I’m thoroughly exhausted after “two days” of climbing. I have to put two days in quotes for now, because I only managed five pitches in the last two days. Just as I expected, I (temporarily) have lost both my fitness base and my intuitive sense of climbing movement from having the forced time off, plus having to come back with a hand that works better than it did, but that definitely isn’t back to full normal functioning yet.

It may seem like an odd choice, but I selected an 8a+ (13c) as my rehabilitation route at Terradets. This is a challenging grade for me always, but it just made sense for me at this point for a few reasons. First of all, I don’t want to throw away the potential opportunity to at least try to give some of the easier routes on the wall a good first-go shot, not when I know there’s no way I can even pretend to give them a flash or onsight burn at the moment. Since I still can’t clip normally with my left hand or move it as quickly as usual, this isn’t an option for me right now. I also can’t pinch properly yet, especially fatter pinches, and the route I’ve chosen has none of these (at a tufa-ridden wall like Terradets, this is a bit of a rarity). Finally, I spent a couple of days on top tope working out a way to manage all of the clips on this route on lead, making it a safe choice for me to work on right now, despite my injury – I simply have to do a few more moves here and there to make all the clips happen. It’s still better and more fun than top roping for me. I felt a rush of freedom as soon as I started trying it on lead.

I one-hung this route the day before yesterday, much to my surprise, and then regressed yesterday – thoroughly beat up after three pitches of climbing on the previous day. Instead of getting frustrated, though, I simply spent some time refining the crux beta of the climb yesterday, realizing that my technique wasn’t on target yet, that I hadn’t worked out the best way to move through this little boulder problem at all on my previous efforts. I’ve been sort of panic-climbing, really – not trusting my left hand, and overworking my right hand and arm to the point that the arm feels permanently congested and sore right now. I plan on lots of self-massage today to try to rectify this situation, and I’m actually also considering taking two days off again. I don’t want to start out my ”real climbing” on this trip by instantly driving myself into the ground.

Best of all for me right now is the fact that even though I’m really tired from climbing, my left hand works decently enough, compared to where it was even a week ago – typing feels back to normal, and I can do most daily tasks without a second thought, though I still can’t put my hair back or hold heavier objects (like a full water bottle) normally yet. I’m hopeful that after this rest period, I can maybe start making some clips with my left hand a little more successfully and confidently, but then again, if I can’t, I’m already so far ahead of where I was a mere week ago (when I was tentatively top-roping 5.10s and 5.11s) that it’s crazy to me. If only a person could really advance through the grades so quickly in real life, right? I’d be projecting 5.15c by the end of next week if that were the case…now that would be something.

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