When you want it too much – el chorro

I remember the day that it felt like magic and I flowed across rock, no fear, with joy. Afterwards I fell, crushing my solid foundations, destroying the mental and physical strength I’d just begun to develop.

Instead of building a solid foundation again I rushed forward to try and *catch up* to get *somewhere* *anywhere* that wasn’t where I was stuck.

Cracked toes, neck injury, dislocated fingers, months and weeks off climbing and I would run back straight afterwards to the gym, the wall, the rock, ignoring the pain or the mental difficulties, forcing myself to fall and jump and pull hard.

Somehow I made progress, I began to feel comfortable again began moving through the grades, began to feel more comfortable taking falls and then I got injured again.

I had to take the two months off before going to el chorro because I injured a finger tendon. I arrived in El Chorro for a two week climbing trip, psyched and driven.

Instead of spending the first week building up my grade and taking falls I took a back seat as we were climbing in a three, when the third left I decided to start projecting a climb on top rope, working out the hardest moves I’d ever climbed.

The last week was spent doing this (alternating with resting whilst belaying my climbing partner) until my last day came. After not leading a whole lot for the whole trip I got on the hardest route I had ever climbed and tried to push it. Unsurprisingly the world tumbled around me, the weak foundation crumbled and I failed. Too long spent looking forward instead of enjoying where I was, too much hoping and not enough stopping and looking around.

I was more than upset, I was decimated. I spent the night wondering whether I should just give up climbing altogether, whether I should quit my job in the climbing wall and the city and get a job in an office somewhere and pretend I didn’t care, thankfully I am more prone to melodramatic statements than I am to melodramatic acts and instead I decided to think a little longer!

I have to wash my foundations away, strip away the scrappy scaffolding and start again. Somehow find out where I *am* and enjoy if for a while before I start moving forward again.

And now a courtesy *normal* trip report…el chorro was hot and cold, wet and dry. the rock was stunning, Makindromo was breathtaking, the finca was full of smokers and the showers were cold, the train station cafe was like an episode of Eastenders only with tasty tortilla and tea, if I go again I will change only a few things.

Shauna Coxesy Wears Stilletos

I don’t know yet how to process this. Both psyche and hope, dismay and desire, feeling part of and separate from.

I have just returned from the female climbing symposium in Liverpool (pictures to come).

I imagine for male climbers it is quite normal to walk into a wall with lots of male climbers climbing at lots of different levels…but I was blown away. Girls, girly girls with make up and nail varnish and long hair, crushing. Climbing hard and psyched. I have never seen so much down in one place, I am pretty sure that the Climbing Hangar had the highest percentage of down per person in the world! Every girl and lady looked like a climber, the place was like an add for E9 and moon pants, hardcore girls with chalk bags and shoes hanging from hips and hands and from the back of bags.

On friday we had visited the wall for a bouldering session, Roofs and slabs and overhangs, crimps and slopers and sidepulls. Routes that I didn’t even understand and routes that were easy and technical. It is hard to be there and know that there is nothing like it to come home to.

It is hard to process, the talks were interesting, the coaching was fun but the information that I am processing is the climbing ladies. So many of them.

Role Models and Legends gave talks along side the practical and exciting. Lucy Creamer and Fran Brown both casually dismissed great trials and difficulties with compassion for themselves and understanding of the bigger picture. A great sense of optimism, drive and hope permeated the room.

From my little area of the world, the little corner at the end of Ireland there is something beginning…I hope. The girls in England are used to the scene, the psyche, the normality of women climbing, they are ready to push harder. In cork it is rare, indoors there are a handful of female climbers, when I am out at crags the ratio seems to be 20:1.

I am, by nature a type of pessimist. I believe everything is possible but in the midst of reality I lose hope. As I sat there, listening, I was wrapped in thought. A  noisy paradox, who thinks out loud, who looks to the women around her for some answer. Loving the wall, the size and scope of it, the openess and relaxed atmosphere, the normality of climbing hard…trying to find a way to return to cork and train, alone on a monday morning watching the sun rise and lighting up the 45degree board in the co-op.

climbing lets me forget

It is only when I haven’t been outside climbing that the news stories and history programmes and the world around me becomes like a sadness. It all seems to be death, pain, loss and fear.

When I stand at a crag, a mountain, beneath a blue, grey or cloudy sky I forget. Everything feels ok, everything feels possible.

When I stand inside the bouldering co-op alone on a grey morning and have to push myself to train, I don’t train for strength or glory, I train so I can stand beneath more crags, harder lines and longer days beneath blue, grey and cloudy skies.

When I stand inside the gym, with loud music and muscled men around me and I lift weights or pull up and I feel my muscles shaking I imagine a line. I imagine a crack system that I have fallen out of because I am not strong enough, I imagine a line that others have taken with ease and that I struggled with on second, and I do the last pull up in my set, shaking.

And I can’t tell if it is ok to forget, to turn the news off, to climb.

Why I need more vegetables and everyone should try an IBL

I have a list of reasons why I don’t want to go to the Irish Bouldering League and only one reason to go…because everyone tells me to!!!

My reasons included;1) I don’t like competition, 2) I don’t like climbing around big groups of people and 3) I don’t like bouldering!

1) I don’t like competition. I don’t know if this is a girl thing or not but people screaming at you and you screaming at yourself is at odds at why I climb BUT…

I wasn’t actually competing against anyone. It was so chilled out and I spent a lot of time with the other two girls in my category talking about how we would do certain moves, I also spent an insane amount of time chatting with the young guys from CYCC, spotting them and shouting encouragement. I also walked up to people during the day and said…will you shout sh*t at me to keep me going or point out moves…which brings me onto my second reason for not going

2) I don’t like climbing around big groups of people. I knew about 70% of the people in the place and the other 30% I had chatted to by the time we left. Nobody seemed to care how anybody else was doing except for to shout encouragement. Also…we were scoring ourselves and could do the problems in any order we chose!!! After I did the easy problems and realised I wasn’t getting to the top of the hard problems I had fun trying moves and having people shout at me to go for it. I went for it and failed…and never has failing been quite as funny.

3) I don’t like vegetables BOULDERING!

Bouldering is usually powerful, strong moves with lots of body tension and sloper strength. Precisely my biggest weaknesses. So half of all my training is bouldering, I am a member of a bouldering co-op and I have just taken part in a boulder comp. 

I have about a month before the the next IBL and I have a few things I can work on. Core strength to help with body tension moves, figuring out how to do power moves and TRYING to get the ladies of cork to come up and give it a go!

 

 

What kind of summer was that at all!

Having battled with injury and bad weather the summer began in August for me (and most Irish) and I celebrated by cracking my helmet open (with my head inside it!)

Apparently I need to learn lessons more than once! My trad gear has been poor, I didn’t understand why until there was an *intervention* style conversation with two of my climbing partners.

Years ago I was told I had mechanical dyslexia, I pretty much ignore it so my climbing buddies didn’t know. To them it is second nature that a nut goes in the lowest point in the crack, or that a hex should be deep, to me it has to be learned and (like a lot of trad climbers) I learned by just doing it. Unfortunately my *just do it* had resulted in two bad falls.

So, I decided to get some training to keep me safe and also to keep those safe that I climb with outdoors. Last weekend I did my Single Pitch Award training. Here is what I learned:

-Everyone learns differently

-Just because I read it in a book doesn’t make it right (or wrong)

-trusting yourself and having confidence in what you do know is half the battle

-having the knowledge to know you’re wrong is the other half of the battle

-lots of people lose nuts in Dalkey quarry!

The big lesson of the summer for me is how important training and knowledge are especially when they are combined with psyche. I started a strength training programme with a guy who not only has the qualifications and knowledge but the passion to work with me to find what I CAN do.

I started getting coaching on my climbing so I have a new training plan which, bizarrely  says rest more, train less, train smarter! Having felt exhausted for a year this is a welcome plan! My *coach* has the knowledge and enough enthusiasm for a world of climbers!

I also started seeing an Osteopath who said she could fix me. She is the first person to say that so…I am going with it! She is curious and passionate about getting me back to 100%!

After a summer of stalled starts and rainy cups of tea staring at routes out of car windows I have managed in the last month to improve my grade, just by the application of others knowledge and being surrounded by psyche!

I also teach rock climbing and have found a new passion that is driving me forward, teaching female climbers!!! In the last few months I have worked with Mammies and teenagers and children and it has been amazingly rewarding to watch women do their first leads indoors, girls get psyched for climbing outdoors and the new round of students push their grade (and men out of the way!) on the boulder wall.

 

 

 

 

Lemons

Yesterday, I waited in Dublin Cities summer, outside a physiotherapists office. This guy comes very highly recommended by a climber, is the Irish Olympic team physio and has been for a long time.

I’ve been injured forever, I am sick of doing stretches and heat packs, I want to be strong. My plan is to walk in and get given a set of exercises that can help me get strong. The universe laughs when you make plans.

I go inside, there are Olympic medals on the wall, autographed kit from Irelands top athletes. He is not like any physio I’ve met before, his room is big, airy and full of exercise equipment and mirrors.

He has grey hair, dark skin and asks questions tersely as I try to constantly elaborate…saying way more than I need to in the hope that he will hear something that will make him say…ah…I can fix that.

He does ten minutes of stretching me, pushing, poking and moving and sits me down…the first thing he says is

“I’m sorry”

My insane emails and ramblings have shown him how much climbing means to me and he knows that everything he says after this point is going to break my heart.

I will never be able to train like other climbers…I know I am staring at him, and he is talking but already in my head I hear nothing. In my head I am cutting deals and waiting for him to stop talking so I can tell him that not climbing is not an option.

He keeps talking, I’m a difficult case, he has seen loads like me, Its congenital, my body would be in a heap if I didn’t do as much as I do…

Hold on…I stare at him

” do you mean…I have to keep climbing”

It’s not exactly what he means, I cry. I sit there, nearly 30years old and I’m crying like a little girl. I’ve missed the crucial points. He knows it. He starts again.

The car crash, the fall, it all just speeded up a process that was going to happen anyway. If I wasn’t such an active person I would probably be barely getting out of bed in the morning. The stretching, heat and hanging and strength building is keeping my body from just fusing all my joints together.

If I hadn’t  fallen or been hit by a car I would probably have just deteriorated slowly before I had a chance to do anything about it.

I am the opposite of naturally gifted, I have a congenital problem that means if someone else trained the
way I did for a year theyd be super strong and crushing

So…What is my plan?

Stretch,
Use Heat Packs
Take Pain killers when I need to
If it hurts stop
if it hurts afterwards don’t do it again
Throw away my weights and my theraband

But more specifically…
Fingerboards are GOOD for me!!!
As are pull ups
I am allowed to run for 30mins 3times a week

I almost cried again when he said I will never run a 10k again.

But then…he spent the last ten minutes of our session telling me what there was to be thankful for, that people with bodies like mine CAN reach the top, it is just about being different, being smarter and ignoring what works for most other people.

Everything he said makes sense. I am not injury prone, accident prone, careless or unlucky.

I spent a good hour crying and being angry.
An hour is plenty of feeling sorry for yourself time.

waiting…still waiting

I sat in the car, the sun was shining on my face, I didn’t want to think forward and psyche myself out.

I haven’t gotten my confidence back since my fall…I’m working on it but it’s nano steps.

But the car journey, the tea sheltered under bothan reminded me why I love climbing.

The immediacy of reality, how cold the wind is, how warm the sun is, people talking in the distance, the feeling of breathing in and out, all of the now.
Add in beauty, beautiful rock, searching for beautiful movement.

It was cold and I wanted to lead a route,my climbing partners reminded me of baby steps so I was set up with a top rope just in case I needed it and a lead rope and a rack.

I didn’t sag, I didn’t stop, I *could* have lead it.

But all the same…when I can see my foot placement but not feel it because it is so cold I am grateful for my friends who stopped an easy climb becoming something I freaked out on.

Mini-Victory

waiting to write about adventures

We divided into two groups, the relaxed group and the pushing it group…it felt strange to be in the relaxed group, fun almost…but there was always a niggle inside me…why wasn’t I pushing it.

We set up a top rope to warm up, by the second route I can feel my fingers twinge, the tendons not quite 100% yet. It only hurts on right handed side pulls, it seems like every route has them, so I climb one route, I try a few more, I go back to the first route and climb it in runners.

The climbing is easy, my brain glitches every time I move though, even on top rope it is like it wants to remind me what went wrong, the hitting the ground, the lying there looking up trying to move my toes. My brain wants me to stop climbing, but something deeper wants me to push it.

It has been months since I have been on mountains and it shows.  A stream crossing has beaten me, I am happy and disappointed.

We leave early, it is cold and we have had fun. Back in the car the other group talk about pushing it, myself and James hold hands, we know what each other is thinking.

No more comfortable, no more waiting. Next time, push it…

Raisin Hell

Tomorrow I get to go back to the wall, only for an hour, only top-roping……………

ONLY

But that *ONLY* got me so happy that I sang walking down the street when I left my physio

And that *ONLY* got me giggling to myself as I went for a walk in the dark, in the rain in my mountain hardware monkey man jacket…my first walk other than to the shop to buy food, in about two months.

Tonight I have showered and cut my nails short. I washed myself almost like it was prayer, a prayer that everything would be ok. I ignored the little niggle in my neck, hoping it is just nervous pain.

I have packed my bag and laid out my clothes. My tape for my toes and my scissors to cut it with, my harness and my shoes. My carabiner and belay plate, my chalk bag, my ‘climb-on’.

My clothes are laid out, god I hope they fit still, two months of sitting, eating, waiting for the all clear.

A string top for base, a thin strap top for over it, a baggy tshirt with a washed out moto on the front saying ‘raisin hell’ with a picture of a funky raisin under it. My old, second hand, bobbly, ripped tracksuit trousers.

And I am not even climbing till after lunch tomorrow.

I don’t imagine I will sleep much tonight

Carrot Cake Muffins

Inspired by Steph Davis’ Wheat Free Sugar free scones (http://www.highinfatuation.com/scones-vegan-no-wheat-no-sugar/trackback/)

I love muffins for breakfast, warmed with goats butter melted over the top. I usually have them with a pea-protein hot chocolate, perfect for at home breakfasts and snacks on the go

Recipe:

Brown Rice Flour – 240gm

Buckwheat Flour – 60gm

Flakes (oat, brown rice, millet whatever) – 150gm

Carrot – grated – 100gm (or more depending on taste)

Cinnamon – 1 teaspoon

Xantham gum – 2 teaspoons

Bicarb Soda – 1 teaspoon

Baking Powder – 3 teaspoons

Banana – 1/2 banana (depending on how sweet you like them)

Salt – pinch

SoyYogurt – 400gm

Rice or Soy Milk – 120ml

2 eggs

Mix all the dry ingredients, mix all wet ingredients (beating eggs gently into yogurt). Mix together….This is not a complicated recipe lol the first time I made these I under-cooked them and they were soggy on the inside, next time i cooked them for longer and cooled on a wire rack and they were amazing.

I grease the inside of the muffin tray with oil and spoon mix in to make 12 muffins (I usually have 2 for breakfast). Bake at 180deg for 30-40mins.

EAT