A lot has changed since I last blogged. Colorado continued to heat up and it started to get unbearable (for us English who are used to the cold…). It was in and around 40 degrees most days in Boulder, a bit cooler in the park but still pretty warm. We started climbing a lot in Upper and Lower Chaos to get the cooler temperatures, heading out in the afternoon so that we could climb in the evenings and then at night by torchlight. We got some great climbing in and I really enjoyed the boulders at those areas; cool lines with really good moves.

However the heat eventually got too much for us and we decided to head home early, with a plan to return in September for a couple of weeks before heading to Joe’s Valley. Here is a video from our last period of time climbing in the Park:

Little Days Out, A Summer in Colorado: Part 3

Before heading back to the UK, we went and spent a couple of days in Independence Pass with climber Chris Schulte and Photographer Keith Ladzinski. Chris has done a lot of developing in this area and has put up some really good climbs including some amazing problems in what is known as the Ice Caves. The granite is flawlessly smooth creating some unique and inspiring features. Unfortunately it rained while we were there rendering it un-climbable. There was just enough time for Keith to get pictures for a Rock and Ice article before we moved on. Just up the hill there is Gollom’s Cave, a 15ft horizontal roof with two of Chris’s problems on it. I tried Choke Hold, a V10 with a brilliant pinch hold in the middle of the roof. I would highly recommend this problem; fun and involved climbing.  Here is a little video of me doing it:

Choke Hold (V10) at Independance Pass, Colorado.

Before leaving the US I did some training with Kris Peters at Movement Climbing Gym in Boulder. It was a great session, really hard and very constructive, thanks again Kris! I wish I had some photos actually, to show the immense effort we all put in that day!

Shortly afterwards, we headed back to rainy Sheffield. The rain felt like bliss after the heat, it was so nice to layer up and feel cosy again! Obviously now, (less than a week later), the rain is somewhat frustrating.

We arrived back in Sheffield on Tuesday night, just before the British Championships were due to be held on the Saturday. I hadn’t planned to be around to compete but as we were back I thought I would have a go. I was still feeling the jet lag a bit but not enough to put me off. The day started well with some fun qualifying problems, I felt strong and fairly confident (which is good for me in competitions). I qualified in 3rd place for the finals, with Shauna and I being the only ones to complete all the qualifying blocs. This was a good confidence boost for me and I was psyched to get to climb again. The finals were a mixture of things for me: enjoyment, exhilaration, frustration and acceptance. I felt frustrated on blocs 2 and 3 for my lack of thought and problem reading skills but that is all part of the game and those are areas I need to develop.

However, on the whole I felt strong and probably for the first time I felt like I wasn’t out of my depth in the field of strong women; I felt I belonged there with them and I could do my best alongside them. I was a bit disappointed with 4th place but that feeling of competence and strength is what I choose to take away from this weekend. Back to the drawing board for some more training ideas……

Me on the first finals problem.

Photo courtesy of Craig Antcliff/ Five Finger Thing

Me ecstatic and relieved after flashing problem 4 in the finals.

Photo courtesy of Paul Bennett

http://www.paulbennettphotography.co.uk/

Thanks to everyone for all your support and well done to Dave Barrans and Shauna Coxsey who climbed brilliantly to become our Champs!

We left for Colorado on the 24th May from London and arrived that evening in Boulder, tired (our body clocks were 7hrs forward) but glad to be off  planes! We spent our first day sorting out the van we bought out here, a 1992 GMC van, a beautifully brutish thing. It was surprisingly easy to do actually, you need insurance, a smog test and then new plates – all do-able in half a day. We were too tired to head out so we rested up and headed to Rocky Mountain National Park the next day.

Our Van!

We headed up to an area called Emerald Lake which sits at about 10,000ft. The walk in was beautiful, about 40 mins fairly uphill and we took it steady to get used to the altitude. The area seemed pretty small but with some good climbs. We warmed up on a nice V5 called The Kind before going to try Wispers of Wisdom, a really cool looking V10. I won’t go into moves but this is a great problem, it looks good and the climbing is fun and powerful. Neither of us managed to do it but I am psyched to go back and finish it. After trying that for a while, we went over to the Large Boulder and tried a V9 called Tommy’s Arete. This was a nice surprise, fun climbing followed by a slightly nerve racking top out! We both managed to do it, with some serious huffing and puffing (the altitude really gets you when you put more than 3 moves together!).

  Dream Lake, on the walk up to Emerald Lake (RMNP)

Tommy’s Arete

The next day we went with Jackie and Chris (who we are staying with) to an area called Wild Basin. This has a relatively flat walk in but we did some boulder searching on the hill so a fair bit of walking! When we settled at the main area it looked pretty disappointing to begin with but ended up being pretty fun. I don’t think it’s the best rock around but it made for a good day out. David and Chris tried a hard looking V12 called Mini Compressor while I spent some time working a steep V10  called Macho Man which is long, with some big moves. Really fun to try, I would like to go back to that one too! At the end of the day we both did a nice V9 called The Hamburglarer which was pretty fun. I would post a picture but we forgot to put the battery in the camera…….

So rest day today and then I think we will head to Mount Evans tomorrow……

Where do I start? After a bit of a shoddy performance in Slovenia, I decided not to do the Vienna WC, to give myself a break. I spent the month between Slovenia and Innsbruck doing lots of things; running, swimming, climbing, finishing off uni work, training in my cellar and looking at the mental side of climbing. I won’t go into too much detail but working on the mental aspect of competition climbing really helped me. I don’t really struggle with it outdoors, something is different there. But at competitions, my head really got in way. After doing some mental training and prep with two friends, I felt much better prepared for Innsbruck. My goal for the competition was to enjoy it, avoid negative self talk and to be happy with myself whatever my result. I managed it, I thoroughly enjoyed the competition and I even did ok too, ending up in 24th. Definitely some silly mistakes in there and I felt I was strong enough to do better, but that’s good – I can work with that!

It has given me what feels like a new lease of life in competition. It is much less intimidating knowing I have the tools to stop myself spiraling into a negative pattern of self loathing. I feel like I have just decided to be a bit kinder to myself – well worth doing . My Mum always used to say “be kind to yourself” and I think that, although I knew what she meant, I have only just (at a ripe 25 years…) started to do it. Well, better late than never I suppose!

In terms of our team, it was a great event! 3 Brits in the final and Shauna on the podium again! Well done everyone

I’m back at home now, packing for a summer in Colorado! Starting the trip with the BWC in Vail, we will then stay in Boulder for some long awaited rock climbing! Can’t wait for both the comp and the rock.

Where do I start?! The last couple of weeks has been pretty heavy with a trip to China, a flying visit home, a funeral in Germany and a competition the next day in Slovenia. It felt like a bit of a handful but I was doing okay. I arrived at the competition feeling better than expected and I thought “yeah this could go well”.

Because there were so many competitors, we were split into two groups; I was in group A. Each group has different problems and to make semis you need to make top 10 in your group. Some of the problems are similar but it is really two different competitions, with people placed evenly in the groups depending on their ranking. I won’t go into the problems individually but I ended up topping out on one problem. I was disappointed with my performance but I have to remind myself that to make the top 10 in my group you only needed two tops. So although my placing puts me miles away from where I wanted, I was only one problem away.

This way of looking at it has taken me a few days. I have a habit of being very hard on myself, instantly thinking I am useless when in fact I am very capable. I have decided not to do the Vienna round of the WCs because my head needed a break. I lost my psyche and there is no point competing without it. Since being home I have come to realise that physically I am in good shape but I have neglected to work on the mental strength required in competition climbing. It turns out  positive thinking in the face of disappointment is pretty hard. And going out confident (truly confident) is even harder.

I have decided to do the Innsbruck round in a few weeks and in that time I am going back to training, climbing outside and also looking at how I can psychologically help myself. It should be interesting….

A big well done to Shauna Coxsey, an inspiration to us all (physically and mentally).

This year I was given the opportunity to go to China for the first World Cup event of 2012. Originally I wasn’t planning to go – it is a long way, very expensive and, although I enjoy them, my strengths do not lie in competition climbing. However, Alex Puccio (who has been living in the UK for some time now) got some funding from her sponsor Fila to go to the competition and they agreed to pay for someone else to go with her. As many may know, Alex’s boyfirend Chris Web-Parsons hurt his shoulder at the CWIF in Sheffield and was not feeling up to it – so Alex kindly offered the place to me. What a great opportunity, there was no decision process! I was excited for the competition but also for the experience of going to a new place.

It was a long journey…two flights, 12 hours air time, 7 hour time difference. When the qualifiers came around I was pretty tired but I’m sure everyone else was too.  The competition didn’t go very well for me at all. In the qualifiers I did 2 out of 5 problems, touching the last hold of 2 of the ones I didn’t complete – very frustrating! I made it to the semi finals but I struggled even more there, only making one bonus hold! I ended up in 17th place, frustrated and a bit disappointed…..but c’est la vie, we can’t always have the things we want and this one was just not for me. I am going to put it behind me and try again this weekend in Slovenia!  A big well done to Shauna Coxsey who ended up in 4th place

On the upside, I got to see some of China which was great. Chongqing is a huge city, with a population of around 5 million. The traffic is crazy, there are sky high blocks of flats wherever you look and you get stared at A LOT if you’re blonde! The people were freindly, consistently helpful and they put on a great competition for us…perhaps we will be there again next year!

On Friday morning David and I packed up the van and drove to the County for the weekend. We decided to head to Hepburn to have a look around as neither of us had climbed there before and we had heard good things. When we got there it was pretty warm but we headed up the hill to have a nosey at some problems. One of the problems I had heard about was Preparation H, an 8A (/7C+)  line up a big sandstone bloc. It was brilliant to look at and I was psyched immediately! We warmed up on some cool problems, and then went and had a look at the Titanic boulder nearby. A fun 7A+ bloc with a pockety sit start into a lay back arete, this was a good start to the day. We then headed over to Preparation H to begin working it out. David decided to wait for it to cool down a  bit but I was overexcited (and generally have pretty good skin) so I got stuck in. The crux of the problem soon became clear – a difficult foot movement early on, strenuous but do-able. David pushed me through the start so I could have a go at the end part and having sussed it I had a rest before giving it a go. I was stunned on my first go after a rest to find myself through the crux and moving onto the slopers…and to the top! Very happy to do this boulder (albeit in a bit of a shaky fashion -my hands were sliding on the warm holds at the top!). Feeling in high spirits I then did Nothern Soul (7A+) next to it, a very cool high problem with a bit of a scary top, and Trivial Pursuit (7C), another brilliant problem. David wasn’t having much luck due to warm holds, bad skin and tape so he decided to stop and try again on a colder day- the next day he did all the mentioned problems!

Preparation H. Courtesy of http://www.jonathan-creative.com/

Preparation H. Courtesy of http://www.jonathan-creative.com/

David on Preparation H. Photo courtesy of Andy Jennings

David on Northern Soul. Photo courtesy of Andy Jennings

After what turned out to be a tiring Friday, we camped in the van and then I headed off early in the morning to Teeside University for Team Training. This training was fitness testing. To give it a context, we do a session here in October and then again in March before the season starts. The October testing helps us to highlight training goals and weaknesses and the March one shows us if we have improved or not!  To cut a long story short I had improved on the majority of the tests and by quite a substantial amount This was really reassuring as I have busted a gut training this year! One of my personal enemies has been the bleep test – for those of you who have taken it I am sure you will agree it is an evil thing. It aims to measure your aerobic capacity through a running test that gradually speeds up until you drop out from fatigue or are unable to make the distance in time. A cruel business. In October I was appalling in this test as I hadn’t done any running or aerobic training for some time. I am happy to say that I did a lot better this time – running all winter (even in the snow!) has paid off . Thanks to Dom, Rebecca and the Teeside team for all their help and support.

After this day at Teeside University I went back to the County to meet up with David, Andy, Rob and Lee. While I had been at Teeside, David had been not only to Hepburn  but also to Back Bowden and had successfully climbed County Ethics – a problem I was keen to try. On Sunday morning we headed back to the problem so I could have a little go. This problem is high! I tired the start but I found myself at a move I could not commit to without having tried the top so I popped a harness on and went to have a look. I brushed the holds and did the top moves on a rope absolutely fine, including a big move that, when held, signals the end of the hard section. I tried it from the bottom but again I stuggled to commit to the big move a number of times, jumping off onto the pads. It is very frustrating when the main thing holding you back is mental not physical. I got frustrated and got on one more time with my head in a good place – I went for the move and held it but my foot popped off and I lost the hold as I readjusted my grip! Gutted. I took the fall and was fine but mentally I was drained. Another time, another trip!

Me on County Ethics. Photo courtesy of Mark Savage.  http://marksavagephotography.blogspot.co.uk/

Videos to come!

Now I am back in Sheffield, getting nervous and psyched for the first World Cup of 2012 in China. Alex and I fly next week, wish us luck!

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….)

I have just come to the end of my power phase in training; a 6 week block that has seen me doing assisted one armers, weights, campussing and lots of power climbing. So now, with David’s help and planning, I am moving on to power endurance (PE). The idea behind all this training is to be strong for the World cup circuit this year and also for our trip to Colorado this summer- so a lot to be excited for and a lot to persuade me to do “just one more” in my training.

This is the first time I have ever trained in an organised way for so long. I have done the odd few weeks of this and that over the years but nothing to this degree. It will be interesting to see how it benefits, I think already I am a lot stronger for it. One of the great things I find when training is to keep a record in some kind of diary. Mine is called “Mina’s training book of self-loathing”! It helps to look back and see improvement and also to write down when you train, what you eat etc.

Yesterday, in preparation for PE, I went to see Tom Randall and have a go at his power endurance tests on his board. We looked at anerobic capacity and also low end aerobic capacity. This essentially looks at the power end and the endurance end of PE. We also did a one arm strength test to put the endurance in the context of my strength; thus enabling us to get an idea of my efficiency when climbing. Hopefully, after 8 weeks of training I will do these again and be better!

So this week is the beginning of my PE phase; today is the first proper training session. Wish me luck!

After the joys of a decadent festive season in London I headed out with friends to Fontainebleau to celebrate the New Year and do some bouldering. As we drove there, it was raining; when we got there, it was raining; and for the first four days, it rained. Fontainebleau is an amazing climbing venue, one of the best in the world but the one thing that brings it down is the weather. During our trip of seven days we had two and a half days climbing, which is better than nothing and worth the wait. I was lucky enough to try Irreversible, a high ball 7C at Manoury. It is a great line, a bit scary and brilliant climbing. After taking two falls from the last hard move, I finished the climb with my heart in my mouth and my hands a bit shaky! On the last day of the trip I went back to try again on Big Golden at Cuvier Rempart. I had tried this climb one afternoon earlier in the trip and was astonished to find I could now do some moves on it that I had, on previous trips to Font, never managed. Filled with psyche I tried to piece it together and, after a last change in beta, I found myself topping out. Very happy, I really thought I may never do this problem.

Big Golden, Photo by Bart van Raaij

Big Golden, Photo Bart van Raaij

Back in the UK, the weather has suddenly turned nice. Blue skies and cold air inspired me to head out to a grit problem I had failed on a year or so ago – Suavito (7B). This problem is fairly high and committing at the top, requiring a big throw and a big span. I was psyched to try it again and this time (after one fall landing flat on my back!) I managed to climb it. Hopefully this weather will continue…..