Of Mice and Men

I’ve been totally and completely subsumed into my course and as a consequence, I’ve had next to no time for climbing or much else for that matter. I thought it was a reasonable trade off since I spent years climbing and doing little career-wise. I had to make up for lost time somehow. I even planned for it – I thought the rest would allow my shoulder time to heal properly.

With life being as great as it is, hardly anything worked out as I had hoped. I still feel a million miles away from what I want career wise and my shoulder hates pipetting / writing / typing even more than bouldering and for some odd reason, not climbing at all bothers it more than gentle climbing – how does that work? Argh. I’ve also not had time to do any physio exercises, which hasn’t helped. As soon as I get some spare time, I’m off to the doctors and not leaving until I get this sorted out. Sadly for now it has to wait.

Over the winter I had a few periods of bouldering indoors somewhat regularly, but these sessions would soon be interrupted by a hectic schedule and fall by the wayside. Recently I started mountain biking and cycle commuting again as a means to gain some general fitness in a way that easily fits into my schedule and I’ve also been climbing a few times indoors. I even made it up to the darkest depths of the Churnet for some bouldering one hot weekend. It was however more of an experience in bushwhacking than climbing though and my legs still bear the scars.

The worst thing is that I can’t shake the feeling that this time is different; as if it’s all gone. The usual pattern follows as such after a lay-off: rapid progression from say V3 to V4 and with some effort progression to V5, then plateau and spend ages seeing little improvement. This time ‘round, I seem to be struggling with just getting back to V3 and it’s just slightly irritating. To be fair, I haven’t gone climbing more than two times in a week for months and my mental state isn’t that great (though when is it ever…) which I think plays a large part. Everything just feels so far away from me.

I know that I definitely miss it and need to get it back for lots of reasons. Looking back perhaps it wasn’t the best laid plans…