As small part of the world kicking me in the nads* over the past few weeks, my ride decided to give up the ghost on me.
Now it hasn't exactly been the most reliable ride around since the first day but the little ninja had spirit and we had our fair share of fun. I guess I knew that things were going downhill as she left me stranded recently but resumed again after a bit of a timeout. As a final act of defiance she decided to quit on me completely.
This was the last picture of her taken a few weekends ago:
After a few of missed appointments with a nearby mechanic she was finally picked up this afternoon. We'll see what the prognosis is, but it could be time to move on.
* No I didn't really get kicked in the nads just lots of things went wrong and my world was crumbling around me.
An early start - 5:30am, to get out to Kalamunda for an early bouldering session and avoid the heat.
Mark and I still have our problems to work on out there and today seemed to be a bit a step forward for both of us. Not quite a break through, but I managed to figure out and repeat a problem on the arete that I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to start during the last few visits (dang my flaky memory).
Went out to the shops for a bit this afternoon and arrived back with my neighbours hosing down the remnants of a fire in my backyard. Speaking to the firemen, they say that fires don't tend to start themselves. The first on the scene were some of the kids from next door, whether or not they were the ones that caused it is hard to say, however the firemen gave an indication that the fire came from the direction of their house. Hmmm...
Lots of content on my hard drive, just the motivation to do some editing and put together the words have been lacking.
Well time to put a stop to that. We did a small trip to Margaret River a few weeks ago. It was supposed to be more of a chillout trip, but I did manage to practice some trad skills.
Me and Mark did an early morning assault on Willyabrup, I lead Inner Space (grade 17) on trad and even though it was only grade 17, it was the first time I was on the climb and there were some runout sections that had me second guessing myselt and the crux was the last move (or atleast that's the way I saw it). I made two false starts on the move, chickened out each time to climb back to the rest, before finally hitting it on the third attempt.
I also lead Stainless Steel (grade 21 mixed trad and bolted), I'd done it before on pre-placed gear and was happy to have ticked it with my own gear. Once again the crux is at the top on the last moves, moving out from a bulge to top out. The funny thing was that I probably did it faster than Inner Space which was only 15 metres and grade 17, versus 30 metres and grade 21. Go figure. :P
We did encounter a new friend:
So the pumpfest came and went...
The lead up to it didn't quite go as planned, the rolled ankle amongst other things put a stop to the idea of getting back into yoga and hard training. Although I wasn't feeling the strongest I still felt okay, so there was no reason not to participate.
I showed up a little late on the day (15 mins before the start and those 15 minutes were spent socialising) and didn't do any beta sneaking...I figured I'd just wing it.
Well it was a hard three hours of climbing - I wandered around, teaming up with various other climbers to work at the problems. This was the great thing about boulder comps it was a very friendly atmosphere and people were genuinely supporting one another. I was lucky enough to flash a few but at the same time failed on a fair share whilst being tantalisingly close to getting both hands on the final hold.
I was pretty stuffed with around 20 minutes to go and jumped on a problem with a sharp hold. Unfortunately there was a lack of footers on it and when I was coming around an arete my foot cut loose and off I came. Another thing that was off was a large flap of skin from the pad of my right ring finger and a tear to the middle fing. I taped it up and stupidly tried the problem a few more times...every time I got my right hand to the hold it would squish...suffice to say I didn't tick it. When I started to bleed through the tape I decided that was it, I was spent.
With the showcase of strong climbers in attendance, I was comfortable in the knowledge that I wouldn't be in the running for the finals. As the top five were announced I could relax and just enjoy spectating, the five problems for the finals looked to be in a different class, they were hard that's expected, but they were also quite long and thus super taxing. Mark (from Sydney) and Jay (whom I went to Rocklands with) were the only two who completed problems in the men's finals. Mark was handed the win on countback to the points in the pumpfest, but it was only by four points in it. Sam (from Sydney) took out dominated in the womens, but that was expected with the fact that she is one of the best female climbers in Australia. It was interesting to see how the pro's handled the finals, they took a lot more time reading the problems and knew when to call it quits to save energy for the next problem.
I ended up placing eight, better than I thought I'd do, with lots of room for improvement.
Oh and it also happened to be the hottest day in October on record for 13 years - 36.9 degrees Celsius (98.4 Fahrenheit).
Anyways I'm now in recovery from the comp and also the night of drunken revelry that was last night...which is a story for another time.
With the massive public rejection of the Vegemite iSnack 2.0, Vegemite are at it again and are now giving the public limited options instead of a free for all.
However, one does really have to question their marketing geniuses, especially when they are looking to the public to do their work. As we know just because people can be bothered to vote, doesn't really mean that they make the right decisions.
The choices are:
VEGEMITE CHEESYBITE
VEGEMITE CREAMYMATE
VEGEMITE SMOOTH
VEGEMITE SNACKMATE
VEGEMITE VEGEMATE
VEGEMITE VEGEMILD
I'm pushing for "Creamymate" because that's probably the one with the most mileage from a humour perspective.
Voting starts now through to the end of this weekend:
http://www.vegemite.com.au/vegemite/page?PagecRef=758
Let's make Creamymate a reality! :)
PS: Clear your cookies after voting if you want to vote more than once.
PPS: The age group "6 and under" option isn't allowed to vote..."7 - 14 years" states that you should ask your parents' or guardians' permission (and get them to tick a box), funnily the same message is given for "65+ years" age group.
Anyways I still went climbing in the gym last night, more to try the ankle out than anything. Well it held up okay and I'm sure it'll continue to as long as I don't fall on it.
I found I could actually keep the ankle strapped up and still fit the climbing shoe on so I'm glad that works. Had a few twinges on certain angles/footholds and compensated a lot more with the arms, but at least I can still train to a certain degree.
