Some Home Truths

Having only scored 79 points at this weekend SIBL round has driven to rethink my training. Prior to the competition my training was going well. I had completed 3 of my boulder problems I had set on the Bournemouth Climbing Wall in on session. I felt that I was climbing the best I had ever climbed and this feeling kept going into the weekend with an outdoor trip on the Saturday before the competition. I was determined to have an easy day. So I thought getting another 6b tick would not be too much of a challenge. Doing it on my second attempt was good for me and showed me that my lead confidence was defiantly coming back.

Sunday, the day of SIBL Round 4. Going in to the day I felt strong and was confident of gaining a good score. I signed in, got changed and was ready to start. The competition was very crowded and the bouldering area was smaller than I expected. The first problem went down with no problems then the next 4 were ticked with the only problem of having to wait 10-15 mins between them in line. After this the routes went from juggy moves onto more technical moves. The next 2 problems I tried went down without a hitch either.

At this point I was feeling confident but the next few problems I tried I was barely getting off the ground. Again and again I would struggle on the second or the third move. Frustration was settling in instead of the confidence that I once had. The frustration made me mess up on a problem that I should have flashed and cruised on my second attempt. I decided to take a time out and think about why I was not achieving as I should be. Many of the competitors were doing about the same as me and were saying this was the hardest round yet. Also almost all the problems were on a much steeper section of wall than what I have available to train on. So I changed my perspective and decided to see this as a chance to have a really good training session. I focused on the moves and tried to make each one I could do as crisp as I could and those that I could not just kept pushing trying to get as close as I could. Towards the end of comp I looked at bagging as many bonus points as I could. All 4 that I had not already gained seemed too hard for me to gain. But I managed to get one with the use of really focusing and then just jumping for it.

 With my final score of 79 this still sent me up the rankings 23rd. I am now 3 places away from my goal and hope to use the knowledge that I have gained from the reading round to make sure I achieve this.