Uniclarity - Mental Sports Blog

My weekend was alcohol and caffeine fuelled i.e. I went to 2 parties, drank lots of alcohol and had very little quality sleep. It wasn’t really the perfect training plan and certainly didn’t set me up for optimum performance on the rocks…..but hey, it is the drinking season.

After a training day on Saturday and 2 nights of heavy boozing behind me, we strolled up to the crag at about 2.30pm on Sunday afternoon. Considering it goes dark at 4.30pm, we really didn’t give ourselves much time to get the most out of the day.

The location was ‘the woods’ and the problem was ‘Jocks and Geordies’. You may have read my earlier blogs about my attempts at this problem in Winter/Spring. I only ever got a few moves up it and decided that I would come back when I was stronger and fitter.

So it was time to give it a go. I warmed up and made my 1st attempt. I managed to crank out move after move and took myself by surprise when I put my hand on the penultimate hold. I think in sheer disbelief at getting so high up, I jumped off.

It had felt so easy! The moves that had once felt desperate seemed to just flow. I was chuffed, and more determined than ever to get my tick. The 2nd attempt saw me grasp the penultimate hold before launching myself to the top….and then tumble down into my spotter’s arms. Cheers Ian.

A rest.
Another attempt.
Still the top was out of reach.
And then I figured out a way of performing the final move. Hang the hold with my left hand, move my right foot up, toe in, spin on my left. I was strong. I was there reaching with my right hand………..and….. my right foot popped. I fell to the ground again.

After a few well chosen expletives I discussed the millisecond difference between making the move or hitting the deck. I had been unlucky and got the latter of the 2 possibilities.

By now it was getting dark and the rock was getting damp. It was my final attempt. I chose to stay relaxed and just do the moves. I could do it this time.

So I started my sequence. Pulled myself up, got the left hand as a crimp, moved my right foot, spun on my left, pulled everything in and placed my right hand on the final hold. I was there. My hand was on the slopping break….but….I didn’t have time to think because I was heading for the familiar ground again.

I landed and looked down at my right hand to see slimy green fingertips accompanied by a feeling of disappointment. The break was damp and I had slid off. Most of the people around me thought that I could claim the problem as complete. I had my hand on the final hold and the conditions had caused it to slip. How long had I stuck it? One second or perhaps more?

For me that wasn’t enough. The feeling wasn’t there, I couldn’t claim the ascent.

It brought to mind a strange dilemma. I had wanted to do this problem (the hardest I have ever climbed) so much. It would be easy to say I had done it. The people around me would have gladly backed me up. However, regardless of poor conditions, mild alcohol poisoning and a brief touch of the final hold, it didn’t feel right. I guess it’s a very personal judgement.

I’ll go back and do it properly next time. I’ll stick the hold and drop down with a sense of achievement and then head to the pub for a well earned beer

It has been a while since I last wrote a blog. My excuse is a good one though…I’ve been busy climbing, biking, partying and having lots of fun!

Here’s a quick update of my adventures:

Two weekends ago saw my return to the Bowder Stone. This stunning boulder is overhanging, has tiny holds and everything seems either very hard or impossible to climb. I have been there a handful of times now and the 1st time I went I could hardly pull myself off the ground! The next few visits saw me pull off the ground to make one big effortful move, only to fall to the ground again looking rather hopeless. Oh well, you can but try.

This time was different. I actually made some progress. I even got fairly close i.e. about 3 moves into Picnic Sarcastic a 7a+ problem (good going for me). I’m looking forward to returning with enthusiasm and stronger arms (?).

Over the next week I baked cakes, made bread, bought booze and busily prepared for the weekend ahead. And then the weekend came……me and a big group of friends had a fun-packed party in North Wales (in celebration of Ian’s 30th Birthday). We bouldered in the sea mist on Saturday (some people even braved the waters…I’m not sure if ‘brave’ is the right word for it??)

and we basked in the sunshine on Sunday (many with well-earned hangovers from the previous night’s excesses).

A return to reality came on the Monday morning when I wearily headed to work. I am supporting students at Newcastle University at the moment and on Monday I took notes in a psychology lecture on ‘individual differences in personality’. I must admit, many of the lectures I help out in are fairly mundane but this one seemed to strike a chord of interest.

The lecturer discussed your genetic predisposition to follow in your relatives footsteps. A subtle combination of genes and upbringing means that often people find their lives follow very similar patterns to their parents. This may even appear in details like: what car you buy, whether you get divorced, what life-stresses you have, what hobbies you take up and what illness and injuries you experience. These can all be linked to your family.

I can’t begin to imagine either of my parents rock climbing or mountain biking! Can you really inherit a desire to rock climb?…..the lecturer thought so. It’s something to ponder on anyway…..Will my life follow the path of my relatives? Are we all destined to turn into our parents? I’m not sure on that one so I guess I’ll need to wait and see

Blimey…what a weekend!! It is ages since I have felt so energetic and full of beans.

I have been gradually getting back in to climbing after a bad summer (bad in weather and in health). I can’t believe how much I missed my outdoor activities. Well, I made up for it this weekend.

Saturday was spent in the sun at Back Bowden, Northumberland. Since the trees have been cleared, the way has been opened to (in my opinion) some of the best-looking routes in the county. They have stayed unclimbed in the gloom behind the trees for 20 years, getting more and more lichenous and generally grubby. Until recently……

It was a great feeling to be back on form and cranking out some moves on those rocks. I won’t be the person to make the ascensions, however, I’ll certainly have a go at bouldering the starts (see sequence below for the start to Merlin). It seems ages since I actually ticked off a problem and so I was extremely happy to get to the end of my sequence with a sense of satisfaction and a drive to do more climbing

Unfortunately, due to my recent lack of climbing activity, I was left with very sore fingers and a distinct lack of skin at the end of the day….a small price to pay for an excellent day out.

And, if that wasn’t enough fun, I went mountain biking on Sunday, and when I say biking, I mean the biggest ride I’ve ever done. We went 60 km over hill and Dale i.e. the Yorkshire Dales. We returned to the car a mere 7 ½  hours after we had left it.

I was shattered….but in a good way. My legs were heavy and I could quite happily have gone to sleep in the bracken during the last few kilometres. It’s strange what you think of in order to keep going. For some reason I kept repeating in my head ‘legs, power, legs, power’. Well, it got me round!!

We had fun and saw some spectacular scenery along the way. Thanks to the extra push from my biking friends, I made it all the way round and ended an awesome weekend with a warm sense of contentment.

What a day of glorious weather we had in the Lake District on Sunday! Just when I thought the autumnal weather was rushing in (or more accurately raining in), the sun came out and my layers of clothes came off.

Being a Lancashire lass, I have lived within one hour’s drive from the Lakes for most of my life.  I even lived in the South Lakes for 6 months and I have always had one ambition….

….to go up Helvellyn. The fells in the Lakes are stunning, and, over the years, I have hiked up most of the biggies, all except this stunning fell. Ever since the age of 12, it has caught my imagination: I remember sitting in a geography class and learning about Striding Edge and how this awesome fell was formed.

Last weekend I finally ascended the Helvellyn Massive and not on foot as I had always imagined. I ascended by mountain bike. In fairness I think I carried the bike more than it carried me but boy was it worth it. What a day, what a ride, what a fell!

Looking back, I would never have thought I would ever be fit enough to do such a thing. Not that it required the super-fitness seen by the endurance athletes, but it did require me to be ready to go on a 6 hour long walk up a big hill carrying my bike on my back! And that is what I did (as well as ride down the other side in a fantastic descent).

The day certainly changed my outlook. It altered my set ideas about what is possible. I guess it’s about doing something that you wouldn’t normally think you can do. It might the moment you join a gym and realise you can get fit and you can lose weight. It might be the moment you decide to enrol on a training course and that you can change your career. It might be the moment that you whip up an amazing meal and for the 1st time realise that you can cook.

These are the moments that you push your boundaries and change the way you view yourself and your abilities. Sunday was one such moment for me. I hope there will be many more of them

This was an exciting morning for me…new things are a rarity at the moment with my limited expenditure. I woke up early and, like a little child on Christmas morning, waited with baited breath for my parcels.

When I got my hands on them, I ripped the packaging off and looked at my shiny new purchases. I tried the jeans on and much to my disappointment, they didn’t fit. The forks were ace but I couldn’t help feeling glum about the jeans. They were my size, they were supposed to fit.

Ah well, I thought, I’ll focus on the forks and all the enjoyment I’ll get from them…
“You can have lots of fun with no clothes on but less fun with no forks on your bike”

The bank holiday came around and with it saw my return to mountain biking. I haven’t been on my mountain bike for months and months, in fact it may even have been last year!

For those keen followers of my mental blog, you will know that actually the last time I was out on my bike was the beginning of April (but it feels like last year though).

Anyway, the weather brightened up on Sunday and so me and my (more accomplished) mountain-biking partner hit the bridleways of Northumberland.

I was rubbish. I felt unfit, unbalanced and lacked confident. As my partner motored ahead of me with words of encouragement, I decided I would take things at a comfortable pace.

For those that are not au fait with mountain biking, the sport requires a mixture of skill, fitness, strength and confidence. When you are faced with a steep decent over rocky and muddy ground you need to be in control of your bike and have confidence in your abilities. You can’t take things half-heartedly with mountain biking!

It is astounding what modern bikes can cope with now. The more you ride the more you realise there are a lot of things you can ride over (as improbable as they may look). On Sunday, I just wasn’t convinced. As nice as my bike is, I was in need of some practice.

For me, I always ere on the side of caution and play it safe when I’m not sure. As I have been out of the saddle for so long, it seemed that my confidence needed a good oiling. By taking it easy, I did exactly what I knew I could ride. I stayed on my bike and felt in control. As the ride progressed I soon felt able to try out a few more daring manoeuvres and apply a little more speed.

It is often all too easy to avoid rekindling that old hobby you once had or restarting that pastime you used to enjoy. I was out of practice and unsure about how I would get on riding my bike. The hardest part is giving it a go. You might have to learn all those things that once came so easily to you and this unfortunately can stop people before they even start. It boils down to confidence.

By going at my own pace on my bike I soon started to gain confidence, without feeling out of my depth. Now that I have been out once, I will certainly be out again. The more I go out, the more confident I will become (and my fitness levels should return….I felt so unfit).

I bet we all have a certain amount of reluctance to take our own advice. Many of us willingly dish up a feast of wise and sound advice to friends, family and sometimes even strangers, but how many of us actually practice what we preach?

I am no exception. I often know exactly what is good for me and I know exactly what I should be doing…but then it all goes wrong. I ignore my own advice. Perhaps it is my stubbornness or my unwillingness to change. Perhaps it is pure laziness. Perhaps…

Anyway, the reason this came to my mind was a recent meeting with a friend (who incidentally is a massage therapist). Every day she treats people with back tension, neck strain and various other uncomfortable afflictions. She helps alleviate muscular tension and pain and also gives advice on stretches, exercises and postural improvement.

Massage can be a fairly hard and physical job and, as a consequence, she has developed uncomfortable neck and back problems. It struck me that she needs to take a bit of her own advice!

When I asked her whether she received massages for her back, she said flatly ‘no’. When I asked her if she found stretching helped her back tension, she said ‘I haven’t tried’. When I asked her whether her posture was Ok, she replied ‘it’s really bad but I never get round to doing anything about it’.

It seemed a little ironic to me that someone, whose job was to help people with muscular problems, was so unwilling to help herself. Her reason for not doing anything was that ‘it is easy to give advice but hard to take your own’.

It made me think (as you probably have noticed by now that most things do). On the surface, this lady’s predicament looked silly…how could she ignore her own problems yet care so much for other peoples’? I can see parts of my life that fit perfectly into this ‘silly scenario’. I am sure everyone has been there…

The injury that you don’t get round to sorting out

The relationship problems that you never get round to talking over

The friend who you don’t find the time to call

The training schedule that looks great on paper but you never actually stick to

The doctor’s appointment you don’t make

The list could go on…

These are all the things that, from an outside perspective, look so simple to rectify. Pick up the phone…make the appointment…talk it over…follow the training plan…do your exercises. So why don’t we?

I’m sure that deep down we all care, but often there are too many of these things to sort out: too many things to do. Unfortunately it is usually the most important that we put off. It’s the big things that need a big effort to sort out that sadly get side-lined.

My friend who had a tense back thought that the stretching and exercises would take too much time to do that it wasn’t worth starting. Equally, if it was a training regime, perhaps you are so far away from your goal that it seems pointless to even starting. Perhaps you can’t find the time..it’s too much effort.

I’ve been like that with all sorts of things in my life. I’ve thrown myself into other peoples’ problems in order to ignore my own. I’ve blindly ignored sporting injuries. I’ve put off calling friends. I’ve made a million excuses why I shouldn’t exercise or train. At the end of the day, it takes very little effort to verbalise a few words of advice but it is a lot harder to actually take the advice and do it.

So what advice would you give yourself right now? Would you take it? No matter how much effort it takes, it’s always worth doing something, even if it’s only the start.

I have had an ongoing back problem. I know I should exercise every day but, when it came down to actually doing it, I have never found the time. That is until the last few weeks. My aim is to do a little bit every day, even a little bit can soon amounts to a difference. Once doing it becomes a habit, even taking your own advice can become easy.

I have never climbed at Malham and yet this legendary place had always captured my imagination. This weekend saw the first of (hopefully) many occasions when I get to enjoy the impeccable natural amphitheatre that is the mighty ‘Malham Cove’.

I was only trying a 7a sport route: a beginner’s grade at Malham. I was concerned that I might not be up to the job. I set out top-roping to see how I would get on. This was by far the hardest climbing I had every done and there was a certain amount of apprehension in the air as I began. Was I really good enough to be there?

The first moves felt easy and I started to relax a little. I hit a move that I couldn’t do so I tried again…another foothold and a different angle and the move was done. One by one the moves started fitting together as I progressed onwards and upwards.

Everything certainly required effort (and a few power screams) but after a bit of jiggery pokery, I had a sequence . More and more sections got linked and eventually the point where I failed was on my fitness and endurance rather than strength or technique.

For me that is such an amazement! I usually struggle to comprehend how much strength most people have when they climb. I guess my technique had helped me along (as well as a great deal of determination).

I sat in the sun thinking about the day. It would have been useful to be stronger. It has always been a bit of a gripe I had. My arms seem much less powerful than a typical bloke (being all ‘girly’) and the size of my muscles is tiny in comparison to your average guy, however…

There were a few people climbing there that day. One was complaining of being ‘too strong’!!! I couldn’t believe my ears. How can anyone be too strong? His argument was that he was pulling himself up on everything instead of using technique. He was getting more tired more quickly and so not climbing as well as he should.

He has a point but I had never seen it that way before. At last a positive about not being very strong. A positive for all the less powerful climbers out there! Technique rules ey?

I’m hoping to get back to Malham with a bit more fitness and perhaps a bit more knowledge. With any luck I’ll be ticking off routes faster than a…well, I’ll leave that one down to you

As the weather has been improving, I have been getting out on my bike more and more. I love biking and it is a great thing to do if you want to enjoy the countryside and get to some nice places without ever needing to set foot in a car.

I have been going for my bike rides on my own and enjoying the fact that I can set my own pace. With no drive for speed, I can potter around the country lanes of Northumberland and take in the scenery.

I had however reached a ‘comfort zone’ situation. I was at a point where I was unsure about how far I was capable of going on my bike. I had a distance I knew I was capable of and had not been confident enough to push it…until Friday.

I am all too aware that it is easy to stick to what you know. I could keep on doing the same routes, the same distances and using the same exertion. When it comes down to performance though, it is often the changes to your normal routine that really see you get results. I wanted to be able to go further so that I could see more in a day and spend more time doing something I love.

I knew where I wanted to ride and the night before I had a route set and time scale in mind. On Friday, I awoke to a feeling of nervousness…I was nervous about going too far. I made every excuse under the sun and worst of all I knew I was doing it too! They were excuses borne from unfamiliar ground and an overly-cautious approach.

The only way I felt I could double my normal distance was to take it in stages. I set out on the ride with the idea that I was going to do my normal distance. I even went to the extreme of asking my boyfriend to pick me up en-route if I found I was too tired; unnecessary precautions but they made me feel better.

Through the 1st part of the ride I kept telling myself I would be fine and I would just keep on going slowly and see where I got to. If I stayed relaxed then I would preserve my energy for later.

I made it to the half way point of my ride and sat and basked in the sun. I could stop there or see if I could get any further. With a bit of telephone encouragement from my boyfriend, I set off on the last stage of my ride. When I finally returned home I was glowing with the exertion of the ride but more notably with pride (see picture above). I had ridden the furthest that I had ever gone and to think that I nearly listened to all my excuses.

I used to do a lot of walking in the Lake District. Whenever city life got too oppressive or overwhelming I would head for the hills and get some ‘fresh air therapy’.

Over the past couple of years my objectives have shifted towards the action-packed adventures to be found from rock climbing and biking. Of course these still involve big hills, amazing scenery, fresh air and nature but somehow the feeling is different (high speed thoughts and high speed action).

It was only until I found myself organising a walk in Northumberland that I realised it had been such a long time since I had donned my walking boots. I had packed them away at the back of my wardrobe, replaced by rock shoes and SPDs.

…So I went for my walk. It was beautiful! I had forgotten the peace and tranquillity that comes from just being out in the open.

The usual trudge to the crag can be stunning and enjoyable but the purpose of the journey always seems to overtake the setting: we are there to climb. The adrenaline of a good bike ride often masks the serenity to be found in the hills.

Walking perhaps is seen as a bit mundane or dull but to me it’s about the need to slow down a little and just take in the scenery. Enjoy the fresh air. Clear your head.

I really enjoyed my walk; a slow pace lets you really appreciate where you are. When was the last time you stopped and listened…and heard nothing but stillness? No traffic, no chatter, no disturbance…just the sound of nature.  This is why a trip to the hills is so powerful. It helps you appreciate life (and your place within it).