Drive
Sunday 9th September. After last weeks disappointing effort on Full Tilt I was resolute to improve. To improve my fitness levels I ran for thirty minutes each evening mid week. Tuesday’s training was nothing special but on Thursday I found myself breaking a six week plateau by nearly climbing one of my PE problems. Instead of failing two moves into the second problem again, I just kept on flicking between the small edges. I still failed on the pumpy finale indicating I still need work on my 30-40 move endurance range but my 20-30 move PE had definitely improved. The only factor in improving this week would seem to have been the running! I was keen to see if these improvements would be mirrored on Full Tilt.
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My late night street pounders.
On Sunday I headed to Kilnsey for the day with Lindsey who was kind enough to belay. The route was now completely dry after nearly a month without heavy rain. Equipping the route the individual moves felt good. After explaining and practicing all the clipping positions to Lindsey I went for the redpoint. On reaching the third bolt I felt confident in my sequence after quickly practicing the other variations. Flicking through I caught the edge badly but felt strong enough to pull through. On the sidepull I was rapidly tiring but fired on. The crux pocket felt dry and positive for once. Fingers arching I slapped left in control but was stopped by the undercut move to the jug. Second go I made a more determined effort and caught the spike badly. Signalled by my wobbling Lindsey took the rope tight. Against the tight rope I managed to match the spike yell for slack and reach for the jug, yelling for slack I rapidly flash pumped off. On the next two redpoints I was stopped at the undercut again. I tried a final link for the day from the crux to the top. Everything felt easy until the final throw before the belay. I reckon I need a little more practice on the hands off rest. It currently works my thighs hard and I can’t bear the pain for more than a minute. I might even gain some ground if I go straight to the knee bar before clipping and avoid getting pumped on the jug.
As much as I have improved this week I still wasn’t fit enough to complete the route or even make the proper overlapping halves. All the effort in completing this route is starting to tire me out but the motivation to complete it remains. I’ve had eight visits to Kilnsey this year to try it but on three occasions I’ve had a bad sequence or the route has been seeping. So filtering these out it can’t be that many successive days really. Given that October is on the way and I’d like to climb elsewhere before the year is out so I guess I’ll limit myself to another two visits then move on. Whatever the outcome my efforts this year should hopefully pave the way for a future attempt of True North.