Weeks 35 & 36: new project

What I did:

I tried glucose: an epic cave route that is 60 degrees overhung. This will be my new project. It's absolutely EPIC! The moves still feel hard because I'm not used to overhang, and I could only climb about 1 hour a day due to poor capacity, but the moves are awesome and I can't wait till I can go again. I managed to work out the first 80% of the moves of this 8a route, and I refined my beta quite a lot to allow for quicker climbing, easier clipping and better resting.

I also had a good talk with my coach. We wrote down some new exercises for me to try over the next few weeks. The result is a totally new schedule. 

My finger is feeling much better! I won't be hangboarding for max strength any time soon, but I can climb at my max which is great. 

Reflecting:  

The fact that I have very little capacity got me worried. It means I can only work on the route for a maximum of one hour a day... This means I have to apply smart tactics and keep refining my beta to find the most energy efficient way up. 

I learned a lot about the route in terms of conditions, style, difficulty and of course also my own strengths and weaknesses. I need to work on half crimping (especially when I can't fit all 4 fingers on a hold), faster climbing, keeping more tension from the feet in overhang (especially on smears), and I need to breath a lot better while climbing.

Although there weren't any moves I couldn't do due to my hip issues, the route does feel easier with high feet in some places... I tried to compensate from the back and now my back hurts... I spoke with my physiotherapist and for now we're going to work on strengthening some key muscles, hopefully that will work.

I also decided to stop training at Wildflower. I really like the idea of the technique training, but the lessons aren't specific enough to my current goal so I would rather train by following my own plan for now. 

What will I do next time:

I have a new schedule:

Hard training (big overhang, focussed on getting stronger and moving better) on Tuesday, Friday and Sunday. The 50 degree kilterboard at my local bouldering gym is a really good training tool for the 60 degree overhanging project, and I will focus on that on Tuesday and Friday. After the kilterboard sessions I will end with some aerobic training (hangboard at 35% of max or feet on the ground campusboarding). On Sunday I will try and go climbing in a gym, and do sub max routes in overhang. I will practise moving faster (and clipping faster).

Having 3 rest days (instead of 1 like I did previously) will allow for much higher quality sessions, and it will help me enjoy my life outside of climbing much more as well ;)

The kilterboard sessions will be aimed at relatively hard boulders for me (6c-7a), which I will give 1 attempt every 4 minutes (max of 5 attempts). Once I have a few such boulders that I can climb that I like and are relevant for my project, I will try to do several in a row. But this is still weeks away!

(Aerobic) endurance training on Wednesday. I will do an ARC style session as well as a density session (10 minutes of climbing, start by doing loads of easy 5a boulders and then slowly increase the difficulty of the boulders over multiple weeks as my body adapts and I can handle a higher intensity while keeping pump at a low to moderate level).

Later I could consider adding endurance exercises that are specific to the route. For instance climbing up a harder boulder, then climb down an easier boulder and repeat (goal is to go up and down 4 times without having more than 50% pump, after which I can increase intensity). Or climbing up a harder boulder, rest at the top, then drop and repeat (in total 4 times, keep pump below 50%).

Of course, whenever the weather is nice and I can find a climbing partner I will go to Belgium to practise the moves on Glucose! I will drop the sessions from Friday - Monday whenever I go to keep the total load on the body manageable.

My strategy for Glucose is as follows: figure out the moves while going bolt to bolth (I managed to figure out the first 80%), then make very small links (I managed to do 2 bolts at a time). After this, start at the knee bar rest near the beginning of the route and attempt a high point from there. This should give me some information about how pumpy this route is and how I should train for it. After this, I will focus on the 7c variation (first 8 out of 12 bolts of the 8a).

Hopefully this will allow me to pick up momentum, so that I can start focussing on the last part of the 8a (which has a bit easier moves, but is harder due to an insane level of pump at this point). During the process, I will really have to learn to milk every rest position that I can find, and possibly recreate it at my local climbing gym for more realistic training. Once I'm able to reach the chains with only 1 hang (hanging in the rope to rest only once), it's time to start focussing on red pointing attempts.

I'm super excited!

Statistics:

Climbed 50 meters on real rock.

Climbed 0 meters of aerobic endurance laps (while doing movement drills).

Taken 2 falls while committing to the next move.

Biggest link in Glucose: 2 bolts (out of 12 in total).