Sunday, January 8, 2012

Auto belay fun

Today I went to the wall in Crawley at about 2:30 and used the auto-belay there for a while. I'm very glad I went but I did climb really badly because I had bad nerves on the thing. A few things to note for next time:

1. Bring something to eat - more than one thing, both small, and obviously water. This is not just for eating but to create breaks. (I found it really tiring. Later on I discovered they're often used to train for endurance so that figures.)

2. Get there really early in the hope of having the gadget to yourself. Bring a book to read if you need to put in the time.

3. Don't waste energy on climbing down - it's not a doddle and the gadget isn't going to care whether you make good use of each trip up and down.

4. Before each trip up, set a point on the wall and determine to get at least that far. Pretend there's someone at the bottom of the rope wanting you to do it.

On the plus side, I found my reach seems to have got a lot further. I suspect I'd easily get to the top of that pink now if I was doing it with a partner, and suprisingly the green next to it is OK at the bottom too - haven't got far up yet though.

Later I took P quickly round the rec. Intend to do quite a bit tomorrow; we'll see.

Next time I'm going to force myself to have a go at bouldering as well.

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