Life certainly accelerated since my last post. First stop was a sneaky one week trip to Rodellar, followed by an intense couple of weeks wedding planning and organising before we headed off to Malta for a week long build up to the big day. Our entire time in Malta was beautiful, coming together in a way that was far more meaningful and enjoyable than I could have imagined, or can describe in words. So for now I'll have to concentrate my words on my climbing.
The excitement of a trip back to Rodellar started to build several weeks before we left, and in particular I was super keen to get back to El Delfin, a 7c+ arch that captures everything that inspired me to start climbing. It is a classic monument to nature standing far above the valley floor, it captures my eyes from a distance and up close it begs to be climbed, towers over me, intimidates me as I scramble up to the small starting ledge from where the river in the valley floor appears no larger than a trickle.
I didn't succeed on El Delfin this time. Rain came in early in our trip and flooded the crux tufa, leaving the second half of the route unclimbable. I don't mind though. The trip reminded me that I like to try hard, I like to find new levels in my climbing, but ultimately I simply love the act of climbing.
Back in London training continued in earnest, building on the momentum of the Rodellar trip and I could feel my fitness moving towards an entirely new level. At the back of my mind though, I kept wondering how to incorporate climbing and training into our two weeks in Malta and Sicily. Climbing wasn't the priority, but I thought I wanted to keep on moving my training forward.
It kind of sorted itself out though as a week before we were due to leave I tweaked an A2 pulley in my left hand. Not badly, but a very definite warning sign that I needed to give my body (or at least my hands!) a break from what has now been 5 months of steadily escalating training. So, since then I've slowed my climbing down, rehab'd my finger and focussed on the pleasure of being in a warm country with my family.
For those interested in my injury, it seems to have been a minor tear that I think occurred towards the end of my warm up. I pulled on a biggish hold and felt a burning sensation. At the time I actually thought I'd just trapped a roll of skin at an odd angle, and carried on training for a full session. The only hint to a problem was that both I and my coach noticed I was significantly down in power on my left side, but didn't really think anything beyond my being tired. Later than evening it started to ache as I cooled, and the injury then woke me up in the night with a gentle throbbing pain which persisted for a couple of days. There was no obvious swelling or bruising at any point.
Treatment was hot bath / cold ice for the first two days. Then I started to introduce cross friction on the point of pain twice a day, as well as the icing. Pain was gone in 4 days. Once the pain was gone, I introduced training on a fat pull up bar so I could continue to work on back and core strength, with the finger taped.
About a week later and after several days of no pain, I had a first climbing session back with my coach where we taped the finger, warmed up carefully, monitored for pain. When that went well, we did an endurance session of 5+ climbing for 8min on / 2 min off. Focus on moving efficiently and obviously never shock loading the finger. Very minor stiffness / discomfort afterwards, but a great training session.
Since then I've had two easy days of outside climbing over about a two week period on grades up to 7a with the finger taped. I've generally avoided half or full crimping the left pointing finger (which was injured), either climbing open handed or using back 3 only. No pain in any of this.
I'll be back in the gym this weekend and will start to increase the workload on the finger carefully. I plan to limit tape usage from here on out. The finger has been pain free for a couple weeks now, so I'm hopeful that catching it early, the immediate slow down and the rehab will see me fully back on the road sooner rather than later.
So much has happened recently, as well as I have so many thoughts about the future, that I feel like I have barely scratched the surface of what I should be writing down. But it will have to do for now.
The excitement of a trip back to Rodellar started to build several weeks before we left, and in particular I was super keen to get back to El Delfin, a 7c+ arch that captures everything that inspired me to start climbing. It is a classic monument to nature standing far above the valley floor, it captures my eyes from a distance and up close it begs to be climbed, towers over me, intimidates me as I scramble up to the small starting ledge from where the river in the valley floor appears no larger than a trickle.
I didn't succeed on El Delfin this time. Rain came in early in our trip and flooded the crux tufa, leaving the second half of the route unclimbable. I don't mind though. The trip reminded me that I like to try hard, I like to find new levels in my climbing, but ultimately I simply love the act of climbing.
Back in London training continued in earnest, building on the momentum of the Rodellar trip and I could feel my fitness moving towards an entirely new level. At the back of my mind though, I kept wondering how to incorporate climbing and training into our two weeks in Malta and Sicily. Climbing wasn't the priority, but I thought I wanted to keep on moving my training forward.
It kind of sorted itself out though as a week before we were due to leave I tweaked an A2 pulley in my left hand. Not badly, but a very definite warning sign that I needed to give my body (or at least my hands!) a break from what has now been 5 months of steadily escalating training. So, since then I've slowed my climbing down, rehab'd my finger and focussed on the pleasure of being in a warm country with my family.
For those interested in my injury, it seems to have been a minor tear that I think occurred towards the end of my warm up. I pulled on a biggish hold and felt a burning sensation. At the time I actually thought I'd just trapped a roll of skin at an odd angle, and carried on training for a full session. The only hint to a problem was that both I and my coach noticed I was significantly down in power on my left side, but didn't really think anything beyond my being tired. Later than evening it started to ache as I cooled, and the injury then woke me up in the night with a gentle throbbing pain which persisted for a couple of days. There was no obvious swelling or bruising at any point.
Treatment was hot bath / cold ice for the first two days. Then I started to introduce cross friction on the point of pain twice a day, as well as the icing. Pain was gone in 4 days. Once the pain was gone, I introduced training on a fat pull up bar so I could continue to work on back and core strength, with the finger taped.
About a week later and after several days of no pain, I had a first climbing session back with my coach where we taped the finger, warmed up carefully, monitored for pain. When that went well, we did an endurance session of 5+ climbing for 8min on / 2 min off. Focus on moving efficiently and obviously never shock loading the finger. Very minor stiffness / discomfort afterwards, but a great training session.
Since then I've had two easy days of outside climbing over about a two week period on grades up to 7a with the finger taped. I've generally avoided half or full crimping the left pointing finger (which was injured), either climbing open handed or using back 3 only. No pain in any of this.
I'll be back in the gym this weekend and will start to increase the workload on the finger carefully. I plan to limit tape usage from here on out. The finger has been pain free for a couple weeks now, so I'm hopeful that catching it early, the immediate slow down and the rehab will see me fully back on the road sooner rather than later.
So much has happened recently, as well as I have so many thoughts about the future, that I feel like I have barely scratched the surface of what I should be writing down. But it will have to do for now.
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