Climbing, 2.5 hours.

I started really badly. There was a V3 slab that took 45 minutes, but I eventually got it. (The crux was a reverse flag letting me reach a small crimp.) After that, it was a pretty good session with a couple of v4s.

I entered a climbing competition. It was a team thing; my team won. I got a v4 in the final section which made all the difference.

I'm old, and not very athletic, so I'm pretty happy with how it all planned out.

I had a week diving in the Scilly islands. It rocked; I'll do a fuller write up in due course.

There was one scary moment. I was essentially free soloing a boulder; I slipped and fell a small distance. The first fall was fine, but then I started to roll and arrested the roll by catching my head on a rock. I grazed the top of of my head, and bled profusely, but it seems to have been just a flesh wound.

My logging has been crap recently. I have done a lot of stuff

I will start afresh. I went climbing today. I sent a v5. Unlike the last one I got (which I think was last year), this felt like a genuine v5
Some moves were proper hard

In other news, I've been taking creatine for about 2 months now. I have lost around 2 pounds over the period. Presumably there is a reasonable chance I'm a non-responder.

Thursday
1km swim and lots of walking

Friday
Climbing, I was good. I got a v4 cave climb which is my abti-styke (you do a few moves completely upside down.)

Saturday
Diving. 0 viz, but fun. 2 40 minutes dives.

Sunday
4 hour walk then 3 hours climb. I was rather good, flashed two v4s.

I've exercised vigorously daily for 3 weeks. I'll have a rest day on Thursday.

A while since I logged.. .

Monday

Climbing. I was good, my movement was fluid.

Tuesday

I got some form of stomach bug. Accidental rest day.

Wednesday

I thought I had recovered by the evening, so I went for a bimble around a local mine. Very nice evening.



Thursday

The bug returned.

Friday

I seemed to have recovered, so I walked 10 miles and had a quick swim (1 km-ish).

Saturday

Climbing. I was OK but not brilliant, which I guess is ok post lurgy.

Sunday

I got a couple of dives in from Swanage on the South coast. The second dive was a bit stressful.

We did a fast drift in zero visibility with a 2.5 metre swell. 7 divers went down; 5 were back on the boat. The skipper had no idea where the other two were. He called a Mayday immediately. Fortunately, one of the divers had a Nautilus VHS location widget he let off when it was clear the boat went the wrong way. So we picked them up eventually; I think they were at the surface for more than an hour. Everyone was fine.

Monday, 6 days ago
Climbing. Started badly, gravity was high. Then, after an hour, it dropped to an abnormally low level. I flashed 3 v4s and got a hideous v5.

Tuesday
Swimming

Wednesday
Climbing, a gym I've not been to in years. Again, really good fun, I got about half of the v4s in the place.

Thursday
Swimming

Saturday
Scuba diving, a 30m wreck followers by a 15 metre drift dive. Lovely, no-one got lost this time. Both dives were about 50 minutes.

Sunday
Blown out from diving, and my brand new car broke on the way home. I got home alright, but I need to get it to a garage soon.

Hang boarding.

Monday
Climbing, good session.

My logging has been crap. I've done stuff; mainly climbing and caving.

Today was climbing. It was good; I got loads of v4s including 2 flashes.

Saturday
Scuba diving. Two 45 minutes dives to around 20m. We saw a baby sunfish (mola mola) at the surface between dives.

Sunday
Scuba diving. Again, two 45 minutes dives to 20 metres. One dive was a mark we'd not dived before; supposedly a landing craft (used in the d-day landings to get troops ashore). It was boilers and nothing else, so almost certainly not a landing craft.

Monday
Climbing. Dyno practice, I was actually not too bad.

Tuesday
SRT practice

Wednesday
Climbing, I was pretty good.

Not the sunfish we saw, I only got crap photos of it. A friend saw this one mid-channel on a deep dive (56m).

Climbing, 2.5 hours and 3 hours' walking. I was good at climbing; I seem to be way better at v4s than earlier in the year. The highlight was a jumpy overhangy thing.

I am broken now.

Sunday, 8 days ago
Saw the Smashing Pumpkins and Skunk Anansie. Skunk were awesome. I walked to the gig, which was about 16 miles. And I jumped about a lot at the gig, so loads of exercise.

Photo from the walk:


Monday
Ckimbing, I was terrible

Tuesday
1 km swim

Wednesday
Climbing, average session. I got an overhangy V4 which I made look so hard loads of folk fist pumped me afterwards. The end was a dyno campus to thing to a sloper.

Friday
Loads of hill walking

Saturday
Caving, helping on beginner's trip. Good fun, a relaxing bimble. Around 4 hours. We did a bit of a walk afterwards.



Sunday

Caving. A little trip, but slightly more sporting than Saturday. One beginner gave up at a free climb, so didn't make it to the 400m crawl. Good fun; there is only one narrow bit. Most of it is hands and knees.

Monday
Ckimbing. Gravity was low,; it was fun.

Rest day: I walked 6 miles ,(to the pool and back), and swam 1 km with a sauna at the end.

Thursday
Climbing, 2 hours. Ok session; I did well on the v4s.

Saturday
We aimed to survey the cavevwe found, but couldn't find the surveying equipment at the hut. So we did a walk looking for digging prospects; we found a couple of new caves.

Sunday
We had aimed to do a big trip involving SRT (Single Rope Technique, used for vertical caving). But Joe got food poisoning, so we did a walk instead. It was really fun, we went to a reservoir and free dived a sump.



Monday
Climbing, 2 hours. I was pretty good again.

In the pictures above, you can see Joe (about to go under the mini sump in the first )

Tuesday
Climbing, 2 hours. Really good fun, I went to Castle. It was my first time there in years; it's a great gym (huge). I was climbing well.

Thursday
Climbing, 2.5 hours. A really fun session, I got quite a few v4s. Some were a proper effort; I was shaking like a leaf on the last send of the day. I had one hand on a tiny crimp, and one foot on a tiny chip, and somehow held on to a more comfortable position.

Saturday

Climbing, brilliant fun. I again got many v4s. The most fun one was actually just a v2, but the jump made it nice. I did it many times in the session.

Wednesday
I went climbing. It was really good fun. Gravity compensated for Monday; on Monday it was way higher than 9.8 m/s^2; today it was way lower.

I got loads of v4s, including 2 flashes; and a v5. It was my first v5 for a few months

Tuesday
Sauna and swimming

Monday
I climbed, sort of. Gravity was unusually high, so it wasn't my greatest effort.

Saturday
I aimed to go caving, but Joe was ill so I had a random weekend instead. I went climbing for 3 hours, it was fun. I was in form.

Sunday
Babs, her sister and I went to the beach. They chilled on the beach while I ran around like a hyperactive squirrel on speed. My longest swim was about 40 minutes; it was cold but nowhere near hypothermic.

Monday
Climbing, 2 hours. I was good, gravity was low.

what is the ocean temp right now over there? Guessing it's about at it's warmest given the end of Summer?

I've been in the ocean the past few weeks - 1st week of Spring = basically the coldest it gets. It's 18C here right now in Sydney, a little warmer than average for Sept. OK ish, but not warm enough (for me) to want to do much more than get wet and wallow around for a few mins

I think it's around 20c, so the hottest it gets. (Sea temperature tends to lag air temperature by about 3 months, so September is indeed as warm as it gets.)

I went caving on Saturday. It was good; we did an exchange trip at Lost Johns. We rugged and descended one route; another team rigged and descended the other.

We met up in the middle, then we went up and de rigged their side, and they went up our side. Fun trip; the rope work was pretty straightforward.

On Sunday, only three of us wanted to cave. So I led a trip down Notts 2, a very pretty cave. Then the drive back took 7 hours, as the traffic was bad.



I only took one photo, the view from Leck Fell to Morecambe Bay.

I spent a week in Sardinia, getting a couple of caves in. It was brilliant, I recommend it



Nude from a volleyball games. I still seem to be skinny.

I spent the weekend scuba diving in Cornwall. We got 3 dives on Saturday, but then it became lumpy and we were blown out.

We got a nice hike on Sunday, a fairly chilled 10 miles or so. I got back to mine early-ish on Monday, so intended to climb. But there was someone under a train at my destination, which scuppered that plan. I ended up walking 6 miles to get home.

I went climbing today. I was pretty good, twas fun. It was a 2.75 hour session.

I've been active, but crap at logging.

I went climbing today. It was fun. I got two v5s, technically making it my best ever session. At least one of them was feather bagged, though - an overhang on tiny crimps that was actually pretty chilled. V4 at most.

Lifted, and walked 8 miles. I did OHP, squat and deadlift, nothing very heavy (1.1* bodyweight for squat and 1.5* fir deadlift, all for 3 sets of 5.)