blasting away the cobwebs

Well, I went flying again yesterday, in my own aeroplane. Yes, after nearly 3 months of work and waiting she is back in the air and boy does it feel good.

My flying was terrible and the test yielded a couple of very minor issues, but I don't think I've felt such a huge relief and sheer joy in a very, very long time. There's definitely something comforting to the soul about seeing the vast expanse of blue sky rolled out below you!

Now I can look forward to really getting back in the saddle and preparing to start competing again (the first competition of the season is at the end of March and I need some serious practice). I've managed to build up a pretty reasonable base level of fitness and strength again over the past few months, and I will continue working hard on improving it further, but at least I'm in a very good position to gain as much as I possibly can from my flying and training.

Essentially I think that physical fitness, whilst on the face of it, not obviously all that essential for a competition flyer, makes a huge difference to performance. There are some huge forces involved when flying competition aeros - my body experiences forces that can vary very rapidly between +6g and -4g and this is hugely tiring. That coupled with the extreme levels of concentration and focus required for the entire flight duration really does make for a sport that takes a huge amount out of you. Last year I was climbing out of the aeroplane after a 10minute sortie feeling like I'd just run a marathon - no exaggeration. There may not be all that many calories burned, but the mental exertion is greater than anything else I've ever experienced.

Thus, the fitter I am, the better I can cope with the demands I place on myself during a flight, and the more quickly I recover afterwards - which in turn means I can manage to undertake more meaningful training in a day (of course at the moment the real show-stopper here is actually finance, but fingers crossed that's going to change soon). My gym obsession may well come into its own!

From this point on you'll most likely find me somewhere between praying for good weather, beasting myself in the gym, at the climbing wall or out on the trails, or back up in the sky with the biggest grin on my face :-)

outlet

It's been over a year since I visited this old blog of mine, let alone updated it. Basically my life has changed, dramatically.

I'm no longer living in the mountains, now my life is primarily confined to the flat-lands of Cambridgeshire. A big part of me misses Wales, the hills, my friends, my old climbing/biking/running/outdoors lifestyle, but there's an even bigger part of me that knows my current course in life is where I need to be. At least for now.

So what's happened? I wrote before about my getting into aerobatic flying, and, well, that's essentially what happened and where my life is now. I own my own aeroplane, I'm the current British Female Aerobatic champion and I'm also a newly qualified airshow and display pilot. I know, wow huh?

Flying it is then!

That said, I still have the mountain bike, I hit the climbing wall in Milton Keynes as often as I can and I head to the gym several times a week too (I may have spent several months doing nothing, got a bit fat and panicked - hence I'm back to being a fitness obsessive again and actually I do rather like it). Once I've gotten a work regime sorted out and some money again I'll be heading out to the hills for some therapy whenever I can too - I know my roots.

I guess I should mention where it is that I've been in online terms, because whilst I've not been posting here, I have been posting flying stuff on my aerobatic blog - The Aerobatic Project and I've built another website for myself in order to promote and try to sell my display flying - BiplaneDisplays.com. Please head over to either and/or both and take a look - let me know what you think!

So why am I back here, and why now? Basically I wanted to come back here to revisit something of my old way of life, and to rekindle my old style of writing. I basically want an outlet again, somewhere I can write about the every day, mundane and 'normal life' type things I think about. The Aerobatic Project is really all about being a new face in the competition flying world and what that's like, so there's no place there for me waffling on about the odd thoughts that strike me in the gym. Hence, I'm back!

Apologies right now if some of the things I write about are boring, or just downright weird. Hopefully I'll come out with a few things that may actually be of interest too.

To all of you that are still here, wow. Thank you for bearing with me!

gym, RT and climbing

Gym:

Hard work, pain, suffering. Good isn't it? Ok so it feels hateful at the time, but it will all be worth it in the long run.
I've been to the gym twice since my last posting - once on sunday afternoon instead of flying (the weather was atrocious) and once yesterday afternoon. Sunday's session was pretty standard, except my treadmill warmup lasted 20mins at a constant 12km/h - it nearly killed me but I feel like it's a good step forward fitness-wise. Sadly yesterday's cardio had to be stepped back - I only managed 9mins because my cold/flu/illness meant that breathing was actually quite difficult.

Nevermind, I decided to 'up the ante' with the weights and resistance work as the cardio was next to impossible - I basically increased everything by 5 - 10kg and also did some more different exercises (including some weighted pull downs, wide grip pull ups 3 x 5, L-hang pull ups 3 x 3...)
The L-hang pull ups are probably the single hardest body weight exercise I have ever attempted - dear goodness do they hurt! I can only just manage a set of 3 before my abs give up and start screaming agony at me...I must do more :)

RT:

Radio-Telephony, again. Had another groundschool last night, and this time I was one of the main participants! There were only four of us there, and one was a new guy who was doing the 'sitting in and listening' thing. It was hard work. Think I'm beginning to get the hang of it all though - I just need to do some more studying and practice really. Got another session on Sunday...

Climbing:

New problems on the woody = frustration. I flashed all the easy V1s, and the V3s (maybe I am getting stronger!!). Sadly there are no V4s so I'm now stuck with trying to work the V5s. Now, ok I'm managing V5 on the featured walls - the woody is considerably more difficult for me though as there is basically no way to 'technique' your way around the strength and power moves. I guess this is good because it means that by simply trying I will be getting stronger. It is, however, really frustrating to keep getting shut down by the same moves, over and over and over again.
Still, I have managed to repeat the two hardest problems on the feature walls again - the green V5 and the red V4. Interestingly I am now finding the green easier than the red with its heinous tall person's finish.

I have also been thinking about bouldering standards a bit of late, and discussing it with others have come to think that the green 'V5' is probably actually V6 - or would be if it were anywhere else. The red V4 is also probably the same grade as the green - it's certainly the hardest 'V4' up at the moment...

Anyway, all these indoor grades mean nothing in the grand scheme of things - I need a proper project! I have my mind on a couple up in the Peak district now actually, Scott should also be in with me on these as projects so this winter could prove to be a good season - the psyche is high!

gym training, part 2

I went to the gym again last night for a couple of hours to work through 'the plan' formulated previously. Now, whilst I did stick to it for the most part, there were a few differences with what I did last night:

The initial run - rather than doing 15mins with 1min fast intervals I ran for 20mins with the following fast intervals: 1min, 1min, 1.5mins, 2mins. Hard going, but not as hard as I may have originally imagined. I think in future I may try to up the basic speed (maybe try to run at 12km/hr rather than 11.5km/hr?), we shall see.

I also added a couple of sets of pull-ups before the lat pull-downs. I think I did a set of 10, then another set of 7. I felt rather self-conscious doing them but hey, it doesn't really matter now does it?

The last 10mins on the treadmill didn't happen - I did 2 mins before getting a horrendous stitch (too much water? not enough? too much ab work?) so I decided to go for a serious caning session on the cross-trainer instead. 12minutes of hell. Honestly, I thought I was going to pass out - I was obviously doing it right!!

7mins cooldown on the reclined bike and that was me done. All the other resistance exercises listed previously were carried out with no real differences.

It's going well I think. I feel like I'm making an effort and that it may well start to pay off soon - all is good!

tired

Saturday:
Phil and I went to pick up the new car. It's lovely. I'm actually really pleased - it may not be a good car, it may not be anywhere near new but, it has electronic central locking and actually starts when you turn the key in the ignition!!! I'm delighted. Simple things huh?

I also went to the gym for a couple of hours, and I followed 'the plan', I ended up totally knackered - I think it may be working!

Sunday:
I had a lay in. Until 1pm. Awesome. Then we went to pick Dave up and go to one of the big climbing walls for an afternoon session. It was good - I didn't think I would climb at all well seeing as the muscles in my arms ached really badly from my gym session the day before. How wrong I was - it was actually a rather good session - I managed to repeat the hard crimpy (English) 6a boulder problem I worked last time and flash another 6a! I've never flashed a problem of that grade before - ok so I don't think the problem actually warranted the 6a grade, 5c maybe, but still - I did feel good about it!
We also did some top-roping. I'm managing to get myself back into the route mentality and thought that trying to top-rope some hard ones might be fun (in truth, I couldn't be bothered to get the rope out).

Tried a 6b+ - couldn't get off the floor. Tried the 6b and then the 6a+ on the same panel - same problem. All three were set by the same person - hmm. The 6a on the panel was nice though, I did it clean, first go.
Next we moved on to a different panel where I settled on trying a 6c - I think I must be mad. Had lots of gos on it, getting further each time and making each move cleaner with each attempt. I didn't finish it but am pretty sure I could if I had a few more tries. I gave up because I think Dave was getting bored belaying me. We then did another 6a+ that was pretty horrible.
Had a quick campus - not feeling particularly strong on it, but I had just had a pretty heavy session so I guess it's understandable.

Today:
Today I am drinking far too much tea - we may have an interesting tea-o-meter reading tomorrow.
I am also seriously struggling to finish the report I was supposed to have finished days ago. Oh well.
I keep thinking about the contracting job I've applied for and am a bit worried that I may have gotten my hopes up too high. I only sent my CV off last week though so I just need to be patient I guess. I could really do with getting out of here...

gym training, part 1a

The gym session went well last night, and for an added bonus I don't actually ache that much today because of it (I think today's aches and pains may be attributed to other things - car accident, cold/flu type thing, time of the month...)

So, the amended gym program has now been formulated and tweaked and will be followed for the next few sessions. I just need to make sure I start going more regularly...

The program:

15 min run (broken down as 0-4mins @11.5km/h, 4-5mins @13.5km/h, 5-9mins @11.5km/h, 9-10mins @13.5km/h, 10-13mins @11.5km/h, 13-14mins @13.5km.h, 14-15mins @11.5km/h, 15-18mins cooldown)

Machine Row 3 x 10reps @ 20kg
Lat Raise 3 x 10reps @ 20kg
Shoulder Press 3 x 10reps @ 15kg
Lat Pulldown 3 x 8 reps @ 42kg

L-hangs/sits 2 x 10secs
Leg Raises 2 x 10 left
Leg Raises 2 x 10 right
Leg Raises 2 x 10 front
Crunch Machine 3 x 10reps @ 30kg

Press-ups 2 x 15reps

10 min run @11.5km/h plus 2min cooldown
12min Cross-trainer

Reclined bike cooldown (approx 5 mins low resistance)


This took around 2 hours to complete last night, but I did spend quite alot of time faffing between machines and trying to find a pen to write stuff down.
If I only have time for a short session then I will probably not do the leg raises, as these felt like they took a while with all the resting between sets. I would also probably only do 2 sets on each of the resistance machines to cut the time down.

gym training, part 1

Despite crashing the car earlier I still plan on going to the gym tonight (Phil is off out to see a friend so I need to amuse myself somehow!).

More conversation with Scott has gotten me to write stage 1 of 'the plan', and here it is.

Gym session

15min run

Shoulder press 3 x 10reps
Machine row 3 x 10reps
Lat pulldown 3 x 10reps

L-hangs 3 x 10seconds
Leg raises 3 x 10reps left
Leg raises 3 x 10reps right
Leg raises 3 x 10reps front
Crunch machine 3 x 10reps

Press ups 4 x 15 reps

15min run
10min Crosstrainer

The weights and speeds used are currently undetermined, tonight should provide a good opportunity to set some standards (I intend starting easy and not overdoing it, hopefully).