Projects and megaprojects

After my Christmas illness, which saw me throwing up between tries on boulders all over Spain. It was time to get to work on some serious ascending of small rocks. Here's what I've been breaking myself against this month...

Five seconds before I hit the crashpad... again.

1. Incognito Sit (8A) I got onto this thing in Tamajon at the very end of the session I did Encantador. I did the jump crux move pretty fast and actually felt confident. That was my first mistake. My second mistake was the belief that a limestone boulder would be a nice treat for my skin. 

Yesterday I had my second full session of falling off the jump move. Initially progress was fast, I linked from the jump to the top, which was quite psychological (it's a highball) and was falling off the jump move by the end of that session. I didn't think I'd still be there two sessions later falling off the same move. 

I've managed to stick it from the bottom three times in total. Every time I get there I get a bit over psyched and fall of the next move which is also powerful. The moves don't really ease off until a glory jug right at the top, so maybe I'm also a bit afraid of 'pinging off the top and looking like a tit.'

The hold that you have to jump to trashes your skin. In yesterday's session of eight tries my hands were bleeding all over the place. Skin: my genetic ceiling, making sure that every boulder I do takes me about three sessions and half a pint of blood longer. Somewhere there's a southern European clone of me crushing crushing everything in sight because of his magical regenerating skin.

2. Flor de Loto (8B) A great new classic that got put up last year in La Pedriza. Here's a video of the FA. I started to try it by accident last year when I was working on El Belen, which is also in the cave. The weather came in and soaked everything that wasn't a roof and pretty soon a giant group of Basques including this guy came to join me in my little cave. Once I'd gotten over my sense of inadequacy I joined in, flailing around on the problem and actually doing a few of the easier moves.

From the footage of my big link!

I didn't start properly working it till January as I was getting close on other things. Now I've been on it every week for the last month and I'm actually daring to believe that it's possible for me. This week's breakthrough was a link from three moves in which means that it's probably time to go from the bottom. Even the link was so hard I power screamed on every move. Oh and it ends in a GIANT SWING move which is really cool! What more could you want from a project? 

Grab the slopers, drop the toehook and hold oooon!