Winter Bouldering 2013 - Season Begins

OK, so maybe the season begun a while back, but I've not posted on any of my bouldering this winter at all so I thought I would begin now :D To be honest, I don't tend to like posting about my bouldering as it is so utterly dissapointing compared with my route climbing. However, this year I have decided to take a big step forward in my bouldering in an effort not only to better my route climbing for 2013, but also to improve myself as a Boulderer.

There is no doubt about it, I am a route climber at heart. But since around 2 years ago when I started incorporating a lot more bouldering into my training for routes, I have been increasingly learning to enjoy bouldering at a far greater level than ever before. Last winter was the first time I spent more than a session on a problem outdoors. This was on my first V10 (F7C+) "Northern Territory" at Kyloe Out which was almost done in a session, but in the end took an extra session to seal the deal. The process off redpointing a hard outdoor boulder problem was new to me and I can say that I did thoroughly enjoy the experience (not as much as routes still though). 

That window of outdoor bouldering last winter gained me my first V10 as well as a number of V9's (F7C) and V8's (F7B+) all within a session. Not only did my outdoor bouldering improve, but my indoor bouldering also got a lot better. I won a round of the TCA Glasgow Winter League and found new enjoyment in my bouldering sessions at the wall. This then gave me the strength, power and confidence to climb my first 8c in the spring of 2012. All this from a winters bouldering!

Unfortunately after that Winter I let it slide with my focussed bouldering attention and instead of keeping up the momentum of boulder training, I went back to training again on other aspects of my performance that I feel perhaps are less necessary but which I had neglected over the Winter. This was a big mistake and I paid massively for it! Now I am back in the bouldering zone and hoping to take this to a new personal level from 2012 into 2013 and hopefully ever upwards. It's no doubt in my mind now that if I want to achieve my goals in sport climbing I also have to be bouldering at a high level, but to manage this I also needed to learn to enjoy bouldering for what it is, as it's own discipline and not simply as a tool to train for routes.

So far this winter I have taken my first baby steps into bettering my bouldering with a few personal bests:

• "In Bloom" (V10 or F7C+) - 2nd Session - Dumbarton

• "Nice and Sleazy" (V10 or F7C+) - 1st Session - Dumbarton

• "Sabotage" (V11 or F8A) - 2nd Session - Dumbarton

• "The Shield" (V8+ or F7B+) - 2nd Session - Dumbarton

• "Hap Slappy" (V8+ or F7B+) - 1st Session - Dumbarton

So this is the main tick list above F7B+. It stems from around 3 or 4 sessions at Dumbarton Rock so far. The big ticks were "Sabotage" and "In Bloom" both of which felt pretty hard for me initially, though when I did them it seemed that there almost shouldn't have been any issue! A nice thing to feel when you supposedly complete your hardest boulders ever as it definitely encourages the thought that climbing something harder is possible.

My new bouldering goals for 2012/2013 then is to consolidate climbing at the F8A mark which I do believe is something I will achieve. I would certainly like to fulfil climbing F8A in a session, again something which I am confident is possible given the correct choice of problem and approaching with the right tactics. "Sabotage" felt like it would go in a session as did "In Bloom" and "Nice and Sleazier" was done in about an hour of working sections with around a dozen attempts in 30 minutes to get it sent :P I am motivated to visit as many different areas as possible in order to develop my bouldering skills in a wide range of rock types and styles, not only in the local areas. So I will be getting down to the County quite a bit with hopefully more visits to Dumby to see some of the other F8A's there sent. "King Kong" (F8A), "Sabotaged" (F8A) and "Spam Dagger" (F8A) on the list :D

And of course, with 2013 on the horizons, if I can up the bouldering level, where will it take my sport climbing? A Costa Blanca trip in Easter might not be a bad thing :)