Alexia Basch Climbing: CWIF 2014 and stanage

I couldn't go to CWIF last year because I was skiing, so this year was the first time I could finally compete. I was in team psych with Pete, Ed and James. We had the afternoon session so I took advantage of this by snooping around looking for beta in the morning. I was shocked by how many international people there were!

30 problems, 3 and a half hours. About 28 were technical and 2 burly ones. I was really pleased about this, firstly because for once the strong-but-no-technique people would be caught out, and secondly because it gave a chance for the weaklings (me) to do well. There were no easy problems; the easi-EST problems all had one or two difficult moves that could throw somebody off. So basically, there no guaranteed points. This made it difficult to plan strategies such as making the transition between warm up and competition, and I definitely underestimated the grade of a few of them. The meat coking grading (rare, medium, and well done) was not much help.... Despite all of this, the problems were amazingly set, really weird and fun and different to anything I'd ever climbed. It felt like the setters put a lot of effort into setting them, as the moves were thought out, technical and precise.

I managed to flash about 8, then get a few second and third attempt. My final score was 112, and the semi final score was around 150. So not too far off. I came 32nd, and 20 made the semis finals. Not too bad considering I was competing against adults from around the world!

I had a good dinner with the farmers (plus Hannah) at Wagamama although I don't understand the obsession with the chicken katsu curry....

On Sunday morning I went to stanage with the farmers and Luke, really inspired by Alex's retro flash of Brad Pitt! We didn't get so lucky... Not much was done at all, as it was excruciatingly windy and cold.

We returned to Sheffield, and I headed off back to the Works in a taxi. The driver gave my mum and me a lecture on how amazing Sheffield was, then continued to say how much he hated London! He named just about every cost of living in London, then every benefit of living in Sheffield. It's strange how I have polar opposite views of what he said!

The following weekend, I headed back to Sheffield, this time for the boulder team training. I enjoyed a luxurious train ride in first class with free wifi and tea! Win! I arrived an hour late so I missed the initial talk but apparently it was exactly the same as last year so I wasn't too worried. We received our new kit, took our team photos and filled out a questionnaire, before heading to the works for some climbing! We did this circuit thing, where we had 3 rounds of 4 problems. We had 10 minutes on each problem then a rest between the rounds. I managed to top all of the problems but one, which I was very pleased about. In the afternoon we did loads of different mobility exercises as well as various stretches - super psyched to start doing these!

The next day we went to stanage. I heard it was going to be cold and windy but it was actually quite mild and no where near as windy as the previous week! I was keen to get back on green traverse, and a few other projects. The grit had good friction and it wasn't unbearably cold! I didn't get green traverse but I managed a 2nd attempt send on a solid 6c. Good effort to Pete for sending Brad Pitt (7c) even though the crux hold was sopping wet! And also Hamish with Snatch (8a)!! Crushing!