Leading Ladder Grand Final - Beacon Climbing Centre

We arrived at the Travelodge hotel at about half past midnight on Thursday night/Friday morning. But little did we know that Dad didn't book our hotel for the right day. Fortunately its wasn't to busy so the receptionist managed to find a room for us.

The next morning we woke early and went next door for a Premier Inn breakfast!

Crazy Climb

After this we headed over to the Beacon centre to have a look around and a quick session on the routes.

While I was there I had a go at the crazy climb which was fun.

Later on that day we went off for a walk into Caernarfon along side the docs. It is a really nice place to visit. But it was nice also, to go back to the hotel early and and get a good nights rest before the competition.

Five Finger Thing

Beacon Centre

We arrived early at the climbing centre and registered for the leading ladder final. I was given a t-shirt with some cool writing on the front which said "Five Finger Thing".

I collected my score sheet for U16 elite category (C), looked at the grades and saw that they went from 6c+ to 7c. The highest I managed in the rounds was 6c. So I was very concerned that I wouldn't be able to do any of them. So I spoke to Rob and he put me into to the intermediate category (B). The grades for this category went from 6b - 7a. I felt much more confident about the competition after this.

I warmed up well and I tried my first climb which was an orange 6b. Near to the top of this climb I got scared. I don't normally get so afraid of falling on such easy routes but I was very nervous and I let go. I was really sad and disappointed that I had failed the first climb miserably. It took me a bit of time to relax so couldn't do any more climbs for a while. My Dad gave me a belay on some non comp routes to get me back into the swing of things. I did quite a few of these including one I didn't manage to top the day before in practice. Once, I came down I thought I was ready to do the next climb.

Next I attempted the black 6c+ which I failed because I was scared of falling again. So far I only had 1 point from the bonus on the first climb which is not very good. The next climb was a 6b+ which I also failed. The following route I tried the orange 6b again and managed to get to the top this time. This made me feel a tiny bit better but I was still really annoyed because I was not doing very well and I was expecting to do much better. Next I tried the 6c yellow and managed to get a bonus point. I tried the other climbs and used up my second and third attempts but failed to score any more points, except for a bonus point on the black 6c+. This was a difficult climb for me so I felt I had improved a little from the bad start I had had in the morning.

I didn't think I was in the top 5 but I still waited to hear the results. Surprisingly I got third place! I won a DMM chalk bag and chalk ball plus a medal and a certificate. I was very happy and shocked that I got on the podium because I thought I had climbed really badly.

Once the presentation was over we went for a nice meal in the Blackboy Inn.

The next day we went back to The Beacon Centre to try some of the climbs again. I climbed much better and managed to do a lot of the routes I didn't do during the competition. It pleased me that I topped those climbs but probably more frustrating that I didn't top them on the comp day.

UPDATE: Just found out that there were only 3 in my category - so I was LAST as well as third. Not so pleased :(