Injury is something I have both little and lots of experience with. Throughout my career as a climber and coach, I have been surrounded by injuries, but I have yet to experience the real horror that is being injured to the point of complete shut down.   Injuries in the Blogosphere Nat wrote an amazing blog on her experiences with injury that touched both myself and many others around the world. It told of her life of training and competing on the Youth European and World circuit whilst dealing with repetitive injuries in her fingers and abdominals. Much more recently, Mr Macleod himself has... Continue reading

Saturday   I had a pretty full on day at the TCA in Glasgow where I competed in the second round of their Winter Bouldering Series. In the morning I headed over to pick up friends of mine who were also competing, Neill Busby, Eddie Barbour and Lisandro Defays. Eddie is probably for lack of a better term (and possibly the most accurate one that comes to mind right now) my rival :P In a friendly way, but he is a good guy for me to try and beat as we both tend to climb at a fairly similar level, in... Continue reading

Hey Guys Well since last weeks blog post a number of things have happened.  I got out to Dumbarton a couple of more times... I travelled down to Liverpool for Team selection of both the Lead and Bouldering Junior Team I apparently have Carpal Tunnel Syndrome...   Bouldering On the bouldering front things have been going from really good to totally awesome! Last week I climbed my first F8A "Sabotage" at Dumbarton Rock. Although this is my first F8A, it's probably only my first from a lack of trying. "Sabotage" is the first F8A I have actually tried and coupled with... Continue reading

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.... Continue reading

The last two days have been so much fun and yet so tiring! Who would have thought that 14 hours route setting followed by 6 hours sleep and a full days coaching would be tiring :P Saturday was the MCofS Prep Event for the Youth Bouldering Open being held in Liverpool in December. I am going down myself acting as Team Coach and will be involved in the selection of the new GB Team on the Saturday for the Lead event and am going to offer my support to those going for the Bouldering as well. The MCofS Prep Events that... Continue reading

A sad day for all of Ratho... the day Buzby burned the volumes in a moment of madness and what I believe is potentially the pyromaniac inside our faithful chief setter. Ewan Davidson cranking it at the comp With the exception of a few tears from a few Ratho boulderers (and myself), the EICA Winter Bouldering Competition and Bonfire went exceedingly well. The day before the competition it was myself, Buz, Geek and Lisandro setting in the bouldering room. Although I never felt that my setting head was screwed on quite as tight as usual, I somehow managed to turn out a... Continue reading

I love climbing at TCA Glasgow! It's always loads of fun when you have endless amounts of boulder problems to go at. For me, as I climb and set mainly at EICA, I go through problems fairly rapidly, so having the TCA less than an hour away is really beneficial if I want to step up my bouldering level. This year, TCA are hosting 4 bouldering competitions across the winter months. I am going to use these as personal goals to focus my strength and power training over the winter. I did well in the last two events held earlier this... Continue reading

Last weekend I competed in the 2012 British Climbing Championships (BLCC's) at EICA: Ratho in Edinburgh. I had not competed in a lead climbing competition since the previous years BLCC and have not regularly competed throughout the year in a few years.  It was a bit of a last minute decision to compete as I was supposed to be missing the event to go to Kalymnos for coaching work but unfortunately due to unforseen circumstances I had to cancel the trip :( So there I was at home with nothing to do! I was previously down for setting the BLCC's but... Continue reading

What can I say... this last weekend has been spectacular with some amazing performances by some truly incredible athletes. I can't begin to explain just how amazed I am at how the level of British climbing has leaped forward in the last few years both at Youth and Senior level. Unfortunately, both days I forgot my camera (D'oh) but no worries, Facebook is a great place to pilfer photos from. Saturday was an Epic day, with excitment and adrenaline seen from practically every corner of EICA. I had friends and coached kids in every category of the competition and was very... Continue reading

Yesterday was yet another fantastic day out climbing with the QuickDraw Club kids. Last time (PHOTOS HERE) I was with them we headed to a Northumbrian crag called Hepburn for a spot of bouldering, however, this time we headed north of Edinburgh to the popular sport venue of Benny Beg. The Quartz/Dolerite crag situated near Crieff is a brilliant venue for a day out climbing quality, low-grade sport routes. You could literally come here and climb about 30+ routes in a day if you really wanted to. Apparently it is also rarely wet and even if it was to start raining, the... Continue reading