Cornudella de Montsant — December 15, 2006 

The training is going wonderful. I was in the gym for my third time last night since I have been here, and I feel sore due to my experiments with weight belts and weight vests. I've never done that before, climbed with many extra kilos, although I had thought about when I was young. I felt heavier, and thus climbing was much harder. Strange game. Needless to say, my version of training gets me a long way these days. I do things like pull-ups, and some push-ups, and some bouldering, then, like bam, I have stronger muscles the next time I get out there on the rock. Muy bien. Perhaps it's only psychological, but I hope not. 

The last weeks have been very exciting. Edu and Chris did La Rambla, which is badass. It was cool to see the different processes the two took in order to climb that massive route, and it definitely broke down some stigma or any previous curses that had been put upon the route. La Rambla is now very doable. Edu just showed up, went up the route once on a really humid day, figured out the moves one try, then fell of the top the next try, then after climbing A Muerte 9a on his next day, fired it after we all got wasted drunk celebrating Yuji's going away party. He tried both in previous years, but put them together pretty quick this time, and I imagine he was hung-over. So we all partied like hell with Edu a second time when we heard he climbed the route, and got drunk again throughout the celebration, and thoroughly worked during a hardcore boulder session altogether that night. The next day Chris climbed it, muy tranquillo, while we were more or less the only two climbers in the whole sector. It was cool. 

The Spanish Chica climbing scene was also in full effect, with visiting climbing legends from the south, on a rampage with our friend Mariona Marti for the weekend. Raquel, Pati, and Ruth all climb 8b I think, and seem to keep it pretty damn real every day they go out. Definitely a nice time though, and a good change of energy compared with the serious dude-only-climbing sessions due to the hard routes and lack of sun.