British Championships - Jan 2011
This is usually in the summer but was moved this year to prevent it clashing with the World Cup in Sheffield. Sadly this meant we had to A) go to London and B) try to be good despite being full of Christmas dinners. Anyway, we headed down to have a go and even had time to spare to be all touristy and go to a museum.
The wall was steep and flat lending itself to quite basic problems. Qualifiers were pretty easy – every problem got done, and you had to do all 10 to get into the final. I managed to flash the lot – more down to luck than judgement i reckon. A lot of people were having issues with their feet popping off small footholds - guess they should have worn some Anasazis.
Finals were great – really interesting problems on small holds and massive volumes. Again, you had to climb them perfectly – no room for error. Both Dave Barrans and I flashed 3 of them but couldn’t stick the last move of the 2nd problem (no one could). This meant I won on count back to the qualifiers. It great to feel like I am climbing well but it was a bit of an anti-climax to win on count back, basically due to one tiny foot slip from Dave. Sorry Dave. As always it was good to catch up with everyone, and see how strong they all are!
For now its back to training and gritstone - the problems aren’t going to climb themselves.