A Stormy Patch

Is there no end to the madness

The season was off to a flyer, the weather was crazy mild for October / November and we were all waiting for the cold temps to arrive and the mid Winter sendfest to kick off, but the cool dry air never came ... in early November it started raining and it didn't stop for months, storm after storm lashed our little island out of it, Abagail, Barney, Clodagh, Desmond, Eva, Frank, Gertrude, Henry and Imogen, a never ending moist grey dull descended, there was floods, high winds and everybody was limited to one day out on real rock a month if you were lucky, being rained off was a regular occurrence. We kept the spirits high with beastin' and bants in the Gravity center training room, a little too much beastin' which led to me getting an overuse finger injury :( It took me about 2 months of rehab and not climbing very hard before I was able to pull hard again, eventually I came out the other side pretty fit after using the gymnastic rings and getting into a bit of trail running.

Craftsmanship 7A

After 3 months of almost non-stop rain things have begun to dry up a bit and I have been getting a few great days out in Glendo, full of mileage and craic with the lads :)  I had a sweet battle on Craftsmanship 7A, a lovely mini board problem, the powerful opening move is the crux, its a big throw out right to a nice small crimp, you bear down on the crimp and do a class heel hook move before bumping up to good holds and glory, glad to have gotten this one done, it used to feel sooo hard back in day when I first tried it !!

Happy days with Harri, Adam and J, few scoops at the Reel Rock Tour

The Fuckin' Original

Currently I am working on The Fuckin' Original 7A, she's a toughy, a very powerful move off a wee undercut, you pull with all your might to get your arse off the ground, then you slap an intermediate sloper and heave upwards for the top, I can't keep the tension on the move as its so spanned out so I am trying dyno beta, it will be a hard latch because the slopey juggy hold is at an awkward angle, I think I nearly latched it once so I hope to send soon that way or figure out some other sneaky beta for it. A break from the training routine arrives in the morning as I am heading off to sunny Spain for a sports climbing trip with a crew from the Naas climbing wall, psyched for chillin' out, eating chorizo, knockin' back cafe con leche and scurrying up 5's and 6's all week in Murcia on the east coast, will report back about that trip soon :)

Good times and birthday celebratons at Naas wall !! :)