Training - a week of whatever with a Suunto Ambit

Since Expeditie Geluk, the let's-walk-around-the-Netherlands-epic I have a Suunto Ambit watch.
The watch does more then just show the time. It's an alti/barometer, compass, heart rate monitor, time keeper and most of all also a GPS watch that can be connected to the internet.
I got the thing for free for Expeditie Geluk. Free is always a good color.

Now the watch does some fun things that weren't possible in 'old style' running. Of which planning a tour is the most important one.
I haven't ran 'dicks' yet, but yes you can. Or flowers, or cars, or whatever figure you like to plan.
See also: http://runningdrawing.tumblr.com

So let's start with a short review and tell you something about my training and the watch.

The good points:
- you can now go out for a run wherever and always find your way back
- you can start to understand your heart rate in comparison with your run (like higher heart rate when going up hill)
- it actually motivates me to go out more often
- it's a nice and easy addition to map and compass
- easy plug and play computer connection

The bad points:
- pretty bulky
- the route is only a line on the screen, not very accurate
- battery lasts only a day when in full use for the whole day
- hard to find the advanced training options in the software program
- only online software
- sharp edges

Now I have an older version of the Ambit (the Ambit 1.) and I saw the newer version that have no sharp edges at all and are less bulky.
I don't know if anything to the battery life/software options changed.
The battery life is fine for any regular use, just when you'd do a multi-day alpine tour you'd get trouble with the battery life.
Also, when you get in more extreme temperatures the thing gets pretty slow (but still works) up to -25ºC. Below that it starts to get issues, the screen can fog up with -15ºC, it doesn't show the temperature anymore with -35ºC and it will completely stop working around -40ºC (figured this all on our last Alaska adventure this Spring 2014).
Not that any other 'smart-watch' will work with these temperatures though.

Oh, and it doesn't link up with your iPhone or any phone either. Which isn't needed anyway because anyone who brings their iPhone on a run or a climb isn't climbing/running anything serious enough anyway. I mean, running with our iPhone in your pocket is just not comfortable when you run more then 2km. Next to that, the route, your HR, timing and everything is in your watch, so the phone-with-running-app isn't needed anymore.
The newest version does link with your watch and you can read texts on your watch through Bluetooth or something.

So. What I use the watch for.
Every day things.
My work-out week:
Monday: up-hill + down-hill + klettersteig, drytool session
Tuesday: cycling to work + boulder session
Wednesday: cycling to work
Thursday: cycling to work + extreme drytool session
Friday: cycling to work + interval run
Saturday: yoga session and small hike
Sunday: rock climb
Monday: up-hill + down-hill + klettersteig, drytool session
Tuesday: cycle to work
ect...



I was pretty tired last week and it was raining almost every day so we really missed out on the outdoor climbing sessions. That's the thing of living here. We have the mountains "close" (1hr drive) but the closest good climbing gym is more then 1hr driving... And it costs money to drive/pay entrance and money is one of the things we hardly have...
So alternative training sessions. Cycling, running, bouldering, and on my free Monday I do a scramble + long run.

Interesting thing to see are the route, calories, recovery time and heart rates.



The route. As you can see somewhere in the upper middle of my run-hike-scramble I went the wrong way. The path I took to the hut wasn't pre-set in the map so I had to draw a line myself and guess the direction to the hut and the start of the viaferrata. I made a wrong guess and ended up a different route. After a while I realized it wasn't the right way and I had to go back. It would be useful to see more in the screen of the watch then just the line. Interfering roads, paths and landmarks for example. But my Ambit isn't that smart (yet?).
Also the map used to draw the route isn't super accurate (Google maps) for some complicated turns and altitude differences (for example when mountaineering/climbing) a more accurate map would be very useful.
This missing feature combined with the battery power (when in full use it lasts just a day) it still isn't the mountaineering watch it claims to be.

HR: When I do a really intense drytool session my heart rate doesn't go up to max, but my body gets really tired (I had muscle soreness after the Thursday drytool session). But following my watch I hardly have any recovery time after the session (my body tells a different story...).
Recovery: Last run + scramble took me just over 5 hours of non-stop movement. My watch told me I'd need 130hours of recovery. At the end of the day during the drytool session I was too tired to do full power movements. But today I felt okay again.
Calories: I always wonder who invented that thing. Did I really use over a 1000 kCal on that Monday run? And just a 300 kCal on the drytool session...?

Although these numbers aren't probably completely correct (for example sometimes the GPS signal gets lost or my heart-rate band disconnects) it's still a good thing to get a view on what my fitness level is.
Basically it tells me every time again that I can run faster, climb more and cycle longer.

To get a better view on what I mean with 'drytool training' here a little video of last week's session.
Watch my Suunto routes, profile and training on:
http://www.movescount.com/members/lavinia-marianne

Handy: use runs/training sessions of others around you to plan your own run.

Tips and tricks from an other Suunto user:
http://life.tomwright.me.uk/post/45754837411/interval-training-with-suunto-ambit


Drytool training July 2014 from Marianne van der Steen on Vimeo.

Dry Ice tools

I am an iceclimber. Or more just climber. I climb everything. Buildings and industrial structures for work, bouldering for strength and social fun, routes because I love that, Alpine because I sometimes like to suffer and mixed because I love the technical awkward leverages you do with those sharp tool thingies. Oh, yes and I happen to climb comps too. Worldcups and stuff like that. Way too nervous to do anything good in there but still fun. 

For 1,5 months I've been living in Germany now. At the edge of the Alps in the region Allgäu.

I'm originally Dutch. In the flat country where I was born we only have climbing gyms. No rocks, not even small ones, not even ones small enough to trip over. Really. The Netherlands is just all sand, mud and water. 

That makes it all pretty hard to train for iceclimbing. We only have horizontal ice. Probably the reason Dutch are rather good in speed skating.  

The chance to move to Germany was amazing! 

Dennis, my boyfriend, is writing his final paper for his studies in Industrial Design at a climbing gear company. That company is based in Southern Germany. 

Being without my boyfriend for longer then a month just doesn't work. 

I gave up all I had, even the fridge, couch, my house and my job. And moved in with Dennis. 

I didn't have a new job yet...

Luckily the gear company Dennis now works for was super sweet and offered me a job too! Yay!

And meanwhile we climbed. 

Almost every day. 

My regular training day now goes like this:

Wake up > eat a banana > run to work (8km) > shower > eat breakfast and work > go bouldering during lunch time > eat lunch when working > work till late and drive back with colleagues or with Dennis > eat some food > cycle to the climbinggym > climb till 10 > cycle back > sleep.

But we also have weekends. That are days that we're not supposed to work. But the company I now work for has such a super nice atmosphere that we're even willing to climb with them in the weekends. 

Last weekend ánd this weekend we found ourselves on Saturday in Starzlachklamm, a dark, wet, sketchy cave that just calls for drytooling. Coffee, climbing and more. A perfect way to spent a weekend. On the Sundays we went sportsclimbing. Outdoors. 

So awkward that you can just go outdoors whenever you want. We don't have that back home. 

During the weekdays it was already dark when we got back home. It made no sense to climb outdoors then. 

The good alternative for iceclimbing are the DryIce tools. And I'm one of the lucky ones that got a pair!

I already used them a couple times in the Dutch gyms. There people looked at me like I was crazy and playing a dangerous game with those things. They gave the regular non-iceclimber comments: "oh, thats so easy, you're just holing on to this big grip all the time" or "now you've got so much more reach, that makes climbing just so easy now". 

Right. Just try it.

Here in Germany the voices are surprisingly different!

The first time when we pulled out the tools people stopped climbing to watch us. 

They wondered what this strange stuff was and understood immediately that we were serious about the Winter season. 

Within the time that I now live here two other climbers tried to make replica's and we're starting to have rather fun group tooling sessions in the boulder room (wow, that last bit of this sentence sounds weird when you're a non-climber).

And now I can say a couple things about the tools too:

Dennis has a different brand for his "dryice tools". And we got yet another pair from a Scottish friend. We can clearly say the rubber sling on the DryIce tools gives by far a better grip on the holds compared to the other two brands that we've tried. Also the handles are shaped differently. More comfortable and more realistic, closer to the design of the iceclimbing tools that we use on the comps. It can still have a little tweaking though. We think the upper grip of the tools can be made a little more comfortable by lengthening the pink-rest on the upper grip.

We easily make figure-of-fours and even long reachy swing moves with the tools. Our heavy 100+ kg friend Axel climbed with them as well and even he could easily swing around in the roof. Proving that the things are pretty strong. 

When lead-climbing we use 'spinner leashes'. We want to keep the possibility of climbing with the tools. When one would accidentally drop on a climber or belayer we'd be screwed...

In the Netherlands all the gyms are just toprope, we'd still use leashes then. 

A tricky thing when leading with tools is that you can pop off when clipping. And then you're hanging in your spinner leash... So. When you clip: one tool in your thumb, of the hand that you hold on to the other tool (see picture). The other hand is then free to clip and when you now accidentally would fall you'd just hang in mid-air. 

So far the holds are not getting 'greasy'. I'm not using gloves and when my hands get sweaty I even chalk. In this way I grow thicker skin, which is useful for the long Winter routes. 

Negative thing of climbing with the tools is always that you can't really train precision as well as with real tools on real holds. You never have the same sketchy tricky moves on which you need 200% body tension. 

For that stuff we have to go outdoors and do the real stuff. 

Also speedclimbing, Dennis won a worldcup in that discipline last year, is hard to train with the tools. You're not as free as on real ice (of course) and are limited to the holds on the wall. Though, regular tools won't do any better on an indoor climbing wall. 

It's kind of funny how different it is to climb with tools. I can climb with my hands hard sports routes in the Summer, but then on the start of the Winter season I really need to build up a different kind of strength again. The muscles that I need for the iceclimbing are different from the ones I need for sportsclimbing (there is a big overlap though). 

Being able to climb more with something that simulates ice tools is for that reason super useful. Useful for any iceclimber. 

Now that I figured (of figure-of-foured) the pro's and con's of the tools it's time to head out again. 

Canada 2

It's been a while ago now since we were in Canada with the whole team.

We climbed in the huge land for a couple weeks with Canmore as basecamp.

Being Dutch and being a climber is a fairly strange combo. 

As sports climber we have a gym in every city. Within 40km you can find a gym, wherever you are in the Netherlands. 

Most have exotic names like 'Yosemite', Delfts Bleau (like in Fontainebleau), Monk, Mountain Network (for a series of climbing gyms) or llike my home-gym: Monte Cervino.

Others are just called: De Klimmuur (The Climbingwall).

They all have the same set-up: a bar where you can drink high quality coffee and a good beer after your climbing session. And a diverse sanded wall full of coloured epoxy holds.

This is great! It gets me strong and it's addictive. 

No wonder we have a super strong National team for lead and bouldering.

But being an iceclimber and desperately wanting to be an Alpine climber makes it all a different story.

I live below sea-level. And the only ice around is indoor and very very horizontal. The Dutch soil is mainly sand and our highest sand-hill (Vaalserberg 322m) isn't even worth a climb.

I only have one person close to me who is super passionate about ice and Alpine climbing. He happens to be my boyfriend. 

The flatness of my home country had sent most alpinists away. Most of them are UIAGM guides living in the Alps.

So far I haven't found a way to earn enough money, live in the Alps and still find enough time to train and climb.

If anyone knows a way to change that: please tell me your secret!

The Netherlands

My backyard (see: it's all flat)

So. That's what I have to work with.

My lack of real Alpine experience was what hit me back in Canada.

I wanted to be fast, fluent and smooth on anything. 

But in reality I found myself struggling with the altitude, the rock and the whole group dynamics.

Straight after the Worldcup season (which is basically Sportsclimbing with iceaxes) I flew to Canada. No time to work on the totally different kind of Alpine fitness. And I'd just recovered from a pretty bad flu. 

Of course. These are all excuses. 

"Are you just a big whiner" one wrote as comment on my blog after reading the same excuse before. 

To all of you who think I am; yes, maybe I am. Now try to get to where I am. 

Thank you for your pity.

The disappointment in my own abilities made me try to forget about the whole experience.

Dennis told me climbing should be for yourself. It should be fun, passionate, beautiful. 

He's right, though, I don't want to let go. I don't want to be the weekend warrior, the full time office worker with a hobby. I just want to do what I love. I want to climb. Everywhere, every time. 

Discover, learn, feel, experience life and the world through climbing. 

That is what brought me to where I am now and I believe it will get me to the climbing in my dreams.

I have this desperate panicking feeling in my stomach with 'a little voice' saying "help". I want to train more, I want to get better, I need to be in the Alps.

But how...?

At least I had a great airport to spent the night on my way back home :)

Good Climbing

Here in Bergschenhoek climbing is developing.

The Monte Cervino kids-club is increasing, on the day there are loads of schools climbing and in the evening you can now have your personal training guidance as well.

Michel Kleinjan is offering training in the evenings and yesterday was my first session.

I'm a very, extremely, utterly slow climber. And sometimes I should change that.

Mission tonight: (and for a lot of sessions to come) work on endurance, and speed up. Change the thinking, change the movements.

I already had a small climbing session that midday so climbing that evening went even slower then average I think.

This training was my first real training in climbing, ever. I had a watch, measuring my heart-rate, and suddenly had a coach on the other side of the rope (instead of coaching myself in my mind).

It was new, strange and very useful.

In the end we did a ladder-climbing speed training. I was too slow to reach the top in 30 secs. And that whilst my boyfriend holds the ladder-record... and even the 'beginner' climbers who were training with Michel were faster then me!

Something to work on I guess.

Now first some Chamonix climbing and then up for the next session.

Thanks Michel!

Want to join the training?

(Everybody can join, beginner climbers, advanced, young, old...you get all your personal schedule on your own level fitting your own personal goals)

Check the Good Climbing webpage here.

Indoor Winter Training

Since the Dutch Drytool Event we have some drytool routes in climbinggym Rock Steady (Bussum, NL) and this is how we spent our evenings :)

Iceclimbing workshop!

For the Dutchies who like to test the real ice!

From the website of the Dutch alpine club, NKBV:

Update: oeps, de eerste workshop zit al vol! Op donderdag komt de tweede :)

De NKBV organiseert a.s woensdag (22-12) samen met Thomas Knoope een kennismakingsworkshop ijsklimmen. Deze workshop is bedoeld voor beginners die weinig of geen ervaring hebben met ijsklimmen.

De workshop duurt twee uur en staat onder begeleiding van ervaren ijskliminstructeurs. Tijdens de workshop maak je kennis met het toepassen en verbeteren van stijgijzertechnieken, het plaatsen en belasten van ijsbijlen, klimmen in diagonaal techniek en het plaatsen van zekeringen in ijs.

Na de workshop heb je een goed idee wat ijsklimmen is en beschik je over de basis vaardigheden.

Materiaal

De NKBV zorgt voor instructeurs, klimgordels, ijsbijlen en helmen. Je zal zelf moeten zorgen voor geschikte stijgijzers en schoenen. Mocht je deze niet hebben, dan zijn deze te huur. De prijs voor het huren van schoenen + stijgijzers is €11,00, alleen het huren van stijgijzers kost € 3,50 (passen op Bergschoenen D).

Data

De organisatie is afhankelijk van het (winterse) weer, bij voldoende ijsvorming wordt er geprobeerd om je 48uur van te voren in te lichten. Zodra de weersomstandigheden goed zijn, zal de wand opnieuw worden opgespoten. Er zijn ongeveer 5 dagen nodig om een goede wand neer te zetten.

De workshop zal door de week tussen 19.30 en 21.30 worden gegeven, in het weekend zal de workshop om 10.00 starten. Je wordt hierover ingelicht zodra bekend is wanneer de workshop doorgaat.

Zorg er dus voor dat je goed bereikbaar bent zodat we je tijdig kunnen inlichten.

Kosten:

- NKBV-leden € 15,-

- Niet leden € 22,50

Huur matriaal:

- Bergschoenen D + Stijgijzers: € 11,-

- Alleen stijgijzers: € 3,50

Locatie

Oud Bodegraafseweg 85 in Bodegraven

Aanmelden

Meld je hier aan voor de workshop. We nemen contact met je op zodra de workshop doorgaat. Er worden geen kosten in rekening gebracht indien je verhinderd bent. Afmelden kan tot 24h voor de workshop. Bij onvoldoende ijs op de wand, gaat de workshop niet door. Betaling geschiedt op de dag zelf.

Photo: Saskia climbing on the Dutch Championships, photo by Bas van der Smeede

Winter training!

Yes, Summer is changing into Autumn, so time go get started with my axes again.

Yesterday evening we (Dennis and me) had our first real drytool session. So much fun!

I got a mission for this Winter. Part of the mission are the competitions in Korea, Italy, Switzerland and more... So, time to get started :)

Worldcup Boulder Eindhoven

Waaa, exciting!

I'm going to join the worldcup bouldering in Eindhoven this Summer!

It's now official and on all webpages: climbing.nl, nkbv.nl, the worldcup webpage and more :)

Quite scary when people talk about you on webpages and stuff. I'm even in some kind of poll on climbing.nl: "Who is going to be..." bla bla, just vote, or don't ;)

I never expected to be fit enough after I broke my arm this Winter. But, with solid 6C os. level again and sometimes even 7A's that go good already, I'm feeling fit and strong.

These days I'm spending more time then ever on my climbing. Fitness in the mornings cycling everywhere instead of going by car and climbing in the midday and/or evening. Just bouldering and weekends in Ettringen for a change of scenery.

IRATA 1. at Orange Access

This week not real climbing but aid climbing, all week.

Fun, but not as much fun as real climbing though.

Michel from Orange Access (Max Veiligheid) is training me. Great fun to learn all those techniques and hopefully use them.

Later more about this topic...

Training in 1976

My parents are both sports teachers. So they both have loads of books about training, teaching and techniques. Between the training books I found a booklet called "krachttraining" from the Dutch Sports Federation (now NOC*NSF)

Filled with brilliant drawings on power and strength training.

Enjoy your training :)

One day left in Holland

Today I guess will be the last day in the Netherlands before I'll leave for Daone.
Really exciting. I'm still very very insecure about my iceclimbing capabilities and train as much as I can. But for my feeling, one month for changing from sportsclimber into world-class iceclimber is a bit too short...
Luckily I got some great advice from a couple Duch iceclimber who've joined World Cups before.
(Thanks Dennis, Niels and Fedor!) Now I know better how to figure-of-4 and what moves I can expect in a World Cup...
Before I had my Icelanders, who were always willing to go iceclimbing with me, especially Siggi was a good reference. He is stronger, very fanatic and doesn't treat me like a 'weak woman' and expected me to do just the same as the guys. I like that attitude, that attitude that is often missing I find when you get to a climbing hall. Most people just watch you climb, stare and don't even dare to talk to you. Which can be very annoying. I just need people to train with!
At the moment one of the Dutch climbers, Dennis is on his way back from Kirov, Russia from the World Cup there in -25 Celcius.
He's just started a blog as well, you can read his adventures on http://dennisvanhoek.nl/
Here some video's of us training at Niels' drytool cave.

Training

And I was thinking we only had Klifurhusid to train drytooling. (On ancient bad old climbing holds) but it turns out to be that HSSR has way better conditions. One of the Icelandic search and rescue organisations (Iceland doesn't have an army, so all helping activities goes through those organisations)
Here Robbi (one of THE Icelandic iceclimbers) leading on the M6-wall.
I now meet with the real iceclimbers here at least once a week.

Iceclimbing

Men, what a funny development here.
I'll go to the World Cup Iceclimbing this January!
I describe myself nowadays as pure sportsclimber who happens to do bouldering as well.
But last winter I got triggered again to go out for a colder climb: iceclimbing.
And now I apparently do so well that I get into World Cup's!
Time to forget my Moonboard for a bit (never leave it completely) and start hanging on my axes!