8c offwidth. Surely not...

A long time ago..... in a far, far land..... Well, Kalymnos to be exact, myself and Pete dreamed up this concept of an offwidth cellar underneath my house. It seemed like a total pipedream that would never happen at the time (partly because I'd still not actually agreed a price on the house!) but with a bit of psyche, hard work and a few kitchen worktops a cellar like no other was born.

Photo: Pete on the original prototype

At first, we worked quite hard to just do a couple of laps on the 7 inch horizontal offwidth, but with time, tape and a LOT of training, it all seemed to come together. I remember when we both first did a 100ft continuous section of roof crack and being so wasted that we could hardly walk afterwards. The lactic acid had consumed almost our entire body - biceps, hands, core and legs were destroyed.

Photo: Tape gloves had to be reinforced with duct tape the abrasion was so bad over 100ft reps.

After quite some time and with even more additions to my strange cellar (a 9-inch roof crack, The Hastonator and Kneebar sit-up machine), we came up with an ultimate Offwidth Link-Up. Miles of hand fist stacking, into double fist stacking, into handjams and bathangs. When we considered a 200ft section of continuous roof climbing to be fairly reasonable (and definitely repeatable in sets) this ultimate link up seemed the living end. Nothing could be harder it seemed and in our minds we set that if we were able to do this before leaving for America, then our conditioning would be complete.

Photo: Pete focussed and working hard. (c) Richie Patterson

Sure enough, last week both Pete and I completed this 8c link-up that we'd dreamt up. Who knows if it's the grade or if it'll even be useful for a Vedauwoo 5.9, but what I do know is it makes anything else I've done seem pretty light. In many ways I think I feel more scared about the trip now that I have done this link as I know there's no excuse physically. Everything else will be in the mind.

Please dear God, some beta on Lucille would be great...