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destination:
Climb Newcastle Winter Bouldering Series 09/10
Report - Part 2
(Rounds 4 and 5)
when: April'10
This is
part two of my report from last month, which covers the
last two rounds of the Climb Newcastle Winter Bouldering
Series. These were on the 12th February and
12th March 2010…Enjoy :)
Round 4: 12th
Feb 2010
I got to
this one a little nervous as I’d heard rumour that this
one would be the tough one as the penultimate round is
usually the round that tends to sort out comp leaders
and other ‘mini battles’ between climbers down the
board. When I got there I had a quick look around and
most of them seemed fairly straightforward…Man, was I
wrong!
I
dispatched the first 21/22 fairly easily, on sighting
them. Then came to the harder ones and, as I had feared
these were much harder. They were all very technical
routes but the harder ones involved subtle body position
and movement otherwise they would spit you off and make
you look like a fool!
I got
through a few of them after a rest and a good while of
route reading, my favourite being under the roof they
have at the wall, off to volumes and a subtle toe hook
which made the route flow really well. The hardest route
there of course being the £50 problem set at about
F7b+(ish) which just kept spitting me off time and time
again, even the more accomplished climbers were having a
few problems which certainly separated the more talented
climbers from the rest, sadly me not being one of them!!
I got 273
points out of 350 for that one which isn’t too bad a
score only slightly down on the last round. But it put
me a good 20th for the round and 19th
overall for the comp leading into the last and final
round…!
Round 5: 12th
Mar 2010
This one I
was very psyched to do, I had trained hard for it and
was already in the respectable place so far, 19th
overall after the first 4 comps. Now all I had to do was
put in a good performance and I’d be happy. I got there
and the routes all looked very similar to last time;
technical. Fortunately they weren’t as hard as last time
that’s not to say they weren’t easy just not as hard as
last time.
As usual
the guys at Climb Newcastle had set some awesome routes,
one very nice one started with a match on a nice (ish)
hold then a layback up an arête, feet onto your starting
hold then a long reach to the finishing hold, sounds
easy but not at F6b and all balance. Still a good
‘flash’.
The other
competitors did very well too with people all looking
very strong, one day (Rich Gill) climbing very well but
alas being his last comp for a while.
It was a
great last comp with 283 competitors overall, £3000
worth of prizes and 114,00 points won over 175 problems
in the series! The winners were
Sid Graham, Karin Magog, Ali McDonald, Tom Rookes, Nigel
Callender and Steve Crowe who respectively won the
female junior, senior, vet and male junior, senior and
vet categories.
I myself came 11th overall with a personal
best of 282 points out of 350 for the last round.
Overall, very please with the result and very psyched
for the next comp and well done to everyone :) |
