It's warm, the sun is shining, I'm sore, have an unfinished project, and two more bouldering days left. Yesterday I checked out Minisex (7c), a pretty steep but awesome boulder out of a roof. I was able to climb every individual move once, but as a whole? My motivation to send this boulder was at least as great as my muscle soreness. Today that certainly wouldn't have worked out. My wings are heavy as bricks and my legs are also pretty battered from all the walking up and down through the forest. If I really want to send the boulder, I should take a rest day today, recover, and pull it off first thing tomorrow morning when I'm fresh. That wasn't an easy decision, after all, I only had three bouldering days in total at Magic Wood. Should I rather make use of the full time and just do several boulders instead of focusing so much on a single one? And what if I take a break day and still don't send it, after all it is quite a tough one.
So, a compromise is needed: an active rest day! Sounds contradictory? Oh well! It worked great. I took the day easy, enjoyed the sun, helped out the other boulderers in the forest, and sent two pretty nice and worthwhile 7a's "Chiquita" and "Zillimann". So that I could ease my bouldering conscience, warm up my muscle soreness a bit and recover, I didn't spend a whole but a relaxing day and could mentally prepare for Minisex.
I get up, can barely open my eyes, my circulation is weaker than ever and my wings are still a bit lame. But no faking weakness! With two crash pads on my back, first the warm-up walk up the mountain until I stand in front of the beautiful little roof. Not quite fully awake in my thoughts, but already fully dreaming in the beta: knee bar, block on the groin, drop knee, pinch, tighten the core, release the foot, toe hook out, to the edge and mantle out. Hold on, stop! Knee bar? No way, my leg is completely sore and blue from bouldering it. I'm definitely not doing a knee bar anymore. It has to work without it too! Fortunately, two girls were still out on the boulder, from whom I could watch a start beta without a knee bar. Certainly not as power-saving and also not as stable as the knee bar, but better than bruising it again.
First get warm, then boulder the middle section with the two hardest moves again. Holy cannon, it's tough. How did I ever do it? Drop knee right, hold tension and veeeery slowly, controlled pull into the pinch. Now squeeze the pinch with full force (Maxi would/is proud of me, I do have a thumb after all) and release the right foot with as little momentum as possible. Then the rest is pretty much a done deal. But the middle part really has it in it.
Finally my body had woken up, the muscles warmed up and concentration and bite cranked up to 120%. I'm pumped! Now it was just a matter of giving it full throttle and climbing as power-saving and precise as possible to the crux. The first two tries went terribly wrong. Once I shot completely backwards from the start and once I totally forgot to fold my drop knee down properly. But on the third try everything fit like a glove. The start was perfect, the groin well hit, the pinch pulled off and there I also had the toe hook on the edge faster than I could blink. Nice! I won't let that go away, I can mantle! Well, more or less elegantly I then hauled myself up onto the slab and stood breathless and with a noticeably fast beating heart on top of Minisex. What a boulder, what a feeling!
Everyone who knows me knows that I spent the rest of the day walking around with an exaggerated grin on my face. Well, the following days too ????
To crown it all off, I also sent "Morgenlatte" (7b) and gave the weekend a nice memory. I'm very happy to be so fit again, to boulder hard boulders, to be out on the rock with friends, to be able to pursue my absolute passion and to have already climbed two 7c's this year with "Minisex" and "Papa Chango" (did it two weeks ago). I'm excited about what the season still has in store.
I would like to say a big thank you to everyone who always trains so diligently with me, supports me, shared their beta for the boulder with me, mocked me and cheered me on and made a simply cool weekend out of it! Big thank you also to Russ for the photos in Minisex and the support in sending it! Thanks a lot dude!
