Training for what?

If you are a regular reader of this blog then you will be aware that the summers rock climbing ambitions have long ago been shelved and I have turned my thoughts towards the winter season.
The development of The Works has been coming along steadily and looks like it's going to be an amazing venue for dry tooling in the world of the upside down. This will potentially be the perfect training ground for some of the sport mixed classics in the Alps. There is more development going on and I just received a box of shiny Petzl hangers from the lovely people at Lyon Equipment to crack on with my big project from the back of the cave. The downside being that it's 2 hours drive away - and hence not exactly convenient for the daily sessions I'm going to need to get myself into top form, but I am hoping to go up regularly combined with some trips to Masson Lees which is a fair bit closer.

Luckily there are alternatives available. Firstly there is my spare room (I sound like Dave Macleod!!) which has some space for rolling around on the floor doing all that core type stuff and a well appointed pull-up bar with added extras i.e. poles hanging off to simulate hanging onto tools. Unfortunately unlike Dave I don't think I have quite the single minded ability to train in isolation, so I have been fortunate enough to develop a really great relationship with the guys at Rock Over Climbing in Manchester. The guys there are all super keen climbers themselves and equally into winter and so they have been super supportive and allowed me to set some circuits on their wall that I can use my tools on before the centre opens, or on the quiet mornings mid-week when no-one else is around. This is going to be a great help for my training over the next few months.

The two I set today on the 50 and 45degree boards are around M8 for the easier one and M9+/M10 for the trickier one. After a quick go on them both today I think they'll be a good start to get me going, and they will link together for some stamina training too. As the problems at Rock Over get changed about every 5 weeks I'll be able to change my circuits regularly and make them harder as the season gets closer.