Improving at Ibrox.

Sorry for another wall-related post, especially one about a more mundane wall, but it is winter, it is Scotland, and physical progression is crucial to me at the moment.

Tonight definitely felt like progression. It felt like bouldering last weekend at Hepburn woke my muscles up and reminded them of what they could do and what was expected of them, and tonight I could feel and measure some progress in that area. I had a mixed session doing routes then bouldering, a rarity for me and even rarer it feels vaguely successful and I don't feel vaguely like death afterwards. Although the routes at Ibrox are pretty much boulder problems compared to Ratho ;).

Routes went fairly well, warming up felt easy (despite feeling a bit tired from wrestling a recalcitrant and oversized coffee table through the city), I managed to pull down okay, and also did some steep stuff okay and without much of the gibbering panic I usually display. I still felt a bit sketchy clipping (why?! it's not like I've been doing trad and sport for the last decade or anything....oh wait, I have...), and still got a bit dizzy if I was hanging on hard for too long. But not as bad as previously.

Bouldering was a bit more of a milestone. I got on several problems I hadn't managed to do after working in a previous pure bouldering session, and crushed them in a one or two goes - including a couple of good fights. I didn't feel too tired after routes (interesting, because my fitness is currently so poor), and I tried properly hard (without things feeling too tweaky, which is nice). It feels good to get some results, but better to feel I'm able to put the effort in.

Of course, I still need to work a lot on my routes stamina and my trad leading head....big challenges still to come...