Open Side Menu Go to the Top
Register
Old man river's log Old man river's log

02-25-2024 , 02:03 PM
Friday
Swimming. 750 metres before breakfast.

Saturday
Climbing. Decent session, I got 3 v4s including a flash. The one I'm happiest with was a V3 overhang which is my anti-style (It was: a jump start to two small jugs with no feet; a campus move to bump up the right hand; a swing with the left leg to a chip way out left; throw the left hand to decent hold which is quite far; cut loose with the feet; plop the feet on starting jugs. Then the last couple of moves are easy.)
Old man river's log Quote
02-27-2024 , 05:48 AM
Climbing, 2.75 hours. Fun session; I was in good form. I went through a recent phase of not really getting any v4s at this gym; I now get a few and most of the v3s. That said, there is a V2 which requires either being tall or being flexible which I didn't get. (You need to plop your right foot somewhere near your head, which was beyond me.)
Old man river's log Quote
03-04-2024 , 09:57 AM
Wednesday
Climbing.
Good fund, I was in decent form. It turns out that I can't do upside down crack; I may go back for more pain and misery. 3 hours.

Thursday
Swimming, 1km

Saturday
Caving. We did Swildon's Hole. We aimed to get to the first symp. But it was very, very damp. Bits of the cave which ared normally dry had medium sized waterfalls. The 8 foot climb down a waterfall wouldn't have been safe, so we bimbled around the top instead.

Sunday
Caving.
We did Eastwater. Much of this cave is a bedding plane, where you are sandwiched between two bits of rock. You need to wedge yourself in to avoid falling to the bottom. It had virtually no standing passage in the bits we did; not being able to move my head due to the narrowness was common


Good fun; I will go again.
Old man river's log Quote
03-11-2024 , 03:58 AM
I have missed a bunch of logging.

Tuesday
Climbing. I was terrible. 3.5 hours.

Wednesday
Climbing. I was decent. 2 hours.

Thursday
Swimming, 750m.

Friday
Climbing, 2 hours. My best session in ages

Saturday
Climbing, 3.5 hours.
Odd session; I was terrible for the first two hours. I then sent a project and went on a sending spree.

Sunday
Walk, 24 miles-ish with many hills. It rained all day; I didn't see any blue sky all day. It was very muddy. I did the Three Peaks of Surrey (Box Hill, Holmbury Hill and Leith Hill).

Here is the tower on top of Leith Hill:

Last edited by river_tilt; 03-11-2024 at 04:04 AM.
Old man river's log Quote
03-12-2024 , 06:27 PM
I went climbing on Monday. My heart wasn't really in it; I think I pulled a muscle in my right leg on the 25 mile hike on Sunday. It meant i didn't really commit to any of the jumping moves .

I went swimming today; 1 km. It was nice; I think my leg injury has recovered.
Old man river's log Quote
03-16-2024 , 07:26 PM
Wednesday
Swimming 1km

Thursday
Climbing. I was poor, but way better than Monday.

Saturday
Caving. 8 hour trip. Here is Sue going down a waterfall.

Old man river's log Quote
03-25-2024 , 05:16 AM
Sunday was more caving; a short trip (4 hours).

Mark may have broke a rib early on. He is retired; but ex-military and hard as nails. We had the option of walking passage or a 20 minute crawl on the exit. Mark chose the crawl, swearing the whole way.

Monday
Climbing, 2.5 hours. I concentrated on strength training. I was way worse than many others in the group; but most of them can easily bang out 1-arm pull-ups. I can't.

Tuesday
Swimming; 1km.

Wednesday
Climbing.
3.5 hours, decent session. I got almost all the v3s at the gym; and a couple of v4s.

Saturday
Caving. A training session; I learned how to rig. It turns out 4 knots are sufficient (double figure 8; clove hitch; overhand and bowline on a bite.)

Sunday
Caving. Sell Gill; I had acrack at rigging. Good fun; I want to go more. 5 hour trip
Old man river's log Quote
03-26-2024 , 09:57 AM
Monday
Climbing. More strength training. It was fun.

There is a v5 I got too the penultimate move on. It may go eventually; it's max effort so I won't get many attempts per session, though.
Old man river's log Quote
03-28-2024 , 07:59 PM
Tuesday
Climbing, 2.5 hours. Decent session, although I faded a bit towards the end.

Thursday
I didn't have time for climbing. So I did some hangboarding and pull-ups (5 sets of 10 with 60 seconds rest between sets.)
Old man river's log Quote
04-01-2024 , 01:39 PM
I had a sedentary Easter; my Mum visited me. She's not hugely mobile at the moment. I snuck in a little exercise:

Friday
Climbing, 2 hours. Decent, I got loads of v4s , (although this gym grades soft.)

Saturday
Probably about 6 miles walk, and a short lifting session (squat, bench and deadlift).

Sunday
7 miles walk.

Monday
Climbing, 2 hours. Another decent session.
Old man river's log Quote
04-06-2024 , 04:54 PM
Wednesday
Climbing. I was terrible. I got one V3, but it was a major struggle. 2 hours. Gravity was strong.

Friday
Swimming, 1.5 km.

Saturday
To compensate for Wednesday, gravity was lower today. I got a load of projects. They covered a range of styles; my favourite was an overhang jump-y one. I'm normally terrible at these, so it was a pleasant surprise to get it.
Old man river's log Quote
04-17-2024 , 05:27 PM
I spent the weekend learning caving techniques, such as how to bolt rock; how to move big rocks out of the way (violence is the answer); and how to survey. There was rescue training on the Sunday, but Joe and I got bored so did a quick trip to Slaughter Stream. It's an interesting cave; it's not got not many formations but its's Dolomite limestone. So it had loads of fossils.

Monday was climbing; I was quite good. I got a load of v3s and a v4. (This gym is relatively sandbagged to other London gyms at the moment.) It was a training session so we concentrated on volume; I did loads of routes in the 2 hours.

Today was climbing. Again, it was a pretty good session.
Old man river's log Quote
04-21-2024 , 05:57 PM
On Thursday, I lifted, doing bench, deadlift, hangboard and loads of pull-ups(probably around 100 across sets. Some were weighted, some used band assistance to practice one armers.)

Over the weekend, I went diving. On Saturday, we aimed for10 a.m. ropes off. But the boat was broken, so it was actually more like 11.30 when we headed out. It was 7 p.m when we got back. Condition were nice.

We only did one dive today to help with logistics. Again, it was a nice dive. My new heated vest is good.
Old man river's log Quote
05-03-2024 , 05:46 PM
I haven't logged for a while.

I went scuba diving over the weekend. Saturday was a highlight; we got a shed load of scallops in. We intended to barbecue them, but it was raining so we pan fried them. The wreck on Sunday only had one metre's visibility.

I went climbing on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. 4 consecutive days' climbing may not be the greatest plan; I was broken today. (I went flat out in every session; the average length was 3 hours.)
Old man river's log Quote
05-05-2024 , 04:50 PM
I had a couple of days off exercise, as I picked up a cold.

I went climbing today in a 3.5 hour session. It was good fun, I was in form.

I tried loads of dynos, and actually got all but one one them.
Old man river's log Quote
05-10-2024 , 06:43 PM
My logging has been weak; I have been active.

I have a GGO: all climbing gyms have a general gym area. The barbells are not often used, and doesn't seem to be hugely strong point for most folk. There was someone cleaning last time I was there, with what looked like 140 kgs in the bar for sets of 3.His form looked near perfect to me.

My climbing has been good recently; my movement has been pretty good. My strength has also been OK. I normally do a lot of slab, but my flexibility has started to suck donkeys' balls, so I've been doing more overhang. It's more fun.
Old man river's log Quote
05-13-2024 , 10:58 AM
I went climbing on Saturday. I was in very good form. I flashed a v4, and got two other v4s as well.

Yesterday, I swam a kilometer, did some walking, and destroyed the brambles which were taking over my garden. (I don't often garden, so this took 4 hours as they were quite extensive
Old man river's log Quote
05-13-2024 , 05:51 PM
Climbing again. An odd session, I became obsessed with a powerful v4 slab. I got it early on with a French start, and the quite quickly worked out how to do the start. But tiring it together took a while. I sent it after about 30 goes.
Old man river's log Quote
05-16-2024 , 03:19 AM
I did a 2 day course on side mount diving. It was good; it trimmed very nicely so the skills were easy.

I went climbing afterwards. It was odd, I feel off a V2 in my warm up and couldn't work out the route up. I became convinced I was climbing badly. Many v3s and a few v4s later, it seemed I may have just been pessimistic. I went back to the v2 at the end, and found it was indeed quite easy (I changed the foot work, giving up on a heel hook which was a hindrance.)

Old man river's log Quote
06-03-2024 , 06:43 AM
I haven't logged in ages. I went scuba diving in Galapagos. It was marvellous.

We saw many scalloped hammerheads; a tiger shark; mola mola; turtles; sea lions; Galapagos sharks; silky sharks; mantas; sting rays; underwater iguanas; reef shark; dolphin; eagle rays and probably stuff I've forgotten.

As I mentioned in the LC thread, the only unpleasant bit was being downgraded from business class to economy on the way home for a 14 hour flight. I haven't been paid any compensation yet.

I decided to test the well known theory that the best way of recovering from jet lag is caving. I got home on Thursday. So after working on Friday, I drove to Wales and did some gentle caving on Saturday.

On Sunday, we strolled up a hill to the club dig, which hasn't had any work since lockdown. I may well become a digger soon.

Here is me emerging from a small hole.


Last edited by river_tilt; 06-03-2024 at 06:59 AM.
Old man river's log Quote
06-06-2024 , 05:54 PM
I went climbing on Monday. It was a high gravity day.

I went back to the same gym on Wednesday. It was fun, I got everything I fell off on Monday. Fot some reason, it was super friendly.

I went clubbing on Thursday. It was good, I wasn't in stellar form but it wasn't too shabby.
Old man river's log Quote
06-06-2024 , 06:00 PM
Sick picture!

I have a buddy that is incredibly into caving, but I just can't get into it. Being my height and having long limbs has been pretty disadvantageous the few times I've done it.
Old man river's log Quote
06-09-2024 , 02:34 PM
Thanks Monte - I find it relaxing.

I went caving on Saturday. We did Otter Hole, a tidal cave which is probably the prettiest cave in the UK.

There are two possible trips, between tides and through tides. We thought we had signed up for the longer through tide trip, but it actually turned out to be between tides, around 6 hours. The first 2 hours (and last 2 hours) were very hard caving: Very narrow, very muddy and quite a few hard climbs with shoulder deep water at the sump.

UK caves have a difficulty grading system I don't understand at all. I think the highest grade is 5d. This cave is 5d.

Then it was stunningly pretty. Amazing cave, I want to do the longest trip.

Sunday was a short walk in the forest.
Old man river's log Quote
06-11-2024 , 08:18 AM
Climbing. We practiced dynos ,(jumping movements). It was fun, I was in form. I always find it interesting when I do them well; there momentum gives you a lot of time to grab the target hold
Old man river's log Quote
06-14-2024 , 05:24 AM
On Wednesday, I swam 750 metres before breakfast, I went climbing in the evening. I stated off quite strongly, but ended completely pumped and barely capable of moving. It was a 3 hour session, which in retrospect may have been too long.

I felt a bit broken yesterday.
Old man river's log Quote

      
m