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Crack (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/2013/09/today-i-broke-my-leg.html)
7 September 2013, 10:11 pm
Today I broke my leg. This is one of my worst nightmares. Right now, I don't even care. I just want them to make it stop hurting. They need to operate and they keep asking me to sign stuff, but I don't care, I'll sign anything. Just please, make it straight so it will fix.
I was climbing at an indoor climbing centre. I'd done the problem so many times before- in fact I'd flashed it. And yet today I was lacking confidence. I'd slightly sprained my right ankle. So because I lacked confidence I'd missed the jump twice.Like always, I jumped on it again without a second's thought. I hit the jugs but my hands didn't quite go in far enough. I couldn't stop the swing, I spun 90° and my hands slipped out. I fell with my hands in front of me and my feet behind me but my left foot was pointed straight down and I barely had time to think.
I probably only fell 6 feet or so but I landed with that foot perpendicular to to ground and there was a sickening snapping sound. I realised that that meant bad, and when my other foot hit the ground I looked down and saw that the left one was just bending underneath me. So I screamed. And then I was on the floor. I screamed a bit more, because I didn't have any other ideas. Then I stopped screaming and yelled because it hurt so much. Another climber came straight away and sat and held it. My boyfriend ran to ask the reception staff to call an ambulance and then he came back and Ali (the boyfriend) and another good friend gave me a hand each to squeeze (can't be good if you're a climber!) and promised they'd stay with me.
After that I kind of stopped bothering with the noise. Nothing I did was going to make things go faster and noise = stress so I behaved myself.
My leg shook. I think the muscles were tired and confused. I wanted to see it. At nobody would let me but I'd seen it already I just wanted to check it was all still there because I couldn't really feel it, I already knew it was totally snapped in two.
The ambulance guys came. I think they were quick. They gave me gas and air and straightened it up. I don't think it hurt any more when they straightened it up, because I was so obsessed by the desire to have it straightened.
We got to A and E finally. The porter wheeling me to have it X-Rayed said "So you're hoping it's not broken then?". I suppose you couldn't tell in the ambulance splint. But I clarified that I was pretty sure it was.
They X-Rayed and said "broken tibia and fibula, needs surgery". At first they said none until Monday, so they put it in a pot. But it was so wonky it was awful.
Fortunately for me they decided it was urgent and rescheduled to Sunday.
How A and E works... in flowchart form. Invaluable.The ambulance people had to cut off my beloved climbing shoes :(
Source: Climbing and Me- A Recovery (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/)
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Surgery (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/2013/10/surgery.html)
8 September 2013, 10:12 pm
They did surgery on Sunday. I don't remember a lot. The pot was very wonky and the doctor was unimpressed but they said since they were operating very soon they would just cut it off. I can't remember the surgery but I remember coming out and yelling and yelling, I was so confused and I couldn't cope with how much my knee hurt and I wasn't sure why.
It must have been a lot more painful than when I'd broken it because the painkillers wouldn't touch it and I'd managed to keep quite then.
Eventually I think I was massively sedated and I don't remember anything until Monday night.
Source: Climbing and Me- A Recovery (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/)
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Why is my knee so sore? I broke my leg low down... (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/2013/09/why-is-my-knee-so-sore-i-broke-my-leg.html)
9 September 2013, 10:13 pm
My knee felt like it was going to explode and I cried until I was too tired to cry anymore and they would not give me morphine- they said breaking your leg didn't cause that much pain so a small dose of codeine would cover it.
It didn't. I've never been in so much pain. Certainly not on Saturday, even before painkillers.
A junior doctor came eventually and said the pain wasn't normal and it needed to be checked over because if there were swelling problems I would lose the use of my leg if they didn't deal with it very quickly. That was at 4pm. I didn't hear from anyone for hours, I still didn't know what surgery I'd had.
Alistair tried to do all of the tests ourselves to see if it was OK because we were worried about what the doctor had said. The nurses tried to make Alistair go home and I was upset so we hid him. Eventually, at midnight, I saw my surgeon who explained what he'd done, that he'd inserted a large titanium rod inside my Tibia and screwed the ends to my ankle and my knee, with three screws in my knee.
He said that it would be very painful and prescribed a lot of painkillers, including morphine. Why could they not have told me that earlier? So much stress.
I wished they could have told me earlier.
I think I saw Ed and Seb today.
Source: Climbing and Me- A Recovery (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/)
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Physio (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/2013/10/physio.html)
10 September 2013, 10:15 pm
I had physio three times today. I stood up twice, with crutches. I am not allowed to weight bear. It is painful, and exhausting. I have stupidly low blood pressure from lying in a bed and standing up is short lived. It's so far from what I'm used to.
Lewis, Jack, Alistair and Ed visited today. I've been so glad of the support from friends and family. It's very comforting.
Source: Climbing and Me- A Recovery (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/)
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Morphine (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/2013/09/there-was-no-physio-today.html)
11 September 2013, 10:16 pm
There was no physio today. I felt a little bit down. I saw Jack, Lewis, Mum, Seb and Ali. That was nice :)
I am sleeping a lot. Life is full of morphine.
My leg is pretty huge...
I think they've done a pretty neat job. Apart from the fact that my knee is so swollen you can barely tell I have one.
Source: Climbing and Me- A Recovery (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/)
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Bad Day (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/2013/09/bad-day.html)
12 September 2013, 10:17 pm
Today I walked to the bathroom with crutches. It is incredibly painful. I am not happy.
Source: Climbing and Me- A Recovery (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/)
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Going Home (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/2013/09/going-home.html)
13 September 2013, 10:20 pm
Today I'm getting out. I didn't realise how badly I wanted to get out. I've been miserable the last couple of days. The pain has been awful the last 24 hours- maybe I did to much physio yesterday. My stupid leg kept waking me up. They're sending me home with morphine and a concoction of pills. I didn't even know you could take morphine home!!!!
We realised I can't go to my flat in Leeds. It's a top floor flat and there is absolutely no way I'd make it up there at the moment. Alistair (who has been incredible in the last week) and I are going to stay at his parents house in Ilkely. I think my parents are happier with that arrangement than us being alone in Leeds.
The doctor I saw said that six weeks of "touch-weight-bearing" actually means six weeks of staying at home. That means missing a lot of uni. I was pretty gutted. I know that sounds nerdy but I love doing my degree, and it's my last year- I want to go out with a (different sort of) bang.
(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-X5faTgNS4Ws/UlxuAwk2ehI/AAAAAAAAADg/UCLRHLX1HQs/s320/Drugs.jpg) (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-X5faTgNS4Ws/UlxuAwk2ehI/AAAAAAAAADg/UCLRHLX1HQs/s1600/Drugs.jpg)
Source: Climbing and Me- A Recovery (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/)
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Office Chairs (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/2013/09/office-chairs.html)
14 September 2013, 10:21 pm
I'm home with Ali. We ended up using a swivel chair with wheels to get ready for bed because I could only make a few steps before I fell over in pain and I just couldn't make it. I thought this was pretty ingenious. My idea, of course.
Things are very painful and I know Ali is worried about how we're going to cope but we'll be OK.
I saw Seb today for a few hours which is nice, but then things all spiralled downwards. The opiates seem to make a mess of a person and the whole night was spent either throwing up everything I'd eaten or with a stomach ache. Alistair looked up tips on heroin websites. They seem to have the same symptoms but a hell of a lot worse. It must suck.
The sickness meant that I didn't take much care of my leg last night so it's pretty sore this morning.
It's only been a week. My god.
Ali is my hero.
Source: Climbing and Me- A Recovery (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/)
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Pick N Mix (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/2013/09/pick-n-mix.html)
15 September 2013, 10:23 pm
It's 1 pm. I finally feel not-sick enough to try to eat. Then I think I'm going to sleep.
All I did today is eat and sleep. Today I ate as much as a small mammal (possibly a raccoon?) which is progress. I blame morphine for this regression as normally I love food.
Davy is here and I feel a bit down I think. I did not realise that breaking your leg would have other repercussions or how much pain there would be and I just want this to be over.
I can pick things off the floor using a special flying technique but Alistair says no, it is too high-risk. I can now lift my knee onto and off the pillows most times and I can bend my knee nearly 70° over the side of the bed which is just so much better than before :-)Davy brought sweets which was a huge success despite the fact that I've not eaten any of the chocolate I now possess (I am broken, clearly).
(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BZ2-IXzmFg8/UlxutymvImI/AAAAAAAAADo/mPDZtB6nVBg/s320/Sweets.jpg) (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BZ2-IXzmFg8/UlxutymvImI/AAAAAAAAADo/mPDZtB6nVBg/s1600/Sweets.jpg)
Source: Climbing and Me- A Recovery (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/)
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Challenges (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/2013/09/challenges.html)
16 September 2013, 10:24 pm
Today I had the first shower since I broke by leg. I mean, I'd washed... but not my hair. :-P
I would say it's nice to be clean but I'm in a foul mood. All I ever want to do is sleep and I'm absolutely sick of it. I want the pain to go away so I can stop taking the sodding painkillers, so I can stop bloody sleeping. I just feel like a complete waste of space- I'm normally such a machine (though I say so myself).
I wanted to do some work today and I just can't concentrate. I know University hasn't officially started yet but if I don't use my brain I swear it will die.
I don't know why I'm so fed up today. I mean, it's not like I have to do anything. I keep dreaming that my leg is broken but I've got to the point that I can walk on it- sometimes with crutches, sometimes without.
That sucks.
I can't drink tea or coffee at all without feeling horribly sick which is a shame because coffee is one of my favourite things. Grump Grump.
Source: Climbing and Me- A Recovery (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/)
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Going Out (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/2013/09/going-out.html)
17 September 2013, 10:24 pm
We went to see the GP today. I actually crutched my furthest yet. Including stairs.
I think it did me good to get out, even just to the health centre. I've been happier today- and I've been getting hungry! It's all good.
The best thing is I saw a nurse and she's taking the staples out on Friday! :-) I'm pretty excited about that.
Tramadol continues to provide me with enforced napping but to be honest I prefer napping to being awake but with a mushy brain.
Source: Climbing and Me- A Recovery (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/)
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A New Day (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/2013/10/a-new-day.html)
18 September 2013, 10:26 pm
Today I woke up feeling terrible. I used ice, then I still felt terrible. I took Tramadol, and still felt terrible. I realised I needed to pull.I did 5 pull-ups. With a lot of spotting from Alistair. My leg hates being that way up but let's face it it's no worse than crutching and it's not actually doing it any harm so I wish it'd bloody stop complaining.
But my god it felt good. It only took 5 pull ups after 11 days of being climbing clean and I could feel the hit starting to make me smile. This has to be addiction.
I guess 5 pull ups felt so great because it's been a while since I last climbed. Ah yes.
I did two more sets. Today feels big :)
It was pretty tiring though...
Caught unawares looking peeved...
With careful spotting...
It was hard to know what to do with my legs at the bottom of the pull-up...
Source: Climbing and Me- A Recovery (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/)
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Frustration (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/2013/09/frustration.html)
19 September 2013, 10:27 pm
I don't know why anyone gets addicted to morphine. I hate it. It has a bunch of horrible side effects and it makes me feel crap. The sooner I can boot it the better.
Today is frustrating because I'm absolutely knackered and as far as I can see the only things I've done in the last couple of days are a few pull-ups and a trip to the pick'n'mix section of Tesco (oh God I miss Woolworth's) due to a recent pick'n'mix addiction.
Unfortunately the challenge to ditch the morphine failed when I fell over and landed on my leg earlier.
I guess you can't win everyday. At least there will always be pick'n'mix...
Source: Climbing and Me- A Recovery (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/)
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35 Staples (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/2013/09/35-staples.html)
20 September 2013, 10:28 pm
Today the staples were removed. There were more than I'd realised and I was absurdly proud of this number. Not bad, I thought.
As if it were a personal achievement.
Staple removing works as follows:
It's a clever little snippy set of pliers which in theory makes staple removal quick and easy.
The ones in my knee were pretty bent and required some wiggling to remove but overall the whole experience was relatively painless. I'm not sure what I was expecting but things feel much the same as before to be honest.
After the epic single-day ascent of the stairs up to the doctors' surgery I came home and slept all day. Still too tired for pull-ups. I really want to do more pull-ups but waiting around has never been my forte. SOON, I hope.
The most exciting news of the day is that there will be bacon for dessert. Mmm.
Knee Staples Gone...
and Ankle Staples Gone!
Source: Climbing and Me- A Recovery (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/)
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Coffee (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/2013/09/coffee.html)
21 September 2013, 10:30 pm
I realised this morning the range of motion in my knee is almost acceptable from crutching it around the range of motion in my ankle is crap, so I guess I should gently try and get things moving. 10 days ago though I couldn't move my own leg at all, someone else would have to lift it for me- and now I can get into bed and out again onto crutches. Progress!
Louis the bear has taken on the role of dispensing morphine as a 300ml bottle has just been opened. A lot of responsibility for a bear.
Pharmacist Louis
I slept for 21 hours out of 24 yesterday and last night. That is a personal record- a phenomenal amount of sleep. In fact, that is MORE than a male lion sleeps (20/24 hours, they're pretty lazy). I also had the first coffee in a week this morning- it finally doesn't make me feel sick, YAY! Oh coffee, I've missed you.
Alistair's 5-year old nephew came over as Superman and proceeded to thrash me at SNAP. Can I blame opiates for this? The next game he let me win... I don't know how to feel about that.
Just did 6 , 7, 8 pull-ups, WOOP :-)
Lazy
Source: Climbing and Me- A Recovery (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/)
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Rainbows and Sunshine (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/2013/10/rainbows-and-sunshine.html)
22 September 2013, 10:33 pm
I want to write positive and motivated stuff every day. But part of the reason I started blogging about breaking my leg and the subsequent recovery was so that other climbers would maybe find it helpful one day.
And I don't feel positive and motivated today. Yesterday, I got some emails sent and some pull-ups done, and even some physics, and I felt like I'd done really well. But today I'm paying for it. I'm really tired, but I can't sleep. I can't eat because I have horrible indigestion from lying down too much. My leg hurts more than yesterday. But the worst thing about today is that when I close my eyes I can see my leg breaking underneath me, I can hear it snap and I can hear myself scream.
I guess that will fade away with time. But at the moment something will often remind me and I can't help it. So I feel down today.
But the good thing about today is that I have good friends and family, who are there for me. I'm glad about that.
Source: Climbing and Me- A Recovery (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/)
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Poorly Prepared (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/2013/09/poorly-prepared.html)
23 September 2013, 10:34 pm
Apparently the heartburn is caused by the anti-inflammatory, Diclofenac.
They send you home with Morphine, which pretty much always causes constipation and sickness, but nothing for the side effects.
They send you home with Diclofenac, whose continued use causes stomach and esophageal problems such as ulcers, but nothing to protect the stomach.
I mean, there are side effects which are unlikely, and side effects which are pretty much guaranteed. It would have been nice to be a bit better prepared for the latter.
It feels like it's side effect after side effect at the moment. I'm hoping the protein-inhibitor I've now been prescribed will make it possible to eat soon and actually enjoy food. Until then, I will probably sulk. :-/
Source: Climbing and Me- A Recovery (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/)
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Custard (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/2013/09/custard.html)
24 September 2013, 10:35 pm
After a rough few days of really struggling to eat anything at all, I got pretty fed up. I was also worried that my body might try to eat my arms. And I love food :(
I couldn't crutch as far and pull-ups were off the cards. As a very pro-active person I was finding the whole situation frustrating. Not to mention painful.
A visit to a local GP suggested that the stupid diclofenac had caused some sort of inflammation (oesophagitis) which was making things very painful. So further antacids and protein pump inhibitor have been provided to allow it to calm down- so now I just have to wait.
And I'm certainly not taking anymore diclofenac.
Custard has proved itself to be the least painful thing to eat. Yay for custard!
Source: Climbing and Me- A Recovery (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/)
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Cow and Calf (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/2013/09/cow-and-calf.html)
26 September 2013, 10:36 pm
I went to the Cow and Calf with Alistair in the evening. He wanted to go climbing, and I was missing the rocks. I thought it would be so hard to watch him climb and know I couldn't- but I found myself rooting for him. If I can't do the thing that I love so much, I can at least steal some of his pleasure.
Coveting the rock... I'd like a go
It was cold, but I really enjoyed it. Though the calf is very close to the car park, the crutching was hard work and I have to confess to a small rest on a bench halfway there- although not on the way back.
It is great to be outdoors, there's nothing quite as good.
Ilkley Quarry
I even managed to eat a bacon sandwich in the evening- the most I've eaten all week- which was great. I'm still not strong enough for pull-ups after so many days of fasting but soon I'll be back on it, I know it.
(http://climbingandme.blog.com/files/2013/09/20130924_190130-1102x350.jpg)
Source: Climbing and Me- A Recovery (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/)
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Pie and Pull-ups (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/2013/09/pie-and-pull-ups.html)
27 September 2013, 10:38 pm
Finally eating is possible and, after an excellent dinner, 24 pull-ups were achieved (not in one go...). Fewer painkillers too. Yay!
Source: Climbing and Me- A Recovery (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/)
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Coffee and Cake (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/2013/09/coffee-and-cake.html)
28 September 2013, 10:39 pm
I went into Ilkley today, to have coffee. It's not such a big thing to do, but it's the most I've travelled on the crutches yet. It was nice to have some time in the sunshine.
I've been thinking about climbing a lot recently. Now that I'm eating I think it won't be long before I can start thinking about training. There's no real access to a fingerboard here but I'll be spending next week nearer a fingerboard and I think, with a good spotter, it will be a lot of fun.
To think I hated fingerboarding...
Source: Climbing and Me- A Recovery (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/)
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One Step(!) Closer (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/2013/09/one-step-closer.html)
29 September 2013, 10:39 pm
And by step, I don't really mean step. Not yet. BUT, I tell you- FOOD, it's GREAT for recovery. I can thoroughly recommend it for any climbers who gave it up years ago.
I totalled myself yesterday crutching round Ilkley- blisters on my hands, leg pain all night. But post breakfast, I was more than ready to 'train' for the first time. Good old brekkers.
I started my third-year project too, might as well use this "bed rest" to get ahead with the physics- I'll need the time for more, ahem, pressing issues come spring.
So the first real training session was nothing special, but I began it with a pull-ups personal best, which was pretty exciting. Then I even did some offset pull-ups, and a few press-ups.
On a totally useless training tangent, I also thought I'd have a go at doing a one-legged squat, which went well. If you're going to be unbalanced, strength wise, what the hell- might as well do it properly.
Feeling Psyched!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Source: Climbing and Me- A Recovery (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/)
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Impatience (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/2013/09/impatience.html)
30 September 2013, 10:41 pm
I so badly miss climbing.
I want to train, so that I'll miss it just a little bit less.
But with not being able to weight-bear at all, I can't train independently, in case I lose balance stepping off a fingerboard.
I could go to a climbing wall- there'd be plenty of kind-hearted climbers who'd give me a 5-minute spot, but I can't get there without a lift.
Tomorrow is a progress check at LGI. Fingers crossed...
Source: Climbing and Me- A Recovery (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/)
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Little Things Taking Ages (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/2013/10/little-things-taking-ages.html)
2 October 2013, 10:42 pm
Ali headed back to Sheffield today. I had no idea how hard it would be to do all the things I normally do. Drawing the curtains, plugging things in, remembering to pack every little thing I'll need for the day in a rucksack before I go downstairs, or upstairs, or into the next room. Training isn't even possible.
It hurts more than recently because some things are just downright impossible to do without accidentally knocking my leg, and even though it's now protected it's not used to this much activity.
Alistair's parents have been amazing- cooking and helping me out. But everything feels so hard. I barely have time to try and work through the lectures that I'm missing. I felt like a baby when I went to bed and cried, but I missed Ali's emotional support and I wanted to do so much more than I can.
I meant to blog about yesterday's (slightly discouraging) hospital appointment. But I'm too tired, so tomorrow.
Source: Climbing and Me- A Recovery (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/)
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Three Week Waypoint (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/2013/10/three-week-waypoint.html)
3 October 2013, 10:43 pm
The appointment with a registrar at LGI brought mixed results.
I'm not sure what I was expecting but I have to admit to being slightly disappointed when I walked(!) in and the latest x-ray was on screen. It looks exactly the same as three weeks ago!
"It's too early to see any kind of bone growth yet" explained Mr Whatever-his-name-was. I wasn't impressed by that. I've spent the best past of three weeks doing nothing BUT growing the damn things.
So I dared to ask him about timescales. It had to be done. He explained that the weight-bearing process occurs incrementally over about 4 months, and I can expect to climb on it after about 8 months. That part of the consultation hit me pretty hard. I hadn't really thought beyond the six weeks of not weight bearing and I realised that 8 months... well that brings me to May 2014! That's a long time. I realised I was going to have to be really motivated to train in any way possible other than climbing... that is to solely fingerboard and do pull-ups... without destroying my fingers/elbows/shoulders.
The positive result was that I was provided with a very nice protective boot to keep my leg in which is nice as it's protected from being knocked. I also felt incredibly vulnerable when I left the house as the only sign that it's broken is a couple of scars. I was scared people would knock accidentally it not realizing the situation. It is now unmistakable from great distances.
I got home from the appointment feeling pretty rubbish about things. I really had no idea that it was even possible to break it that badly doing what I was doing. 8 months feels like a very long time, and I struggle with the platitude "It'll be over before you know it", because the last three weeks has gone pretty slowly...
Nice warm boot...
Source: Climbing and Me- A Recovery (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/)
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Controlling Relationship [with Climbing] (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/2013/10/controlling-relationship-with-climbing.html)
5 October 2013, 10:45 pm
Why do I feel the need to train? Will it make a difference long term? Who do I think I am, obsessing about training anyway?
Well. It sure as hell won't make a difference long term. I mean, yeah, I had short term goals- but what's a year of my life?
I wondered about these questions. But I've finally worked it out.
It's 'training' because lets face it, rocking a broken leg, it's the nearest to climbing I'll get.
Long term, I don't mind the loss of progression time. I'm 22! That's one of the best things about climbing... you can just go on forever.
What do I actually want out of this training? Massive strength gains? No. What I want is that feel-good, feeling tired, putting physical effort in endorphin buzz. Doing something linked to my favourite activity.
That is what will keep me happy. Is that actually training? I suppose in the sense that it's inevitibly structured being fingerboarding. But it's not training in the "this'll gonna be the real deal, I'm gonna be STRONG MAN" sense. It's more of a mad, "LETMEGOCLIMBINGORI'LLSCREAM", psychological dependancy sense.
And that's the thing about climbing isn't it? You think you're strong, but then it ensnares you and you realise you're a slave to it...
Just to clarify though, this IS gonna be the real deal.
p.s. An electron is driving down a motorway, and a policeman pulls him over. The policeman says: “Sir, do you realise you were travelling at 130 miles per hour?” The electron says: “Oh great, now I’m lost.”
Source: Climbing and Me- A Recovery (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/)
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Baby Steps (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/2013/10/baby-steps.html)
6 October 2013, 10:46 pm
Finally a training setup is starting to take shape! After an afternoon of toil, my awesome boyfriend (with the help of an awesome friend) has made a doorframe-friendly mount with interchangeable front panels for more than one fingerboard.
Being suitably Manly
Had a quick go tonight. Excited!
Source: Climbing and Me- A Recovery (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/)
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The Climbing Community (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-climbing-community.html)
9 October 2013, 10:46 pm
Before I broke my leg, I'd always thought the so-called 'climbing community' was great. Lots of like minded yet different people who for the most part get on well.
But I have to say, despite the fact that I've met a lot of people through climbing who have become great friends, I had no idea how kind and encouraging people I've not met would be.
And it's really helped me not just to survive the first few weeks of being broken, but to feel happy and positive.
When you're really into something like climbing (and this must be true for any sport) you feel like the people who can most understand the situation are the people who do the same sport.
There are a huge number of people that I'd like to thank for making me smile, so in no particular order:
Thank you to the UKB (http://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php) admins for making my blog do the thing... I didn't even know what an rss feed was... and for their words of encouragement. And to everyone who reads it so I feel like someone's listening to me vent (unless it's one person reading it repeatedly in which case thank you for pretending to listen). Thank you for the kind comments from UKB-ers especially regarding timescales and for not laughing at me for writing 'another climbing blog'.
Also thank you to my employers at the Depot (http://www.theclimbingdepot.co.uk/), my absolute favourite climbing centre ever, for not minding that I just abandoned ship (the day before a shift!). I've loved working there from the start and I couldn't be employed by a better company. And to the other staff at the depot for being great friends, and the climbers that make up the Depot community who have also been very supportive. I'll be sad to miss the Battle of Britain in Notts (http://www.theclimbingdepot.co.uk/nottingham) on the 19th, it looks like it's going to be flipping awesome.
Thanks to Alistair for the days spent in the garage building a Super Duper Gucci fingerboard mount, and to Alistair and Seb for helping me train. Watching someone fingerboard... it doesn't get much more exciting than that!
In addition, thank you to Tim Wager of Wagerholds (http://www.wagerholds.com/) for kindly providing me with a couple of really nice wooden edges to hang off.
Thank you to Beyond Hope (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Beyond-Hope-Climbing/170665536356137) for taking pity on me and providing me with a couple of excellent Metolius (http://www.metoliusclimbing.com/) fingerboards (http://www.metoliusclimbing.com/training-boards.html) that I otherwise would not have been able to own, as well as some Grip Savers (http://www.metoliusclimbing.com/grip_saver_plus.html) (warming up on a fingerboard. Well, normally I'd boulder for 20 minutes. Ha!) and some prAna (http://www.prana.com/) clothes. It was incredibly generous, and certainly cheered me up. I thank you from the bottom of my average forearms. That and the mount have left me with so much training scope that the door frame has essentially turned into a footless indoor climbing wall. It's brilliant! Pictures of the training setup (and me happily flailing) will follow.
Revering the Metolius Contact Board. And what a beast it is! Yet surprisingly light... Artistically directed by Sebastian Smith.
And thank you to Tom Randall (http://tomrandallclimbing.wordpress.com/coaching/), who I went to see for training ideas a month or so ago and who helped me to write an excellent training plan that I embarked on a week before I broke my leg. Thanks for the enthusiasm in finding ways to do all sorts of things on a fingerboard and for making me feel like I can still do a whole lot provided I can find the motivation, and thanks for the ongoing support. I can do motivated, but that's not a lot of use without knowing how to train!
My family and friends have also been amazing. My parents 'popped up to Leeds' from Bristol to take me to lunch. Pretty awesome.
So that's it really for today,
And thank you :)
Source: Climbing and Me- A Recovery (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/)
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Training (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/2013/10/training.html)
13 October 2013, 10:48 pm
Today was a training day. I've been trying out different holds on different boards and I have to say, that although the Metolius contact board is enormous, there really isn't any wasted space.
I know writing a review when I've been given the board might arise suspicion but the board has a huge number of edges (half pad, 1 pad, 2 pads...), four depths of pockets, variable slopers, variable pinches (which are more than just a gimmick- you can make them pretty hard to hold if you hold them low down). Because there are so many different depths of edges, progression isn't a problem either. It's got over 30 holds, if you only count variable holds as one.
Ali was proud of his lighting solution- the bouldering lantern...
It's an absolute treasure trove of a fingerboard. When your skin dies on the edges, you can move onto the slopers. And for me, there are still holds that I can't hang and certainly wouldn't use for several seconds so there's plenty of room for improvement.
The one thing about the Metolius contact that annoyed me when I was trying to buy one was the lack of information about hold depths and decent in-depth reviews so I'll write up a technical review of it in the next week or so.
If you lock off high enough- you get to wear the lampshade!
So I've had a great time on the board. I've really enjoyed the training too. One thing I've noticed though, about the training, is how tiring it is. I mean, with shorter times to achieve the same things, you expect high intensity on a fingerboard of course. But it's the level of overall exhaustion afterwards that seems to go more with the broken leg than the climbing. And in that sense I can understand why it's important to be careful training with an injury. If everyday life is tiring, you'd expect to be floored by something you'd find tiring normally I guess.
But a week after I've started getting back into things, I'm feeling pretty positive :)
Deadhangs. The crutches make a really useful phone stand
Source: Climbing and Me- A Recovery (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/)
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Keeping Up (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/2013/10/keeping-up.html)
14 October 2013, 10:49 pm
One of the things I've found difficult about the broken leg is knowing how much I can actually do, and how much to reasonably expect from myself.
The days I've felt good, I've tried to fill, but then I feel worse the next day.
It would be lovely if all I had to think about was finger boarding and fixing my leg, and I realised that those things are all I've blogged about. But this blog was supposed to be useful for anyone else injured and if I read this, I'd probably think "Well this is great, but it's not like you've got anything else to keep up with".
I'm a student. But before you think "Ha! Then it's not like...", it's not quite that simple. Physics isn't a particularly soft option, and the fact that I don't have to be in university to study is as much a curse as a blessing. The difficulty is that although the university knows I'm broken, there's only so much concession that can be made. Extensions to deadlines still have to fit in with the rest of the year and in order to do well I really need to keep up while I'm away. And with a science subject, it's a lot easier if you can try to understand things by discussing them with friends.
Studying from home has really been the main source of stress in the broken leg situation. Everything takes longer with the broken leg and most of my time is spent on physics. I miss the sleeping!
One thing about having to fingerboard though is that owing to higher intensity, training takes up a lot less time. Which is just as well, really. I have no idea where that time used to come from.
Source: Climbing and Me- A Recovery (http://climbingandme.blogspot.com/)
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Touching Base (http://www.climbingandme.com/2013/10/touching-base.html)
16 October 2013, 10:53 pm
As the number of lectures I am behind slowly but surely piled up, the need to at least meet up with my project supervisor at university became increasingly pressing.
So I went to university. This, like everything in the last few weeks was much more of an undertaking than I'd imagined. I saw my project supervisor briefly, saw my personal tutor equally briefly, collected some notes and crossed the university campus twice. The whole thing took nearly three hours. And I'd got a lift to uni and back.
The biggest problem was that it took nearly 20 minutes to cover the distance which is equivalent to the distance between two lectures (most of which are back-to-back). And this was when the corridors were empty. I realised that I'm going to have to carry on having my own little personal university and bedroom lab, and that going to university will have to be pretty selective until I can put a lot more weight (than the current amount- none) on my leg.
Blah.
There was more training today though. And here's what I thought of the Metolius Contact:
Source: Climbing and Me - A Recovery (http://www.climbingandme.com/)
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Frequent users of the "Urban Dictionary" may have expected more from today's title. Not me, obviously.
Nice review, Lisa. Very luxurious hair, too.
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Acceptance (http://www.climbingandme.com/2013/10/acceptance.html)
20 October 2013, 7:53 pm
When I wrote to my tutor at the beginning of the academic year, I said and thought two completely different things. In my email to the university tutor, I wrote about how having a broken leg and taking strong painkillers would make it harder to study and would inevitably have an effect.However, in my head I thought that it would be the same studying at home as if I went to university and that keeping up would be no problem.
But I'm starting to realise that it's just not possible to get as much work done as I would have done otherwise. I spend all my time trying to do physics, but I just can't keep up. I think that the university will make allowances for this with deadline extensions and so on, but I certainly hadn't been making allowances for it.
As a result I'm completely exhausted and demotivated this week, after trying to study nearly every day.
For some reason I had accepted that my climbing will take a hit, and hadn't felt the need to feel guilty about it- perhaps because it's a physical thing, like breaking a leg.
Source: Climbing and Me - A Recovery (http://www.climbingandme.com/)
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I don't know if you read here Lisa but if you were one of my students I'd have urged you to give serious thought to suspending studies for a year. I still would. I know it can seem like a massive step back but is often the right decision in the long run.
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I don't know if you read here Lisa but if you were one of my students I'd have urged you to give serious thought to suspending studies for a year. I still would. I know it can seem like a massive step back but is often the right decision in the long run.
Like Andy I'm another senior (in rank rather than general character!) University academic - and if you want any advice about this or someone to sound some ideas off - feel free to DM me...
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Likewise
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I don't know if you read here Lisa but if you were one of my students I'd have urged you to give serious thought to suspending studies for a year. I still would. I know it can seem like a massive step back but is often the right decision in the long run.
Like Andy I'm another senior (in rank rather than general character!) University academic - and if you want any advice about this or someone to sound some ideas off - feel free to DM me...
I appreciate this and will be in touch. Thanks :)
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Six Weeks (http://www.climbingandme.com/2013/10/six-weeks.html)
23 October 2013, 9:35 pm
I saw a specialist for the six week (and two days) mark yesterday. This was well timed as I'd allowed myself to get pretty fed up. I was missing climbing, and fed up with having a sore leg, and generally losing motivation.
But the specialist seemed happy with the X-rays and said that hopefully walking with crutches for balance should commence in another 6 weeks. For now I'm allowed to slowly begin partial weight bearing, which has made balancing slightly easier. I'm still getting blisters on my hands because although I made some nice foamy handles for my crutches, the foam has slowly died to the point where it is now paper-thin. I have ordered some rowing grips. Hopefully these will be as 'oarsome' as their brand name... ;-)
It was actually going to the Depot that cheered me up and got me feeling motivated again. Most of my friends are there and six weeks seems a long time to be away. Though slightly intimated to be in a climbing centre at first (mostly because I felt like I stuck out like a sore thumb, and people kept rudely falling off climbs as though it were completely normal to do so) I didn't get as envious as I thought I would.
It did, however, prove impossible not to do any training at all. A few pull ups were done, and some aptly named dead hangs (I wished I was by the end of the set...) and I felt pretty good :-)
I guess I need to get myself to the climbing centre more then.
I discovered I can feel the screw heads in my ankle. It is my new favourite thing to show to squeamish people. I want to know though, are they slotted or phillips?
[tr][td](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6YZBD6F3lDI/UmhAbHrJwoI/AAAAAAAAAFw/Q3ZaMonNBIE/s320/screwhead_001.jpg) (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6YZBD6F3lDI/UmhAbHrJwoI/AAAAAAAAAFw/Q3ZaMonNBIE/s1600/screwhead_001.jpg)[/td][/tr][tr][td]I reckon Phillips[/td][/tr]
[/table]
Source: Climbing and Me - A Recovery (http://www.climbingandme.com/)
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Chapter Five (http://www.climbingandme.com/2013/10/chapter-five.html)
28 October 2013, 5:53 pm
Today has been the hardest day since breaking my leg. You see, I can divide my recovery so far into four parts:
The floor of the climbing centre,
The hospital,
Alistair's parents' house in Ilkley and
Leeds with Alistair
Things have been hard, of course, at different points in those four stages. But I've never been alone. I've always been able to hold Ali's, or someone I love's, hand at the start and end of each day. And though I'm very lucky to have Alistair, I'm perhaps unlucky in the sense that in the four years we've been "going out" with each other, we've never yet had a chance to live together. We're both students working towards that end.
And what's so very hard about stage 5 is that at some point, Ali had to return to Sheffield to carry on with his own life, and I had to learn to reclaim my independence. It won't be the first time I've learned this- I suppose it was the same when I left home for the first time. But this time feels a good deal scarier.
So while people I know have said I've been brave, and done well- I haven't really. I haven't had to cope on my own and although I have friends, I will- for the first time since I broke my leg- have to completely run my own life. Now is when being brave starts.
And I think that doing that with a broken leg is probably the hardest thing I've ever found myself up against. I still feel so vulnerable, without complete physical health. And so isolated from the real world.
I know that in theory I could get on a train and see Alistair tonight. But we both know that in practice I can't. Because unless I wait until I'm fully mobile, which could be a while, it's not going to get easier to start on my own no matter how long I leave it.
It's not just not having Ali around to help that will be hard. I'll miss the opportunities having a car around gave me to get out of the house during the week to places that I just can't get to on crutches. I'll miss the swimming too. And of course, I'll miss living with the person I've wanted to live with for years now anyway.
I hope I can do it.
Source: Climbing and Me - A Recovery (http://www.climbingandme.com/)
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How not to get fat and weak with a broken leg (http://www.climbingandme.com/2013/10/how-not-to-get-fat-and-weak-with-broken.html)
31 October 2013, 10:13 pm
- Crutch half as far as you'd normally walk.
- Fingerboard.
That's pretty much it. I'm knackered most of the time from crutching and healing but somehow my life is working out just fine and I'm as happy as I've been since before I broke it. It's not because I'm being super-positive. There are some moments I just want to throw my crutches on the floor, stamp my right foot (well, hop) and cry. And indeed I do, more often than I'd care to let anyone see.
But just recently some little changes have been happening in my recovery that have put me on top of the world. First of all, I can feel myself putting more and more weight on my leg when I crutch. I stand on two feet without crutches now- which is SO much easier in so many ways. OK, so it's not 50/50 and I'm marooned, but it's a start. My triceps are more efficient and crutching is slightly easier*.
When I think about the day it happened too much, I'm able to really look at how far I've come. At how, incredibly after only two weeks after physio exercises, I'm now maybe 2 degrees off straightening my knee, not 15. There's a long way to go, but these changes happened at a time when I really, REALLY needed to see some improvement.
I've also been to a few lectures. Now, I'm not the most enthusiastic in a lecture. Don't get me wrong, I do care about my degree- but I don't ever really fancy a nice lecture. But I'm absolutely loving the normality. Going to the lectures gives me a buzz, it's a real shame it'll wear off in a couple of weeks! I suppose I'm cherry picking lectures too, on the basis that dragging myself up the hill to university 5 days a week is still too much for my triceps and/or leg.
This week's been a week of training. Shoulders were fairly insistent. Who am I to refuse them, the poor dears?
*Ah, crutching. It's fair to say that I've never hated an inanimate object as much as I hate those crutches. I hate them with a passion. Perhaps it's because they've come to symbolise everything I hate about having a broken leg. A loss of freedom, a tiring method of moving around, and the sodding untangling of arms every time I want to put them down. None of these suit someone as impatient as me. Mostly, it's because they're not as good as walking.
Source: Climbing and Me - A Recovery (http://www.climbingandme.com/)
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lovely post, Lisa.
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Six Weeks (http://www.climbingandme.com/2013/10/six-weeks.html)
23 October 2013, 9:35 pm
I discovered I can feel the screw heads in my ankle. It is my new favourite thing to show to squeamish people. I want to know though, are they slotted or Philips?
Most are hex socket or star drive nowadays.
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One Crutch (http://www.climbingandme.com/2013/11/one-crutch.html)
7 November 2013, 10:33 pm
I went to see the physio today- and she took away one of my crutches! Well, she tried. I wouldn't quite let go. So now I'm just using one!
It's a revelation. I can carry tea... and plates... and anything you can carry or use with just one hand. I had no idea how much difference it would make. Nor how much weight I was allowed to bear. On the other hand, the amount of walking I have to do to get around lectures all day is too much for just using one crutch at the moment and just hurts, so I'm sort of swapping between 2 and 1.
I love physio exercises, it's like training for climbing- if you put enough hours doing the right things in, it's so rewarding. My knee does the thing that knees do now!
The screws hurt though... :(
Source: Climbing and Me - A Recovery (http://www.climbingandme.com/)
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One Crutch (http://www.climbingandme.com/2013/11/one-crutch.html)
7 November 2013, 10:33 pm
I went to see the physio today- and she took away one of my crutches! Well, she tried. I wouldn't quite let go. So now I'm just using one!
Snap! I'm 8 weeks post op today, with a much less severe injury by the sounds of it (fractured calcanium), so you must be doing OK. You'll be one-footed bouldering before you know it :)
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Top-Roping (http://www.climbingandme.com/2013/11/top-roping.html)
8 November 2013, 9:00 pm
I went for my first top-roping session today.
[tr][td](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QaWMG--Qaz8/UnwdfA0nJ4I/AAAAAAAAAGY/dkp7V7AbTWc/s320/P1010438-1.jpg) (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QaWMG--Qaz8/UnwdfA0nJ4I/AAAAAAAAAGY/dkp7V7AbTWc/s1600/P1010438-1.jpg)[/td][/tr][tr][td]Checking I'd tied in properly...[/td][/tr]
[/table]
I guess I'll start with fear. Was I scared? Not when I was climbing. I was very intimidated by the main wall at the foundry- but if I'm honest with myself it always makes me feel small! Had I not known my belayer so well, I might have been scared. But Ali's been my climbing partner longer than we've been going out. I knew he'd look out for me. The other thing was- I've never been hurt top-roping, and it's not much like bouldering!
[tr][td](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-N-HSYwvtsD8/Unwd1b3HHoI/AAAAAAAAAG0/7St363DXOvc/s640/P1010445-3.jpg) (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-N-HSYwvtsD8/Unwd1b3HHoI/AAAAAAAAAG0/7St363DXOvc/s1600/P1010445-3.jpg)[/td][/tr][tr][td]The level of knee-bend achieved here is, if I say so myself, pretty amazing![/td][/tr]
[/table]Although I wasn't scared I was, as I say, very intimidated. There was certainly some nervous chattering to myself as I embarked across the roof of the Foundry main wall. One thing it put into perspective was my psychological need to wear down turned shoes on steep indoor ground. The boot was so useless, that although my other shoe was a size too big, I found it would stand on almost anything.
[tr][td](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oB6n6JmBLIs/UnwdoqjhlII/AAAAAAAAAIA/SnDcQDfEQh8/s400/P1010440-1.jpg) (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oB6n6JmBLIs/UnwdoqjhlII/AAAAAAAAAIA/SnDcQDfEQh8/s1600/P1010440-1.jpg)[/td][/tr][tr][td]This was optimistically taken before I realised that this
wasn't a function available to my left leg
and just took it off the wall and pulled instead.[/td][/tr]
[/table]
In many ways, it wasn't anything like climbing as I know it. The movement was totally different, I didn't know how to use my foot- because even though it can't do a huge amount, it could certainly have borne more of my weight than it did. But it was a good laugh, and I can only improve.
[tr][td](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GnHTMNK8_Cg/UnweCW2TqlI/AAAAAAAAAHI/w5bj4B4whBE/s640/P1010452-5.jpg) (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GnHTMNK8_Cg/UnweCW2TqlI/AAAAAAAAAHI/w5bj4B4whBE/s1600/P1010452-5.jpg)[/td][/tr][tr][td]A more honest portrayal of my 'footwork'[/td][/tr]
[/table]I managed a rather nice pink and purple spotty jug route though ;)
For now, at least, top-roping will remain a game. I'm not ready for training with feet. But it's nice to be able to do something else.
Source: Climbing and Me - A Recovery (http://www.climbingandme.com/)
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One or Two? (http://www.climbingandme.com/2013/11/one-or-two.html)
9 November 2013, 2:39 pm
I'm not sure I'm totally enamored with using one crutch. For one thing, it's extremely slow and makes me feel about a million years old. It also hurts my knee and ankle.
I had to get my housemate to rescue me by bringing a second crutch to university (I'm glad I didn't let the physio take it away) because it hurt too much after a while.
He was very excited and asked to be blogged about... perhaps he hasn't realised how small the blog is :D
I wonder if the physio just doesn't know how much walking between lectures there is compared with being in an office? Or perhaps I showed off too much...
Source: Climbing and Me - A Recovery (http://www.climbingandme.com/)
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Déjà vu (http://www.climbingandme.com/2013/11/deja-vu.html)
11 November 2013, 11:05 pm
Crutches...and rain...are a terrible mix. They seem to think, the University of Leeds, that a horrendous combination of rubber and lino floors are a great idea. Yes, maybe they last longer. Yes, I'm sure they clean better. But for anyone less than steady on their feet- or even in a rush- they're an absolute nightmare when wet. Think climbing shoes on snow.
I've nearly slipped plenty of times, and it's pretty scary. But today both crutches slipped in opposite directions leaving me to slam straight down onto the booted leg. Which was pretty shit.
Fortunately there's a massive titanium rod in it this time, so the déjà vu ended there. But aside from pain, it was incredibly frustrating. I'm so careful, I put so much effort into the physio, I try so hard to get everything right- and then this. If I'd done it fingerboarding, I'd never fingerboard until it was better. But I was walking between lectures. I can't not live until I don't need crutches.
Stupid rain, Stupid floors.
Source: Climbing and Me - A Recovery (http://www.climbingandme.com/)
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Stupid Rain, Stupid Floors (http://www.climbingandme.com/2013/11/stupid-rain-stupid-floors.html)
13 November 2013, 10:40 pm
As I had no lectures on Tuesday, I'd decided to spend Monday night in Sheffield with Alistair. We talked about the fall in the wet and decided hopefully things would start hurting less soon.
On Tuesday afternoon I decided that, on the basis that I'd gone from taking no painkillers to a fair few, and couldn't weight bear, I quite fancied an x-ray.
So we popped to A&E for the evening at Northern General. Of course, we packed sweets knowing the wait in store (yes, there is a clearly emerging pattern of turning to sweets in times of distress. I have no regrets). They were quite happy to x-ray my leg; however our luck ended there.
The doctor had a look at the X-rays and took them to her senior, who looked at them and exclaimed 'Two MONTHS? That doesn't look like a two month old fracture! They said that they'd send a pigeon to Leeds who could organise a visit to fracture clinic within the next week, but warned me that pigeons sometimes get lost so I should chase it up.
So on Thursday afternoon, having spent all of Wednesday in a Tramadol-induced haze, I went to LGI. With a different friend this time, and different snacks.
A&E is a funny place. I'd only ever seen it from the ambulance side. But in the waiting room, it's just like being on a bus. Everyone seems so... normal. I mean, there's the odd person you can tell isn't quite OK, like the guy who held an oiled rag to his motorbike chain, thinking that if he ran the bike it would oil it so much faster, now holding that same rag stained red*. But some couples you can't even tell who it is. The anorexic girl and her nice-looking boyfriend, who are they actually here for? The two girls talking about 'real hair hair extensions' and their relative quality, are they just pretending to be OK or have they got the wrong place?
Leeds decided they'd send me to fracture clinic on Monday, and told me to just keep taking painkillers.
There was a very nice radiology student though. I liked him. Not as much as Alistair, obviously.
*Don't worry, he walked out with both hands, and even both thumbs. Minus a little bit. Plus a lot of gauze.
Source: Climbing and Me - A Recovery (http://www.climbingandme.com/)
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Healing Bones (http://www.climbingandme.com/2013/11/healing-bones.html)
25 November 2013, 4:00 pm
One of this things that really surprises me, two and a half months after breaking my tib and fib- is how much effort if takes to re-grow bones. I need so much more sleep than I needed when my tib and fib were whole.
I suppose this catches me by surprise because as time goes on, I get stronger and more mobile and, the occasional slip aside- things continue to improve. But then at the same time, now that crutching is easier, I want to crutch further.
Sadly, too, I'm no longer the sleep machine that painkillers made me- so if I don't get enough sleep one night, it totals me until the next night I sleep well. I'm no longer capable of cheerfully snoozing the afternoon away.
Though slow, the process of recovery is full of improvement and new possibilities- so much so, that sometimes I forget that there's supposed to be something wrong, get excited, and have to catch up. Looking at the X-rays, the tibia at least is only really just beginning to hug the titanium and in many ways it's still very broken.
My concern at the moment is getting as crutch-independent as possible before the snow and ice begin. That, and getting back on a top-rope this week!
Source: Climbing and Me - A Recovery (http://www.climbingandme.com/)
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Missing Climbing (http://www.climbingandme.com/2013/12/its-been-three-months-since-i-broke-my.html)
3 December 2013, 4:06 pm
It's been three months since I broke my tib and fib. I'd love to say it feels like that's flown by, but it really hasn't. It's been frustrating, exhausting and upsetting. I've badly missed the social aspect of climbing and I've struggled to get my head around doing less.
I went to the fracture clinic today where I saw a very abrupt doctor- who said
"It's not doing much healing, are you on steroids?"
"...no" I said.
"Well", he said, "Take the boot off and just walk everywhere".
He then started talking into his dictaphone about our exchange for about a minute or so. Thinking he was done, I started to leave, when he said "I haven't finished with you yet, come back"... and then dismissed me.
I suppose that's bad for climbing and good for walking. Bad for climbing in the sense that I guess it's not a good idea to go for anything but tight top-roping, and good for walking because, well, there's walking to be done. I feel disappointed in my bone for not doing it's thing since I'm trying so hard to encourage it.
The next fracture clinic appointment is at the fabled four month mark. At this point I was supposed to be walking normally... so I suppose I must be on track.
Though being able to fingerboard has been in many ways a lifesaver, there are days when it takes every last bit of motivation to do it. Sometimes I've put it off until 11 pm, knowing that it'll be the same as last time, give or take three seconds on a smaller hold- and not being excited by it at all. I'm amazed I can still be bothered. Until I broke my leg, the only reason I'd never used a fingerboard properly was that I found it boring. But there's boring, and then there's fingerboarding all the time.
The hardest thing is knowing if it helps. Because I see improvements in the finger boarding, but I never, ever, go for a session where I climb (obviously). Usually I've always been able to tell if I'm getting better at climbing by... climbing. And without climbing, I feel like I've just taken up finger boarding as an activity. And I can't always remember why...
I'm getting used to the recovery, and it's tediousness, but I still can't cope with "it'll be over before you know it". I miss rock climbing, too...
Source: Climbing and Me - A Recovery (http://www.climbingandme.com/)
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Contentment (http://www.climbingandme.com/2013/12/contentment.html)
5 December 2013, 2:56 pm
At the risk of sounding soft, being able to walk- albeit slowly and stiffly- has given me a warm fuzzy feeling inside. So I'm going to indulge in some pondering this post...
Breaking my leg like that, or even 'snapping it' as a friend so succinctly put it the other day, hasn't been the best thing I've ever done. Not even close.
Fingerboarding is certainly making me strong. My legs are thinner, probably lighter. A climber’s dream! Is that preferable to getting stronger using a more varied training schedule and having slightly stronger legs? No. I’ve missed climbing so much it hurts. Breaking my leg has meant that I only see close friends, I’ve spent a lot of the last three months in pain, I’ve been bored out of my mind, and I’ve worried about the course.
But it’s also making me appreciate things as they come back. It’s made me stop and think. My life up until September that summer had consisted of working six days a week, doing a summer placement at a school and filling the gaps with work at the Depot. Not a single waking minute wasn’t filled either with work, climbing or socialising. And there weren’t that many sleeping ones. I loved it- I’ve always been my happiest with a million fun things to engage my short attention span.
As a result, I was gutted when I suddenly had to spend so many hours doing either Physics or very little. And even when things improved, doing Physics, Fingerboarding or very little. I practically climbed the walls with frustration: doing a degree and Fingerboarding wasn’t enough, I wanted to do Everything.
I never used to walk around Leeds- too slow. I’d cycle instead. If I went for a walk anywhere but the countryside, I’d walk as fast as possible so as to get to where I was going. Even in the countryside, I don’t walk that slowly- I want get somewhere, make progress. I’ve never been interested in slowing down. Why, when I could see more if I walked faster?
But in the last couple of days, I’ve done a little walking. I walked to the train station from my house in Leeds. And I walked around a park in Sheffield yesterday. I walked for over an hour, probably less than a mile. And it was idyllic. And I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I ‘saw everything properly’- but I don’t think I’ve ever felt so relaxed. It didn’t matter where I was going, or what I accomplished. I just wanted to be outside in the sun.
I’ve never been accused of laziness, never been guilty of procrastination on any real scale. I know what I want in life, and I’m excited to go get it. But I hope that the way I’ve learned to accept that things are slower and milestones are re-defined stays with me. I can’t honestly say I always enjoy climbing when I’m fit. I often feel cross I’m not as good as the people I climb with. Or didn’t do as well as last time. Or sufficiently better. Yet at the moment, climbing on a top rope is pure joy. I just want to be there, and I’m not worried about the achievements. And broken leg and numerical grades aside, I’m probably climbing as well as I’ve ever climbed before. It might not look like it. It might look like my technique is terrible and I’m using my arms too much. But though climbing with a boot, or a very weak ankle is inelegant- footwork is no less intricate.
Perhaps for the first year since I was much younger, I’m looking forward to a Christmas week without climbing. I won’t be champing at the bit to get to a climbing wall on Boxing Day. I’ll be enjoying catching up with my parents and sisters, while physics text books look enviously on from the side lines. And really, I can thank a broken leg for a slightly more relaxed perspective.
When I’m fully recovered, I’ll go back to climbing all the time. And working a lot of the time. And I’ll love it. But I’ll try not to forget that slowing down isn’t always the wrong thing to do. Because life’s too short to do nothing- but it’s also too short to do everything.
And it’s only a broken leg, innit?
Source: Climbing and Me - A Recovery (http://www.climbingandme.com/)
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The Transition to a Boot Free Tomorrow (http://www.climbingandme.com/2013/12/the-transition-to-boot-free-tomorrow.html)
8 December 2013, 12:12 am
The first session without the boot was significantly scarier that the first session on a rope. As someone who feels entirely safe on a rope with a trusted belayer, monkeying about on the main wall at the Foundry with a boot on was only mildly unnerving, for about five minutes.
But taking the boot off was a whole different kettle of fish.
Suddenly climbing was no longer about how long I could hold on for. It was about the strength in my ankle. Now I couldn't stand on footholds because I wasn't strong enough, and not because I had a massive boot on (which was a great excuse).
I felt totally exposed. There was nothing protecting me if I kicked the wall. I had to think about what I was doing. And I felt like failing to stand on things was down to me, and not something I could claim the boot as an excuse for.
There was an overwhelming feeling of vulnerability.
To be honest, I didn't enjoy it. But I'm not too concerned, the same happened with climbing in the boot- then things improved over time.
Source: Climbing and Me - A Recovery (http://www.climbingandme.com/)
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Climbing with two feet (http://www.climbingandme.com/2013/12/climbing-with-two-feet.html)
14 December 2013, 2:39 pm
Is brilliant.
Slowly I'm finding that I can put more weight through my leg and climbing is starting to feel more like climbing, and it makes me indescribably happy.
The session I had today was the most like climbing I've done for over three months which, to me, has felt like a while.
It wasn't perfect, but it was better than every other time. It's interesting, because with walking, I can't see such an improvement. But it's easier to realise, with climbing, exactly how much things have improved- especially if you repeat a route- because standing on your toes in a precise way is incredibly intensive when your leg is the weakest link.
I'm pretty excited for the future!
Source: Climbing and Me - A Recovery (http://www.climbingandme.com/)
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Training for Climbing (http://www.climbingandme.com/2014/01/training-for-climbing.html)
7 January 2014, 1:48 pm
Predictably, not much has happened over Christmas, climbing-wise. Things continue to heal, and pain is pretty much the current normal, but not worthy of much in the painkiller department.
After a couple of rubbish top-roping sessions, and a week of rubbish finger-boarding, I decided to re-evaluate. Top-roping had been going so badly because I was scared, and because I was getting upset when I got shut down by small left foot holds.
Finger-boarding had been going badly because as much as having a fingerboard set up at home is great, it's much harder to be motivated than training at a wall, and there are certain limitations to the "fingerboard climbing wall" meaning I was getting pretty tired.
I wanted a break, but not to stop altogether. And I needed to gain confidence on the wall. So the obvious conclusion was to replace training for climbing, with climbing for training, for a bit.
It wasn't immediately clear to me why I'd be scared top-roping. After all, I didn't get hurt on a rope, and I've never had problems with fear in any big way sport climbing (apart from when injured). But I think fundamentally, I'm terrified of hitting the wall, or banging the wall. And I'd been letting that get the better of me, climbing as statically as possible. Which is great for training, not so great for making it to the top of a route in one go.
Alistair made the mistake of asking me, after a particularly static climb, why I didn't "climb like you normally do". I think it just slipped out, and my first response was to swear at him. But although the obvious answer is that I don't have the physical ability I normally do (I don't know about strong people, but when I climb dynamically using power ALL that power comes from my legs thank you very much), he sort of had a point. It's not that simple, of course. I can't just flip a switch. But at the same time in order to climb normally, I have to let go a bit. I have to push outside my comfort zone and try things which feel uncomfortable- or they'll never feel normal.
Going outside my comfort zone isn't actually something I've got much experience in. Because I've never really felt scared of falling off with a trusted belayer, I've never really had to work at it. Of course, I'm not even dealing with leading yet, I'm still scared of top-roping. But with pushing comfort zones, it doesn't really matter how absolutely scary something is, so long as it's scarier than you'd like.
As regards getting shut down by moves, I think this comes down to remembering that learning how to climb with a weakest link that isn't everyone else's (fingers stronger than ankles...) can't always be about performance. But finger-boarding, on the other hand, is about clear gains and pushing performance, and I'd very much got into the finger-boarding mindset.
It's a great thing that recovery isn't binary. How would you stay motivated without the small improvements? But the problem with that is that you have to adjust to every stage in between initially broken and completely fixed. I have to accept that climbing and walking hurt, and that after climbing, walking hurts even more. But that since this seems largely to be as a result of muscular rebellion, and there's no long term detriment, that's just life.
Sometimes I get pretty bored of walking slowly and painfully. I can't imagine when climbing and walking will be normal. But most of the time you have to just get on with it, I suppose. So January is the month of climbing. In celebration of this, I've bought a month pass to the Foundry. This means going more than once a week is the goal. And I'm eternally thankful for Alistair's patient belaying when I can't belay him back.
I'm grateful that I could fingerboard at all, I suppose that's an advantage of going for a leg. And I'm grateful I can climb to the extent that I can. But I can't help being a little jealous of the August me, with her bouncy climbing and lack of fear.
Source: Climbing and Me - A Recovery (http://www.climbingandme.com/)
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A Glorified Coffee Shop (http://www.climbingandme.com/2014/01/a-glorified-coffee-shop.html)
27 January 2014, 11:55 pm
Anyone who spends all of their spare time doing one activity will know the feeling of being at a loose end when, for whatever reason, you can't engage in that activity but haven't replaced it.
For me, that wasn't an issue in the early stages of recovering from breaking my leg- for the most part, I was taken down by painkillers, or asleep, or both. When I wasn't either of those, I was struggling to keep up with my degree, or occasionally finger-boarding.
I still find life pretty exhausting- some combination of growing bone, I assume, and not being used to walking around- because I'm certainly not doing as much as I was before. But today was the first day of term, post exams, I've no plans to fingerboard this week and I'm utterly dependent on someone to put a rope up for me- and then belay me- if I want to top rope. I was feeling pretty bored, so I went to my favourite bouldering centre.
Unfortunately, of course, if you can't boulder, then a bouldering wall is little more than a glorified coffee shop. You can drink coffee, socialise a bit... and that's it. And when the people you're socialising with are all climbing- or working- it doesn't take long before you find yourself standing sort of awkwardly in the no man's land that is "not-climbing-at-a-climbing-wall".
Fortunately for me, the bouldering wall in question does have an excellent coffee machine. Unfortunately, by their nature, climbing walls tend to be considerably less warm than coffee shops. This means you can't really have a read... or a snooze...
Looking at the wall, I couldn't help feeling frustrated by this middle stage of recovery. Here I was, able to walk into the centre, but not to use it for it's intended purpose. This was annoying because I knew full well that had I been able to boulder I would have enjoyed the setting. I could SEE specific routes that I would have enjoyed. Yet, though I can top rope, bouldering is out of the question until approximately May because (and my leg and brain are in agreement on this one) impact is not desirable. I suspect that even when my leg is happy with impact my brain will take some serious persuading.
Of course, come may, bouldering will be irrelevant. I realise that I broke my leg at a fairly appropriate time. By the time I am deemed fully recovered, it will be time for the route season. I'm unlikely to be confronted with a 'need' to boulder until almost a year after the accident. I see this as a nice margin for not rushing into bouldering.
On a similar vein to the irritation of not being able to boulder because of the falling aspect, I find that not being able to cycle (even though I would technically be able to use an exercise bike- in fact a fracture clinic doctor suggested it at about two months) is really annoying, because it's not the cycling that's a problem- it's the not being able to fall off. Obviously, you'd hope with cycling that you'd fall off less than 20 times an hour, but you still can't guarantee that you won't fall off at all.
They're minor complaints, when top roping is now possible, I realise. But I'm only human, and I can't help wanting what I haven't got.
Source: Climbing and Me - A Recovery (http://www.climbingandme.com/)
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A Taste of Summertime (http://www.climbingandme.com/2014/03/a-taste-of-summertime.html)
9 March 2014, 10:37 pm
I realised as I started to write that this blog has been snoozing for a couple of months now. I suppose that's because the road to recovery continues to stretch ahead, though hopefully the terrain gets easier, and for me recovering from a broken leg has become normal, part of life. Nothing to report.
Except actually, the last couple of weeks have been one of those periods of time where things suddenly seem to come together. Similarly to when you suddenly see where your training is taking you, I've suddenly found many things that were up until very recently impossible are beginning to be within reach.
[tr][td](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7t9SEEY0AIE/Uxzvq53f_GI/AAAAAAAAAqE/G5_xD7WyvvM/s1600/P1010549-2.jpg) (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7t9SEEY0AIE/Uxzvq53f_GI/AAAAAAAAAqE/G5_xD7WyvvM/s1600/P1010549-2.jpg)[/td][/tr][tr][td]Three weeks ago, traversing on a flat wall made me cry.
I just hated how much discomfort putting my entire
body weight through the rod caused. And I was scared.
Now, I can warm up on the traverse wall. YEEEEAHHH!!![/td][/tr]
[/table] This weekend was a weekend when most of us have remembered just what we're waiting for. A weekend to dry projects, and to play outside. I'm still not really at the point where it's easy to climb outside without a lot of planning- I guess I'm really waiting until there are more sport climbing options, and it's very hard to know what's OK- pain wise and safety wise too. But even though I was indoors today, I realised that I'm finally really seeing that I'm starting to get better and that summer will come, and I'll be able to climb in some capacity.
Medically, things are good but uncertain. Essentially, it seems that pinning/engineering lies on a fine balance between allowing enough bone movement to heal, and preventing too much bone movement to heal.It wasn't possible to tell from the last fracture clinic whether it was making much progress any more. They explained that there is a chance that things are just slow, or it's possible that the metalwork is too stiff, preventing healing from occurring completely. If that's the case, more surgery will be required to allow things to rub a bit more... but a CT scan in the next few weeks will confirm this either way.But for my part, they suggested as much activity as was bearable, pain wise- hopping and walking as much as possible. But not lead climbing or landing from 6ft. Ha! As if I'd dare...
So I guess I'm relieved that if things aren't really healing, I'm doing the right things, and the best thing to do is be active.
I'd hate to be put back another few weeks, but at the same time I've got used to this being long and hard, and I guess it'd be back to the finger board.
Physio has continued to make a huge difference to my life: it's amazing how much various bits of my leg (ankle, knee, calf, hip) seem to enjoy complaining when I actually did what was best for them in a high impact situation and snapped the bit that wasn't complicated. Sometimes that gets me down but I can also see how much strength the physio has gained me, especially in the calf department, and I hope that eventually I'll reach the balance there once was.
But on a joyous, terrifying and wonderful note...
I slipped of the fingerboard, landing on both feet, a couple of weeks ago, and realised I was OK. Not only was a small amount of impact medically encouraged, but it was somehow, incredibly, bearable.
The last week has seen both my first bouldering session and my first board session at the Foundry. The problem of choice was dolphin belly slap. This was something I never got round to finishing last summer- I found it so much harder than it's mate crucifix traverse. But the real reason for doing it wasn't that it was a nemesis, it was that it was an absolutely bloody perfect place to start.
Barely off the ground, with no left footwork whatsoever, it couldn't have been more appropriate. With careful spotting there was absolutely no possibility of getting hurt. The session started really well. I felt strong, I felt surprisingly confident and it seemed like I would do it pretty quickly. But somehow, my confidence slipped after a couple of goes. I found myself yelling one time that I fell off, though not far and not painfully, and it was the sort of mortifying scream that you hate that anyone could have heard, because it comes straight from your soul, and it shows just how in control of you the fear really is.
I think the fact that I've only route climbed, and the fact that I was scared, meant that I very quickly became knackered. it seemed after all like I wasn't going to finish the problem. As much as I knew that it was an incredible thing just to be able to try the problem, I'd also attached a fair amount of symbolism to it. Somehow, well after dark, I managed to finish it... just.
I'm now at a confusing stage where a 6a sport route can shut me down completely on a flat wall if it so happens that I have to put too much weight through the rod in my tibia, but I can climb much closer to my limit on steep things. As a girl who never had any upper body strength before climbing, this is very novel.The board at the foundry has been the starting point back into bouldering for many a climber with a leg-related injury, and I can certainly see why. I started climbing sticking to the kick board, but made it to the point where I can climb as high as my own height, without being hurt. This allows me the freedom not only to traverse the board, but undertake the challenge of zig-zagging up and down the bottom of the board to fit enough moves in.
As much as neither of these activities were huge, or involved dropping from any height, I was amazed by how quickly they felt OK. I'm sure that bouldering proper will be more scary, but as it's not currently an option, I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.For now, fingers crossed for a good CT image of bone... and I hope you enjoy the weather :-)
Source: Climbing and Me - A Recovery (http://www.climbingandme.com/)
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You Look Slimmer - Well Done? (http://www.climbingandme.com/2014/05/you-look-slimmer-well-done.html)
7 May 2014, 11:21 pm
I’m not going to blog about recovery, because quite frankly, it’s sh*t. I don’t know when it will be fixed nor when I will be able to boulder and lead. I sincerely hope that there won’t be more surgery. Not having a timescale sucks. But to be honest, there are ways to enjoy climbing safely and that’s all that matters, besides recovery. So it’s ok, mostly.
And yes, as the title implies, this is another blog, by a woman, about what the right shape of a woman is. If this bores you, please do skip to the end where there is a picture of my biceps. If you’re wondering why this is not about how men should look, it’s because I am not a man. I will update the blog if this changes.
As I eat pasta with bacon and Gorgonzola (yes, it’s f*king good), I’m pondering on something which has been in the back of my mind for quite some time. A friend re-posted a cartoon on the subject on Facebook a few months ago, and it struck a chord. The situation is this: Since I broke my leg, a number of friends have commented on my weight. (My mother and my boyfriend’s mother did too, but in an altogether more “I should feed you” sort of way). Lots of people said that I looked “thinner”, or “slimmer”, or had thinner legs, or wondered “how I didn’t get fat while sitting around”. Well actually, here’s how:
I broke my leg. I spent a week in LGI eating very little because I was either a) about to have surgery,b) having surgery or c) crying. I then went home (and by home, I mean to someone else’s house because it was nicer than my student box) where I took diclofenac for too long and spent some more time unable to eat. A total of about 2-3 weeks was spent eating less than is required to maintain the same weight. I then wasn’t that hungry because opiates made me feel sick. Some kilograms were lost. A total of about four months was spent not walking. Some leg muscle wasted.
Mmmmm…. Healthy.
A lot of people complimented me on looking lighter, several said it must be good for my climbing. The problem is, I quite liked it. It made me wonder though, if they’d thought I was fat before. Would they think I was fat when I resumed normal activity and presumably put some of whatever it was that was there before back on?
I then ditched the opiates. I started to walk. I ate more. I trained more. I gained some weight. Over the next few month months, I gained back almost exactly the same weight as I’d lost, and some of the lost leg muscle. The difference is negligible. I changed shape slightly, more Fingerboarding, less walking. But I weigh the same. Yet this is apparently a positive state of affairs.
Now I know ‘you look slimmer’ is meant as a compliment. I certainly don’t mind the people who said it, saying it. They meant well. But it is no longer something I’m pleased to be told, either. It no longer flatters me. Because it’s somewhat irrelevant. According to NHS guidelines, I wasn’t under or overweight before, and I’m not now.
I can honestly say I don’t really tell other people they look thinner or fatter because- shockingly- I rarely notice. For me I think that sort of thing actually encouraged me to question whether I looked right. A couple of friends said “Lisa, you look stronger since breaking your leg”. Now that, to me, is a compliment. That is an achievement. That is something I am proud of. If someone needs to lose weight for health reasons, then by all means do compliment them on achieving this. But if someone’s weight slightly changes because they got very broken, it probably isn’t a good thing.
I will never be skinny. Nor am I overweight. At 5’7” I weigh somewhere between 60 and 65 kilograms. I don’t actually know, nor do I want to. I have perhaps less muscle definition than I could, but I also have boobs. I like them. That’s not to say any other girls look wrong, it’s just that the lifestyle choices required to be thinner than I am now (i.e. no biscuits) would not make me happy.
That’s not to say I don’t have insecurities- who doesn’t? It’s just that whereas my teenage self used to act on these, I’m able to objectively see that for my body, eating significantly less would not be optimal for climbing gains. I would like more cardiovascular fitness, but that took a bit of a hit when I broke my leg. So I look thinner but am actually more unfit. I don’t actually think it’s the good think people seem to think it is. What I’d actually like, is to keep getting stronger. I imagine that this will not coincide with suddenly becoming an unhealthy weight. I will continue to whine to my boyfriend when I feel insecure. He will continue to have the good sense never to comment on my weight.
People like different shapes and sizes of course. But I wish my teenage self had spent a little less time trying to be thinner. I would have looked at the way I look now and thought “Ewwwwww, FAT”. Well that’s bullshit. That’s awful! It’s not even unusual for girls to feel like that! Weight isn’t even fixed! It changes all the time. Bits of us are different densities to others! Muscle, fat, titanium. Oh wait, you don’t have titanium? Guess you’re heavier then. So unless it’s a health concern, I’ll focus on getting stronger and fitter thanks, and keep letting my body do its thing.
[tr][td](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DXgHXDXMqD8/U2q-pwoV4-I/AAAAAAAABIM/QGb-nXXJXkM/s1600/Bicep.png) (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DXgHXDXMqD8/U2q-pwoV4-I/AAAAAAAABIM/QGb-nXXJXkM/s1600/Bicep.png)[/td][/tr][tr][td]As promised in the introduction.[/td][/tr]
[/table]
p.s. I don’t know whether the people who complimented my on looking thinner said it because they thing it looks better, or because they thought it would be what I wanted to hear. Either way, I appreciate the sentiment.
Source: Climbing and Me - A Recovery (http://www.climbingandme.com/)
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I need to get me some opiates
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You need to get you a sense of perspective you scrawny muscular cunt, I saw some photo of your team posing at Siurana.
P.S. Good rant climbing and recovery girl.
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I need to get me some opiates
Got half a bottle of oramorph. You can use it alongside the crutches to achieve the skeletal dream.
$40 and your entire collection of knee bar pads and it's yours.
Obviously not actually selling it. But you can use the crutches anytime. They're super effective.
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Good news, fear, and Fear (http://www.climbingandme.com/2014/06/good-news-fear-and-fear.html)
11 June 2014, 10:04 pm
Having been told I was probably going to need more surgery two months ago, it was with a great deal of trepidation that I attended fracture clinic yesterday.
All of the feedback pain-wise I'd been receiving from my leg said that things were improving. But the doctor I'd seen was adamant that we should do surgery, and the consultant overruled him, saying we would allow a couple more months to heal.
When I walked into the appointment my heart was racing: I was dreading the thought that I might have to let them do more structural work, especially because I was so sure things must be getting better. However, when I saw the X-Ray, I could immediately see where the bone callus was thicker. There was still a gap, but very small. The consultant proceeded to explain that it's a race between my bone healing and the metalwork fatiguing. I asked "Am I going to win?"
"You're winning it at the moment", he said, smiling. "Have you been pounding it like I told you to?"
So basically, I'm allowed to use it as I'd use my right leg. The consultant's words were "I don't understand why you'd do something like climbing and motorcycling" but that I basically should be fine, and can return in six months to confirm this.
So finally, I'm allowed impact. It was, quite literally, the best day of my year. Better than finishing my final exams, better than any recent achievements. I was OVER THE MOON. Still am!
[tr][td](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-77cQ8hNKuf4/U5jR2sUWxvI/AAAAAAAABT0/LPzf8FO2GLw/s1600/2014-06-10+20.41.07.jpg) (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-77cQ8hNKuf4/U5jR2sUWxvI/AAAAAAAABT0/LPzf8FO2GLw/s1600/2014-06-10+20.41.07.jpg)[/td][/tr][tr][td]I was dressed first. Seriously.[/td][/tr]
[/table]
For someone who has never suffered from any fear when lead climbing or bouldering, it's more of a nightmare than I expected. I can't imagine ever feeling OK climbing normally on a bouldering wall again. You try to convince yourself that you can be happy never climbing above the kickboard, and never leading. Never pushing the level of difficulty of the move, never making a move dynamically. But how can that be true? Before I broke my leg, I don't think I knew what static meant. Bouncing between holds was how I liked to climb. Now, I'll intentionally do something which requires unnecessary strength such as cutting loose on crimps on a roof so that I can move my feet and static the next move. As technique goes, it's shameful.
At the beginning of each new thing, after any injury, pushing the boundaries is harrowing. It's often less about it being fun to climb and more about building an acceptance of a situation. Deep down I knew that although it was much worse to be broken and banned from bouldering, I was clinging on to the safety net that is medical advice not to climb and now it's gone, I'm scared.
Source: Climbing and Me - A Recovery (http://www.climbingandme.com/)
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Good news and interesting thoughts!
Crush now!
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Thursday, 9 April 2015
Fear of falling: Dare I admit it? (http://www.climbingandme.blogspot.gr/2015/04/fear-of-falling-dare-i-admit-it.html)
It's been the source of much confusion to me that, after breaking my leg bouldering indoors, I'm having so much trouble leading outdoors. I've been terrified climbing routes I should be warming up on. Routes that if I fell off, I should be laughing at the mistake rather than being frustrated that I fell off.
But I can't fall off.
As someone who never really felt fear, I've never really confronted this issue and perhaps this is where I went so wrong. For the first three years of my climbing I used to climb in the summer, ditch climbing in the winter and then start again in the summer. Each year, leading outdoors would feel a bit nerve-wracking at first but then it would be fine. Then almost exactly four years after I started climbing, I had a bouldering accident and my outlook on risk taking changed. Probably irreversibly. I think that most of us become naturally more scared as we grow up, but after an injury-free childhood this was my first (brutal) introduction to the idea that I didn't bounce as well as I thought.
If you're wondering, I'm talking about sport climbing here. Not trad, sport climbing. As in, climbing clipping bolts. Bolts which are 2 metres apart, on overhangs.
Worse still, I'm getting to the point where I'm starting to boulder more normally (OK, not at the top, but then you'd understand my reservations there). And until now, I'd not realised how much being scared could hold me back. Because I can't try moves: in fact I can't even move, I'm terrified.
Often this even happens on a top-rope. But until recently, I've always been able to use the injury as an excuse. Perhaps that's why bouldering is going better for me? I'm allowed to down climb. And outdoors, I'm very tactical about the problems I choose! But sport climbing, that's different. And here I have a confession to make: regarding being scared of falling off routes, I've always been well and truly cocky. Sure, I'd never say it out loud. But I've often thought "why don't you just try?". People who top-rope for convenience, that I understood. But I could never understand why people would try to lead and say "take" as soon as the probability of catching the next hold wasn't 1.
And now I'm sorry for thinking that way: I never realised how hard it could be to be genuinely, paralytically scared of falling off. Nor did I realise that to overcome that, you have to admit it in the first place. And that to admit it, you have to deal with people like me!
Imagine my consternation: my fear was taking six grades off my climbing, I was so scared of falling off sport climbing that I couldn't even look at a route without worrying about the places that I couldn't see clearly exactly how I was going to do the move in advance. Bearing in mind that I'm currently climbing in Kalymnos (where the bolts are excellently situated and all the routes that I am climbing have been climbed many, many times) that is simply not rational. When scoping out a trad route (or a slate sport route!) maybe. But not here.
Not only that, but in judging myself, I'd had to admit that my previous opinion on fear of falling was based on a complete lack of empathy and that I'd had no idea what I was talking about and was just lucky that I'd never been scared. Since I started climbing again I've experienced varying levels of fear while leading (and indeed top-roping). It became clear last week that was no point having goals for a climbing trip when I couldn't even try moves on a top-rope without being turned into a gibbering wreck: how was I ever going to enjoy climbing again? I needed to drop the grade, but not so far that I wouldn't fall off. I needed to start again.
I realised also that to truly beat the fear of falling off forever, you might well have to climb for all eternity. That sometimes it will be easy and sometimes it will be impossibly hard. I've started to work out the fine line between making progress, and pushing yourself so hard that you're traumatised. But it's worth it I think. Because the thing about fear is that it rarely goes away by itself. It feeds on insecurities and it takes away the joy of the activity and usually, it only grows as time goes on.
I think that trying to lead at my on-sight limit this trip has produced mixed results: at times, I've felt better than I felt before I broke my leg. At other times, I've had to take my quickdraws out and back off a route, unable to bring myself to complete it. But if I'm being completely honest with myself, I was starting to doubt whether I really enjoyed climbing at all. The fear totally eclipsed the love of the movement. By letting go of the idea of what I should be achieving and facing the battle head on I've had fleeting moments of feeling the way I used to feel when completely consumed by a route. I have started to believe that there's good in climbing, after all.
I could never have imagined how extensive the emotional and psychological effects of a bouldering accident could be. But I'm tired of being ashamed of my fear. Lots of people are scared sport climbing for lots of different reasons. Lots of people aren't: maybe they're lucky, maybe they worked through it.
It doesn't matter if the danger isn't real, the fear is and it can be hugely debilitating. It can also be humiliating, and sometimes I'll find myself crying on a warm up route and I'll be absolutely mortified. Working through it will involve lots of leading, and lots of safe falls. I'm sure I'll doubt that there's any point and at times I'll go backwards but I hope that I'll reap the rewards in my climbing.
Although it takes motivation, in some ways, it's not hard to train. I'm motivated and young. I've always been in control of exactly how much and when I train. This is different: this is a part of me that I don't understand. But I've finally understood that it won't be any less of an achievement than getting stronger.
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Fear of falling: Dare I admit it? (http://www.climbingandme.com/2015/04/fear-of-falling-dare-i-admit-it.html)
9 April 2015, 9:02 pm
It's been the source of much confusion to me that, after breaking my leg bouldering indoors, I'm having so much trouble leading outdoors. I've been terrified climbing routes I should be warming up on. Routes that if I fell off, I should be laughing at the mistake rather than being frustrated that I fell off.
But I can't fall off.
As someone who never really felt fear, I've never really confronted this issue and perhaps this is where I went so wrong. For the first three years of my climbing I used to climb in the summer, ditch climbing in the winter and then start again in the summer. Each year, leading outdoors would feel a bit nerve-wracking at first but then it would be fine. Then almost exactly four years after I started climbing, I had a bouldering accident and my outlook on risk taking changed. Probably irreversibly. I think that most of us become naturally more scared as we grow up, but after an injury-free childhood this was my first (brutal) introduction to the idea that I didn't bounce as well as I thought.
If you're wondering, I'm talking about sport climbing here. Not trad, sport climbing. As in, climbing clipping bolts. Bolts which are 2 metres apart, on overhangs.
Worse still, I'm getting to the point where I'm starting to boulder more normally (OK, not at the top, but then you'd understand my reservations there). And until now, I'd not realised how much being scared could hold me back. Because I can't try moves: in fact I can't even move, I'm terrified.
Often this even happens on a top-rope. But until recently, I've always been able to use the injury as an excuse. Perhaps that's why bouldering is going better for me? I'm allowed to down climb. And outdoors, I'm very tactical about the problems I choose! But sport climbing, that's different. And here I have a confession to make: regarding being scared of falling off routes, I've always been well and truly cocky. Sure, I'd never say it out loud. But I've often thought "why don't you just try?". People who top-rope for convenience, that I understood. But I could never understand why people would try to lead and say "take" as soon as the probability of catching the next hold wasn't 1.
And now I'm sorry for thinking that way: I never realised how hard it could be to be genuinely, paralytically scared of falling off. Nor did I realise that to overcome that, you have to admit it in the first place. And that to admit it, you have to deal with people like me!
Imagine my consternation: my fear was taking six grades off my climbing, I was so scared of falling off sport climbing that I couldn't even look at a route without worrying about the places that I couldn't see clearly exactly how I was going to do the move in advance. Bearing in mind that I'm currently climbing in Kalymnos (where the bolts are excellently situated and all the routes that I am climbing have been climbed many, many times) that is simply not rational. When scoping out a trad route (or a slate sport route!) maybe. But not here.
Not only that, but in judging myself, I'd had to admit that my previous opinion on fear of falling was based on a complete lack of empathy and that I'd had no idea what I was talking about and was just lucky that I'd never been scared. Since I started climbing again I've experienced varying levels of fear while leading (and indeed top-roping). It became clear last week that was no point having goals for a climbing trip when I couldn't even try moves on a top-rope without being turned into a gibbering wreck: how was I ever going to enjoy climbing again? I needed to drop the grade, but not so far that I wouldn't fall off. I needed to start again.
I realised also that to truly beat the fear of falling off forever, you might well have to climb for all eternity. That sometimes it will be easy and sometimes it will be impossibly hard. I've started to work out the fine line between making progress, and pushing yourself so hard that you're traumatised. But it's worth it I think. Because the thing about fear is that it rarely goes away by itself. It feeds on insecurities and it takes away the joy of the activity and usually, it only grows as time goes on.
I think that trying to lead at my on-sight limit this trip has produced mixed results: at times, I've felt better than I felt before I broke my leg. At other times, I've had to take my quickdraws out and back off a route, unable to bring myself to complete it. But if I'm being completely honest with myself, I was starting to doubt whether I really enjoyed climbing at all. The fear totally eclipsed the love of the movement. By letting go of the idea of what I should be achieving and facing the battle head on I've had fleeting moments of feeling the way I used to feel when completely consumed by a route. I have started to believe that there's good in climbing, after all.
I could never have imagined how extensive the emotional and psychological effects of a bouldering accident could be. But I'm tired of being ashamed of my fear. Lots of people are scared sport climbing for lots of different reasons. Lots of people aren't: maybe they're lucky, maybe they worked through it.
It doesn't matter if the danger isn't real, the fear is and it can be hugely debilitating. It can also be humiliating, and sometimes I'll find myself crying on a warm up route and I'll be absolutely mortified. Working through it will involve lots of leading, and lots of safe falls. I'm sure I'll doubt that there's any point and at times I'll go backwards but I hope that I'll reap the rewards in my climbing.
Although it takes motivation, in some ways, it's not hard to train. I'm motivated and young. I've always been in control of exactly how much and when I train. This is different: this is a part of me that I don't understand. But I've finally understood that it won't be any less of an achievement than getting stronger.
Source: Climbing and Me (http://www.climbingandme.com/)
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Clip by Clip (http://www.climbingandme.com/2015/07/clip-by-clip.html)
15 July 2015, 12:24 pm
While reading about ways to deal with fear in climbing, I read something about how we don't expect to keep strength gains if we only train once a month, so we shouldn't expect to keep mental gains if we only train very occasionally.
On the face of it, this seems obvious: most of us in the UK boulder in the colder months and only get out our ropes each summer. Usually, there's a transition phase where different people feel varying levels of fear before returning to last year's level of confidence. In the same way that a 6a climber will need to train more to climb a 7a than a 6c climber, a very scared person will need to train more to climb fluently on lead than someone who is simply a little rusty.
But how can you combine fear training with training training without the two impacting each other? And where do you start?
I guess fundamentally you need to work towards the thing you'll actually be doing. For me, that's currently sport climbing on british limestone. For that to be ok, you need to be happy first leading (probably indoors), then happy standing on slippery limestone, then happy leading between the (occasionally quite spaced) bolts.
I found that the best time to start training my head indoors was warming up. Though initially I was skeptical about the value of fall training by letting go, I think it helps to normalise the feeling of falling. Although it's very artificial, jumping of big holds above a bolt on an overhang indoors is a quick and relatively safe way to learn to fall and I found that I wasn't really able to try on harder routes because I wasn't ready for unexpected falls.
When endurance training on routes I found that I preferred top-roping as I hated the pressure of trying to achieve PBs whilst also being brave: I much preferred to separate the two achievements. So I would do some fall training and then train as normal. Once I'd gained some confidence, the training actually motivated me to push my fear boundaries, but in the early days I wasn't ready to tackle the fear.
I also started doing some outdoor sessions that were focussed entirely on fear. The goal was simply to try, above a bolt. The day was a success if I reached the desired point on the climb and nearly fell off, or if I fell off. Though it felt like a big jump in difficulty, I resorted to the old favourite - jumping off slightly above the clip, then higher.
I have a long way to go with the outdoor leading, but I'm really amazed that I've made it to the point where I'm enjoying climbing outdoors. I'd kind of given up on getting back to where I was but I don't think I could ever have dreamed of getting this far. After breaking my leg I trained out of obstinancy, and because I call myself a climber, and then as physical recovery progressed I realised I didn't really have any goals any more. I didn't know what I was training for and I didn't really want to climb anything in particular.
For a long time I wasn't sure I would ever get my desire to climb back. And at that point my motivation to train started to slip too... because what's the point if you don't really like climbing? The fear I felt on the rock overcame any enjoyment. But a couple of months ago, after weeks of head training that didn't really seem to be progressing, everything fell into place. It was one of those rare but glorious moments when you see all of your efforts come to light: I felt so much more confident and happy while climbing.
Now leg pain has ceased to be a limiting factor in my climbing, and fear is becoming much less of one. It seemed appropriate to change the name of this blog accordingly: thus I removed the "a recovery". The result seems worryingly egotistical and yet I rather like it. It is almost two years since I wrote the first post in an injury blog and it's only really now that I feel like I have started to overcome said injury. As with any significant climbing injury (or sports injury) it has massively changed my perspective on climbing, and my motivations. However, overall, I think they have changed for the better. I'm no less motivated but perhaps more forgiving of myself. I'm no less brave but I'm definitely less rash. And I'm no less psyched, but I think I'm more passionate for the fight.
Two years ago, I would have said "Of course I'll get back there!"
One year ago I thought "I'll never get back to where I was, and I'll never really enjoy climbing again".
Now, I'm not there - but I'm happy to be here instead :)
The limestone is calling!
Source: Climbing and Me (http://www.climbingandme.com/)
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What a great couple of posts.
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Aberration (http://www.climbingandme.com/2015/07/aberration.html)
29 July 2015, 8:59 pm
Last Saturday was gloriously sunny and warm. After teaching the ridiculous kitten about grass in the garden, I headed out into the peak district with Mr Austin the Psyche Machine to try Aberration, at two-tier.
[tr][td](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-p5ellmFEeAI/VbgNpOYG75I/AAAAAAAABuI/MipIz6iMbNE/s320/2015-06-26+12.23.40.jpg) (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-p5ellmFEeAI/VbgNpOYG75I/AAAAAAAABuI/MipIz6iMbNE/s1600/2015-06-26+12.23.40.jpg)[/td][/tr][tr][td]Batting the bauble, a long term climbing goal[/td][/tr]
[/table]
[tr][td](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oOeFBAClm1s/VbgN_x_QNAI/AAAAAAAABuQ/u-u5gpdeiwQ/s320/2015-06-29+13.08.40.jpg) (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oOeFBAClm1s/VbgN_x_QNAI/AAAAAAAABuQ/u-u5gpdeiwQ/s1600/2015-06-29+13.08.40.jpg)[/td][/tr][tr][td]Popping around[/td][/tr]
[/table]
Ed was keen to steal all of my beta while I was hoping to steal his psyche. This worked well both ways. I confessed to Ed that he was one of the few people I had climbed with other than Alistair since breaking my leg and that I was scared.
In actual fact, Ed seemed supremely confident that I would not be scared. Which in many ways, was actually really reassuring.
We arrived at the crag and elected not to wait for Squiff and Hannah (scumbag Lisa and Ed) as we were impatient. At this point I also realised that in being organised and remembering flip-flops for wading the river, I had in fact forgotten to wear real shoes. It turns out that using flip flops in sloping mud is actually an achievement in itself.
As we walked along the Monsal trail, it started to rain. However, we ignored it and it got bored and went away again. At the base of the crag, a fruitful bargain was made whereby a cup of coffee was exchanged for a banana (see what I did there?) before we warmed up bolt-to-bolt (because in spite of the fact that two-tier actually has warm-ups, warming up is something I frequently forget exists on british limestone).
[tr][td](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fLrE08NSigQ/VbgR6O946CI/AAAAAAAABuw/3FU2iUSHiJk/s320/11816131_10203201303473340_1785937974178638261_o+%25283%2529.jpg) (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fLrE08NSigQ/VbgR6O946CI/AAAAAAAABuw/3FU2iUSHiJk/s1600/11816131_10203201303473340_1785937974178638261_o+%25283%2529.jpg)[/td][/tr][tr][td]Thanks Ed for the photos :)[/td][/tr]
[/table]
As I'd already had a couple of sessions on the route, I pretty much knew what I was doing. I had a redpoint go just before the sun came around, but fell off on what is essentially the crux move. However, the next go didn't go quite so well. It had got considerably warmer and it felt like it was necessary to pull a lot harder: as a result I fell off going for the crux hold.
I came down and decided to sulk for a bit: I thought I'd do that, have a coffee, then have a training go. So, on my final go of the day I started up the route, complaining about how warm the rock was. But by the time I was about 8 moves in, it seemed to be cooling down slightly. Without really thinking about it I stuck the move and then romped onwards to the final sketchy move. Embedding my sweaty fingertips into the crimp (sorry, next person), I rocked over and prayed... and stayed on.
I think what I was proudest about was the fact that I'd felt so confident above the clips - the top is easy, but slippery in the sun - and I know that not long ago I would have been terrified. I'm super psyched to do some more climbing and training now and I hope the sun keeps warming my holds!
[tr][td](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--9_oAKFl3ko/VbgR6hxZ8XI/AAAAAAAABu4/QW5KM4Nug-U/s320/11709679_10203201303393338_467599168825691938_o+%25282%2529.jpg) (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--9_oAKFl3ko/VbgR6hxZ8XI/AAAAAAAABu4/QW5KM4Nug-U/s1600/11709679_10203201303393338_467599168825691938_o+%25282%2529.jpg)[/td][/tr][tr][td]Nearly there :)[/td][/tr]
[/table](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Gz8Q8CaBbDw/VbgR5ynumOI/AAAAAAAABus/p2J26BEeYv0/s640/10504967_10203201303433339_2158291350299789179_o+%25283%2529.jpg) (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Gz8Q8CaBbDw/VbgR5ynumOI/AAAAAAAABus/p2J26BEeYv0/s1600/10504967_10203201303433339_2158291350299789179_o+%25283%2529.jpg)
Source: Climbing and Me (http://www.climbingandme.com/)
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well done :weakbench:
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well done :weakbench:
Liking the kitten too :)
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Well done Lisa!!
Great job getting back on the horse :strongbench:
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Supercool (http://www.climbingandme.com/2015/09/supercool.html)
20 September 2015, 8:32 pm
Two years ago I went to see Tom Randall for an assessment. I told him I wanted to climb Supercool, and even I could see at the time that that was an unrealistic goal. The hardest I'd climbed was a 7c, the year before, and it'd taken four or five sessions to even do all the moves, then another four or five to redpoint it.
It was an amazing route, Polifemo, still one of the best I've climbed, with a very reachy crux - but nevertheless, a long way from 8a+.
Not one to discourage, however, Tom wrote a year long training plan to bring me closer to Supercool. I was super psyched. And then, four days into the plan and three days after my summer holiday had stared, I snapped both bones in my lower leg in what felt like a devastating blow (http://www.climbingandme.com/2013/09/today-i-broke-my-leg.html).
Aside from the impact on my climbing, it rocked my student life: I was starting the final year of my degree, and I was stuck at home in bed. I lost my part-time job, because I couldn't move around easily. I missed my "day-to-day" friends: the people you don't know that well but that you see regularly and chat to and that become a surprisingly large part of your life.
I didn't even know Tom: I'd met the guy once and paid him to do an assessment. And yet high as a kite and feeling very lonely in LGI he seemed like the obvious person to email.
"Tom... Everything's f**ked"
(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2RmnjC4HxsM/Vfc24hqSzPI/AAAAAAAAByk/Dak8HDaV53o/s640/Tom.png) (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2RmnjC4HxsM/Vfc24hqSzPI/AAAAAAAAByk/Dak8HDaV53o/s1600/Tom.png)
As I started to recover, Tom used his wisdom to translate the training plan from 3D to 2D, and so I trained on a fingerboard for several months. It was a period of time which if you were bored enough to read the entire blog can be summarised as fairly miserable and took every ounce of motivation I could summon.
It was also a period of my life during which I was very dependent on my boyfriend Alistair, without whom I would never have achieved what I did academically - nor would I have been able to train. I know that at times this was incredibly stressful for Alistair, both emotionally based on the impact it had on our relationship but also in terms of juggling this with his own career. However, I will be forever grateful for all his care, love and support.
When I started to climb again, I battled a combination of leg pain and fear as I tried to remember why I loved it. 18 months after the accident, I still felt like things would never be the same. I was crippled by fear and I was surprised that I could still be feeling the physical effects. Even two months ago, things were much that way. Tom suggested I climb Aberration as it was a similar style to Supercool, albeit sideways rather than up. I still keep finding knew things that I didn't realise I could do until it hurt too much to do them, usually relating to heel hooks, and I still do certain things in stupid ways because I can't do them the way other people do (or the way they're set).
I was both surprised that I climbed Aberration so quickly and kind of disappointed that I wasn't excited as I felt like I should be. I thought that I'd be super excited about climbing my first 8a, but then when I did it it felt like I'd passed the point where it was the hardest I could climb. It wasn't magic like Polifemo.
During August I was trying Supercool at weekends while working down South during the week (in Henley-on-Thames, no less). I was starting to get close to doing it, but it kept raining, and I was really tired, and I could just never get a good session on it. I started to get very frustrated. Towards the end of August, Jules Pearson redpointed the route and spent the following week sending me weather updates. I was pitifully grateful to her as I'd developed an unhealthy addiction to the weather forecast (I'm getting help for it).
Jules is really cool, but she doesn't realise how good she is so she's very unassuming, very down to earth and awesome to climb with. And it was nice to be rooting for each other as I rarely seem to be projecting things at the same time as someone else (I remember with Polifemo everyone just kept flashing it).
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Z_0PsQLHtxA/Vf8DhC7KV9I/AAAAAAAABzE/2Ks-MLSQjO8/s320/Supercool6.png) (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Z_0PsQLHtxA/Vf8DhC7KV9I/AAAAAAAABzE/2Ks-MLSQjO8/s1600/Supercool6.png)
The day I climbed the route was the Sunday of the August bank holiday, and I think it was really because I'd spent most of the Saturday snoozing. I was knackered from my crash introduction to the watch industry in Henley and all the commuting that had gone with it. I didn't feel amazing, but it's the sort of route where you don't have to feel super strong, as long as you just keep going and rest where it's appropriate. Nevertheless, when I pulled through the final crux onto the somewhat technical head wall I was terrified. Like Jules the week before, I knew that it would be all too easy to slip on a smear and fall off.
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-p8_442z2OVw/Vf8DiHDrNoI/AAAAAAAABzI/fUFdr9fv6y0/s320/Supercool7+%25282%2529.png) (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-p8_442z2OVw/Vf8DiHDrNoI/AAAAAAAABzI/fUFdr9fv6y0/s1600/Supercool7+%25282%2529.png)
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-t4l3m6ARiX0/Vf8DlEKNB5I/AAAAAAAABzU/SNMNcnPZOCo/s320/sUPERCOOL11+%25282%2529.png) (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-t4l3m6ARiX0/Vf8DlEKNB5I/AAAAAAAABzU/SNMNcnPZOCo/s1600/sUPERCOOL11+%25282%2529.png)
Somehow I topped out though and for a sport route it felt incredibly profound. Goredale itself is an awesome place, and many rainy and oppressive days there (not to mention the odd falling rock from the sheep at the top) have given me a healthy fear of the place. I didn't feel like celebrating, I just felt happy to be there. A tourist later summed it up when I was explaining what we were doing with "It must be the most wonderful feeling". Sitting there, in the cave, looking at the beautiful view was very inspiring. It finally felt like all the pain and effort of the last two years no longer defined my climbing, as though achieving the goal I set before I broke my leg and overcoming the fear in order to do so had freed me of some of the mental hang-ups I had.
The next day, Alistair climbed the route in a poetic team send. I doubt we'll ever share a project again, as we normally have very different climbing styles, but it was a fun team send!
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CHz9g4sq9dU/Vf8D5T-JjOI/AAAAAAAABzc/g9N4efdYznk/s320/SupercoolDone.png) (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CHz9g4sq9dU/Vf8D5T-JjOI/AAAAAAAABzc/g9N4efdYznk/s1600/SupercoolDone.png)
We felt that the route deserved a video, so we went back for this:
Source: Climbing and Me (http://www.climbingandme.com/)
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:dance1:
Super cool.
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Yes, bloody brilliant. Tremendously inspiring.
:dance1:
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Good work. Create a profile to collect the wad point!
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Nice video, shows the style of the route well.
Better train some power endurance to ensure you get The Oak before Shark does...
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Good work. Create a profile to collect the wad point!
Doh! :slap:
I wadded comPiler. Brain missing. I had to Wad someone, anyone.
Ace.
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First off, bloody good effort. Always nice to come back from injury and blitz your previous best.
Secondly, cool route. Almost makes me tempted to climb south of the border more often.
Third. Has she had her sweat glands removed? Impress lack of chalking up. I should really cut down my chalk usage...
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FInally cracked my own password, YES!
Thanks for the lovely comments.
Third. Has she had her sweat glands removed? Impress lack of chalking up. I should really cut down my chalk usage...
It's getting pretty cold at gordale. Plus, didn't you see? It was all on my face.
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Oh wow, I have excelled myself
There's two of me. And the password is the same.
I'm too good at the internet
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Nous sommes allés à Fontainebleau (http://www.climbingandme.com/2016/02/nous-sommes-alles-fontainebleau.html)
14 February 2016, 10:35 pm
Last week I went to Font. During my week there, I came to three main conclusions:
- I was truly blown away by the sheer volume of problems, high quality rock and the beauty of the place.
- For the first time, I was able to accept my own failure in a climbing situation and not be sorry about it.
- For the first time in my climbing experiences, I failed at something with no good excuse, and wasn't that angry.
Regarding (1), there is very little to add... I imagine a large proportion of climbers from the UK have been to font and I have to say, that for somewhere that had been hyped-up by so many friends for so long, it still managed to absolutely blow me away.
I couldn't believe my eyes. It was the second week of February, it was sunny most days and a balmy 8-12 degrees, and as someone who hates climbing when cold, I found the whole experience surprisingly enjoyable! I found Font is particularly well endowed with comfortable rocks and sunny patches to sit in when the sun shines, and this combined with French cheese and baguettes and a jet boil made for some very nice days out.
(https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4J_vsbnEDH8/VsuRLWUPEuI/AAAAAAAACKQ/iLqCJii-u3w/s400/P1020017.jpg) (https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4J_vsbnEDH8/VsuRLWUPEuI/AAAAAAAACKQ/iLqCJii-u3w/s1600/P1020017.jpg)
With the good forecast and the excellent conditions, and significantly stronger than the last time I bouldered on sandstone (at St Bees, incidentally) I was very keen to try the rock out and to get on a problem I'd got my eye on: La Mouche, a crimpy affair at Franchard Cuisinière [https://bleau.info/cretesud/509.html]. And so it was, on the second day of our trip, that I found myself at the base of an amenably small boulder with some tasty crimps.
The first session went well: I could do all the moves and got very close to sticking what felt like it would be the redpoint crux. I don't honestly know why I didn't stick it that day, but it just didn't happen. It was hard enough that falling off after that move was quite plausible, but I was also confident that I could stay on. It was a hard session and I wore my fingertips worryingly thin. After that, I went to watch Alistair and Joel do some more problems and wore them thinner still trying something incredibly reachy with about three moves (I just wanted to prove that I wasn't too short) and Le Mur Cordier [https://bleau.info/cuisiniere/474.html]. Remarkably I overcame the fear of standing on the foot holds on Le Mur to do it, and topped it out with a toe hook because by this point it was too dark to see the footholds but you could still see the silhouette.
The next day, exhausted by an overnight drive and a couple of days' bouldering, we rested. This was followed by a day of rain and so it happened that I had a double rest day. I was happy that this would maybe give my thin tips a chance to grow a bit (ha!).
The second session on La Mouche took place on the Wednesday of our trip. I felt confident, I knew the moves, and I hoped I'd see improvement. However, things did not go as planned. Within about four goes, I'd worn a hole in a crucial fingertip. Angry and frustrated, I ranted and cried to Alistair about how I really wanted to do the problem.
As I said earlier, I've never really failed at a project without a good excuse. That's not to say that the excuses in the past have been the reason that I failed, but they could plausibly have been. I've always set projects dangerously close to my limit, at always got away with it. My first 7a was Rubicon, and I climbed it the morning I moved from Derby (from a summer job) back to Bristol. I tried a 7c route at Kalymnos in summer 2012. It was my absolute physical limit, and I was recovering from a shoulder injury, and it was August, sweaty and hot. In the event, I did it the morning we left.
Those things I've failed, I've often had a good reason: I tried The Ashes in summer 2013, but never did it because that September I broke my leg. I tried Power Plant a couple of years ago as a first 8a but if you're short there's a move low down that is considerably harder than the official crux. Who knows if that's actually why either of those didn't get done, but the point is that no-one likes to fail. I know many, many climbers that hate to give up. And letting go is not something I've ever mastered.
This problem was a boulder rather than a route, but other than that it was no different. After going through a second tip I was getting no closer to doing the problem. The tape was not proving very compatible with the small crimps as I just couldn't get that much friction (or really feel them). I shouted, I ranted, I raged, but to no avail. I put everything I had into it, and after several hours of trying I was making it way further than I should have been through sheer will...
But it wasn't enough.
Just wanting something badly enough isn't enough. Being strong enough isn't necessarily enough. I am sure, as sure as I can be, that I was strong enough to do that problem. I'm sure I was fit enough and I'm sure I was tall enough. I tried hard enough. But something didn't work.
I generally consider myself to have good movement skills for the level I climb at, and I am undoubtedly weak for the sport grade I climb, but in this situation I think where I was failing was that I simply wasn't good enough at solving the problem. It took probably thirty more goes and blowing a third tip and a considerable amount of failed taping to finally stop. I was scared to fail. I was scared of how I'd feel if I gave up- if I could get that mad and upset just trying, how was I going to feel once I'd given up?
Alistair suggested a that as a get-out I could take a rest day and try it on our final climbing day. There are times I've taken that last unlikely chance and it's paid off, but in this instance I knew without a doubt that I wasn't going to get the problem that way. I had to decide whether to carry on stubbornly beating myself up over it and try the problem on Friday, or whether to move on. For the first time, I decided to let go.
And after all the angst? It wasn't so bad. I've always been afraid that if I accepted defeat, that if I stopped beating myself up over failures, then I'd lose the drive to succeed. That I wouldn't be the motivated person that I am. That I'd be nothing.
Yes, I failed. Nope, I had no excuse. But I found that I didn't hate myself after all. I actually felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I went and climbed easy circuit problems with my remaining fingertips and somehow I ditched the post-redpoint-failure blues even though I tried unsuccessfully to climb a number of other things that were hard-ish for me.
(https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rnVShz4Tkx8/VsuPukArdOI/AAAAAAAACKA/cGZt4FmnTVs/s640/Top+Out.png) (https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rnVShz4Tkx8/VsuPukArdOI/AAAAAAAACKA/cGZt4FmnTVs/s1600/Top+Out.png)
I'd like to think that this epiphany will have some effect on me but I've no doubt that I'll be spotted stropping at climbing walls, on boulder problems and sport routes across the land. However, it's nice to realise even once that I've gained something in spite of not finishing it and that that doesn't make me a worse climber than before I'd tried La Mouche.
Source: Climbing and Me (http://www.climbingandme.com/)
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I remember looking back at my last draw way out to the left on a 5+ at Buoux, I was terrified and pumped out of my mind but couldn't stop laughing, what the hell was going on?! I'm a rock cat!
The humbling ones in font for me don't even have the temerity to have names, stood there nondescript as red 7 and a blue 14 i'll never forget, like hill top fights in 'nam I can say their vague moniker and someone somewhere will give me a knowing look.
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I had a similar experience in Font on Le Carnage many years back, didn't get back to that bugger for 3 years but the topout was so sweet.
Pretty brave tactics there though Lisa, jumping straight on marble crimps of death! Font, much like the peak is a game of bakeries, cheese and skin preservation. I'm sure many people's first trips there go a similar way!
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The humbling ones in font for me don't even have the temerity to have names
An Isitis blue graded 2c ... :icon_321:
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I got the structure of that sentence so wrong, should read 'For me the humbling ones in font have the temerity to not even have names'
Just in case my Mrs Japp is reading
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Le Mouche looks hideous. When I first went to Font, I was blown away by how everybody raved about the sandstone slopers but half the problems actually revolve around limestone razor blades. I still love it though.
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Le Mouche is class! The rest I'll paraphrase off Johnny
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- For the first time in my climbing experiences, I failed at something with no good excuse, and wasn't that angry.
Angry and frustrated, I ranted and cried to Alistair about how I really wanted to do the problem.
I shouted, I ranted, I raged, but to no avail.
if I could get that mad and upset just trying, how was I going to feel once I'd given up?
;)
Maybe the problem was simply too hard?? It does look good in that video tho. Still....marble crimps, nice on slabs maybe....
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Summer Lovin' (http://www.climbingandme.com/2016/10/in-august-2010-i-climbed-my-first-7a.html)
8 October 2016, 11:09 pm
In August 2010 I climbed my first 7a - Rubicon, at water-cum-jolly. This felt truly remarkable to me. It was my first redpoint: I'd been climbing 9 months, at Westway, and my climbing was characterised by my ability not to let go. In that length of time, I'd developed very little bicep or shoulder strength and heaven knows I hadn't started with any.
So little, in fact, that I had to top the route out upside-down (anyone who knows the route knows that it tops out onto a flat ledge in spite of being a sport route).
[tr][td](https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jVBpMzHd0Kw/V_lp7f7WvPI/AAAAAAAADcA/TUz6rB4qhVMh2SuS96ve-UxMeB-33aCswCLcB/s400/Rubicon.jpg) (https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jVBpMzHd0Kw/V_lp7f7WvPI/AAAAAAAADcA/TUz6rB4qhVMh2SuS96ve-UxMeB-33aCswCLcB/s1600/Rubicon.jpg)[/td][/tr][tr][td]Romping (lurching, unstably) through the jugs on Rubicon, water-cum-jolly (7a)[/td][/tr]
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That was a summer of firsts, for me. I was doing an internship during my first year of university with Rolls Royce in Derby, and I had the good fortune of meeting someone there my own age who wanted to climb, every night. That summer I did my first redpoint, my first 7a, my first limestone trad, my first E1, my first ripping of gear (a peanut popped, followed by the one below), my first decking onto a ledge... you get the picture. Above all, I learned to climb outdoors. I will always remember it as the best education in climbing I have ever had, and though I started out indoors, the peak lime feels like home.
That summer, I watched a friend climb The Sissy, an innocuous-looking route two to the left of Rubicon. The sissy was 8a, yet appeared to have only about 5 metres of hard climbing. It was inspiring! This guy was strong, really strong, and I just thought... wow, imagine that! Imagine climbing that grade.
One of the amazing things about climbing is that you get to be inspired by people that you can realistically aspire to live up to. People who aren't professional climbers but still excel. People who work full time jobs, who have full time lives.
Predator is at Malham, and there are a couple of people who have climbed predator that I'm not ashamed to admit I greatly admire. I had trained all winter after climbing Supercool and I hoped I was strong enough to make the grade. After an assessment with Lattice Training, it transpired that compared with everybody else climbing 8b I was pretty weak.
But never mind, I was fit: so I got stuck in. After a hot May and a hotter June, it transpired that not only was I weak, but I was getting rather cross. Climbing at Malham had become futile and so I moved back to the Peak, which was only slightly damp and allowed me to climb after work (and pretend every evening was the weekend). A surprisingly short battle with Ouijaboard (Cheedale Cornice, 8a) of which the crux may well be clipping boosted my confidence, and then I managed to finally commit to trying Ben's Roof which, having tried it once a year for two years with little progress (who knew once a year wasn't enough?) also yielded quickly. I even climbed Comedy in a weekend, at Kilnsey (7c) which is hard if you're below a certain height, and felt more like 8a than 7c.
[tr][td](https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MfuQTsP3x38/V_lqr7dKUvI/AAAAAAAADcI/qGFeqQprww0f1wQyYCxyhqzXEehd_hYnACLcB/s400/IMG_20160801_182339.jpg) (https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MfuQTsP3x38/V_lqr7dKUvI/AAAAAAAADcI/qGFeqQprww0f1wQyYCxyhqzXEehd_hYnACLcB/s1600/IMG_20160801_182339.jpg)[/td][/tr][tr][td]Reach for the crimp in Ben's Roof, Raven Tor (7C)[/td][/tr]
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But no, I wanted Predator, and I agonised over this desire. Alistair and I returned to it in September whereupon he did it near the start of the month. I have to confess that while I was both impressed by his climbing, and very proud of him, the bad part of me was also a little jealous. We'd tried the route together because I'd wanted to, and at first he was just humoring me. However, that is the occupational hazard of having a climbing partner who is better than you.
The following two weeks were hot, so I returned to the Sissy, which I'd tried in May and where I got to the point where I was falling off the last move (of the hard bit), and would perhaps have got it done had I not had 6 redpoints within the space of 3 hours and ripped through my index fingertip. I went back to training for the rest of the month, full of regret... I'd not achieved either route, and although I was happy with Ouijaboard, I'd only done it to belay Alistair on a route he wanted to do. It was good for me, but not a goal I'd set.
Redpointing is amazing because even though the route can be at your limit, you don't actually have to have perfect conditions to pull it off. Training, and muscle-memory, do their job. The day I climbed the Predator I had taken a Wednesday off, and had been on the route the previous weekend whilst feeling rubbish with a cold. I was still feeling sub-par on the route and my arms were shakier than usual. I set off, finding it much harder going than usual, under the protection of a cloud, which miraculously disappeared leaving the crux in the baking sun just as I got to the pre-crux rest. In desperation, I rested as long as possible, with the dialogue between Alistair and myself being something like:
Ali: "There's a cloud coming, don't worry"
Me: "How far away is it?"
Ali: "It's coming"
Me: "Is it here yet?"
...
Ali: "Er... it went the other way".
I set of on the hot crux thinking "Get ready, you're going to take the ride again". And yet somehow, I struggled through the crux and threw myself at the final move at the crux. And incredibly, I stuck the move. Clipping the post-crux quick-draw, all I could think was "I'm not doing this again".
But Predator isn't over until it's over. I battled through the final moves to the sketchy, smeary traverse leftwards that isn't afraid to spit people off it and found myself in the rest before the last few moves. I knew there was one more, pretty dropable move and I was terrified. I prattled away to Alistair's reassurances like a nervous parrot, before finally plucking the courage up to finish the route and clip the chains.
Afterwards, I was happy. Super happy, but almost too surprised to believe I'd done the route. I'd convinced myself that I wasn't strong enough and I'd actually come to terms with the fact that I wasn't likely to climb the route. I had only a couple of free weekends left to try it and after that I was going to Font for a week, so I really had very little time left. Having reached that mental conclusion, I had to convince myself that I'd done it.
This weekend, freed of the shackles of Malham, I went to try The Sissy once more. In cooler conditions, I put the clips in and climbed it first redpoint. I was ecstatic! It summed up my best week of climbing - my best summer of climbing - ever. The sissy might not be as hard, but it's a classic, and it's been there in the background the whole time I've been climbing, just looking untouchable. Though we train hard all year, it often seems that we reap the reward only once or twice a year and that has pretty powerful consequences from a psychological point of view.
[tr][td](https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-r9nun5gs-Qg/V_lqQ8gHI_I/AAAAAAAADcM/gILuzDZw26MX16SolzvR6-fKMLz0oGbJACEw/s400/IMG_20161008_151000.jpg) (https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-r9nun5gs-Qg/V_lqQ8gHI_I/AAAAAAAADcM/gILuzDZw26MX16SolzvR6-fKMLz0oGbJACEw/s1600/IMG_20161008_151000.jpg)[/td][/tr][tr][td]Victory shot! (The Sissy, Water-cum-Jolly)[/td][/tr]
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Having struggled with a shoulder injury and a broken leg for the middle few years of my climbing it feels amazing to be gaining confidence in climbing once again, and I feel very grateful that things have come so far from there. Once I've got over myself, I'll go back to training at the wall and remember that, this being Sheffield, I'm still rubbish. But for now, for once, I'm going to drink to Alistair, Climbing, and Lattice Training.
*This, I think, means there is something wrong with me as I have yet to find anyone else who even likes the route. If you do, please get in touch and I'll make a support group.
Source: Climbing and Me (http://www.climbingandme.com/)