Still in shape!?

I'm sure all of us do this question to themselves before putting on the climbing shoes, riding the bike or just before leaving the confortable environment you live during the week.

Of course after you do some hard lines you learn something, get stronger, earn more experience and all these things. But still, how you can do this without following any training routine?
I have no clue...do you?
I can barely explain how I could top out an 8B bouldering. For the last 4 months I was climbing outside around once a week, sometimes even less and visiting the climbing gym about 1,5 times per week doing the most anarchic training possible.
The question now, how the people that train and climb 300 days per year can only put up 8C/+ FB? Nonsense...true!!? But anyway, if one day I do something closer to that, maybe there is something wrong with me :)

Closer to the point, it's been a time since no updates, and here it is. I've done another 8B(V13) FB. Once again in Targassonne. I know it looks kinda borring but it's nearly the only place around where you can find the best lines and better conditions. If you're lucky of course.
This time the forecast wasn't the worst, sun but low temperatures. The thought was "This might be the last chance before the season is over", even though the season finished on previous weekend when it was too hot even for having sun bathes. But still, there are not that many thing that can stop you if you really want to climb.

We arrived at about 7 PM to the spot. Sara, Ignasi and myself, difficult to say why that late ;). On arrival it started to snow, it was the sign. So I went up running, there wasn't time to warm up. Pep and Guille were already there painting tick marks.
After some very bad tries on the first day (about 3 month ago), bad tries on a second day and very good tries on the third day, I topped out the nasty boulder on the fourth day of tries. And then had to repeat it in darkness for the video. So here you have it:



Psoas mole, 8B (V13) from Alex Germanovych on Vimeo.

The best bouldering day yet!

I've started visiting Targasonne a time ago, maybe I did it 5 times since summer has finished. As usual there have been some good days, bad days, regular ones....
Since then I've done Abomination 7C, L'oeil du voisin 7C, Psoas hole 8A+ and Erotomecanics sit 8A+. But this weekend was really memorable.

Despite the bad whether forecast we went to Pyrenees. There were 4 of us this time, Pep aka "El loko", Nick aka "Yankee", Nuria aka "Bloquera imparable" and me. As soon as we arrived everyone went warming up. I didn't want to waste time so I made a fast ascent of Bob's your uncle 7C. Very nice compression problem, a bit morphologic and with scary top out.
Straight after I went to try once again my project La Théorie du Chaos 8B, for me the best problem in Targasonne, not very physical but requieres technic and mental endurance (in my case). So after trying the upper part I did it easily, took a rest and in two tries finished the whole problem!!! My second 8B...hope the progress won't stop this winter ;).

After I went to see my friends...but still didn't feel tired. There were lots of things in my head I wanted to try. Psoas boulder in Dolmens sector was the final choice as I already did one of the problems. I gave a couple of tries to Psoas mole, felt good as I did all the moves but didn't feel to be able to gather them all. So the direct central version became the target...after a while the humidity became a problem and I was slipping of the crimps and on my last try (I told myself it's the last as it was getting dark) I managed to do all the moves. 8B and 8A+ in one day!!! NOT BAD ;)

The next day we went to Taz for warming up...after some time I decided to check Zdabauw, did the first move (there are 3 in total) but higher temperature and bad skin conditions cut me off from more tries. We went to try some easier things and I did a classic Nazgul 7C. After everyone but me kept climbing and we went back home tired with no skin but happy.

Thanks everyone for good company, support and spot ;). Finally everyone came back home with ascents, Nick and Pep with lots of 7B's and Nuria with 6C. Good job!

Here you have some photos and of course the video of ascents!



A perfect day in Targasonne from Alex Germanovych on Vimeo.

More photos from the trip

Check out some of the best photos from the trip...they are much more. If you are interested in any of the pictures, the copyright is of Nora Grosse.

It's the END, it's the BEGINNING

It looks like it was yesterday or the day before when I left for the trip. Now it looks like nothing has happened, but I'm sure it's not true as I have great memories about thing passed, all the nice people I met, all the beautiful places I visited, thing I did and adventures we lived together with Nora.

Our last days in Silvretta was kind of luxereus ending of the bouldering trip. We stayed in the ski station at 1930 m high with light, electricity, water and even hot water!

Lots of project are left behind, as I just had no time to try harder thing and the conditions weren't the best. On our way down on the last days we met people making BBQ for everyone as an opening of the climbing season in Silvapark. As Austrian know how to organise these kind of accomplishments, the celebrity was present, Bernd Zangerl in person, explaining to the youngest boulderers how to do right.

On the way to Barcelona we made a short stop with 2 climbing days in Ceüse and we understood that after 3 months only bouldering the routes are too long and the 45 min. approach is too hard ;).
Later on the car stats licking and we had to ask for an assistance.

Here you have the photos of what we saw and did on the trip. Climbing photos a bit later, they take a bit of work.

Hope you like it...soon more to come and I promise nice climbing photos and a large climbing movie including some extra friki things we did.