Sights firmly set on Colorado

It was a pretty tough month February as I have spent most of it not feeling great at all , I just couldn’t kick a bad cold that I had and had a really really bad cough for more than 3 weeks. Thankfully it has all passed now and training has begun for this summer. The end of January and all of Feb did see some great skiing with a good few big dumps of snow when I went exploring the trees at Brevent with Graham and then more Trees at Courmayeur and then over to Verbier for an amazing bluebird day.

Spot me if you can

Steep and Deep at Brevent

Me Loving it  in the Brevent Trees
Thanks Graham for a great shot

I have just returned from a quick trip back to Scotland where I spent Thurs evening – Sunday up north climbing. Squeezing in around 10 hours sleep in three and a half days. I must say though that the climbing on Nevis was the best conditions I have ever had in Scotland and along with that came probably the greatest sunrise I have ever seen and the coldest night I have ever spent out on the hill. It was a pretty full on time back home and awesome to be back climbing with Scott. I arrived in Edinburgh at 5.30pm and we were on the Nevis Summit at 3am and had a horrible freezing time in the summit shelter for a couple of hours and managed about 10 mins of sleep and decided it was best to get up and warm ourselves best we could and as we popped our heads out the door we were greeted by absolute heaven. Climbing commenced for all of Friday and Saturday and it was just a great time albeit way too short. I have missed climbing so much and forgot how much I love it. After all it is the reason I came to Chamonix although skiing really did take a hold of me climbing is back on my agenda big time.

Oh how I love Scotland

Terribly Cold

Try beating that for a morning

Me on Pitch 3 of Green Gully

Soloing up Taxus

I am now just starting to get into full on training mode for Leadville and last week went my first run for months. It was only a 10k on my lunch but it went ok although the next day my shins were a bit sore from pounding along the road as the trails have way too much snow. Yesterday I went skinning up Les Houches. Its about 850m up from the bottom to top of Prarion and I managed two and a half ascents before my blister got too big and I decided to bail. It was hard work but was happy with 2hrs 40mins. Not exactly a fast time but its the usual when getting back into training like every year , its super tough at the start but will ease off I am sure in next couple of weeks.

The suffering begins.

So my plan now is just train , train , train. I will be getting some climbing in and of course more skiing but I am now pretty focused on getting my fitness up to a good level again and then raising the bar higher than I ever have before as Leadville is only 6 months away and that is not a long time really. So everything for Leadville is booked up. I am currently on the pursuit of any kind of sponsorship possible. I am not interested in money...well not really but I am trying to find companies willing to offer any kind of kit like trainers or tops or even energy gels/bars. Flights , Accomodation etc has not come cheap and little things like shoes of which I will need 3 pairs plus gels and bars actually ramp up the cost a fair bit so if I am lucky I may get a little help with these things. At the moment it is not going well as most big companies already have proper sponsored athletes to support although Go Fast Sports are sending me some energy drinks and the lovely people at Tunnocks in Scotland are giving me some boxes of cakes and also very kindly donated a little cash to help me on my trip for which I am very grateful. I will certainly be sporting a Tunnocks tshirt for all the people in Colorado to see. I still have a few companies to hear back from but fingers crossed something comes up.