Monday
Climbing, 2 hours. Good fun; a few if us concentrated on getting a load of volume done.

Tuesday
Climbing, 2 hours. Again; good fun and I go I some reasonably hard routes.

Wednesday
Yoga, 1 hour .

Friday
Climbing. 2.5 hours. I got a lot of the climbs I was hoping to get, but it was all a bit of a struggle. Some took me many, many goes.

Saturday
Climbing, 3 hours. I expected to be terrible, as I've been going more frequently than optimal recently. (I was still had a forearm pump when I woke up )

To my surprise, I was pretty good. I flashed a couple of v4s.

Sunday
I went for a walk, getting a bit carried away and doing slightly over 20 miles.

I had an early lunch before leaving, so I didn't stop (other than to pee).

Monday
Climbing, 2.5 hours. A good session; I was in form. I even got a double dyno in three attempts. Someone was telling to try and lank it, but I was too short for that.

Wednesday
Climbing. On 1.5 hours, as I went before work. (I normally go in the evening.)

It was OK; I got a few v3s but no v4s. I was at EustonWall, the setting seemef relatively hard


Thursday
Climbing, 2.5 hours
I was pretty poor. Maybe i've been too frequently (3 days out of 4 and 5 days out 7).

I went scuba diving in a quarry in Somerset this weekend. It's not my favourite thing (the sea is better); but quite a few people from my club needed training.

It was fun. The water temperature was OK (around 10 Centigrade), although it was cold outside. There was a frost on Saturday which never thawed; it was between -2 and +2 C outside.

In other news, I had my kitchen rebuilt recently. It should become functional today, which will make life easier.

I went climbing yesterday. It was fun. I practiced dynos; I got a few.

I tested myself for COVID today; I'm positive. So I guess I've won a week off climbing and a month off diving. (A few people from the weekend's diving trip were positive, so I thought I should test. I'm asymptomatic so far.)

I felt bad mid-week. By Saturday. I felt fine. I figured walking outside was low risk, so I did a 12 mile walk. On Sunday, I did 15 miles.

I tested negative today, so I'll go for a climb later.

Climbing in Monday was fun. I practiced dynos, and amazingly got some.

I went climbing on Tuesday. I wasn't in very good form, although I did get one project.

I went climbing today. It was really good fun, I got a load of projects. I skipped about 8 holds on one pumpy, overhanging 6B+. (A couple of dynos did the trick.)

Logging is hrad.

I've been active, swimming most days when I've not climbed.

Saturday was fun. A bunch of us met up to climb early. I was in the best form for a while, getting 3 v4s. One was a fingertip away from a flash. (I redid the move with a pop to get it second time.)

Today was a very hilly, very muddy 13 mile walk. I mis-timed it a bit, and finished after dark. I stopped to take a photo at the top of the last hill, and was suddenly surrounded by cows who snuck up on me.



I got a cholesterol test, as my GP decided to do one. Here are my stats:
Weight 142 pounds
Waist 28 inches
BP 110 over 70
LDL 1.4 mmol/litre (normal range is 1.0 to 3.0)
HDL 1.1 mmol/litre (normal range 1.1 to 2.2,)
Trigs 0.9 mmol/litre (normal 0.5 to 2.0)
Some other things were measured, (blood count, kidney function, liver function); they were all in the normal range too.

I went climbing today. We practiced dynamic movement (running and jumping to launch ourselves at holds.) It was really good fun; I was actually moving pretty well. I have no idea what grade I got, as we made up our own moves. If we nailed it, we then aimed at holds further away to ensure we fell off.

It has been a while since I logged.

Here is some recent stuff:

29 December
I flew to Barcelona to visit my brother. Yellow Spider, a climbing gym, is sort of en route to Gatwick. So I stopped off for a 2.5 hour climb before the flight. It was good, I was in form

30 December
I visited the Sharma climbing gym in Gava. It is massive. I was in mixed form. I got to the final hold on a 6c a few times, it will hopefully go if I can make it back. That is around v5, so it would be a very good send.

31 December
Via Ferrata near Vic in Catalonia. This was really good fun, around 3.5 hours in total. We started at the bottom of a very tall hill and got to the top. The Nepalese bridge wobbled a lot and was terrifying. (This is three strands of wire, 69m long, in mud-air. You have one strand for your feet, one for your hands and a spare one to clip into.)

1 January
Day off. So 11 miles walk.

2 January
Climbing, again at the Sharma gym. I got the 6c, and a couple more I fell off last time (in the 6a-6c range bucket; my guess would be 6b for them).

Here is me on the Via Ferrata. I am second in the line, smiling.

Cool picture! Looks petrifying.

The bits on rock were pretty chilled. The climbing was all very easy. The wire bridge was the scary bit.



I went too slowly early on this, which caused a lot of wobble. One I started to move quickly enough, the wobble became manageable.

I went climbing on Thursday. It was an odd session. I got nearly all the v3s at the gym (around 20 of them). I flashed about half, but the one I found hardest took around 20 goes. I only got one v4, which was so slabby it probably doesn't count.

I really am pretty poor at logging.

Here is some recent stuff:
Wednesday
Climbing, 3 hours. It was a high gravity days; I was out of form.

Friday
Climbing, 3.5 hours. Decent, I got a load of v3s and one v4. I also probably did around 12 miles' walking; due to a slight miscalculation about where the gym was.

Saturday
14 mile walk and 2 hour's climb. I started pretty well but faded; I got loads of v3s but no v4s.

Sunday
Rest day, so 9 miles' walk.

In other news. I put on weight over Christmas; reaching 148 pounds. I've been slowly cutting in January; I am now around 144.

Modern music is surprisingly good. We need jungle, I'm afraid




This may better if you're from the UK, so the University Challenge reference makes sense.

Dude. Everyone thinks you've died from getting lost on a walk or have fallen off a cliff or drowned in the ocean when you don't post.

Do us all a favor.

I've had a relatively boring January, hence yhe relatively infrequent logging. I managed one caving trip, which was very chilled. However, my friends are complaining about it the cold and dark, so haven't wanted to go diving. (This is strange; January UK diving is the nuts.)

Anyway, Friday was climbing. I was not in good form, although I was OK at slab. (Slab is not real climbing .)

Saturday was domestic nonsense, which entailed moving loads of furniture.

Sunday was a day off exercise, so I did a 10 mile walk around Frensham Little Pond. It is a bit of Surrey that looks like the Highlands of Scotland; absolutely stunning.

Today was climbing. It was my best session in ages; I got three v4s. Vaux East had been setting relatively tough recently; I assume this means the new set is soft.

Here is Frensham:

Climbing, 3 hours.

Good fun. I was stronk. I was good at thuggy, strength based climbs; normally I find them hard, but they've been easier the last few sessions.

I lifted last night. It was my first lifting session in a while. I had a bunch of miscellaneous nonsense in my shed recently, whilst my kitchen was being rebuilt. The kitchen is now done, so I can use the shed again (where my weights etc. live).

Since it's so long since I've lifted, I decided to start light. I'll do a linear progression until things get heavy.

• Squat 3 sets of 5, 60 kgs
• Overhead military press 3 sets of 5, 20 kgs
• Deadlift 2 sets of 5, 80 kgs
• Hangboarding, 6 second repeaters on 10 mm ledge

That last one is pretty solid; my fingers are probably stronger than ever.

I got my first two scuba dives of the year in. It was just in a quarry, so no too exciting.

The air temperature was nice (12 centigrade), but the water was a distinctly bracing 5C. Two dives, both shallow (15m max), both around 45 minutes.

Sunday
Lifting. Carried on my linear progression from very light weights. (Squat 70 kgs, deadlift 90 kgs, bench 40 kgs, loads of hang boarding).

Monday
Climbing. I was in terrible form and fell off everything. My attempt at a bat hang was fun, though - I'd never even tried one before. (You hang upside down from your legs with no handholds.)

Tuesday
Broken. See Monday for likely explanation.

Climbing, 2 hours. Gravity was back to normal; it was really good fun. This gym (Yellow Spider, previously called Craggy Island) is easily the most friendly of the London gyms. Maybe it's because it is more local, so the same people go regularly.

Climbing. 2.5 hours.

We did a fun drill. You find an intense climb you expect to get. You climb it as many times as possible in 5 minutes, doing press ups between reps. You rest for 5 minutes, and then do the same on another climb. We repeated 6 times, so that it took 60 minutes. With warm up and stretching , it was 150 minutes total.

My arms are still sore today.

Wednesday
Climbing, 3 hours. Meh session.

Friday
Swimming. This was before work, so I only had time for 750 metres.

Saturday
Caving.
4 hour trip. It was just a gentle nimble around OFD top , and it had been very damp and this bit of cave doesn't flood

Sunday
Caving.
A 5 hour trip, also around OFD top. This was more strenuous and more fun than Saturday, with more climbs, squeezes and traverses.

Monday
Climbing, 2 hours. Good, I got two of my medium term projects.

Wednesday
Climbing; 2.45 hours. Good fun, I got some hard routes. The one I'm most proud of is actually quite easy (maybe V3; it was graded V2 to v4). I couldn't work out the last move, so I climbed up to it on easy holds to find a body position that worked. Then I could work out how to move off the penultimate holds.

(I needed my right hand on to the top bit of the lower of two bad slopers, and to flag my right foot to near the left, which was on a good hold. This let me rock over the left foot and reach up.) This boulder probably took 20 attempts.

Thursday
Lifting.
Pull-ups. 3 sets of 8. My strength is still lower than before, but improving so it is nice.
Hangboarding.
Bench. 3 sets of 5, 40 kgs.
Squat, 3 sets of 5, 70 kgs.
Deadlift. 1 set of 5, 80 kgs.

Bodyweight: 145 pounds.