SHHHHHH.....

I'm secretly typing from my boss' office...
Yes yes fucking yes!!!

ALIVE!!!

The infamous, much awaited five sessions week passed.

I'm very happy, mostly because I was feeling better as the sessions went by: I don't dare to say that I was stronger at the end of the week then at the beginning, but I was definitely feeling fit.

I'm eating like a pig.

In detail:

1. Monday: negatives on good hold, 5" time of descent, 3 reps, 3 set per arm, 5' rests. One armed bouldering on vertical wall, 2 problems of 6 moves, 4 reps each.
2. Tuesday: one arm deadhangs on 1 cm edge, 3" for 8 times per arm, 3' rests. Dynoes between good holds on 30° wall.
3. Wednesday: as Monday, but bouldering moving both arms at a time.
4. Thursday: as Tuesday, but high intensity wall.
5. Friday: as Monday, but high intensity wall.

It's been really hard, considering also working from 9 to 19 30.

Anyway, I survived and was feeling better each session. Tomorrow I start again the campus board week. I have at least two really hard sessions, on Tuesday and Friday: 147 on 2 cm edge, 6 reps per arm straight away, 6 sets each arm, 8' rests; then 4 problems on 45° wall just below my limit, 6 consecutive goes, 2 reps each problem, 8' rests. I wonder how I'll get home, and at what time...

Tom, are you still keen?

I'm very proud that this blog has been linked on Dobbin's one. Thankyou.

STICK TO THE PROGRAM

It's monday morning, and why am I here instead of outdoors, cranking?
I don't know.
Yesterday I postponed climbing for a lunch with family friends: at first I was very pissed, but then it turned nice, it was ages since the last time we met, and my friend's father had been very ill, so now that he's fine it was really good to eat together and have a laugh.
When the conversation went on politics, with the random fascist talking, teo-con thinking, I quickly escaped.

Anyway, today I start an eleven weeks training program.
It's a good day to start, because I don't work, and I am facing - Tom, you listen carefully ok? - a five sessions week followed by another five sessions week.
The guru thinks it would be a nice change to set every week with a dominant tool: fingerboard, campusboard, or wall.
So in a few hours I'll be doing negatives on edges, in a week sets of six consecutives 147's, and in two weeks laps on boulder problems over my limit.
To say I'm excited is nothing.

Last monday I went with the guru to try Out of Service. Unluckily, I didn't rewarded him with the much awaited send, but I think, judging by his commment on one post here, that he was happy. I literally hiked the whole problem for four times, to just lose my heel and fall on the last really hard moves.

I'm thinking sometimes to the real grade of that problem. I spoke with the guy who did it, and he told me that at the time he was in the best shape ever, at 51 kilos...
He has absolutely no idea about grades, especially on fingery problems.
I think Out of Service is hard 7c+ for tall people, 8a for shorties. It's technical, precarious, muscular, condition dependant and, yes, morphologically fantastic.
I do eleven moves to get the lip, my taller friends six, my tallest friend four.

TALES FROM THE SHOP

Yesterday one guy came to the shop for a Gri-Gri and quickdraws. Nothing special, except for the fact that everything had to be red. Ok, I thought, it's just to have different colour from his partner's stuff.

The he asked for a rope.

"What kind of rope do you need?" I said.

"A red one" was the answer.

So I went upstairs and took a bright red, 15 mm rope, that would have surely worked nicely with the Gri-Gri.

On the way down, my angel took over, and I went back to take a regular, 10 mm Beal, thinking that maybe it would have helped him not to kill someone while belaying.

MELTING POT

So, here I am again, amongst people of all nationalities, typing from an Internet point. It's nice but I prefer doing it at home, possibly naked.

Ok, just kidding. I use to wear a black mask.

Work is going well, climbing...not so well.

I can barely find the time to take a pee during work hours, with the big big sales, the shop is always very, very busy. I hate people searching for sleeping bags for other people, they don't know absolutely anything about when and where they'll be used, and often ask for "one that could be used now, for a trekking outside, but also in the summer for sleeping on the beach".

Searching in the back of the shop I found tons of vintage shoes: Lasers, Ninjas, really fun stuff, and now I'm the proud owner of a shining new pair of Boreal Indo Rojo, that I took for 30 Euros for the gym.

Then I'll buy one pair of Dragons, that are amazingly tight, and one of Solution, more comfy.

Still haven't touched rock. GRRRRRRRRRRR.

I forgot to tell that very wisely I went out and got drunk with Negroni the night before my first day at work. Nice one.

The new gym is very good, but I don't like the setting at all. They have started to set every problem new age style, with strange moves rather than really hard ones. You may have to touch to top with your body horizontal, one foot jammed and the other one hooked somewhere, or shit like that, and I really don't want to: I'd prefer a few small holds here and there on the 50° wall.

I'm not weak but feel weak, and am always testing myself: thursday I managed to leave the ground, even if for a breif moment, or for the shortest amount of time humans knows of, while deadhanging the 1cm edge one hand-no crimping.

I have another day off tomorrow and will start the new training program: as usual I completely put myself into the guru's hands.

What else? Oh yes, I cycle one hour every day to go to work and back, and am always hungry.

Reading this post I ask myself if it's really worth to be published, it seems I'm doing nothing but working...

There are lots, lots of beautiful women in Florence. Storm a comin'.

WORK? BIG LOSS OF TIME!

So, the first day at the climbing shop came and went.

And then, so did the second morning.

The result? A big loss of time, but not in the easiest way to think about: I mean that when I'm there "working", I can't notice time passing, so I find myself at lunch break, then at work again, then at home, seemingly in just a while.

And: could, being somewhere talking with friends about climbing stuff, be called working?

Anyway, in a matter of hours I'll have to dissuade a lady from buying some rope, tie it to a heater, another part to herself, and go and work on her house roof, the rope passing through a window and then the border of a terrace.

She also asked me to rig everything for her: oh yes, to go in jail when you fall? For sure...

My first day was a major success.

The gym opens tonight.

Life's good.

WE DON'T HAVE CONTROL

We don't have control on our lives.

At least not as much as I'd like.

My plans of leaving friday morning to go bouldering three days and concentrating only on my project, had to change: first, the girlfriend's mother felt sick and we had to take her to the hospital. Luckily it was nothing serious.

Then, when we finally got to the boulders, the following day, I met friends and climbed the whole day with them before getting to grips with the project.

That means failure.

So, we don't have control, and it's nice after all, because we never get bored and we always have to be ready to react and adapt to obtain the best from everything.

WI-FI COLD SPOT

I hope you all will appreciate that, to keep this blog updated, I'm sitting here, in a small square in town that shares a bit of a wi-fi hot spot, where all the coldest winds of central Italy seem to gather.
It's cold, it's clear, it's bouldering time.
I had a good session yesterday, dead hangs on the small holds, and then ripped the campus board: 1-5-roof again right hand, and then more.
Let's pack the car.