Sports!

Dear Diary,

after I got back from Sweden, I was glad to start with the sporting again. That’s one of the things i missed during that trip (that, and music).

I decided to quit yoga for a while. Instead, I signed up for a gym around the corner. Two of my friends are going quite a bit. I am not really planning to join them because they have their own program and stuff figured out. I mainly just want to use the rowing machine every now and then and do a couple of basic bodyweight strength exercises to supplement my climbing.

Speaking of climbing, I have been going about twice a week. As you would expect, my progress has slowed down considerably. But I’ve been able to complete a bunch of 6a’s and also 6a+’s and there are some 6a+’s I am still working on. There’s also on 6b that I tried a couple of times. There is just one move in that one that I can’t do. I started working on another 6b last week. I did two sessions in it so far and have all the moves figured out. Which is great: I know I can do all the moves. The hardest move is the second to last. So the tricky thing will just be to link them all together.

They also just built a series of new routes in the 6a/b range on the highest, overhanging wall. I think that’s a sign that I need to start working on my endurance more and spend time on that wall!

As for squash: I have been playing but I haven’t felt very consistent in the last weeks. After the very intense coaching I had together with BS, I have been trying to adjust some of the finer points of my technique. And it works well when I play weaker players and can focus on the adjustments. If I play people on my level, however, it breaks down. I’ll need some time to make the new behavior automatic and until then, my performance will take a bit of a dip.

Throughout the next week, there’ll be qualification games for the end-of-the-season club championships. If I manage to finish in the top 16, I will be able to play in the final on Saturday. Which I wouldn’t want to do because my friend GP will be visiting from London and I’d rather hang out with him. We’ll see how that goes.

Anyways, I’ll pack my stuff now and head off to the squash courts. I had a busy day and am looking forward to chasing a small rubber ball for two hours…

Climbing progress

Dear Diary,

despite being pretty busy, I have managed to go climbing twice a week and am making decent progress. I have climbed a bunch of 5c’s and they all seem to be challenging but doable. The 6a’s I’ve been trying varied a bit more: some of them I could just do on the first try and they felt fine, while others cost me a couple tries before I could do them. But it’s just a matter of figuring out the moves, which is fun. I’ve also been tackling some 6a+’s and climbed 3 or 4 and worked on another 2 or 3. Some of them seem quite hard while I could do another one on the second try. It’s just different styles, I guess.

Then I’ve starte working on a 6b to push myself. It’s a slightly overhanging route which pretty small holds (for me). None of the moves are particularly hard – it’s just that the holds are small and it costs me a lot of energy to hold on and connect the moves so that I get tired very quickly. But it seems doable in the next month or so.

Then I also started to always end the session with an “endurance session” in which I climb something that’s not too hard but in a (steep) overhang and just keep doing it until my forearms are so tired that I can’t hold on anymore. I need to really challenge them to force the muscles to grow and sustain longer climbing sessions. It’s good fun and quite satisfying to push my limits!

The whole climbing thing is also a lot more fun because there are quite a few friends and colleagues that got into it lately so we always have a fun group to hang out with.

Lots of squash this weekend

Dear Diary,

this Saturday, I signed up for one of the Dunlop circuit tournaments. It was held here in Groningen and I signed up for the level C. I’ve been competing in the regional competition on that level for this season but haven’t played any tournaments in the C category. I expected to get my ass kicked and that’s pretty much exactly what happened.

Although not as badly as I had imagined. Of the 6 games I played, I lost 5. But I lost them all 2:3 and they were so close that they could have gone the other way around. So I was quite happy with that. But it was a long and exhausting day with lots of running.

On Sunday we had the last day of competition games for the season. So we were back on court. I only had to play two games on Sunday, though, so that was not too bad. I stepped on court and my legs were quite heavy and stiff from the day before. But after I warmed up a little, I felt pretty good actually.

I was ranked first in my team and we didn’t really expect me to make any points. The goal was for my team mates to make points on the lower ranks. My first match was against a guy that was really quite good. I don’t know why but I played really, really well. I haven’t played this well in a long time. I somehow, magically, managed to win a game against him and lost 1:3. That was pretty great. Then, after a short break, I played against my second opponent. I remembered playing him before a couple of months back and losing pretty badly. But I was completely in the zone and dominated the game against him. I felt really light on my feet and had good control over the situation on court, making him run. I picked my moments to attack and if I did, my attacks were ridiculously sharp. I was a bit shocked about it myself. It felt awesome. I won that one 3:0.

Then we sat in the sun for one and a half hours. It was the first day of nice sunshine of the year and sitting outside in a t-shirt felt amazing.

Today, on Monday, I skipped my regular squash training to give myself a chance to recover. I went climbing instead which was also very nice and went pretty well.

Easter weekend

Dear Diary,

I hope you had a great Easter weekend. Mine was pretty relaxed. The university was closed Friday and Monday so I couldn’t actually go to the office. I worked at home on Friday with some breaks for cleaning and getting groceries and doing some bodyweight exercises. Overall, it was a surprisingly productive day.

On Saturday, we met for another walk. We took the train to Winsum and did a 20.3km round-trip walk. Then took the train back. The weather was great: it was sunny and warm enough to walk without a jacket on although there were periods with pretty severe wind. The only thing that sucked was that I lost my nice Sennheiser in-ear headphones. I am not sure how it happened but it did.

When we got back I worked for about an hour and relaxed a bit and then we met at a friend’s place to have dinner together and watch some random stuff on Netflix. We watched Bill Burr’s special “I am sorry you feel that way” which is fantastic. Then we watched a so-bad-it’s-good movie called Bad Ass, followed by the pilot episode of Blue Mountain State. Very random combination that was quite entertaining.

On Sunday, I did some minor work stuff in the morning and then we met for a climbing session at around 2. I started working on a pretty hard 6a and an even harder 6a+. The first should really be a 6a+ and the second should probably be a 6b. Both of them are on pretty much straight walls so they involve some technical moves that require balance and some finger strength. It was fun.

I had a lazy day on Monday which I spent sitting at the window (in the sun) reading an interesting book. In the evening, we went to see Batman v Superman – the Dawn of Justice.

The movie was okay. It was hyped quite a bit and then the critics destroyed it. But actual movie goers seemed to enjoy it. I think it was fine. I liked that it was dark and that Batman was brutal and desperate. The plot itself was silly, though. The whole idea of a “fight” between Batman and Superman is just stupid: Batman wouldn’t stand a chance at all. And there wasn’t really a fight either.

The movie had good potential with regards to some bigger moral issues that were touched upon but then ignored in order to put more action on the screen. Which was a shame.

Very social weekend

Dear Diary,

quick update on my last week. Both NB and BB were gone but I wasn’t lonely at all. On Friday after work we had our usual drinks and then got Iranian food and ate it at my place with a couple of people. We drank a lot of wine and had a nice and relaxed evening.

On Saturday we met with a group of 9 people. One of our friends is preparing for the Nijmeegse Vierdaagse: an annual event in Nijmegen in which you walk 40km each day (women do 30km/day). So’s trying to walk each weekend and is slowly building up to longer and longer walks. She wanted to do 20km that weekend and asked who wanted to come along.

A surprising number of people volunteered. She picked a 15.3km route but we met the other on the other half of the town. We walked 1.5 km to the start of the route and then another 4km to meet the others. From there, we did the last of the route as a group. The others were a bit surprised by the tempo she wanted to keep up and by the end of the route they were a bit exhausted. :D We met some other friends at the destination who then drove most people to the train station to get back. A smaller group of 4 people, including me, decided to walk to the station because we hadn’t done a full 20 km yet. So we walked the last 4.2 km to Winsum and took the train back to Groningen.

When the weather is better we might do the some walk again. The destination is a really nice café. So next time we’ll walk there (15.3 km), have a drink and then walk back. That’d be pretty nice, I think.

Anyways, when we were back in Groningen, we went past the supermarket and then to my place to watch a couple more episodes of House of Cards.

On Sunday morning, I went climbing with a couple of friends. I left the climbing gym at around 2 and went home to take a shower and pack me stuff. Then we left for Heidelberg at around 3:30.

The weather is warming up!

Dear Diary,

this weekend, the weather was great. It was sunny on Friday. We had our usual after work drink and then went to a colleague’s place; his wife cooked Turkish food for us and it was delicious. Then we went to see Birth of Joy live at the Vera. They were fantastic!

On Saturday, I worked for about two hours in the morning and then we went climbing from 4:30 to about 8:00. It was a long and good session. I was able to climb a 6a but mainly did easier ones (5b/5b+) on the long and slightly overhanging wall to get my endurance up and focus on my technique.

It was nice and sunny all day and just being in the direct sunlight and feeling the warmth on my skin really improved my mood a lot. I am really looking forward to the summer and spending more time outside again.

Then we ordered Thai food and hang out at home for a while. Later, we went to a friend’s/colleague’s birthday party. But I was pretty exhausted and didn’t stay too long. Today, on Sunday, we had a competition match in Haren. The place was cold as fuck. Well, about 8 degrees. We played with a one-dot ball because the usual two-dots didn’t bounce at all. And even the one-dot hardly bounced: the walls were strange and everything felt very weird. It took forever to get warm and I had a 90 minute break between my two matches. I played okay in the first match (I lost 2:3 but that was fine – it was a fun match) and really sucked in the second.

Meh. Tomorrow, there’s a tournament at our club. I signed up for the highest level and going to battle it out with the highest ranked players. I can probably beat around 30% of them so it depend a lot on the order in which I have to play. But the ranking doesn’t really matter anyways – I just want to play on a regular court with a regular ball without freezing my ass off.

Back to climbing!(?)

Dear Diary,

today, I went climbing with RB and ES again. It was the first time in about four months. I felt ridiculously weak and it was pretty pathetic. But it’ll be good to get back into it. I immediately bought a monthly pass because I hope to be going about twice a week in the next couple of weeks.

My initial plan was to wait until the bouldering gym opens and then go there. The rumors I heard was that it’s going to open in early February. But BB talked to one of the founders and it’s probably not going to be open until May. :( I don’t want to wait that long. In fact, there is no excuse and I should get back into climbing and get my previous strength back – and then more.

I can already feel that I’ll be in pain tomorrow. But I am looking forward to be climbing again in the next weeks!

Happy New Year!

Dear Diary,

I wish you a happy new year! It’s 2016 now, which sounds crazy. It’s a well-documented phenomenon that subjective time passes more quickly if you’re (a) busy or (b) having a good time. I am plenty of both so it shouldn’t be a surprise at all that time seems to be passing really, really quickly at the moment. It’s still surprising to realize it (again and again).

I am really looking forward to the next year of my life. I have a busy January ahead of me, and the transition to the warmer months will be filled with exciting new projects and lots of new work opportunities. I will also have to think about my future a bit more and figure out what I’ll do after my PhD. Because if all goes well, 2016 will be the year I’ll hand in my thesis. Which sounds insane given how quickly the last couple of weeks and months passed by.

I am also looking forward to spending more time with the awesome circle of friends that I have accumulated over the last months/years and doing more sports to get fitter. There’s a new bouldering gym that’s supposed to open towards the end of January and I think I’ll switch from sport climbing to bouldering for a while to gain more strength and follow a more structured training regiment. For squash, I’ll just try and go to the training once a week and use it as a cardio workout. I don’t really have ambitions to get much better although I still feel that I get better and it’s obvious to me how to improve right now – so I think that’ll just happen if I keep playing with people at or above my level. As for yoga: some things are changing at the yoga school (I’ll post about that another time) which will make it easier to visit classes spontaneously. My goal is to go to twice a week to keep up with it and deepen my practice.

I don’t really like the idea of new year’s resolutions but my goal is just to keep living my life with open eyes, grab the opportunities that unfold, and be less afraid to explore options I haven’t pursued in the past. I am also looking forward to more traveling this year which I hope I can do as much as possible despite being very busy.

Fontainebleau was awesome!

Dear Diary,

our trip to Fontainebleau was fucking awesome. We left on Thursday evening and after about 7:30 hours of driving, we arrived at the campsite at around 1:30 am. It was 16 degrees when we arrived. We set up our tents in the rain and went to sleep. The first day, Friday, was warm but not quite dry. There was some drizzle every now and then. We went to check out some boulders and hiked around one of the areas to check it out but everything was wet so we couldn’t climb. We went to the city instead and checked out the palace and walked the grounds.

The next day, Saturday, was very sunny and around 21 degrees. We went back to the same climbing area and hang out in the forest for a while until the sun and wind had some time to dry off some of the boulders. They weren’t completely dry but at least not dripping wet anymore and we made our first attempts at bouldering. It was a lot of fun and quite humbling. The main problem for me was finding proper foot placements.

The weather continued to be good with warm but humid nights. So in the morning, everything was a bit wet but it was sunny and windy enough that the rock dried quite quickly. So on Sunday we got a lot more climbing done. We went to a different area and it was very busy all over the place because the weather was so ridiculously good that half of Paris seemed to be out and about.

On Monday, the weather was still amazing, but a lot more windy and not quite as warm anymore. Perfect climbing conditions, actually. We started to be a bit tired but climbed until we could hold on to the rock anymore. For me, it was mainly the skin on my finger tips that seemed to disappear and started to get quite painful. We decided to leave a bit earlier than planned in order to beat the rush-hour traffic around Paris. We left at around 2:30 pm and even though there was a lot of traffic in Paris, it would have been a lot worse two hours later. We then hit some traffic on the E19 around Antwerpen and got delayed a bit. We had a half-hour break at the Belgian-Dutch border for some food and were home at around 10:30 pm.

Overall, the trip was super awesome. I was traveling with BB and his friend JH. I met her in the States last summer and once before when she was visiting Groningen. I knew she was climbing pretty hard (7b-ish) at one point but hasn’t been climbing too much lately (some injuries and shift in interests). I was a bit afraid that the two of them are going to go and work on all these super hard problems and I’ll have to try and figure shit out on my own, feeling bad about holding them back. But it turned out that JH and I were actually kind of climbing on the same level. I’d say she was a bit better than me (obviously a lot more experienced) but she was also smaller so I could often skip moves she had to do so most problems were a bit harder for her than for me which brought us to the same level. So we ended up spending most time working out problems together which was a lot of fun.

Fontainebleau is really super beautiful and there’s a practically infinite amount of stuff to climb there. It certainly wasn’t the last time I went!

Off to Fontainebleau!

Dear Diary,

after half-day of work, we’re not preparing to drive down to France. I spent the day doing a lot of literature review and now we’re making some couscous salad to take on the 7-hour drive.

I am really looking forward to outdoor bouldering in Fontainebleau. I’ve heard great things about it and can’t wait to get outside. The weather forecast looks fantastic.