Old man river's log

It was stunning weather, so I did a medium length walk: my house to Dorking, with the train back.

6 hours, 18 miles and around 750 metres ascent. (I made the route up in the fly: My house to Epsom Downs racecourse; then to Walton on the Hill; cross the M25 near Kingswood; turn right onto the North Downs Way; leave it to go North - this adds .more hills - go cross country to Box Hill village at the top of the hill, go down the the hill along a magnificent ridge walk, go up the hill, go down the hill along the steps, then home for tea and medals.)

Hmm, I grew up in Bookham and went to school in Epsom. Where do you live…guessing Leatherhead ish?

I'm in Epsom; about 10 minutes from the station. I've been in the same house for close to 15 years now

Monday
Climbing. I was terrible, gravity was high.

Tuesday
Climbing, it was good. Gravity was back to normal.

Wednesday
12 miles walk and a sauna. I managed 2 minutes in the ice bath post sauna, which is good for me. I've been practicing my breath holds in the hot spa thing, I 'm up to 2.5 minutes.

Thursday
Climbing, 2 hours. I was decent on strength-based overhangs, but actually not firing on all cylinders for slab; notably it's the other way around.

I left the UK 25 years ago but my parents were in Epsom til about 2012 when I brought them to Sydney. Near the David Lloyd centre

Cool, I'm not far from David Lloyd (15 minutes' walk if the park is open.) I'm a member there; it's where I go for for my swimming and saunas.

Sunday
I went caving. We were planning on a huge trip, but one of the group was struggling. So we didn't get to the destination. 7 hours underground; 8 hours total. Loads of crawling; it was a very tight cave. It was really pretty.

Monday
More caving. We did Shakespeare's cave in Wales. It is allegedly what inspired Shakespeare Midsummer's Night Dream as home of the faeries. (Appropriately, the lad I did the cave with is currently playing Puck in an opera.)

I wore a 3 mil shortie wetsuit under my caving oversuit. It was hideously inadequate. There are 4 ducks leading to a short sump: cave free diving.

My mate decided not to try it. I gave it a shot. My helmet caught in something, probably about mid-way through, so I abandoned the endeavour. I was shivering badly at this point, and neither of us fitted through the sump bypass, so we decided to leave. We did the 4 ducks again to get out. Climbing the hill afterwards warmed me up enough to stave off hypothermia (I may have had it mildly at one point; I couldn't move my fingers so didn't even skin stones at the end.)

Good fun; I'll go back with a thicker wetsuit later.

Climbing. The plan was a short session, but I had so much fun that I stayed for 3 hours.

I was in pretty good form. My favourite was a relatively easy slab (V3) where I couldn't reach the final hold, so I did a small dyno. The last hold was a thumb catch, so the dyno was to no hands to get in balance with higher feet to then get the last hold.

Saturday

Caving. We did P8, a little cave with a couple of pitches. Good fun, about 5 hours underground.

Sunday

More caving. We did the tourist trip at Peak Cavern, an easy 4 or 5 hour bimble.

There's a Tom Scott video in this cave where he fails to get through the first obstacle, for some reason. It's a very minor duck.

Monday

Climbing. Cracking session; I session flashed a bunch of projects.

Tuesday
Lifting, hangboarding, and some shoulder mobility stuff

Wednesday
Quick climb; less than an hour as I went to a comedy night afterwards. It was decent; I actually got everything I tried (so maybe I should have tried harder). One V4.

Thursday
Some light lifting, hangboarding and shoulder flexibility stuff.

Saturday
Scuba diving. The forklift that launches our boat was broken, so we're did a couple of shore dives instead. They were lovely; 12 metre max, so shallow; 1 hour each. We saw 2 octopus, many cuttlefish, and a dogfish.

Sunday
We went to Swanage pier for more shore diving, but the visibility was terrible so we abandoned the plan.

I went climbing for 2 hours when I got home, and ok but not outstanding session.

Your log is really fun. You do a whole ton of different and interesting things that I have never or very rarely done

Do you have different friends you do each of these things with or a few core guys that are also versatile?

It tends to be pretty much the same people for diving and caving, (2 distinct sets, with some minor overlap like Jon, who is a cave diver.) Most of the climbing tends to be on my own; I'm in a few groups but was are ineffient.

Wednesday

Climbing, 2.5 hours. I had a technical v4 project I started towards the start of the session and got right at the end.

Starting required a minor dyno to a drop knee(right hand and thought foot were on the climb, left hand smeared for balance on the wall, left leg jumped). This left me slowly move my left hand to the start hold.

Following this, I got my left hand on a poor sloper. This got me enough purchase to shuffle my feet a bit. This in turn let me go low with no hands and get my left on a tiny crimp. Then I could move my right hand on the far side of the sloper get a sort of gaston. This in turn let me shuffle my left foot to the edge of the foothold, which made a foot swap possible.

Then I could quickly move my left foot to a high, tiny chip, and move my left hand to grab the arrete. I let go of the sloper with my right hand, and smeared it against the wall for balance. I did a big pistol squat on the left foot, which got me close enough to the final hold to grab it with the right hand. Finally, I could move the left to finish off. The whole operation took me around 30 goes.

Thursday

Swimming and sauna

Saturday
Diving. We got a couple of harbour wreck dives in. The wind was strong, so we couldn't do anything more ambitious.

Sunday
Another harbour wreck. Cracking dive; loads of nudibranch and flatworms.

Monday
Climbing
I have a competition on Saturday; this was practice. It was good; I got four v4s including a monkey-bar style overhang that was really good fun.

Tuesday
Swam 1 km. I decided to see if I could do 50m underwater; I failed. I let myself down, my family down, my country down.... (I managed 40m).

Climbing, 2.5 hours.

I started really badly. There was a V3 slab that took 45 minutes, but I eventually got it. (The crux was a reverse flag letting me reach a small crimp.) After that, it was a pretty good session with a couple of v4s.

I entered a climbing competition. It was a team thing; my team won. I got a v4 in the final section which made all the difference.

I'm old, and not very athletic, so I'm pretty happy with how it all planned out.

I had a week diving in the Scilly islands. It rocked; I'll do a fuller write up in due course.

There was one scary moment. I was essentially free soloing a boulder; I slipped and fell a small distance. The first fall was fine, but then I started to roll and arrested the roll by catching my head on a rock. I grazed the top of of my head, and bled profusely, but it seems to have been just a flesh wound.

My logging has been crap recently. I have done a lot of stuff

I will start afresh. I went climbing today. I sent a v5. Unlike the last one I got (which I think was last year), this felt like a genuine v5
Some moves were proper hard

In other news, I've been taking creatine for about 2 months now. I have lost around 2 pounds over the period. Presumably there is a reasonable chance I'm a non-responder.

Thursday
1km swim and lots of walking

Friday
Climbing, I was good. I got a v4 cave climb which is my abti-styke (you do a few moves completely upside down.)

Saturday
Diving. 0 viz, but fun. 2 40 minutes dives.

Sunday
4 hour walk then 3 hours climb. I was rather good, flashed two v4s.

I've exercised vigorously daily for 3 weeks. I'll have a rest day on Thursday.

A while since I logged.. .

Monday

Climbing. I was good, my movement was fluid.

Tuesday

I got some form of stomach bug. Accidental rest day.

Wednesday

I thought I had recovered by the evening, so I went for a bimble around a local mine. Very nice evening.

Thursday

The bug returned.

Friday

I seemed to have recovered, so I walked 10 miles and had a quick swim (1 km-ish).

Saturday

Climbing. I was OK but not brilliant, which I guess is ok post lurgy.

Sunday

I got a couple of dives in from Swanage on the South coast. The second dive was a bit stressful.

We did a fast drift in zero visibility with a 2.5 metre swell. 7 divers went down; 5 were back on the boat. The skipper had no idea where the other two were. He called a Mayday immediately. Fortunately, one of the divers had a Nautilus VHS location widget he let off when it was clear the boat went the wrong way. So we picked them up eventually; I think they were at the surface for more than an hour. Everyone was fine.

Monday, 6 days ago
Climbing. Started badly, gravity was high. Then, after an hour, it dropped to an abnormally low level. I flashed 3 v4s and got a hideous v5.

Tuesday
Swimming

Wednesday
Climbing, a gym I've not been to in years. Again, really good fun, I got about half of the v4s in the place.

Thursday
Swimming

Saturday
Scuba diving, a 30m wreck followers by a 15 metre drift dive. Lovely, no-one got lost this time. Both dives were about 50 minutes.

Sunday
Blown out from diving, and my brand new car broke on the way home. I got home alright, but I need to get it to a garage soon.

Hang boarding.

Monday
Climbing, good session.

My logging has been crap. I've done stuff; mainly climbing and caving.

Today was climbing. It was good; I got loads of v4s including 2 flashes.

Saturday
Scuba diving. Two 45 minutes dives to around 20m. We saw a baby sunfish (mola mola) at the surface between dives.

Sunday
Scuba diving. Again, two 45 minutes dives to 20 metres. One dive was a mark we'd not dived before; supposedly a landing craft (used in the d-day landings to get troops ashore). It was boilers and nothing else, so almost certainly not a landing craft.

Monday
Climbing. Dyno practice, I was actually not too bad.

Tuesday
SRT practice

Wednesday
Climbing, I was pretty good.

Not the sunfish we saw, I only got crap photos of it. A friend saw this one mid-channel on a deep dive (56m).