Check out this training article on rockclimbinguk.com  http://rockclimbinguk.co.uk/mina-leslie-wujastyk-on-her-bouldering-training/

After lots of training, I was excited for this year’s Climbing Works International Festival. I guess I was hopeful that I would feel stronger than I had before and would be able to hold my own and do well. Did I achieve this? Yes I think I did, but I would be lying if I didn’t admit I was a bit disappointed too. Competitions are an odd environment, you only have that 5 minutes, only you’re own beta and there is no room for mistakes.

I hate the qualifying round, it is so nerve racking. I was in the team event as well as competing individually and this made a huge difference to my enjoyment of that first stage. It is much more fun going around as a group and can feel more like it’s just another climbing session at the wall. I can imagine that people may think this format is a lot less scary than the semi-final or final format but for me it is much worse. I think it’s because you only have three goes, in the IFSC format I feel more like I have had a good shot at the problem.

I went into the semi-finals quite nervous – I really wanted to make the finals but was well aware that there was a strong group of girls (Shauna, Alex, Melanie, Anne-Laure, Clementine and Leah) who were also vying for one of those 6 spaces. The semi’s went fairly well for me, I flashed two problems out of four and went into the finals in third place.

When the finals came round I was excited. My aims were not unrealistic – I wanted to maintain my third place. I know that Shauna and Alex are a step up from me and I was psyched to be placed just behind. The finals did’t exactly go to plan. First of all I had a nightmare on the slab, barely able to get off the floor. The second problem I flailed around on, unable to do a burly move. I was filled with relief when I topped out on the fourth, and finally the fifth just felt too hard. I ended up in fourth place, a bit frustrated but also happy to have done one of them. Hats of to all the girls who climbed in the finals, good efforts all round!

Frustratingly I went back to those problems two days later and found them not so challenging; even the last one I was able to do all the moves on. But that is the skill of competition climbing: doing it then and there in that 5 mins. Still, there are things to be learned from going back to the problems and working out what you didn’t work out on the day. The positive’s I have taken are that those problems were not way too hard for me and therefore the competition is not too far ahead of me….next time!

Women's Final Problem No. 2, Photo by Alex Messenger

I’ll start with team training. Our most recent one was at Boulder Uk and it was a really good day. I’m sure there is some rule whereby team trainings are always on good weather days which makes it seem more important that they feel worthwhile and helpful – this one certainly was. The GBR Bouldering team has improved so much in the past couple of years, our manager Nick Clement has been great and has expanded our team to include a Nutritionist (Rebecca Dent), a Sports Psychologist (Victoria Cassell), a Sports Scientist (Dominic White), a Chiropractor (Matt Pigden) and a Coach (David Mason). With all these people in place, how could we fail?!

This training session we did competition simulation sets in the morning and afternoon – helping us to practice and get used to the 5 on/ 5 off format and working our power endurance. We also each get to have a 1:1 with any of the above mentioned if we want. It is a very supportive set up, especially given that all the above help us for free as the team has limited funding. All in all, a good day.

Since my last blog I have been training power endurance like there is no tomorrow, exhausting myself with 4×4 circuits on the wave at the Foundry. For those of you that don’t frequent this wall, I recommend it. It is a good place to get strong, very basic climbing on a variety of holds on steep ground.

Today, however, I took the morning to go out on the grit. It was a beautiful day and I went to try The Terrace (7C) at Burbage North. This problem is not much to look at….it is small and a bit pokey but it actually climbs really nicely and is right on the doorstep – perfect if you only have a couple of hours. I’m happy to say it went well and I made it to the top after some fighting! Here are some pics and I will put up a video when we have worked out how to put it together (new camera….)