What are you looking for in a route?
Purity of line and absorption in the climbing. It doesn’t have to be hard.

What is your form of training?
Mainly just climbing outdoors in loads of different styles. I don’t think I’ve really ‘trained’ at all, in the sense of putting together a plan to actually get stronger and fitter in an efficient manner. Climbing is a tough sport. For most types of sport, people train for their event allowing a run-up and proper training period; in climbing our event is every day! And to make it worse, we want our PB in the 100m one day and the marathon the next!

What inspires you?
People who give it everything. That doesn’t have to be in climbing — it could be anything. People who can devote their lives to their passion. I meet climbers who train so hard, watch what they eat, give up all work to climb every day, don’t party…it makes me want to try so much harder.

What are some interesting differences between the UK and USA?
You guys think all the Brits are crazy and that all our climbing is dangerous. In reality we aren’t so bold compared to other countries — plenty of bouldering stuff the Americans are doing is pretty dangerous, and the trad stuff is also off the wall. I wish the world would remember we do have great sport climbing too, and that it doesn’t always rain!