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Plastic Fantastic
To kick off February it was back to my old home wall in Nottingham for a friendly comp. I was good to see all my old friends again and go back to climbing on a resin covered wall, as most walls now are painted ply-board.
The comp consisted of Bouldering, leading, dyno and speed. When you had completed all of the categories, you handed your score card in to get them all added up. I won the senior females category. It was a very long and quite tiring day, but really good fun, and hopefully they’ll hold it again next year as well.
There’s a gallery of the comp here.
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More comps…
So the competitions are still going on. I was back in England two days before I had my next comp which was the third round of the Berghaus Bouldering Series at the Climbing Works in Sheffield. I won the previous two and now this one as well which one more to go.
The last round at The Works is also part of the Sheffield Walls bouldering League. Each wall puts one of their rounds scores together so that you get an overall Sheffield Male and Female Bouldering champion. I am currently in first place for that as well.
I won The Edge Bouldering round and the Foundry round that were also part of the Sheffield League which means I have one more round to go so fingers crossed!!
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Competitions
And the competitions just keep coming. This year four walls have decided to team up and make what is called the Sheffield Walls Bouldering League. As well as having their own comps, the scores of one round from each wall are all put together to get an overall Sheffield bouldering winner. The first round being held at the foundry, I came 2nd and the second round held at The Matrix I came 1st so at the moment I am the leading senior female for the league. Hopefully I will be able to do well in the next two rounds to be the overall winner. As well as that I’ve been entering the normal local rounds coming first again in The Climbing Works Berghaus Bouldering League. Also, visited the new wall in Newcastle to attend British Team training. Though having a comp on the Thursday and Friday before, by Saturday my arms were feeling what you would call tired! But having Sunday to rest I was back at a comp on the Monday!
Apart from that this month has mainly been working at The Works for me. Hopefully next year I will be getting away quite a lot and so saving the pennies over Christmas was my aim. Next month I’ll be off to Albarracin in Spain for a weeks bouldering on the stunning orange sandstone, then Chamonix in Febuary and Switzerland march! I’ll be posting pictures from my trips when I get back from them.
Hope your climbing’s going well…
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…and now I’m in Fontainebleau! Life is really good :)
Since my last update I had a close friend come over and stay for a couple of weeks, which meant a great chance to climb all over the peak, getting loads of classic lines and problems done, some unusual, some hard to find, all amazing.
I even headed back to Raven Tor and managed to climb ‘Problem 3′ a Font 7c. Totally different style to Ben’s Roof, short and powerful, but i guess still very crimpy!
I then headed over to Paris to compete in the European Cup. It was a nice competition, unfortunately I just missed qualifying, coming in 25th, but it wasn’t bad for my first international in quite some time.
…and now, as I said, I’m in Fontainebleau, the conditions are great, cold and dry, and I’ve got a month to climb. What can I say. Things are great. And to top it off yesterday (my first day of climbing) I sent Carnage, Font 7b+.
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British Championships 2008
The British Bouldering Championships took place this year at the ‘Cliffhanger’ event in Sheffield. Last year I took second place to a good friend of mine Katie Whittaker, but this year I was hoping to step up a place and maybe win! I’d been training for it and was really psyched.
The qualifiers went really well for me, I managed to get all the climbs first go, except for one, which I quickly got second go. I seemed to finish quite fast as well, which gave me plenty of time to rest for the finals.
The qualifiers threw up a few shock results with Katie not quite managing to get through to the finals and a few other really strong climbers not making it through (congratulations to fellow Nottingham climber Beth Monks, on getting through to her first BBC final!)
So, then came the finals. I qualified in joint first with Audrey Seguy, which means I had to climb later fifth out of the six finalists.
The first problem was easy and suited my style, so I got it first go.
The second problem was trickier, but again suited my style and I managed to onsight it. At this point things were really going my way! See the video in the next post.
And so, the third problem… I set off strongly and got all the way to the last move, but NO!, I popped off before I matched the hold with both hands (which means that as comps are scored only on getting to the very top I didn’t score!)
Ok, so shake it off and carry on… I was climbing strongly on the fourth problem, got my hand on the last hold of this problem, and went for the match (and the points) but NOOOO! Again, I just popped off…! This was going from a dream comp, to a nightmare one!
So fifth problem, I knew if I topped this one, I could still do really well. I got to the hardest part of the climb, and had no problems getting through it (I later found out, no one else had managed to get past this move) then went for the top, one hand on the top, going for the match, the points and probably a top three place…. and guess what happened?!?!? Yep, it really wasn’t my day. This time my foot popped, bringing me crashing down to the floor, and to 4th place overall.
With reflection, I’m really pleased to have come 4th, and to be lucky enough to compete in amazing competitions like this, but I also topped all 5 problems first time (with one hand!). Never mind, next year!? and congratulations to Audrey who got 1st place and everyone else involved.
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