Ron Fawcett - Rock Athlete (PDF)

The autobiography of climbing legend Ron Fawcett

From back cover:

I sat down and changed my shoes, lacing up my rock boots and trying not to think of what I was proposing to do. The scale of it was vast - one hundred Extreme grade routes in a day.
I hadn't made a list, and I hadn't thought too clearly about where to find the most routes for the least amount of effort. I really just wanted a reason, some kind of target, to keep me out all day, to test my body, to find out what I was capable of doing.
There was no ulterior motive. I wasn't there for sponsors. I didn't care whether what I was doing would be reported in climbing magazines. I just wanted to find that edge I felt I'd lost. For almost twenty years I'd spent every waking moment either climbing or thinking about it. My body was honed by a relentless training regime that I had started to resent: hundreds of press-ups each day
and seemingly endless top-rope sessions where I would do laps on routes I had once found hard. I'd given pretty much everything I had to the sport. What did I have left?