Mo Motivation
Saturday 18th May. I had planned on a weekend in Yorkshire to get back on some Kilnsey projects with my shunt. A text from Malcolm heralded a change of plan to go to Malham for the day instead. The way my motivation has been recently this seemed the safer bet of actually leaving the house…
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Stressed, tired and overworked - Now its training time.
The forecast for drizzle never materialised an the weather was fairly cool to a tad greasy when we arrived. After belaying Malcolm as he warmed up putting the clips up an F8c I opted for something easier for a change and decided to try New Dawn F7c. As a warm up a equipped the route. Some sections turned out to be harder than I expected requiring lots of technical footwork on some rubbish polished footholds. On the whole the polish wasn’t as bad as I had expected for a route of its status. Moving upward it seemed straight forward enough on good undercuts and sidepulls, but will positional feet. The final move of the traverse ended on a crux. After a few tries I buckled and had to ask for the clip stick. After working it out it wasn’t too bad, just Malham. Later I pulled the rope for a redpoint and ended up at the crux confused as to what to do. Second redpoint I made the same highpoint none the wiser. A back link from mid way was probably in order. I spent sometime wiring the easier top section but very nearly flash pumped off the final move which might have landed me a whipper if I hadn’t spied a crimp to stick my finger nails in for a wee shake. In between my goes Malcolm crept higher and on his best attempt pulled through the crux only to bottle the clip after the 6m runout! I’m certain he’ll complete it soon. To finish I had a final redpoint that didn’t get past the first bolt, my soft skin and gangly toes aching. Depressingly I still had to strip the remaining 20m tempted to ditch the draws.
My motivation has been drifting again and sadly I’m finding less and less time and energy to train. Getting shutdown on Puta Rue, Devastation, Magnetic and Connect for another year hit my motivation hard. My last two visits to Malham seen me struggle to try the F8a/b’s and fail on a F7b! Combined with today’s flash pumping lack of fitness I’ve got some work to do on the run up to the South of France and some tries on True North. Luckily today’s climbing was enjoyable and motivating even though I struggled well below my limit. I’ll now have to forge on with the finger board training, PE and stamina to get up to speed.