So, one month after laying out a prospectus of what I expect of myself over the next few months, I feel that things, thus far, are going reasonably well... That is, when I get the chance to climb...
 
The journey so far has taken me through some pretty inspirational phases, which are still inspiring me and will hopefully continue to do so (see previous blog articles). I have also focused more on my enjoyment of climbing and, in a way, have been on a journey of realisation and have subsequently returned to the roots of what made me want to climb. This has had a great affect on my overall enjoyment of life as well as my diabetes control - not to mention improvements in my climbing ability.
 
I still feel that my targets are within reach and are achievable; however, there is still a long way to go, requiring a sustained effort. This has me psyched up beyond belief! Climbing training has been odd lately as, since my week of outdoor madness, not much has been done indoors due, partly, to my climbing partner burning his fingers and my lack of drive to get indoor when the weather outside has been so beautiful!
 
This has led to me finally getting use out of my Moon fingerboard (which, by the way, is the best fingerboard EVER for making you work super-hard!) after the facilities manager at work kindly installed it outside on the shed! This has given me the opportunity to put in short but well focused training sessions on a daily basis to build up my contact strength which is fine, as long as I do plenty of climbing and technique training to make the strength gains work for me in real-life!
 
My desire to get outside and climb has also intensified recently with my awareness of how many potentially satisfying boulder problems and sport/trad routes are close by (again, see recent articles). But along with this, my desire to just be amongst the mountains and enjoying my surroundings has taken me to the crazy world of cross-country skiing and, hopefully this weekend, to the madness of ski mountaineering! These are two sports that I have been wanting to participate in for such a long, long time now! The only thing is, if I'm going to stick to my climbing regime, I must make sure I don't do too much to add too much muscle to the legs! Otherwise, the fingerboard training will have to be intensified! :-)
 
Basically, this update is just to say how much I'm enjoying training and climbing just now, and that the aims I have in mind for the summer months are certainly still driving me forwards... Let's see what happens next!