Friday glee has gritstone rash

[rydra_wong]

The Friday post of glee is where you get to tell us about your climbing-related happiness this week.

N.B. Please feel free to post your glee on any day of the week; the Friday glee is just to get the ball rolling.

To enhance this week's glee -- yes, I freely admit that I am on a streak of posting gritstone vids, but here's yet another. Having made my own pilgrimage to Fontainebleau earlier in the year, I'm charmed to see these guys coming in the opposite direction:

4 Froggies in the Peak part and Part 2.

(My French is nonexistent, but I'm getting the impression there may be some sheep jokes in there ...)

Comments

[juliet]

I went climbing twice! (It's been a bit of a struggle to get there for the last couple of weeks, so this is a Good Thing in & of itself.)

And I climbed a couple of V2s, and went up some V1s missing out a few holds, which was pleasing.

[astridv]

Both my climbing partners cancelled this week, but I grabbed my climbing shoes when I rode my bike into town and stopped anyplace that looked interesting. Yesterday I found that garages are pretty well suited for a bit of light bouldering... not very high, so you don't get tempted to take stupid risks, but they can still be challening, depending on the structure of the wall.

I also climbed a very nice sandstone wall, a couple of red brick columns, and that weird-ass sculpture in front of the university that I saw marked on buildering-spots.de. I've been living in this place for 20 years and never even noticed the thing before... it's a whole new way to discover the city. Really fun.

[rydra_wong]

I have glee and exhaustion (and a shortage of fingertips) because I spent 5 days bouldering on the Peak gritstone.

[emperor]

One of my climbing partners lead their first 5+ this week, which was pretty awesome :-)

[wpadmirer]

My glee for today is that I'm climbing. I've had a ridiculous week with my student. (I'm a private tutor.) So I need some time on the wall to get all the crap out of my head.

Climbing this morning with Kim, and I guarantee that will make it a better day!

[tea]

My glee is that friday glee is perfect because I climb thursday evenings! Also, I got those new shoes and used them and they ROCKED! I was going to ramble here but I saw something about posting shoe-posts, so I figure I could make a separate post for that, hm?

My partner couldn't make it, so I went alone for the first time and bouldered for an hour or so. It's interesting - while before I've felt like there are a lot of women around, this time I was the only girl in the area a lot of the time. I guess because I was bouldering and not top-roping? Anyway, I find it funny how much of the time people spend sitting on the floor staring at the wall, even when it's empty, but OTOH I totally get why. You can only hold on for so long!

I tried a whole bunch of different problems, and the better shoes definitely helped. I need to go more than once a week to improve more, though. It's a bit awkward to fit it in and I'm not sure I have the time this summer, but in the fall I move to a new town with a climbing gym a 5 minute bike ride away, so I might just do some weight training at home to try and build up my strength until then.

I seriously love this shit, though. :D For someone who hasn't ever (ever!) committed to anything athletic, and hasn't done any form of sport or exercise since, uh, 10th grade? This is quite a mental and physical shift, so the fact that it's so easy and I just want to go every day is a good sign.

[fadeaccompli]

I went bouldering by myself a few times, and found a nemesis route! I fell off it repeatedly, then made it up the first few holds, then half of the way up, then 2/3 of the way up...

...and then when I went back two days later, they'd finally gotten around to resetting that wall, so it was gone. But I found another route that hit me with about the same pattern--repeatedly falling off before I could even start, then slowly progressing--which should last longer. So I have that to work on next time I go in. (I think. They usually only reset the walls every few months.) So, a new nemesis route! It's lots of fun. That's some good glee, right there.

Also gleeful: discovering that one or two V0 routes are now sufficiently easy for me that I can legitimately call them "warmup" routes.

I also tried some V1s at the encouragement of gym staff, and discovered that I can't even start the ones identified as "pretty easy" yet. Which was a little discouraging, but, hey, as long as the V0s are providing a challenge, I'm not exactly stagnating.