Eindhoven Photos

Ned (and his shorts) and me in the semis.

Semis - a miss and a hit. It was an awkward off balance launch.

Qualifiers - pop for the top. There was a nice crimp on the sloper :-) for my third flash

Qualifiers - first 2 flashes

Fontainebleau and Eindhoven

I had a few days holiday in Fontainebleau before going to the last round of the World Cup in Eindhoven, Netherlands.

We got 2 days climbing out of 3. Good considering the amount of rain in between times. Real rock felt a bit foreign and I struggled on the slopers. I thoroughly enjoyed myself but didn't manage more than half of anything in the 7's. I did however do lots of very nice 6bs.

The World Cup went well afterwards. I qualified in joint 15th and went on to come 15th in the semi-final. My best result yet placing me 29th overall at the end of the World Cup Series. Ned Feehally came 6th in the comp - an awesome effort. There's an article on UKC.

Vienna WC

I had a good World Cup in Wien and felt strong after my finger strength intensive.

I was the penultimate climber out which gave me plenty of time to warm up. I started well with a flash. The second bloc with chunky holds gained via heel hooks was not so successful. I messed up placing my hand incorrectly on the bonus and hung around for ages trying to correct. By the time I did I was wasted. I should have let go and repeated as the move was actually ok. I didn't have enough left to finish the problem but I believe I could have topped it if I hadn't hung around. The end moves looked totally do-able. Grr


I recovered well in the rest period to be faced with a really awkward double handed dyno from bad holds on the 3rd bloc. I caught it on my 7th go and topped with seconds to spare. Super - chuffed and somewhat surprised I moved on. Jon caught my leap on camera.


Only 2 others topped this bloc.

I went on to top the last two blocs to get 4 tops in 14 and all 5 bonuses. Angelica was congratulating me on making the finals, then the results were finalised... I was the only one with 4 tops not to qualify and only one other had all 5 bonuses. Unfortunately I had too many attempts placing me 11th in my group, 21st overall. I needed bloc 2 then I would have been 2nd in my group!! What a difference a couple of holds make.

Dave and Stewart crushed coming 6th and 8th. Dave 'won' the semi. Nice one.


I had a look around Vienna with Jee. I wanted to go on one of the Segways. Instead we went on foot, but saw most things. It's quite a compact place with lots of nice buildings, horse drawn carriages, tons of statues and several large gold balls.

DIY

I'm resting/tapering for the next comp. We decided to do some DIY in the lounge. We are now proud owners of some handcrafted shelves.

Plywood Masters '09

I had a very enjoyable trip to Blackburn yesterday. There were a lot of faces that I hadn't seen for a while Audrey turned out with a group from London, Naomi and Jordan were both looking strong. There was also some good local talent with Gill Peet making the finals in her first comp.

I came second behind Leah. We both topped all the final blocs, but I had a couple more goes. I think this is the first time I've topped all the final blocs in a comp so I'm really chuffed, especially as I was up against the very imaginative setting of the Boulder UK crew.

Finger beasting

I'm on an intensive fingerboard 3 weeks.

I feel that I've come full circle since first starting full training. I started with strong crimping fingers, but lots of other things to work on. Now I feel like my finger strength is holding me back, especially open hand strength. Hence the intensive.

I have never done much fingerboard work am really noticing the difference already after the second week of three 1.5hr sessions a week. Each session comprises of encores of increasing difficulty, warming up and then working my fingers up to back 2 (see the beastmaker site for explanation). I'm doing these sessions on days I do not climb.

I'll taper my training in the 4th week ready for the next comp.

World Cup Hall, Austria

Here are some sideways videos of me on the blocs in Hall for you to watch whilst stretching your neck.

The first bloc was frustrating being easy to the last move. A pop on a slab where I could get the height but not the trajectory. I dropped two other blocs, topped 2 and got all the bonus holds to come 31st. I was a bit disappointed as I felt I should have got further on a couple of the blocs.