18 September 2019
I bought a Dave McCloud hangboard, and had a play with it. It has three rungs - 45mm, 21mm and 15mm.

I mounted it in my shed, where I keep my weights. I did lots of hangs and pull-ups on the 45mm, which were easy. I can just about get 5 seconds hang on the 21mm, and the 15 mm is just silly.

I then benched (3 sets of 5 @ 55 kgs), and deadlifted (1 set of 5 @120 kgs). Body weight was about 67 kgs, so I really need to eat some more food.

I finished with a bunch of banded facepulls.

Jealous of that Hangboard it looked super nice in the vids he posted.

Don’t worry about where you are now. Six months ago I couldn’t half crimp the 20mm edge and the other day I did BW+50 for 6ish seconds.

Cool, I intended to take it easy on the board, as I believe it's easy to injure oneself as a beginner.

19 September
90 minutes bouldering. All my friends flaked, do I went on my own. The gym was super busy. So I was unambitious. I think I got every v1 at the place, and a couple of v2s. So it wasn't bad, but also wasn't brilliant.

20 September
39 minutes on the rower, average pace 2.15.

21 September
100 minutes bouldering. Good session, I got some harder V2/v3s. I am close to getting a v5, which has a really fun start in a cave.

I am going swimming later.

Common misperception, it’s about the safest thing you can do for your fingers. Campus board much more dangerous.

You have a controlled environment and you can really only progress as much as your fingers allow. Just research good form which is slight bend in elbow and shoulders retracted.

My beginner tips would be

1. Good form above all else
2. Hangboard fresh, do an overall body warm up including scapular and regular pull ups. But no need to do any heavy bouldering before hand. Progress on the edge by doing some pulls with feet on the floor, then some shorter hangs then add weight as you pyramid up to top sets.
3. Vary grips but not too many. I’d specialize in four finger half crimp, four finger open crimp and three finger open.

Again the board allows to do this is a very calculated and controlled manner. Track your progress and make sure you’re both testing and deloading regularly.

Cool, I will look it up.

24 September
45 minutes scuba dive. It was fun- we had seals play with us all dive. I am in the far North of England, diving the Farnes Islands.

A consequence of now being lightweight is very good air consumption - I used 60 bar. (less than a third of my tank). This is a Surface Air Consumption of 13 litres a minute - some people get 12, but I seem to need slightly more warmth to get that low ,- the water was 12 degrees Celsius. A few years ago, my SAC was 20-ish.

25 and 26 September
More diving. It was one dive a day, as it's my limit. I am limited to 15m max, with 1 hour max. I went to 15 metres for 59 minutes for my longest dive.

Here is a video from the trip (not featuring me, it shows a friend of mine being assaulted by a seal.)



27 September
I had 7 hours' driving to get back from the diving. I got a 7 mile walk in at the mid-way point. I lifted when I got back:
6 sets on the hangboard, doing 3 30 second hangs on 4 finger open crimp on the biggest hold. 1 30 second 3 finger open crimp on the biggest rung. 1 29 second hold (open crimp) on the 21 mm hold.
Bench 3 sets of 3, 55 kgs. 1 single, 60 kgs which felt very heavy.
Deadlift, 2 sets of 5, 130 kgs.
Facepulls.

Super rad video! The viz is quite good. Are the seals always that curious or do people feed them? I assume y'all are having to do these dives in dry suits?

That makes me miss diving!

The water temperature is about 12 Celsius. It can also be pretty cold in the boat between dives, with strong winds and rain, so I find it far too cold in a wetsuit. One of our group was in a 7 millimetre wetsuit, but she is made of sterner stuff than me.

I actually prefer drysuit diving these days. I am not brilliant at logging dives, but I would guess that I have done 150 in a wetsuit and 200 in a drysuit, so I am more used to it. I learned in a wetsuit, though, so it took me around 20 dives to get used to the drysuit. All my dives for the last 3 years have been drysuit.

Tha Farnes has a rocky bottom, so the vis is always pretty good. The worst we had was probably around 2 metres and the best over 5. The South coast, where I dive the most, is a silty bottom so can be way worse.

This is probably the best time of year for seal diving. The parents chill on the rocks, and the one that play with divers are the pups. I think the pups have the silver skin, which darkens as they mature. The pups are at the stage now where they are very curious, so it is like diving with an excitable puppy. There is no need to feed them, as they are interested enough in divers already.

On another note, I am enjoying your log. It's always interesting to see how an experienced climber trains. I have my first bouldering session for a while later today.

I used to get cold in the winter in between dives in Mexico. I can't imagine what it is like in actual cold water/cold temps haha!

I have never dove in a drysuit as all my diving has been in warm water. Managing your buoyancy is a bit tricky in a dry suit I have heard. Are you actively changing your buoyancy in the suit or do you solely rely on your BCD for that?

I actually prefer drysuit buoyancy. It takes getting used to, but is easy to keep good trim once you've mastered it.

When I first started with a drysuit, I used the suit only for buoyancy control. However, when I moved onto a twinset this wasn't really practical any more. The weight difference between full an empty tanks with doubles is huge, so the air bubble is massive.

So I moved to just taking the squeeze off with the suit, and using the wing for the rest of the buoyancy. Now I am back to single tank, I still use this approach as it's what I'm used to.

I have a check this afternoon to see if the PFO is closeable or not.

My logging has been poor, although I've done a lot of stuff. Here is this week's effort, probably missing some entries from the week before:

Saturday
I did a scuba dive, on one of the harbour wrecks in Portland, Dorset. The dive was 42 minutes to 12 metres; my surface air consumption rate was just under 12 litres a minute. This is close to my best ever.

Sunday
I ducked out of diving, as the wreck chosen was below my depth limit. I did a 10 mile walk instead.

In the evening, I went bouldering. All the routes had been reset. I did pretty well, I think, getting a bunch of relatively hard stuff (by my standards). My gym's Youth Team were in, to keep me humble - they are all way better than me.

Monday
I went bouldering. This was another good session - I got a bunch of v3s, most of which were new routes for me. It was a 2 hour session. I think I may need to improve my dynamic moves, which are terrible. I almost always fall off the wall when I jump.


Tuesday
This was a lifting day. Body weight: 65 kgs.

I started off on the hangboard, initially doing a load of pullups to warm up. If I do deep breathing first, I can do 10 on an exhale withpout inhaling. This gives a nice headrush, so is my currently preffered approach to pullups.

I did 4 sets of 30 seconds hang on the big ledge. I then did 20 seconds on the 21 mm ledge. I was quite pumped after this, so more hanging felt unwise.

I then bench pressed. I did 3 sets of 5, 55kgs.
I then squatted - 3 sets of 3, 80 kgs.
I finished with a bunch of banded facepulls.

Thursday
did two hours' bouldering.

It was a good session. I've definitely improved recently - I seem to get eventually get nearly all the V3s I try. It's not an instant process- there is one I failed to climb in about 10 attempts on Monday. I had another 10 tries yesterday, and got it on the 10th. (The key was swapping feet early on, so the left foot is on the right hand side as you reach over the arete. This avoids a really difficult foot swap later on. It took 19 attempts for me to realise this....)

Friday
I had an ECG shoved down my throat to see if the PFO is closesable or not. The good news is that it is. My vitals were OK as well - for example, blood pressure was 110/70.

I intended to exercise after the hospital, but I ended up sleeping for 14 hours instead.

Saturday
1 hour yoga.
5k on the indoor rower, in 2.15 pace.

Sunday
I may have overdone it a little:
1 hour yoga.
2 hours bouldering (not great, not crap. I got 1 harder new route.)
8 mile walk.
1 hour lifting (squat and bench.)

Monday
2 hours bouldering.
I got two new v3/v4s, so this was a good session. There is a v1 I always fail on at Vaux West - I suspect I am butchering the route, although everyone seems to fall off it as well.

I'm toying with the idea of getting some coaching at some point. I still seem to be improving, so maybe I'll do it when progress has definitely stalled.

I don't know if I mentioned my yoga training, in the Wim Hof Method. You exhale completely and sees how many push ups you can do before inhaling. I'm up to 50, and it gives a very nice headrush. So I'll definitely carry on with this.

I left my laptop at the climbing gym, and fortunately it was still there this morning.

I am doing an hour's swim this evening.

Tuesday
40 minutes' swimming.

Thursday
100 minutes bouldering. It was my first time back at Craggy Island for a while. I think I got 6 new routes - it was a very solid session. Info seems to have improved a bit recently.

Friday
Lifting day.
I did some 40 seconds hangs on the biggest rung, which were easy.b I then did a couple of 10 second hangs on the 21 mm rung, which was hard.
I then benched (55kgs), squatted (75kgs) and deadlifted (120 kgs), finishing up with some facepulls.

Saturday
I went for a 45 minute swim. I the went bouldering. It was bad - I barely got any routes at all. I felt pumped all session.

Sunday
30 minute swim in the morning.
Bouldering in the afternoon. I concluded yesterday that I needed a day or two off climbing to recover. I decided today that 24 hours was more than enough. I smashed it, getting loads of new V2/V3s.

Monday
2 hour's bouldering.
This was my 4th session in 5 days, so I took it easy. However, it unexpectedly went really well.

I got a load of new v2/v3 routes, including a long standing project. (On the first week attempting it, I fell off on an early foot swap. The feet are on a tiny chip, and your hands are matching on a sloper. The next week, I got the first foot swap but fell off later on on another foot swap. This week, I got it first time.)

I found a v4 where I got to the final hold, but cocked up my leg position and fell off before I could match. This was towards the end, when I was quite pumped, so I should get it next time if it's still there.

Wednesday
I swam for 45 minutes, including a few underwater lengths(25m)

I then went to Barcelona to see the Pixies, so didn't get much exercise for a couple of days.

Saturday
I was back from Spain, and visited my parents. I did Marriott's Way, a a 26 mile walk. The terrain is pretty benign, so we got 3.25 miles per hour pace. We (my brother and I) probably did 27 miles total, as there is around a mile from the walk end to my folk's house.

28 October 2019
2 hours' bouldering.

I got four projects early on (2 graded v1 to v3; 2 graded v3 to v4. I suspect the easier ones were v3, as they are on the hard side for the red climbs; and the harder graded climbs were probably one v3 and one v4).

The probable v4 has a great route - a long combination of foot-swaps and hand swaps to end up with right leg high; right arm low, and ready to do a hariy balance reachy move with the left hand.

I fell off the wall a lot for the last hour or so. I was quite pumped from the earlier climbs - the probable v4 seemed to exhaust my limited supply of finger strength.

31 October
90 minutes bouldering.

Not my greatest session. I did stacks of overhangs, and then by a strange coincidence felt really pumped and fell off the wall a lot.

1 November
90 minutes' bouldering

A great session. I got loads of new routes. One was graded v2/V3. The grades at this gym are steep - this would probably be v4 at Vauxwall. I fell off the hard route a few times, as I didn't see a key foothold at the end. Once I saw it, the route was not too bad (crimps all the way.)

2 and 3 November

Scuba diving.
I did two 50 minute dives at a quarry. The first one was stunning. We bimbled along a wall at around 15 metres. No-one seems to dive this bit if the quarry. It was probably 30-35 metres to the bottom, with stunning visibility. There were a load of dead trees covered in mussels

The second day, I did a training dive as the instructor. My role was to mimic a misbehaving novice. I went off the edge of a drop-off, lost a fin, got wedged into a hole, did hand-stands, collected rocks, shared my regulator with a friendly fish and had a great time. The trainee seemed slightly stressed by it all.

This was dive leader training, equivalent to PADI Divemaster, so my behaviour was commensurate with the lesson.

4 November
2 hours bouldering. This was a really fun session. I got two long term projects, the hardest of which was probably v4.

I also got another project, but I'm not sure it counts. This was V3. Louis Parkinson was in the gym, and he showed a route up shimmying up a corner, bypassing 5 holds and a dyno that's beyond me. I got the cheat route.

Jelly you get to watch Louis climb, dude seems awesome.

Great work on the V4, you’re improving rapidly!!

I've seen Louis at the Vauxwalls a few times now. He is normally training people, so I don't really see him in action. Yesterday, he appeared to either be doing fun climbing, or the guy he was training was at V8 standard.

He is amazingly good. On video, we tend to only see him on harder climbs. Stuff I can't do tajesxhim seconds.

5 November
2 hours bouldering. I can't remember a thing about this session.

6 November
Day off exercise, although I walked to scuba club, and got 25,000 steps.

7 November
Bouldering. I got loads of hard routes, but got pumped quite quickly.

8 November
Bouldering. A poor session, 90 minutes. I also did an hour's yoga over lunch.

9 November
Wim Hof course. Loads of yoga, ending in a 2 minute ice bath.

10 November
Climbing. This was at a gym with ropes - we mainly bouldered, but did some auto belay and top rope as well. 2 hours.

11 November
90 minutes bouldering. I felt tired, for some reason, but it was still an OK session. There were loads of new routes.

I may have the day off exercise tomorrow, but I may lift.

I had two days off exercising, as I had bubonic plague. I recovered, so I went bouldering:

14 November 2011
100 minutes at the wall. I developed an obsession with a V1/V3 I'd not climbed before. I think I spent 50 minutes on it in total. I sent it eventually, but it was more of an effort than it really should have been. (The crux was the final move, where one uses a low foot-hold to match hands, which in turn lets you hug the arrete, moving a hand and foot off the hold safely).

15 November 2019
90 minutes bouldering.

This was s great session. I got no new routes- I decided to see how many of the harder climbs I've done recently I could re-do. I got 6 of them. I didn't flash any, but the most tries I needed was about 5, which means none of them turned into long projects.