Strong man Urban Dufva hiking my project, Discordia. Photo: Pär Lindholm
Plenty of work, training and climbing has kept me from writing about how my little climbing-training-experiment is going. To sum it up – just great! My finger injury seem to finally have sorted itself out (knock on wood!) and I can now go almost at 100% indoors as well as outdoors. I took an extra week off from training and focused on climbing outdoors and I think it was a really good idea. Now back indoors twice a week and yesterday I think I felt stronger than ever before. I love my new diet of non-refined carbohydrates and more fat and protein, great energy levels all day. The other day I bought a new pair of running shoes and took them for a 17 km run, no problem at all. Weight-wise I’m still fairly stable around 85 kg but I think I might have added a little muscle lately as well. Should get one of those scales that measure body fat…
I did a little thinking about what variables that I had to play with and came up with the following:
* Climbing-specific training
* Complementary training (running, push-ups etcetera)
* Sleep
* Stretching
* Food
So, I figured I was doing fairly well/something about everything but stretching. Training in McPlaf with all these incredibly strong climbers and climbing with my friend Fredrik (who has very good climbing technique) have made me realize that I miss a lot of foot work for steeper walls. I’m really bad at getting my feet high, using my heel, high-stepping and pulling with my toes in pockets. So these lasts weeks I’ve spent a little time every day doing a few basic stretches as well as forcing myself to do new moves outside and inside. The result is of course bigger than I could have imagined! I’m still stiff as a refrigerator, as we say in Sweden, but I’m at least as flexible as most people. And stretching stays on my schedule.
To get something nice to train for I’ve found my first real climbing project! This is a project that I know I need to work on everything to be able to send. I need power, endurance, better foot technique, lower weight and a good day before being able to send Discordia in Agulla de Senglar. The route is fantastic! It starts really hard so you build a good pump. Then an easier section that you need to climb good before heading into some harder moves to reach a “rest” on the steepest part of the route. After that a couple of hard moves more before you do the final sprint to the anchor. At 25-30 meters this is one beast of a 7b.
The best thing? I can see the route from my house.
Since I’m trying to learn the redpoint-game I followed Fredriks advice and wrote down the moves of the route. So far I’ve only tried it 5-6 times on top-rope (yes, I know…) but next time I’ll get the quick draws up and start leading it. Want to see my sequence? Check out my Discordia – Tall Mans beta!
More to follow, probably in a month or so… Unless I happen to send my project that is.
Number of 7a or harder this year: 5 (out of 50)
