Savage Slit V,6

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After the competion on Friday, I decided to go climbing on Saturday in the Northern Coires with a guy, Will Woodhead, I met during the comp. Myself and Will met up on Saturday morning and headed into Coire an Lochain. I mentioned that Savage Slit was my goal for this season and so he convinced me that it was a good idea to have a go today!

I have to admit that at the bottom of the route and most of the way up, I was a little nervous. Not only was I about to lead the hardest winter route I’d ever tried but it was also the first route of the season. Will gave me a lot of encouragement while I was climbing – wouldn’t have got very far without it! It was good to climb with someone who climbs harder than me. It helps push the grade and makes going into new territory a little easier.

Really enjoyed the route. The bottom half I lead was fairly delicate and technical in places and the half Will lead was just pure brute thuggery! a great contrast in climbing styles, but it makes for an enjoyable and varied route. The gear was bomber all the way up and you’re never far away from a ‘thank god’ hold!

Now that the goal for the season has been accomplished, plans need to be reassessed. Would like to get much more confident on that type and grade of ground, so will be looking at climbing more similar routes. Maybe i’ll return to Savage Slit later in the season and hopefully enjoy it by doing it with more confidence and style! Well pleased!

Extreme Dream Drytool Comp

Went to the first of a series of ongoing indoor drytooling competitions up at extreme dream on Friday. Unfortunately I did pretty rubbish after my week of hard campus training and failed on stuff i should have done. Never mind though, there’s plenty of chances to make up on lost points in the next competions in 2007.

Dry Tooling – Newtyle

Had a million different options for something to do this weekend, but decided to head upto Newtyle and go drytooling. A good choice given the weather! The driest place in the country was our cave! We concentrated our efforts on the Fast and the Furious (M11) – the hardest drytooling route in the country! After a number of goes each, we managed to get about half way up, with an outstanding performance from Pete on his last go! Unfortunately it got dark quite early in our hole in the ground so we had to bail. Had a lot of fun, and we will definitely be back to finish it – a definite goer!

Scottish Mixed Masters

This event was held up at Extreme Dream in Aviemore. Myself, Pete Dollman and Mike Shorter headed up on the Saturday morning. The order of the weekend was for the qualifiers to take place on the Saturday and Finals (top 12 from the qualifiers) to take place on the Sunday. We had 20 routes each to complete over the space of 6hrs. After a (very!) tiring 6hrs, the results were in. I ranked about 15th, so didn’t make it through to the finals. Happy enough though. Pete an Mike however, did well and made into the Finals on Sunday.

A social evening followed with free beer and a bit of a party into the late hours. Couldn’t party too hard though as I was absolutely shattered! 

Sunday Finals – After a brilliant and exciting Final – the atmosphere was great – Pete came 8th and Mike came 5th. Not bad for a couple of guys who’ve never really held tools before!

A fantastic weekend overall and met alot of new people and made some new friends. Looking forward to some more competitions like it!

OMM – Original Mountain Marathon

24hrs before the race, Pete Williams rang me up saying that his usual partner for the race, Andy Harris, couldn’t make it. Would I stand in? Of course I would! This years event was to take place in the Galloway Hills near Dumfries. After a swift drive down, I met Pete and we registered our names and change of team and settled down to prepare for the weekends event.

Saturday – The theme for the day was set at dawn with torrential rain. This was to be unrelenting throuhout the day providing us with some challenging conditions to run in. We completed the first day in 05:40:11 and placed 35th.

After finishing the first day, we dried ourelves out and settled down for the evening. Plenty of strategic eating and rehydration along with plenty of sleep saw us prepared for the next day.

Sunday – What a difference a day makes! Glorious blue skies and sunshine and a lovely crisp day – perfect running conditions. It didn’t take long for the stiffness to wear off  and we started to make some good progress. The end was in sight and after an annoying navigational error adding some unwanted time onto our total we finished in 04:57:43.

A total of 44km and 3050m of ascent in 10:37:54 placing us overall 51st.

 We were both happy with this result and ran together as a good team. When one was flagging, the other kept the pace going. The conditions were tough and motivation was low at times, but we throughly enjoyed every minute (in retrospect!). See you next year!

It’s been a while

OK, so I’ve not updated this in a while. Been ultra busy with a few things: OMM (The Original Mountain Marathon) formerly the KIMM, Scottish Mixed Masters Indoor Dry Tooling Comp and a bit of training thrown in for good measure.