I have not posted much recently mostly because David and I haven’t moved from Oliana! We have decided to spend time here working on harder routes. This is something we spoke about being able to do ever since we started talking about the rock trip. Before we started the trip we climbed outside on weekends and holidays. We were lucky enough to climb around Catalunya and so there was a wide range and variety of crags and routes for us to get our hands on. This meant that we never really tried routes for longer than a weekend or two. Why would we when we could try different routes every weekend! Although our max grades are both 8b+ we invested a fairly short amount of time to do that grade but now that we have the time we have decided to start the trip staying in one place and making the most to project harder routes.
It is a completely different mental game. One that I can safely say we are both pretty bad at(!) David started by quickly sending a couple more 8b+ and I have decided to go for a bigger prize and start working on an 8c straight away. We are coming up to one month and personally I am struggling a bit mentally. It’s hard to be in one place for one month and not really send anything when I’m used to sending a high 7s or low 8s pretty much every weekend. I am seeing progress in the route I’m trying but I have decided to also have a slightly easier second project so as not to get too frustrated and to mix up the movements a bit. And I think this is working well. On days where there are a lot of people I have two options to try and if on a certain day I don’t feel like trying one of the routes I might feel like trying the other. Plus the two styles are fairly different so maybe even at the end of a day I can try the slightly more bouldery route when I don't have the stamina left to try the more endurance route.
I have a great amount of respect for people that can try a single route for months or maybe even years. Personally I fall at the same move 3 times and I feel like the route is too hard for me and that I should just come back stronger. But what's cool about Oliana is that here is a good group of people here and you can often discuss different tactics and approaches to projecting. I still have a way to truly enjoy it.. I much prefer doing routes onsight, flash or max 5 goes but I'm sticking at it because people keep telling me that when I do send it, it will feel amazing! We shall see... it's a completely different approach to climbing.
Projecting is a lot more about mental strength than I realised. I always just assumed that it was more about getting gradually stronger on the route until eventually one day you send it. But it's a lot more than that. You might get a high point one day and then the very next day get a low point... Suddenly conditions really make a difference, you can feel physically strong but then start falling off the route because the conditions are really slippery that particular day... It's a constant juggle.
Yesterday I got a high point but because I hadn't worked on the top section very much I started improvising and ended up having a foot slip. But until now I hadn't felt mentally strong enough to really work on that section, one because I have pretty bad memory and preferred to concentrate on getting the lower sections completely dialed but maybe also because part of me was starting to think that I would never get to the top. The route is 45/50m long so trying to remember all of the sequences and holds and also have the energy to try all the different options is exhausting but also something I need to work on. I now understand people that spend days dedicated to just trying sections and then once they have everything sorted they start to do goes from the ground, tactics it's all about tactics.
I still have quite a way to becoming a project climber and I am looking forward to going back to sending routes of a lower grade in fewer days or tries but it's also quite exciting to have a challenge and to push oneself. Let's see!!
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