Jo Neame

Yesterday I went with my dad to Bloc Climbing Centre in Bristol for the 4th round of Blokfest. Having wrongly missed out on finals last round, I was guaranteed a place in finals this round as well as a podium prize, so I went along ready for a full day. I knew I didn't need to do well in qualifiers but I nevertheless wanted to achieve a qualifying position anyway to prove my consistency to others and myself. Fortunately many of the blocks were technical challenges so I was able to top a good number (22 of 25) achieving 210/250. However I fell off a moderately easy problem first go as I jumped straight on it in the heat of the day, only to discover that the holds were glistening with sweat and I had forgotten my chalk bag! I got back on it, equipped with chalk and a brush and got it easily second go, to my frustration. Apart from this, the qualifiers were good fun and well set. My favourite problem of the day I didn't top as I couldn't reach a hold on it. However the first ...

Last weekend I woke up at 5.45am to catch a train to Sheffield for the GB Team Inaugural Meeting. Despite having to wake up so early I was really excited to get to know my teammates and coaches better and to get an idea of how the year was going to turn out.  After a welcoming speech from the senior lead team coach the lead and boulder teams were split into groups for our profiling and training. Under the scrutiny of the coaches, everyone warmed up and then I was weighed and measured before doing some strange fitness tests to determine my general stability, flexibility  and upper body strength. I didn't find the tests particularly hard  but they got me to work muscles I never even knew I had!  After lunch we had a go at some comp-style boulders set especially for the training day. These proved to be fiendishly difficult due to the combination of small holds and large, bad ones, lots of volumes, lots of angles and some strange sequences of moves. I personally felt ...