The Archway reset and some REAL rock - Glenmacnass
Firstly, I really need to get sorted out with contacting people before I'm back home for a weekend - I don't seem to be particularly adept at updating people that I'm back! Having said that, as usual it was still an awesome weekend and managed to hook up with a bunch of people in the end, although Naomi will take the credit for organizing much of it.
The Archway in all it's glory. Apologies for badly chopped photo, it's a stitch of 9 photos from my iphone so quality is pretty poor and missed the bottom of the wall
Gary contemplating whether to just give up and go home ;)
Saturday involved some highly boring (and insane considering the weather) work resetting the Archway, Dublin's 2nd best climbing and training venue (sorry, my allegiance still is with the Co-Op :) To anyone involved in a wall, reset the wall before the season indoors begins, and do it on a day when the weather sucks! Having said that, the wall badly needed a reset and as I was home, Naomi had asked me to give a hand and it seemed like a good idea as I could share some ideas from Sheffield. Rule number one of a wall from the strong folk I see, is use only crap footholds for problems and avoid hand-to-feet as it simulates real rock better thus putting way more load on your arms so gets you stronger quicker.
In the end though, I'd say slightly over 30% of the wall was reset and looks much more usable in general so it'll be worthwhile. I'm not joking when I say that the Co-Op and Archway are the two best facilities in Dublin for bouldering on. I know Naomi now has a few pockets in great locations for doing strength work on also so she's not complaining :)
After that, a great evening was spent chilling out with a bunch of friends, unfortunately I was having to drive home so couldn't get involved in the action of tasting these.....
Glenmacnass granite-ness. Awesome, beautful, skin-shredding granite :)
Sunday involved a nice run before breakfast, followed by a drive to potentially, the nicest area in Wicklow, Glenmacnass valley. Unfortunately, I've no real photos but the photo below shows how coarse the rock is, skin shredding is the name of the game here but it's all so worth it. I hear all of these reports that gritstone is God's rock, but we all really know where it's at…….
In the end, a shorter session ensued as some other commitments for the evening ended play, but Naomi sent her first 6b+ boulder problem in quick time and I admired the holds on one or two of the harder problems. Sometime I'll get around to pulling hard on granite….that Wow Prow is one of the few lines in Ireland that truly inspires me.
4 weeks to go to Siurana, have to keep the training up now - projects at the wall, some fingerboarding and bouldering to keep the power up, and some light running and core work for variation. Now that work has settled down and some shade of a routine is forming, hopefully it'll translate into more sleep and training time. This may be a trip early in the season for climbing but I'm hoping to make the most of it. Keep up the motivation, y'all - only 2 months to May and the Summer season. psyche!
The Archway in all it's glory. Apologies for badly chopped photo, it's a stitch of 9 photos from my iphone so quality is pretty poor and missed the bottom of the wall
Gary contemplating whether to just give up and go home ;)
Saturday involved some highly boring (and insane considering the weather) work resetting the Archway, Dublin's 2nd best climbing and training venue (sorry, my allegiance still is with the Co-Op :) To anyone involved in a wall, reset the wall before the season indoors begins, and do it on a day when the weather sucks! Having said that, the wall badly needed a reset and as I was home, Naomi had asked me to give a hand and it seemed like a good idea as I could share some ideas from Sheffield. Rule number one of a wall from the strong folk I see, is use only crap footholds for problems and avoid hand-to-feet as it simulates real rock better thus putting way more load on your arms so gets you stronger quicker.
In the end though, I'd say slightly over 30% of the wall was reset and looks much more usable in general so it'll be worthwhile. I'm not joking when I say that the Co-Op and Archway are the two best facilities in Dublin for bouldering on. I know Naomi now has a few pockets in great locations for doing strength work on also so she's not complaining :)
After that, a great evening was spent chilling out with a bunch of friends, unfortunately I was having to drive home so couldn't get involved in the action of tasting these.....
Glenmacnass granite-ness. Awesome, beautful, skin-shredding granite :)
Sunday involved a nice run before breakfast, followed by a drive to potentially, the nicest area in Wicklow, Glenmacnass valley. Unfortunately, I've no real photos but the photo below shows how coarse the rock is, skin shredding is the name of the game here but it's all so worth it. I hear all of these reports that gritstone is God's rock, but we all really know where it's at…….
In the end, a shorter session ensued as some other commitments for the evening ended play, but Naomi sent her first 6b+ boulder problem in quick time and I admired the holds on one or two of the harder problems. Sometime I'll get around to pulling hard on granite….that Wow Prow is one of the few lines in Ireland that truly inspires me.
4 weeks to go to Siurana, have to keep the training up now - projects at the wall, some fingerboarding and bouldering to keep the power up, and some light running and core work for variation. Now that work has settled down and some shade of a routine is forming, hopefully it'll translate into more sleep and training time. This may be a trip early in the season for climbing but I'm hoping to make the most of it. Keep up the motivation, y'all - only 2 months to May and the Summer season. psyche!
Nice one on all counts!
ReplyDeleteReset AND Naomi's send... sweet!
Roll on Spain :o)
definitely :)
ReplyDeleteFirstly, I like the new blog template, very nice.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, can you expand a bit on not using foot to hand on bouldering problems?
I'm doing a lot of bouldering at the Castle in London, and most of the problems are standard foot follows.
There is one area that has a featured wall and there the problems are not foot follows.
Do you recommend doing the normal problems, but avoiding using the footholds? Do they have a large number of screw ons at the sheffield wall, how do they provision foot holds? Thanks!
cheers Ian. I'll post in more detail in coming days but a short answer. The Foundry wall has a lot of small features all over it, many problems include them.
ReplyDeleteFor most problems, I do them doing hand-to-foot (i.e. using all holds that are in the problem), and then start doing them using features-for-feet. I wasn't sure it was working until only a few days ago when I hiked a bunch of problems. It took a good few weeks to see adaptions but they seem pretty big gains now.
Just see how many problems you can find that can be done with screw-ons basically. It might even involve some arms-only moves or jumps which work power also.
I know the strongest guy at the Foundry only does problem using features. I've seen him campus most problems up to 7c now.....