The lead up to this competition was quite different to
previous competitions in the past. Usually I would be stepping up my training
in order to peak for the right time, but this was quite different. After my
frankly abysmal performance at the summer open youth a couple months prior to
now I had lost all motivation for route climbing competitions and in fact route
climbing in general. I wasn’t even planning to enter the competition until a
few days before when (thanks to Naomi for convincing me) I decided I may as
well enter since I had nothing to lose as I would have been struggling to do
any worse than last time. I was a little
concerned about entering though because the weekend before I had been
attempting a fingery 8a called “The Sissy” at Rubicon and had been having a
little bit of trouble with my finger since then. Nonetheless I turned up to the impressive new
Awesome Walls Sheffield for the competition, considerably less psyched than I should
have been.
It was really nice to see everyone even if I was quite
intimidated about climbing against them since their crushing in Euro and World
competitions this year. Looking at the
routes, one looked pretty steady up a relatively flat wall on positive looking
crimps. The other however took a daunting line up the ever steepening corner of
the main roof. The holds looked poor and the climbing sustained - not good! The first climb went smoothly like everyone
else in the group who all topped it. Then came route 2, watching the juniors on
it made me even more nervous as everyone, but the Canadian beast Elan, pumped
out on various sections of the route. To make matters worse my finger was hurting
more after the first route, and without having time to tape it up, I set off.
The start was pleasant enough, up positive holds. Then, quite
suddenly it stepped it up a notch. The holds rapidly deteriorated, as did my
non-existent endurance. I wasn’t even
half way up the climb, my elbows were out, my fingers uncurling and I was
preparing to fall off. But I just caught
the next hold and then just got the next, and the next. I thought I was going
to fall off every move but I managed to cling on. I reached the edge of the roof and with that
came a slightly better hold. I got a
tiny bit back and managed to have a small breather. This gave me just enough
time to register the shock that I was still on the wall; I should have fallen
of three clips ago. I carried on for a
few more moves until I reached a drop down move onto a small crimp, the rope
was in the way of the hold and I had nothing left to give, I fell off but I was
ecstatic with my performance. I had
fully expected to fall off low down and have a repeat of last time; instead I exceeded
my own expectations and made it into the final in joint third.
I didn’t feel any pressure about the final, I had more than
achieved what I wanted to by reaching the final so what happened on the last
route didn’t matter to me. Plus the fact
my finger was hurting a lot after my second climb and it was painful to pull on
jugs in isolation. As I expected I didn’t do very well on the last route and I finished
fifth overall. But I didn’t mind, I was
really happy with how I climbed. Even if it wasn’t my best result, it was my
best result for quite a while and undoubtedly the hardest I’ve tried on a climb
before.
This competition has massively improved my mentality towards
competitions and routes again and has got me psyched to train hard and come
back fighting for next year’s season. Unfortunately, after Carol kindly had a
look at my finger she recommended a couple of weeks off to give it time to
recover. I’ve concluded that I don’t want to specialise into one discipline, I enjoy
all of them too much, even speed climbing after the speed championships the
following day even if I did slip off in the first round! I can’t wait to get climbing
again to compete (primarily in the Open Youth in December), plus it’s the grit
season soon so I’ve got some projects that are going down this winter. Until then ………
