UKC

Fit Club 899

Bore da, Fit Club. Su'mae?

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_fitclub_week_898-77153...

Somerset Swede Basher: Firstly -the kids are machines! That Fairfield Horseshoe day would ruin many grown-ups, so big kudos to them for smashing it. Back to you... That quick hit on Murray's Route sounds like a banger! I love that kind of day... where are you up to with the Classic/Hard/Extreme Rock routes now? Your percentages must be steadily creeping up?

Tyler: Are you officially on sabbatical now? Make sure it doesn't all get gobbled up by DIY! Great progress on Sticky Fingers. Will you be joining Fi on the TMB or is that when you'll be smashing out Rebuffat 100 routes?

Derek Furze: Nice work getting back on the training wagon (to be honest, I'm not convinced you were truly off it -with the other stuff you were doing you were basically training just under a different name, no?!) Great to see some decent trad sessions. The rest of the crag may be soft, but the consensus seems to be that ME is full value, so you should be chuffed with that.

Ross Barker: Sorry to hear about the finger woes. You, Steve and I should start a separate club for the weak of finger. I know you've got established strategies from previous finger injuries -do you feel that you have a decent plan for the current tweaks, or do you need to get a new programme of rehab lined up?

Alan Little: I reckon you win FitClub for the last few weeks! That sounds like an epic trip, with a great combo of the good, the bad and the epic! It seems that you made some great decisions, with a good combination of pushing hard and 'managing the epic' -very impressive for a solo trip where it must be easy to get in your own head! I'd be lying if I said I wasn't almost as jealous as I am impressed by that trip. I fear my envy levels are only going to increase when you go to Lofoten though! -when is that scheduled?

AJM: Sounds like some great moments... Brimham is always a treat, and Crucifix is a must-have on the Almscliff bouldering CV (although terrifying descent!) But I suspect they're overshadowed by ankle-gate. How has it been this week? Did you get a pro-opinion on it in the end? Also... we want colour updates!

Tom Green: Is the running enough to maintain a basic level of fitness? Maybe need to force yourself to do an extra session per week if you're doing such low mileage. Well done on being proactive in managing the finger tweak.

Tigh: Another solid week. You've been so consistent, with fairly specific training, that I don't have much to say other than DON'T GET INJURED in the next three weeks!

biscuit: A few friends have given Sticky Wicket good reviews, so seems a good shout for a Kilnsey project. Thanks again for the tips re mono rehab/training -the combo of the band exercise and my Process unlevel edge will hopefully give me steel talons for Yates! How did the week of no training/no climbing go? I imagine a week of gentle bimbling was a bit of an anathema?!

Randy: Sorry to hear the monsoon has arrived. What is it with the crazy weather this year? It's almost enough to stop me denying climate change!! ;-p Good work sticking to the basics. Is it the repeaters that have plateaued? Maybe throw in a different stimulus or some max hang work to freshen things up?

Ian Parnell: First run? -YYFY! That's great news, especially to hear that the achilles behaved. Have you a plan to continue 'on the job' rehab, with progressive challenge? I know what you mean about the mismatch between expectation and reality for your climbing level -I've had a bad case of that with winter climbing over the last few years. I think your strategy for managing expectations within the context of life's challenges sounds good -I think you're still giving a good account of yourself on the days out that you're grabbing.

mattrm: I reckon forcing yourself out when you CBA is the epitome of good motivation! I know I'm not the only one in FitClub who has picked up on it, so take the plaudits! Hope you stuck to a deload week... that's some big mileage over the last couple of weeks. Did you have the weather to sub in some bouldering in place of the running?

Steve Claw: Hope that the enforced rest on the family holiday has been generally positive for the finger and that you've managed to resist the post-holiday psyche for getting back in to things to quickly?! At the risk of being boring about the finger (I'm aware I've droned on about it every week recently!) are you doing any rehab work for it?

Ally Smith: Aw crap -you're like a walking case study for common viral diseases at the moment! Hope the latest was short lived. Interested in the skin conditioning pulls.... what exactly do they entail? Also, your Monday sounds banging! Drooling at the thought of it!

planetmarshall: That's great to hear you're back to leg days... how are they feeling? Any residual problems with pain/weakness/neuro issues? Good choice on Raggalds -it would have been a long crawl home if you'd cocked that up! How did you enjoy ZigZag? I reckon it's one of the best VDiffs on grit!

Thanks Tom.  A week working on stuff for my parents was bookended by two contrasting days out!

Monday - feeling slightly off colour, but headed up to Wilton 3.  Really struggled.  I could make excuses like intermittent rain, routes being somewhat grubby, but it was simply whatever bug I had picked up.  Battled on and did some routes, with Brastium (E1 5b) being the highlight.  Oddly enough, it felt the easiest, despite a mix of VS making up the rest.

A reflection that decent routes are really suffering from lack of traffic here.  Had to use a nut key to unearth gear placements on a two-star VS!

Tues- childminding

Wed to Thurs - a blur of patio finishing and decorating at my parents.  Got back late on Thursday still feeling under the weather.

Friday - Egerton.  I'm now convinced that this 'urban shithole' (comment from logbooks) is actually good and I can't wait to get back.  Did some easy things to get moving, then Red Wall Direct (E1 5b), which has the best elbow rest I have ever found.  Uphill, but pretty straightforward.  Then did God Save the Queen (HVS 5a) and Gallows Pole (HVS 5a).  Both of these would attract queues at Millstone, and GP was interesting in having a bold start, 3 RPs leading to a thank God rock one!  Brilliant.  I had done these the week after Dave Knighton put them up (in pre-RP days), but didn't remember them at all.  Keen to get back for the harder things on this wall.

Away again this week with DIY, but hope to get out Mon and Tues, before a week 900 blitz trip. Can't believe the difference across the week and unsure if it was partly that Wilton 3 didn't have anything as a target.  I do find it hard to get motivated when there isn't something new to discover.

Thanks everyone who gave suggestions for our Gower trip, Nicholastom Farm is indeed a great campsite, I’d do all my food shopping at Swansea Market if it was nearby and I really don’t understand why Worm’s head is not considered one of the great walks of Wales, up there with Tryfan etc. 

Not so far and already worried I won’t have time for it all

Thanks to some stellar planning I’m back at work when she’s out there!

This week has been a non-climbing trip to Gower (I’m glossing over my B2B on Pioneers of the Hypnotic Groove. I was giving myself a hard time about it but I did all the moves after no warm up and a very hearty lunch. I’d got a bit delulu thinking I’d find it easy but there’s more to it than the average climbing wall jug haul). 
This week I’m going to Ceuse but by the time I pull on there I’ll have done negligible climbing for two weeks but it’s the walk in that’s really keeping me awake at night!

Thanks Tom. Yeah my fingers and blistered toes are crossed I don't get injured. Training has been consistent, I just wish I'd had more opportunities to get up to Wales. I'm away to Spain next Sat and am planning a hike up Mulhacen which is 3400m so that will be a good last session in the mountains before France. 

Another decent week this week 

M - Rest Day so did an upper body session at the gym 

T - 9.5km easy pace run

W - Intervals going hard. 1.6km X2, 800m X3, 400m X4 . Total 10km 

T - Stepper for 1 hour. Approx 40mins with 20%BW. 

F - Rest 

Sa - 10km moderate pace run. Then took the dog for a 10km hike. 450m elevation. Filled the rucksack with bottles of water for this to up the difficulty as it wasn't very hilly.

Su - 15km trail run along flatter part of Jurassic coast. About 360m elevation. 

Enjoy your week everyone. 

Noswaith dda, Tom! Dych chi'n dysgu Cymraeg? I knew that spate of Welsh on Duolingo would come in handy, but I wouldn't have thought it would be here!

Yes, injury-prone fingers anonymous. I imagine there's elements of deeply ingrained bad habits that I'm not noticing, but I'll make the assumption that my genetics perhaps aren't the best for turbocrimping. When uninjured I can crank pretty hard on a one-pad edge, but just hanging on 10mms is limit.

I'm still not sure exactly what to self-diagnose for this right middle finger, but I've started with some progressive loading with a hangboard. It is improving at a rate I'm reasonably happy with, it felt a lot better this weekend than it did last. Here's to more of that! Left middle felt quite good as well, could crimp quite hard.

A decent week overall. Good finger/wrist rehab, and a cracking little session on the Orme. Lacking on lower body mobility this week but I think the fingers are simply the main priority at the moment. Life still busy but figuring out how to squeeze things in.

Last Week:

Avg weight 79kg.

M - Rest.

T - 19mm fingerboard pickups @ 25kg, 6x10s. The level of intensity where the right middle finger was slightly but not overly sore. Some band stuff to (in theory) work the shoulders and biceps a bit. Wrist pronation stretches. Pronated bicep curls, 6x5.

W - Rest.

T - Rest.

F - 19mm fingerboard pickups @ 27.5kg, 6x10s. Wrist pronation stretches. Pronated bicep curls, 6x5.

S - Rest.

S - Parisella's Cave. After some warming up I got on Clever Beaver (V7). With some good beta from the array of wads present, I was able to do it. Then worked the sitter CB low start - Clever Beaver (V8+) - eventually sussed a sequence though I think it may not be the most efficient (a small box for a big man!), but I'll take two halves with potential to improve it further. Reasonably psyched to return.

Next Week:

M - Rest.

T - Climbing/rehab.

W - Rest.

T - Climbing/rehab.

F - Rest.

S, S - Probably no climbing!

Goals:

Rehab left middle finger.

Assess/rehab right middle finger.

Improve wrist mobility.

Improve lower body mobility.

Louisville Lip.

Rigpa.

Cheers Tom, yeah they are pretty good. I'm sure at some point there will be a revolt but at the moment they are both enjoying being outdoors. I've not done as many off my list as I'd have liked. I think I'm up to 5 CR, 1 HR and 1ER so far this year. It took a long time for everything to get dry and I've not always managed to get partners, weather and time to match up but slowly plugging away. I got a bit distracted with other stuff this week...

Mon. Anston stones boulder session. Went back for another go at the Chuckvision sit start. Managed all the moves this time. I make use of an intermediate and do it in 5 moves rather than the standard 4. Managed to link the first two and the next 3. Need to sort a foot swap and a hand adjust but if I can do that I should be able to get into the stand start position.

Tues. Rest.

Wed. 5km run.

Thurs. Rest. 

Fri. A bit of a mission for an after work session with Tom but worth it as I managed to do Back-Bee Tubin (8a). Whoop whoop! I've not done an 8a since 2021, this is only my 9th since my first in 2008. Never done more than one in a year and this will be my fastest (2 sessions, normally it's 3-7 if it goes at all). I thought I'd wasted the session when I fell from the last hard move on the first redpoint but got it next go. Also nearly flashed the 7c next door afterwards. Fell off the crux from the floor (missed a foothold) tiny rest then pulled back on and did the crux and lead on to the top. Too dark and too late for a long enough rest to get it this time but if I'm there again I think it would go fairly quickly now.

Sat. Decided I'd have a go at the orienteering after the kids had been round. Really enjoyed this, about 3.5km running (did the orange) and came 10th. A couple of nav errors (not as bad as the boy though!) but I don't think I could have shaved more than 4 mins off without these.

Sun. Junior fell run in the morning (2.5km) and a light aerocap session in the attic this evening (2x 10mins on).

Next week I've got a lot of family stuff to work round and the forecast isn't looking great for the time I'm going to get but I've got a partner lined up so we'll see what happens!

Shwmae!  Dw i’n iawn, diolch.  Sadly despite living here for 20 odd years, that's the extent of my Cymraeg.  Thanks for the stats Tom.

Weight - 14st

STG - 10km fell loop in 1h 45m

MTG - 30 mile ultra (July 24)

LTG? keep on trucking?  stay fit? ummm

BHAG - F7A boulder somewhere / kickflip

M - 6k run

T - Rest

W - 1h circuits at Llangorse

T - Rest

F - Rest

S - 4k run

S - Rest

Weekly kms - 10k

Diet status - Ok

I have been feeling the effects of the past two weeks.  Very tired and run down all week long.  6k with the kids fell running on Monday pretty much finished me off.  Had a good session at Llangorse tho.  Making solid progress on the circuit board.  Short run on Saturday, otherwise, that's been it.  I'm still happy tho, two big weeks and no injury.  Good progress with bouldering.  I would have gone out doors, but the walk in to the crag I currently like was just too much.

Going to focus on diet and recceing as much of the course as I can next week.  Oh and bouldering as well.  The fit club meet is on the 22nd/23rd, so I'm looking forward to that, so any climbing done this week should help, I think.  Otherwise it's just staying un-injured at this point.  Then after that it's on to the ultra in July.

Tyler - Rhossili is largely considered to be one of the 'best' beaches in Wales, so I think that whole Worms Head area is similar.  I agree tho, the costal path is a lovely walk.  I'm glad you liked Swansea Market, it's amazing isn't it.

Thank you Tom,

I have to admit I have not been doing much in the way of rehab so far.  I have been applying Diclofenac gel on a regular basis to try and at times compression tape to keep the swelling down.  I have been waiting for it to show signs of improvement before I try anything else.  This week has seen what I think is an improvement, where light loading may be beneficial.  From a climbing point of view I am getting used to pulling without it, but will be taping the pip joint to restrict its ability to bend.

Quiet week back.

T - Swung leads on The Mal (E3 5c), as I had not done it before.  Led the hard pitch with no issues, and got caught in a heavy downpour, but the route is just about steep enough we could carry on.

W - Led Motorway Madness (E4 6a), a 40m pitch with very little gear required, felt quite E4, even thought the moves are not all that hard.  Imagine your only gear in 30ft being a half sawn though ring bolt and a No7 nut behind a flexing rebar stump, all very Avon

F - Swung leads on Unknown Pleasures (E6 6b) Due to the finger I opted to follow on P1, which actually worked out ok, and neither of us had any issues with it.  The top pitch "E3 5c" however, we both found really hard, and I had to dig deep to stay on as the pump kicked in (I am not good on steep ground).  It is possible I went too direct up the headwall to the runnel, but it seemed like the right thing to do.

Fantastic. 

Thanks Tom. It was a tougher trip than I was expecting, thanks to both weather and terrain, but I suppose the ultimate verdict on it is that I definitely want to go back. Lofoten is the last two weeks in July, so I have five weeks to get some rock mileage in and build some endurance.

STG: Kilterboard body tension project @45° with no foot cut
STG. DAV Lofoten meet in July
MTG: Im Extremen Fels ticks in August
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.

A quiet week. Came back from Scotland pretty tired, lots to catch up on at work post holiday, poor weather forecast at the weekend ...

M:  Back at work, and still feeling pretty tired, but wanted to start to ease back into some training. Crimp block pick-ups, pullups, ring supports, bulgarian split squats

T:    Bike one hour - errands in town, gradually get the seized-up legs moving again

W:  Bike 1½ hours - office & back

T:    Had planned to go to the wall, but am still tired from Scotland, and slept very badly last night for some reason. Just about managed half an hour stretching before crashing out early.

F:    Wall, Thalkirchen. Kilterboard was busy when I arrived so I warmed up in the "normal" bouldering room (which I don't much like at Thalkirchen - it's good to be forced outside one's comfort zone) then went back upstairs later. Quite a decent easing back in session. Very weak on my 25° crimps project, but several decent goes on the 45° no-foot-cut target

S:    Heavy thunderstorms forecast all weekend. Bugger. So no climbing. No other mountain activity either: hillwalking in the rain holds few fears for me just now, obvs, but didn't fancy being struck by lightning.
    Supported my son inspecting & test driving vans instead. This also counts indirectly as preparation for climbing, since the agreement is that I will get to use the van occasionally.

S:    Wall, Thalkirchen. Autobelay. A promising start to the "need some endurance now" programme. 5c 6a 6a+ 6b 6b+ "6c+/7a" ... tried a couple more things afterwards but was tired. The "6c+/7a" could have been my hardest onsight ever, had it been anything like properly graded. But consensus in the logs was more like 6c - and tbh quite generous even at that. But still.
    Bike there & back
 

Busy with, among other people, Molly T-S. Presumably en route to / warming up for Budapest. I wished her luck.

Hi all.

Week 23:

Another passible week. Poor running mileage. Finger still feeling vulnerable, but not too sore -thanks for all the wisdom last week.

M: Road run. 5.9km, 52m vert, 4:41/km. Had intended to run three times this week, so made this a rare short, fast (for me!) run. Feels fun running hard, but if I wanted to start getting objectively fast I'd have a lot of work to do!

T: Strength & Core.

W: Bouldering. A good session on Eliminator (f6C) -have got it wired to the top committing slap... so now just need to commit!

T: Nowt.

F: Sport climbing. Kept disciplined to stick with the onsighting mileage. Feels a bit weird being back to 'trad climbing on bolts' after the last couple of years of learning to sport climb like a proper sport climber, but I think it is helping my onsight game. Great scenes belaying SSB on Back-Bee Tubin (8a) -excellent performance.

S: Strength & Core. 

S: Rehab.

Week 24:

M: Run. Rehab.

T: Strength & Core. Rehab.

W: Climbing. Rehab.

T: Run. Rehab.

F: Strength & Core. Rehab.

S: Run. Rehab.

S: Climbing. Rehab.

STG (end of August):

Average 2 conditioning sessions per week.

Average 2.5 fingerboard sessions per week.

3 big VS mileage days.

Tick Trevor.

3 off E2 list including Hurricane

Yates' Layaway.

Eliminator.

Hi Tom/All,

Finally back to a place where i feel I can start building towards my goals (and goodness knows the event is a lot closer now!). It has been an interesting few weeks/months, I went to the Dr about the persistent cough and reoccurring chest infections and ended up with a full blood test and chest x rays. Happily the X ray came back clear so no cancer however the blood tests did throw up that I'm anaemic which would explain why i was so exhausted with the chest infections. With the potential for losing blood internally I  have also been screened for bowel cancer which has also come back as normal so happy days there. I am booked in for a load more blood tests to check for any differences from the first batch to see if there are any indicators as to the cause of the anaemia. Happily I'm relatively healthy in most other respects, although cutting down alcohol intake was very strongly recommended!

Going forward im aiming to keep the exercise levels up but lower the intensity to ensure i can complete my goals which are as follows;

Short term goal, self motivated Olympic distance triathlon to coincide roughly with when its the tri at the Olympics so late July. Not an organised event, it will be a 1.5k swim in the normal pool, a 40k cycle home and then a 10k run with my wife.

Medium term goal is the 50k ultra im booked on in mid August so not much time left there!!

Long term goal, I saw this event and it has really taken my fancy so the 20km "gritty" course is on my radar for 2025 

https://swimrungower.com/

Last week went as follows

Monday, 1km lunchtime swim

Tuesday 1km lunchtime swim and 6k evening run

Wednesday, 1.5km lunchtime swim and 4k evening run

Thursday, 1km lunchtime swim followed by stretch class and 7k evening run

Friday, 1km lunchtime swim and 33k cycle home from work

Saturday, 4k run

Sunday, lovely 16.5k trail run. Sundays will be my long run day to build towards the ultra. It wont be a constant run so I'm training with a view of regular active micro rests. Essentially as the event is a trails run there are always styles, gates and other points where you slow down. So the plan is to take these opportunities to  slow up a bit, walk 20m or so to the gate, take on fluids/gel/food, walk for a bit  after then back to running. I have found this breaks things up nicely and could have gone further which is good as the run was pretty much 1/3rd the distance with 2 months left to go!!

Anyway, its good to be back

Yeah, but i think it was more a case of not enough rest. Reduced the amount of sessiosn to 3 last week and saw some progress again. It always good to remember that we improve not while training but while we a laying on the couch

Another decent week. Lockoffs strength is also slowly coming back. I would guess that 3-5% is still missing to reach the level that i had before the injury. Probably 2 weeks more training for my left arm should be enough to reach but with the right arm it will probably take a little bit longer.

yr wythnos hon mwy YYFY ond hefyd rhai NNFN

Life cranked up to Spinal Tap (excuse the pun) levels of carer stress with not one but both parents with broken backs and then end of this week my youngest taking a dip again in mental health. As a result lots of driving to Swindon and no climbing. I am beginning to perfect Carcing though.

Managed 3 rubs this week 3x 3mins, 3 x 5 mins and 10 mins 1min off then 5 mins. All at some Kipchoge-like 10min mile pace.

I also managed 10 x 4 pull-ups, 5 press ups with 60 sec rest. This preceded the 10/5min run and all in all it felt quite a hard work out - a sorry reflection on where my fitness is currently.

Reflection - Just a massive dose of life at the moment. I’m hoping to sneak in at least one climbing session this week before swapping with my sister for more care duty. 

Great to see you back Sheep 

Yeah, ankle-gate is the defining thing in terms of it's ongoing impact. So, updates:

- some epic bruising came up early last week, but has been fading since late week and whilst still present today is very much in retreat. All sorts of colours but some good purples, blacks, reds and greens going on

- epic swelling as well. Monday last week I had very little mobility in the joint and was fully hobbling everywhere. Today, in socks or bare feet, I can walk fairly normally. I have some shoes I can wear, and I'm going to try boots too (other shoes have failed the comfort test because the cut of the ankle hits the sore spots around the ball of the ankle, so perhaps the higher cut of boots gets around this). Genuine improvements in mobility day by day.

- the joint still feels a bit weak and unstable, and there are sore spots most of the way round the ball of the ankle, particularly the lower side of it. But unless I actively go looking for it, I can function without real discomfort

- I went to the physio this afternoon. He seemed to think that it was a significant sprain, but not a rupture, but also seemed to think that the healing to date - this being day 9 - was encouraging. I think the residual soreness to being prodded in the right places was the pointer at the underlying severity. I have been given an initial focus on trying to reduce the swelling, and am expecting a first tranche of rehab exercises to arrive via email soon.

Otherwise, I did a couple of fingerboard sessions, a couple of sessions doing sets of dips, and ate with restraint until Sunday when we had numerous old work friends round for a BBQ. Perhaps it is summer conditions on the fingerboard, perhaps there is more waking up of the fingers yet to do, but this seems to be pointing at what I had suspected (and you might logically expect to be the case) which is that two years of on-off injuries and consequential sapped motivation to train has left me a bit of a hole to climb out of. The version of me that was probably as boulder strong as I've ever been coming out of lockdown training 2020 and 2021 is far away these days. I guess the next few weeks is an opportunity to start to remedy that, until such time as easy climbing becomes an option again.

Hang in there Ian. Sounds rough ...

Think of it as low-hanging fruit!.  After years not doing much, I was a bit shocked at how weak I was, but at least strength does respond well to training!

That all sounds terrible.  Hope everyone gets better soon.

AJM - ankle-gate sucks.  Hope it's better soon.

Everyone else - just to remind you all that the meet is coming up soon on the 22nd/23rd.  All welcome!  We've not decided on a location, but it'll probably be N Wales or Peak.

I definitely won’t be able to make it as I’ll be in France. Hope the sun shines for you wherever you are. 

I will be available on one of the days, whether it is Peak or Wales.  Looking forward to meeting up and relaxed about getting on something.

Thanks Tom,

I'd suggest that a week of no climbing/training is not for me. It may be that it coincided with a period of bad sleep leading to a general feeling of lethargy rather than feeling full of energy and being ready to tear it up. 

I did do a couple of 30 min on climb arounds and a couple of jogs. 

On Friday we went to South Wales to stay at the worst campsite I've ever been on. I don't mind basic, but I don't like filthy.....

Saturday we headed to Dinas Rock. In amongst trees, by a river, no breeze, midges, a constant stream of ghyll scrambling groups walking through us and the feeling we were the first to go there this year meant we got one bolt up one route and then bailed. It was very spoogy and dirty. We may not have seen it at its best, but I won't be rushing back.

We diverted to Foxhole to have a bash at Pioneers of the Hypnotic Groove (7b). I found this very intimidating. I can't argue it's an excellent route though. I had 4 (or 5?) goes up it and it turns out the massive, obvious, unmissable, huge, undercut near the top is a red herring. Which explains why I kept falling off it. One to go back for. 

On Sunday we went to Shipwreck Cove and I did Wrecking Ball (7b) 3rd go. 1 to put the clips in then I had a bash. I got through the crux but hadn't clipped. The next move also turned out to be not good to clip from and I chose to drop from there rather than carry on. I was glad about that as on my 3rd go it turns out that there's still some stern moves to do.

Good route and happy enough with that.

Back home now looking to make the best of an iffy forecast - again. Come on Summer!

Thanks Tom. Starting to feel much better generally but I'm still a bit limited by distance as it's pretty uncomfortable to sit in the car for long periods - but hoping for an optimistic trip to the Lakes this week.

ZigZag, as you say, is definitely one of the best VDiffs on grit. It was good to see that it was reasonably popular last weekend. Raggald's Wall will wait for another day. It's one of these "traverse off into the void with suspect protection" routes that needs to wait until I'm a bit more used to bold climbing again.

I'm really enjoying regular gym sessions again, but I think I'll have to dial it back a bit when I start regular climbing again. Not sure how I'm going to program my weeks yet.

Last Week's goals -

• Start another 4 week block of gym exercises, add in some leg work - Done
• Hope to get some trad in but the mixed weather is making it a bit unpredictable - No trad but a good indoors session

Last Week -

Week 1/4

Monday

Gym - keeping with the 5x5 superset protocol as seeing fairly consistent improvements. This week's split:

• Front Squats/DB Bilateral Press
• Bench Press/Bent-over barbell row
• Pullups

Thursday

Gym - as above (though in London and having to approximate with the ridiculous 2kg dumbbell increments)

Saturday

Gym - as above

Sunday

AW Stockport. Surprised myself a bit by having a reasonably solid attempt on a long 7a on the back wall. Mostly bolt-to-bolt on the upper half but was good to clip the chains at least.

STG

Another gym week - aim for three sessions. might end up reducing this to two if I start more climbing again but will see how it goes. Quite enjoying the weights work so reluctant to do this - but conscious of overdoing it. So far so good, though.

Also need to introduce more trail running so think about priorities.

Possible trip to the Lakes (Patterdale) at the weekend but weather currently looking about 50/50

There's a few sequences for the CB low start, at least one of which shouldn't feel like a "small box", so when you go back keep an open mind for alternative sequences.

Yes, I realise now I could probably just reach the big flat crimp on the first move

I was taking the little edge in the big undercut flake with my right and then coming in to match, which is both hard and dabby! Keen to return, though I was informed by some regulars that start is one of the first things to start seeping, d'oh...