Climb it because you hate it

At the end of January, I was in such a low place about my climbing that I nearly cried in the middle of a session. My debilitating fear of falling had returned and I felt I wasn't getting anywhere, however dedicated I was to trying. Something had to change.

Although I am something of a climbing obsessive, I have come to realise that if I don't have goals and direction, I become very frustrated and unhappy that the hours I am willing to put in do not appear to be paying any dividends. I think though, sometimes (all the time!) my progress is actually hampered by my now famous 'can't do' attitude which stops me trying and when I do try, prepares me to fail.

And so it was, while stuck in the miserable climbing doldrums, that I became curious about the Enforcer's training plan, which as far as I could see, mainly involved warming up on what was pretty much my top grade! It transpired that the plan actually involved easy mileage and more difficult routes in decreasing frequency. I picked the place where it seemed wise to start and cracked on. 

Playing on the main wall at the end of a long, solid training session. Only counted as a 5 though!

Having now reached the end of month one, I think the biggest difference to my climbing has been mental. Because the training plan tells me I have to do a certain number of a certain grade of climb, then I do it. Because it tells me I have to do oodles of low grade routes, I am forced to climb the ones I don't even like, to the point that I now actively seek them out. It's like I am forcing myself to do things for the very reason that they make me uncomfortable. But more than anything, I think my perception of difficulty has changed, perhaps in part because I often climb with someone who is much, much better than me and I have come to realise that things that to me were once impossible, might actually be achievable, with a little effort.

The maximum grade of route I am willing to try has increased exponentially and strangely enough, when I try those routes, although they are most definitely absolutely nails, the whole thing is not the unmitigated disaster I would have previously assumed that it would be. But I am still scared of falling and probably still more scared of failing and I often second or top rope the harder stuff because I am wimp. I have a fear of missing the first clip and ground falling and, after the accident last year, I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of people I trust enough to belay me on my hardest leads.

Training works, Main Wall Monday works and pushing yourself outside your comfort zone can reap huge rewards, but until I overcome my fear of failure, deal with the two serious accidents I have witnessed and push myself on lead to the point of falling repeatedly, I'll never be the climber that I could be. Or perhaps more accurately, I'll never be the climber that I want to be.

Logbooks and leg warmers

I have often written about the difficulty I have in quantifying whether I climb better now that I used to, but the other day, the curse that is the Facebook memory showed me a picture of my climbing leg warmers and old climbing shoes, and I became curious as to exactly what I had been doing one year ago.

21st January 2015

My logbook tells a story of fear. Easy routes rested on, panic attacks and a strong desire to vomit. There were no overhangs, grades were low and sessions were short. There was clearly not enough tea.

Logbook entry for 21st January 2015

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I also went climbing on the 21st January 2016. New routes had been set in the gully and my climbing partner and I, together with half the Leeds regulars, were on those routes like Winnie the Pooh round honey. Our session was long, there was lots of tea and I felt like I was climbing pretty well, but was there any demonstrable improvement?

I think I'll let you decide that for yourself.

Log from 21st January 2016

Work your weaknesses

The Simple Chick and I have made milling around at the wall, drinking tea and updating each other on life's ups and downs into such an art form that sometimes climbing becomes secondary to the experience. These very sociable sessions are great fun and often progress is made, but I sometimes find myself climbing the same old 10 vertical routes and shying away from anything that might be remotely challenging. I suppose I convince myself that I won't be able to do anything harder and on occasion, would rather drink more tea than actually try. Ultimately though, such an approach just leads to frustration and those horrible plateaux during which gains just seem never to be made and confidence begins to wane. 

The process of CWA consolidation did more than prepare me for assessment, those five months of hard work also, rather unexpectedly, resulted in many new friendships with people who climb far harder than perhaps I ever will. These people inspire me, but because they also happen to be climbing instructors, they have the innate ability to draw the very best out of me. The fact that Fantastyczna Cooka also feeds me healthy pizza, cake and ginger biscuits is a welcome added bonus! It was through these friends that I became inveigled into Main Wall Monday, a brilliantly simple idea which may very well result in my imminent death and judging by the full body pain as I hobbled about this Tuesday, I wouldn't be surprised if the Grim Reaper turned up and asked me for a belay next Monday night.

Views of the Main Wall

The Greater Main Wall (similar to Greater Manchester but with less hipster beards), is pretty much entirely overhanging, the premise of Main Wall Monday, to only climb the routes on it. I hate overhangs, I have no stamina and my technique is still pretty embryonic, for me, Main Wall Monday is like some kind of pump-filled torture, punctuated with cups of tea I can barely pick up. But, if it wasn't a challenge, it wouldn't be fun and although possibly still in the realms of Sir David Brailsford and his 'marginal gains', I think, some progress has been made, not least because after a full-on wrestle up the Main Wall, nothing else in the centre seems half as intimidating as it did before. 

Main Wall Monday, together with its younger siblings Training Tuesday, Weakness Wednesday and Features Friday, forces me to address a huge and gaping weakness in my climbing and try as I might, I simply can't do that while gossiping in the cafe - if only we could work out what to do on a Thursday...

Spot the Long Legs

Zen

It was the 11th route of the night but I knew, at that precise moment, that I was doing the best climbing I have ever done in my life. I had tried the route once before, months and months ago on a top rope and remembered thinking it was tricky. Now, on lead, everything felt so smooth and effortless, my head so uncharacteristically in the game that I reached a previously unknown state of zen, the moves just flowing as I floated over the lip and through the crux. As I stood up and shook out, I was so psyched that internally I was screaming an expletive ridden monologue of joy and it was hard to stop myself from bursting forth out loud. Clipping the chains, inside I was doing cartwheels and fist pumps, I may even have let off some fireworks. I was still buzzing as the Simple Chick lowered me to the ground, and, when a passing Campusman asked how our session had been, his eyes turned to saucers as he was hit by an unexpectedly excited, and enthusiastic, potttymouthed reply!

Having clearly reached the peak of climbing, I briefly went into retirement, however, this only lasted the weekend, before a good, solid session last night. On a new and ungraded orange, where there was huge gap to get over the lip, a similar, but lesser, zen state seemed to wash over me and I pulled some shapes and just went for it. There is no way I would have done that 6 months ago.

It is hard to explain what has happened to me or how I feel about climbing at the moment. I know I have worked really hard at it all through the year and I should be getting better, but I don't think this is really about technique, or power, or weight, I think it is about confidence. The people I climb with seem to have faith in me, they tell me things are 'comfortably within my grade', they encourage me to try that little bit harder. Last night my climbing partner, absent for 6 months, said it was as if I was a different climber now. 

Two years ago I gave up everything to move from an island in the North Sea to somewhere near Bradford. This year, climbing has helped me rebuild my life and to find the girl I felt I had left behind - it has made me happy. And because I am happy, my climbing is better and when I climb better I am happier still. Yes, I am a different climber now, but I think the change also goes deeper than that.

Good times on the island

Wood and trees

My climbing partner, who I had not seen for several months, asked, quite legitimately, what grade I now climb. I remained evasive. Of course there is an answer, but there are so many caveats to it (is it vertical but technical? Sustained or featuring an overhang?), that it would have taken too long to give a full and thorough reply. I responded with some unconvincing muttering, but I suppose the main reason I didn't want to answer was because I didn't want to (quite literally) set myself up for a fall.

Week in, week out, the Simple Chick and I are down the wall. Sometimes we climb better than others, during some periods we are frustrated, at other times we feel like we are making real progress, but twice a week we are there, climbing routes, doing pull-ups, drinking 'one tea and one coffee' and indulging in rather a lot of gossiping. I don't blog about these sessions for no other reason than I have no photographs of us climbing (or eating Chia Charge bars). 

When I watch the Simple Chick and her excellent use of smears and screw ons, I am so proud of her. For months she wouldn't lead at all and it took a long period of steady progression for her to get where she is now. I often watch her on the sharp end and I know that 6 months ago, she wouldn't have even attempted routes she now looks so smooth and confident on; to me, the improvement in her climbing is obvious. But in my own head I am still the same climber I always was and perhaps that is why it was so difficult for me to answer that initial question. It's hard for me to stand back far enough to know if anything is changing, I am particularly good at convincing myself that 'I can't' or even that parts of the wall 'are not for me'. And I don't know why I think like this, because, as Coach Emma pointed out the other day, that's not at all the way I think about running races. 

Coach Emma's overhang aversion therapy.

My coached session earlier in the week had looked at overhangs and so yesterday, when it was very quickly clocked that I appeared to have become blind to the overhanging routes behind me, I thought I better HTFU and get back on the first route I had worked with Emma. I was pleased, on reaching the crossover, to find myself placing my foot correctly and twisting right to reach the next hold with ease. And for the first time in a long time, I realised that, although I was aware of the overhang being there, this fact did not really bother me, I was far too focused on what I was doing. Back on the ground, my climbing partner said, 'You bossed that route!', elaborating with a (slightly uncharitable) impression of me whimpering on the same overhang 5 months previously, 'Today,' he said, 'you just did it, without hesitation.'

I continued the session with my first clean lead of a very steep and sustained 6a; 5 months ago, I wouldn't have even attempted it. Perhaps, sometimes, you just need that view from outside, to help you obtain perspective on yourself and all those things you didn't even realise that you have achieved.