THE THIN RED LINE

The thin red line which separates enthusiasm from idiocy, psyche from obsession, has been crossed again last Sunday.
The previous week had been the hottest of the whole summer, and of the last three decaded, with temps constantly in the 40's: it was quite incredible to read 26° when I got out at 7 AM each morning.
This climate made me feel incredibly weak and lethargic, I could not escape a nap in the afternoon, but miraculously I always found the mental energy to go to the small, cozy gym to push and pull tons of iron: I mean literally tons. Not in one time of course, but if you pause to reflect on it, it's amazing what those small little muscle fibers can do. In my pulley sets, I move more than 2.400 kilos.
Anyway, this was still ok.
Then came the weekend, and a drop in the temps; an increase was very unlikely to be honest. So, I don't know why, I felt incredibly strong all of a sudden, and on Saturday evening I thought that the following day, with the new fresh temps, was going to be the right one to put my project in its place.
I woke up at 8 and drove to the boulders. I got there and failed. I felt weak. I didn't manage to repeat one single problem, despite doing again the first part of the roof direct. But I was dryfiring off holds, and I had to squeeze the shit out of those holds in order to stay put; despite one good go I obviously did not complete my project.
Incredibly disappointed, and close to hang the shoes to the proverbial nail, I drove back home, only to be saved by the sight of a thermometer measuring 34°.
What I had taken for excellent conditions, was just a "normal" August temperature for central Italy, ten degrees less than the previous week, but maybe, only maybe, a little bit too much to climb your hardest problem to date.
So, after the wonderful Dolomites weekend and a boiling week, I am here with my mind completely absorbed by the wall I want to make: I would like to make it fast, but still I have to work everyday, and I can't decide what's best. I have taken the first half of October off, direction Swizzy. So I have five weeks to go. Should I take advantage of these weeks and focus only on weights and fingerboarding to get to the holiday with some juice and build the wall after my return, or should I try to build the wall super fast to try and train on it for at least three weeks, or else should I do half and half, training regularly and fitting in some wall building sessions?
Please advise.

TWO FINGERS FOR YOU ALL AND FOR ME

From the 7 AM sessions, a few pics I'm quite proud of: they are about progressing. It's all about progressing. If you progress, you are on the right path, and I always want to be on that path.
The different expressions on my face tell a lot.

DOLOMITES REPRISE

In the pics, some great moves on great rock in a great setting. They only lack a great climber.

Every time I turn right, at the end of that private road that comes from my friend Filippo's house, I can't help but think that I am going in the wrong direction.
Down right, there is the valley, then the plain, the motorway, work, bills, rent.
Up left, at the end of the road, there are the mountains. A lot of rock.
When I turn right, I keep telling me that there are also a work that I enjoy a lot, and a girl I love (most of the time anyway). That makes the journey home more bearable, but there is always another bastard of a thought that comes in: "Why can't I have a nice job and my girlfriend up here?".
Anyway, after one year I went back to the Dolomites, this time just for bouldering. It's been great, sunny and hot, really hot, but chilly in the nights, so that I had to sleep in my sleeping bag, in the van. Bliss. I mean, really bliss. What's better than crushing (kind of...) all day long in the sun, then eat as much as you want, then get into your van in a nice grass field just beside a house where all your climbing friends are, and sleep for 9 straight hours?
The weather was superb, not even the slightest of afternoon showers. I climbed a lot, a fucking lot, a whole lotta love, too much simply.
DOMS and sunburnt made my back and shoulders painful during the second day, but hey, that's a small price to pay.
I did a few new problems and I repeated a few old ones, adding a super low start to a problem I did years ago: three more moves, now Keith and James have to come back and flash it again ah ah!
I also managed to repeat "Dolomitenmann", a problem that is so evident yet completely unknow to the climbing world. You cannot find anything about it on the Net, except my own blog entry. It's really a brilliant problem, and not easy also: this time I did it at the end of my second day, but I had to fight hard!!! I am doing some comparisons with other problems of mine with confirmed grades, I hope to get a better idea over the weekend.
Checking some guy's guide, I found out that none of the problems I had done had a sitstart, before I did them. I don't really know how people judge lines: they were the most evident sitstarts ever. Kind of...
Finally, a small video of one of the many overhangs I visited in these two days.