Happy New Year to you all, hope it was a great day and I wish everyone the best 2011 possible! I am really looking forward to this year, its going to be very busy, full of climbing, coaching, trips and plenty of adventures : ) My first big adventure of 2011 is next weekend in London, where I am going to be competing at the British Bouldering Championships! I haven't done this since 2005, so it will be quite an experience. As I am not really a boulderer, It will be interesting to see how I compare with the rest. I know quite a lot of guys entering the comp in my category, most of them are strong boulderers, but also a lot of them are like me and favour sport climbing, so its a bit of a mixed basket of climbers thrown in there. Bouldering competitions require very different skills that a lot of your average keen boulderers don't have, such as the fitness required to climb a lot of mid-grade problems one after another! Also, you get more points if you flash the problem than if you climb it second go, and a lot of climbers find this quite difficult. Many of the problems at the comps tend to be quite funky with lots of weirdness thrown in, generally requiring good balance and flexibility and very good route reading skills! So its not all about being the strongest!
A good friend of mine, Eddie Barbour, told me that he was shocked after competing in Sheffield that he had actually beaten a lot of really strong boulders (much stronger than him). He put it down to the fact that there was very few really hard problems, and the competition was decided on who could flash the most mid-grade problems. Eddie being primarily a route climber, managed to sustain his level for a lot longer than many of the hard core boulderers (who just got tired) and because of this, he came out on top in the end! I know not every competition will be like this, but it definitely gives competition boulderers a good reason to train their endurance and power endurance, rather than simply focussing on the strength and power aspect of bouldering.
Another good reason to train endurance and power endurance in bouldering is also so you can climb longer problems (traverses or highballs?) and climb more problems in a session e.g. circuits of problems like the font versions?
Coming down to the BBC's from Edinburgh is Natalie Berry, Calum Forsyth, Angus Davidson, Jamie Drummond, Fraser Macilwraith and Rachel Carr! This is a strong team of guys and gals and I reckon we will see some stellar performances. All of them have been in full-on boulder mode over the winter (Fraser especially whose been on it all year!) and they are all as strong as I have ever seen them.
Rachel Carr has been bouldering bits at A2 and I had a session with her recently their and at Ratho, she is looking like a total machine and certainly climbing like one as well! I simply can't believe how strong she is getting, I am almost scared of this because if it continues she will be making all the strong male boulderers in Scotland look weak! Angus is climbing simply superb, I have had a few sessions with him at Ratho and A2 over the past couple of months and he's been ripping it apart! My last session with Angus saw him send a hard grade 7 (Font 7bish) in front of a large crowd of fully grown men who where failing one after another on it. In the same session he cruised a tricky grade 6 (Font 7aish) 2nd go even though each move was at his full span and the holds were all tiny crimps (even for him with his tiny fingers : P). Calum has been back, hitting the boulders hard at Ratho with a stream of V7's and V8's under his belt with very short work! Fraser has been doing his usual at Alien Rock 2, everyday looking stronger and shocking all the hardcore boulderers with his finger strength and natural ability. And finally, Nat, for years I thought, she can't be any good at bouldering, she never does it! How wrong I was... she is the exception to the rule that states "to be a good boulderer, don't do laps on 30m routes" : P Nat seems to have insanely strong fingers, despite what I used to think, I reckon its all that initial GCC (Glasgow Climbing Centre) training she did over the years. If there's a crimp she will hold it, if there's a desperate reach off a filthy edge, she will static it!
I can't say how much I am looking forward to next weekend, I don't really care how I do, I know I am going to have fun regardless and I am really looking forward to watching all my friends compete!
Wish us luck everybody!
ROBZ OUT