GB Team Inaugural meeting 2016

After school on Friday we travelled by car up to Sheffield for the GB team inaugural meeting. We stayed in a Premier Inn.



Day 1

The next morning we had breakfast in the premier inn and then went to AWCC. As always it was very cold. When we arrived everyone including parents were called upstairs to a conference room. Here Ellie (the GB senior team coach) told us about a new plan for the team. It was called Long term athlete development plan or LTAD. Their plan was to create a big profile of each of us and work out what we need to work on to improve. So after the meeting we were split into two groups and tested.

First we were measured. Height and weight. They measured my seated height, standing height and weight. Then we were split into a further two groups and went over to the training boards and did some core exercises. One of the exercises was push ups. We had to do push ups to a metronome at 60 or 1min. So the maximum amount of push ups we could do was 30. I am not very good at push ups so  I was a bit nervous. I was struggling at 15 but I pushed on at got a final score of 27 out of 30. This was really hard. We had a few more tests before lunch.

Once lunch was over we finished the tests and exercises and completed some boulders to show what other skills we had. I worked out that I needed to do more heel hooks. After this we went back to the hotel.




Day 2

The second day started at 10. We had another meeting upstairs with again both teams. They told us how this last day was going to run.

We got split into lead and boulder. I went with the lead team because the bouldering team were waiting for their team meeting. John led the training. He told us he had been watching us warm up and that we were all not good. So he went through a perfect warm up with us. In the middle of this my Dad came to get me as I had forgotten about the bouldering meeting. I rushed upstairs and listened to the rest of the meeting. They said that the results of  our profiles and competition results would decide which  competitions we go to. There are stages to move up before you can get to world cups.

Next I went into the other room and had my one to one with Ian and Tony.

It was around lunch time so I went to get the lunch from the car. We had an hour to eat before the lead team meeting.

At the meeting we again discussed a plan for the future and the new training and profiling plan just like the bouldering meeting.

Soon after this meeting I had to go to my FMS screening. This was to help the coaches know if we were likely to be injured soon or in the future. This took an hour and I got mainly 2's out of 3's so I think I did ok.

By this time  we needed to get back to pick up my brothers  so we said bye to everyone and made our way home.

Overall the weekend was good and I am psyched to see how the new LTAD will work.

Blokfest February 2016

On Saturday I went to bloc climbing centre bristol for the Blokfest event. It was raining when we arrived so my dad dropped me off at the entrance with my brother. We filled out the forms and got our  t-shirts. We then had half an hour to warm up.

I used the warm up I learnt in the GB team meeting as it had worked really well before. While people were getting a briefing I was warming up. As soon as the comp started I ran around and did all the easy ones.


After an hour I had completed half of the blocs and was moving on to the harder ones. The blue on the front wall. It looked so fun and really odd. I was excited to try it. I saw people attempt it many ways. One way was feet first to a three way volume, second was dyno to the three way volume and my way was to match to first volume and get a toe clamp on the start holds and push off to the three way volume. It took me a few goes to get to the three way volume but on my 3rd attempt I got it. I then got to the first big horn and tried to reach the second but couldn't reach. I needed to use another technique to get higher.

Another problem I struggled on was the all volumes problem. I managed to get to the last move fine as I am usually not too bad at balancing problems. But the top move was all about heel hooks and pushing with your arms my two biggest weaknesses so this problem didn't work out for me. I tried so hard but I didn't have the skills.

The last problem I struggled most on was number 21. It had a very difficult sit start with two bad holds. I did the first two moves and did a big rock over to a crack made by two slopy crimps. I found the good bit and leant off it. I reached up to the undercut crimp and tried to reach over to the volume but I was standing to low and needed to get a foot up or match the hold. Again it took me a while to figure out the best way but on my last go I got it. I felt really good.


Time was up after this so I went to hand my sheet in and got a score of 212 which I wasn't happy with.

My Dad wanted to go so we put our stuff in the car and waited for the presentations. I was hoping for a podium place. In 3rd place was my friend from boulders Zoë and then I came second! I was happy with this. I won a bottle £20 voucher for rock on and a nice brush.

I really enjoyed the comp; the routes were set really well and fun. But I thought there were too many. It was hard to keep track of which one was which. Loved the prizes and freebies!

When the results were posted I found out I had come 3rd instead of 2nd. This was disappointing.