My First Two and Half Weeks Back Climbing

So far this year I have had five indoor training sessions and one out door trip. Three of my sessions have been at my local wall at Bournemouth University and I have taken two trips to a much larger facility at Calshot. The three of us who took a trip outside were rewarded with a day of rare January sunshine and a dry crag at Cheyne Wears on Portland.

When returning from an extended period of time off climbing I find de-motivating at first. The problems which once I could easily do now seem beyond me, the feeling of exhaustion occurs after just a few route or problems and the ability to push through the pump is no longer there. But this feeling is overshadowed by feeling of achievement as the strength I once knew comes back after just a few sessions. It is a shame that my stamina did not do the same thing but this a part of climbing that has always been a weakness.

On the first outdoor trip of year my lead head seemed to be nonexistent, getting nervous of being above my bolt while plodding up a 5+ was frustrating. During the summer I had become a lot more confident on lead and this felt like I was back to square one. But as the day went some of my confidence returned. I was determined to make sure that I did not lose this confidence so my next training session which was at Calshot Activity Centre would address this. Calshot is the closest place to where I live with worthwhile indoor lead walls. I took Dave Macleod's advice on how to overcome the fear of falling and through the session I slowly took bigger and bigger falls until I was happy taking seven meter whippers off the barrel wall (2010).

Even with the extended time off of climbing my finger is still endanger of re-injury so to reduce the chance of this happening I have had to cut my sessions shorter than my usual sessions and have been adding an extra day to my rest periods to stop myself over working the injured area and as of yet the finger is still felling strong and I feel that I am back to the same strength as I was before my injury.