I must say I feel much less shameful about my own spreadsheets now! 😂

All very interesting though - the board clearly delivers very significant finger strength and seems to keep you motivated.  I guess a real benefit is the global problem setting will always deliver new goals and variety.  Next time at Stoke I might pull on a warm up!

I love that your finger strength is needs a bar chart to track its progress 🤣

Cheers Tyler, its most defiantly the 50k version! That's quite enough for someone who hasn't even done marathon distance yet  Had a steady week again with a bit of distance progression on the long run.

Monday, 1k swim

Tuesday, 16k cycle to work and 18k cycle home

Wednesday, 1k swim

Thursday and Friday ended up stupidly busy at work so nothing.

Saturday, parental taxi service throughout the day. Did however get to sit down in the evening with a few beers and watch the England Wales rugby

Sunday, long run day and happily got up to half marathon distance and some challenging trails. Mainly due to flooding, having to wade through knee deep fields at times. Still all adds to the interest, as  Jasmin Paris said, type 2 fun 

Pleased with my running progress so far, going from 5k at the beginning of the year to half marathon now. Previously this has been an end point but now its just a small stepping stone which is a tad daunting!

Just to quickly say this approach gets two thumbs up from me. ''Skipped two exercises' may look like the headline. 'Did what exercise I could with the time and energy I had available' is the real story. 

It's never perfect. Get done what you can when you can. It's always better than doing nothing and adds up over time. 

Hi Tyler,

Thanks for guiding us through again.
As mentioned I caught a cold and was laid low for a couple of days. The Challenge declared null & void for this year. I am shamelessly claiming moral victory, however. Key though is that I feel the training for it was really beneficial and enjoyable – almost qualifies as fun…three things stand out for me: the start-again mentality; how I was still refining the routes until the end – although this took place of its own accord and was not something I was consciously doing; and finally, it’s possible to climb through and out of a lot of mental / emotional gravity and surface irritation / annoyance…despair at how you feel can abate, you can shake it off, as it were…not easy but possible…things getting manageable…

Nothing to report climbing wise for me due to the cold. Belayed my wife for another Challenge session for her on Sunday; I stayed nicely around 6a – 6b…

The ‘more importantly’ with regard to outdoor climbing betrays my biases rather than anything else and not something you should feel the need to explain.

Thanks for this. A lot. Your query fell on fertile ground…and I didn’t even think about it in terms of needing to explain. I’ve been pondering for weeks were the ‘psyche’ / spark has gone, and not only that, but why also this leaden resistance was there, almost as if the coming outdoor season was something I dreaded…it felt and verbalised as a ‘defeat’ before even setting out – ‘no point in thinking about or planning anything’. If that isn’t something from the deep, deep past than I don’t know what is. Almost an automatic reaction for me. Learning to differentiate is crucial, and your question has certainly at least set this differentiation process in motion.

I’m looking forward to an easy wall session on Thursday to get back in the groove – hopefully next week start with a bit more structured training…

Thanks again, Tyler, and good week to all.

Yeah, I can bridge to a foothold on the support strut which I can vary to give a bridge position of varying steepness/restfulness. 

I went to the wall at the start of last week and had a good positive session in terms of trying reasonably hard without issues. I can still tell I'm not on bouldering form but that's hardly a surprise and also not the most important thing.

Otherwise, the rest of the week was busy with a fair amount of walking about but nothing climbing specific - work, travel and other things all just got in the way. This week will end up much the same I think. Onto getting a bit more pumped when I get home.