Friday, December 13, 2013

Episode 12: The Weetabix guy

A few weeks ago we visited Bleau twice but temperatures were far too low for me to climb. My body cannot function at 2 degrees Celsius. I'm Mediterranean, for crying out loud! I'm definitely spending next autumn/winter in a hotter climate.
The second time, we went to Éléphant. It was my first time visiting and I was eager to try its famous two-finger pockets but my fingers were frozen all day. I only sent two mini-high balls to get my blood pumping.
This one was a bit trickier...

Speaking of high balls, here's another one I sent back in August at Gorges du Houx. We hadn't found it on bleau.info but all holds were covered with chalk. It doesn't seem very scary in the video but at the end of the diagonal trav, you're already four meters from the ground and then you've got another 4 or 5 meters of vertical climbing. I would give it a 6A.

A few days ago and after having cancelled at the last minute three days in a row, I gave Bleau another chance and visited Rocher Canon. According to the weather channel, no rain had dropped for at least seven days and I was ultra-motivated to send my big projects. When we arrived, everything was soaking wet. We were disgusted and frustrated. That was a deal breaker for me. I had promised myself that I wouldn't go back to Bleau for the winter if I didn't send La Mare (engl. "pool, pond") on that day. As soon as we approached the boulder, we discovered that it had succumbed to the winter rain and had become a pool at least 30 cms deep.
Since the beginning of November, I have been trying out my new training schedule - jumps, dynos, arm locking, a lot of contortions and violent shoulder locking - at the gym and it has been paying off. I am sending a lot of routes in the 7th degree quite easily and already have two 7Cs under my belt. My project for the next two weeks is an 8A, 15-meter trav in a 60-degree underhang. I have sent most of the moves and I'm rather optimistic for the ones I haven't sorted it out yet. I sent the 7B trav on the same wall in only two sessions and I'm almost done with the moves of the 7C route.
After spending five months without lead climbing, I went back to Murmur Issy for a seven-hour session. I sent two 7a+'s, finished all the moves of another 7a and sent another ten, <7a routes. I was rather pleased with my performances on the underhanging walls. Hopefully, I will have the chance to lead climb at least once a week for the next three to four months.
Tomorrow is the opening of a new gym: Hardbloc. The premises seem exciting and entrance is free for the entire weekend so I'll have the chance to climb with many of my new and old friends. That's a great way to spend a weekend. I'm being careful with my left index (I got a crevasse between the distal and the intermediate phalanges) because it started bleeding two days ago. I was working on an intriguing 7A at the gym, my finger started getting red, I knew it was going to start bleeding but I didn't want to stop. I wanted to give the route just one last try. You don't have to guess the outcome, you know me better than that :-)
Last week I made an important decision that will most definitely motivate me even more. Most climbers, even amateurs like myself, dream of getting sponsored one day. For me, it is not about the money. I know I will never become a professional climber; I wouldn't want that kind of pressure on myself and besides, that would take years and years. It's about your hard work getting acknowledged. I admit, it sounds absurd: we are climbers because we love climbing and not out of an insane need to please others and yet, we need an external source of gratification. Maybe it is vanity, I honestly don't know. 
Anyway, I decided to pursue the one company I have adored for many years: Weetabix. I have been consuming two to three packs a week of their main product and have a lot of respect for their mentality. Their biscuit format has been helping me control my calorie intake and from a nutritional standpoint, they are the best cereal out there (only rivaled by Kellog's All-Bran that are a tad more expensive and slightly heavier on sugar and salt). I have therefore given myself 18 months to come up with a project to attract their attention. If only half of my new year's resolutions go as planned, I will get one step closer to becoming the (new? first?) Weetabix guy. It's a bird, it's a plane, it's the Weetabix guy!

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