How is this rubber possible

Well, that was timely after my climbing technology post and querying what is the next evolution. The OR show was on in Salt Lake City in the past week or two, and some new gizmos appeared.

The GriGri2 from Petzl made an appearance (now supports 9mm ropes, phew!) but the shock/awe/is-this-real demo is FiveTen's new Mi6 rubber (this was found on ClimbingNarc's site - supposedly developed for the new Mission Impossible movie). Can't embed the video so you'll have to pop over to watch this mobile phone footage - can someone explain to me how this is actually possible?!

Preparations

23 days to Siurana - yes, I have it written on a calendar at home and am counting down :)

Obviously, this means I've got a great focus for actually climbing right now, just over three weeks to keep the intensity and get the arms fully into shape after a major lack of incentives in the past few months (terrible weather, no sport climbs to get on, work keeping me occupied, commuting to Ireland, etc.).

I thought I'd post what I'm doing for anyone interested....

For the past few months, and considering I did have a lot of events/activities going on, I've been using it as an incentive to really work on strength, namely steep burly problems. Naturally, I have good physique for small-hold-small-move problems but when the going gets big and far, I usuaully suffer, I don't have the built in power. So, the Climbing Works competition wall has been keeping me largely occupied with it's weird and wonderful problems on volumes.
Since mid-December with a vague idea I'd be away in February I started playing around on the circuit board - it's got numerous circuits from 6b to 8c (and some very subjective grading to go with them too :). Since January, I've been putting some proper time into them, and in the knowledge that Siurana is a small-hold venue, multiple laps on the medium size holds (around 7b I think), and working on some of the grade-8's extending them out progressively towards sending them.

I'm now also following a regular regimen of living on the Beastmaker woody they have, 4 metres of 45-degree overhanging punishment with the most appalling footholds imaginable (until the added some monsters this week bizarely!). This is now my power/bouldering/strength work - 60 to 90 minutes per evening (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursdays some weeks, Tuesdays and Thursdays only). I'll then follow this off with a bunch of laps on the circuit board with attempts to stay on for multiple laps. Lap the multiple 7b, 7c/+ into 7a+ into 6c, etc. for another 60-90 minutes.
And then to top it off, a bunch of pull-ups and front levers to finish it off (the woody and circuit board mainly work fingers/forearms so I'm conscious of keeping up any shoulder gains).

It's awesome, I must admit I actually love just training for the sake of training at certain times of the year. It's funny, I couldn't turn the key in my lock on Tuesday night when I got home becuase it's pretty stiff and my forearms were still smoking after the laps (had to lean into it with body weight to open it - LOL). And it's such an awesome feeling, knowing that you've pushed boundaries (do you test your edge regularly?)

The edge. The ever-changing boundary between what we can do, what we think we can do and what we’re afraid to do. And it changes for each of us every day. Every day.

We meet The Edge when we engage in challenge. We perform a delicate dance with The Edge every time we push ourselves. We take a small step outside our comfort zone. Then a step back to security and comfort. We look into the eyes of our partner, Risk, and step outside once again.
And there we are. Doing what we didn’t know we could. Surviving. Thriving. The dance continues as we maneuver through our boundaries, acknowledging fear and rediscovering our own capabilities.
So I encourage you all to go to your edge today. To dance freely and with joy. What will you discover? Where is your edge today?

I can only hope that it all pays off now when I get to Spain now. The big concerns are that it's still plastic I'm training on so it doesn't transfer directly to rock, and by doing circuits (and not routes) there's some not-so-ideal differences there too. Still though, I do know that when I turn up at the crag, I'll have done my absolute best to be prepared for it and that's all that matters.
There's one or two routes I'd like to return to and I'm debating a day on a route I worked years ago to see if there's any improvements (and which got onsighted by a Brit last week! - hardcore). I won't have time in only 5/6 days to start some serious efforts but I'll be happy to just benchmark myself on it for now. It'll be Naomi's first visit to Siurana also so it'll be fun just introducing her to that amazing location anyway!

A Meurte!!!!!

Climbing is exercise

15 times more Oxygen - just what I need in my water....

25 days to Siurana, I live at the wall getting mileage on weekday evenings. This is my life, and I love it! Enough said :)


As for video distractions, here's a (random) one taken courtesy of professional climber Joe Kinder's blog - the professional climber's life sure sounds tough doesn't it?.... :) Granted it doesn't describe all the difficulties of self-motivation, training, new routing, etc. but I could think I could handle that to get up at 10am every day and spend two hours online to start the day!


Sport Climbing with Joe Kinder from 3d Media Watch on Vimeo.

Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address

If you haven't seen this before, this is worth watching. And then watching again. One of the most inspiring speeches you'll ever see.

Significant changes in climbing tech?

The original 5.10 Dragons in ?2004? Image courtesy of rockclimbing.com

For some reason I started thinking about technologies that have changed dramatically since I started climbing in 1998 and what has come along and made significant performance improvements to climbers in general.

Also, what order of imporance would you rank them?
Ideas:

• single ropes have evolved to the point that you can now purchase them in the same diameter that double ropes used to be.

• Downturned shoes (probably my top ranking one for importance). The earliest ones I can remember seeing were the Scarpa Paranoia's but I'm sure they weren't the first. My first memory of them was that they were unwearable (for me at least)! Of course, times (and shapes) have evolved thankfully and we now have numerous different models to choose from. If you haven't tried downturns, you are seriously missing out. Stories of them being worth half a grade performance increase aren't far off the mark......so long as you have the core strength to help also!

• Wiregate quickdrawsv that chopped quickdraw weight significantly, although you can now buy solid gate quickdraws that weight the same.....

• ultra-light harnesses. Arcteryx were the pioneers in this field with their how-can-they-be-that-thin models, Black Diamond and Petzl are now following suit. No, I still can't get my head around their thinness, but who cares, they work!

• Ultralight helmets. Take a bicycle helmet, modify it for climbing (essentially) and away you go. I know I can't touch the old plastic style ones anymore.....

• What am I missing when it comes to trad gear? I can't think of anything major to be honest, more evolution than revoltion I think? Does the anticam count (you should watch all of The Season to get a better understanding)?

What else am I missing?

Late catchup!

Wow, has Christmas and New Years gone already?! And there I was hoping to start the New Year with a regular weekly post :)

Anyway, been pretty busy for the past while. Last weekend bouldering in Glendalough and at the Scalp in Wicklow, Ireland, was fun - a first time experience at the Scalp strangely (considering you have to drive by it on the way to most of the other bouldering areas in Wicklow! Had the interesting experience of trying out an Amazon Kindle there (thanks Steve) with the last pdf edition of the Irish bouldering guide (short description of the Kindle - the screen just about handles the maps, and the text is more than fine, but you end up having to zoom in and out which I thought just made it annoying and unusable. Perhaps a bigger screen would fix this?). 

Regarding the guidebook, kudos to Dave for having the vision all those years ago to start TheShortSpan and compile a country-wide collection of bouldering.

In between that, I've been re-learning a lot of climbing again. I like to try and start with a clean slate (as much as possible every once in a while) and I've been attempting this at the Climbing Works recently, spending as much time as I can on the steep, thuggy problems and starting to introduce myself to the woody (aka the Beastmaker board). I'm honestly finding the Works brilliant this year. It's easy to get complacent with how you're climbing (not in performance or grades, but just the amount or quality of the climbing) and the Works has really jolted me into activity again this year - one thing I've found: my finger strength has dropped off over the years (especially from my early days of tons of crimping down on tiny edges at DCU's old uni wall) but I can still keep up with many of the strong guys at the wall in this regard. But what I don't have is the power moving between the holds. I can pretty much hang most holds, but actually pulling between them is a whole different story. And of course, it's an easy fix - do more of this type of climbing! Big power moves, high intensity bouldering, and really focusing on technique and movement. Going to be a busy and fun year!

What are you working on this year?