I'm a woman

I'm a woman
Photos copyright Laurence Gouault
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Monday 5 November 2012

Being clever, being strong, succeeding.by Stevie unsuccessful Haston

Training with fingers injury, clever or stupid!
Being clever, being strong, succeeding, are not what I normally do. I am normally firmly in neutral, not working anything out, not specifically training, and not succeeding because I don't try very hard! I do have occasional success, because I get soooo pissed off with myself, I work myself into a frenzy of training, mad motivation and general mayhem. Mayhem is not a great strategy! Anyway you have to work with the tools you got, right? No wrong! Get some new tools dude.
My new tools are a bit more patience, understanding the nature of slow strength progression at the top of my curve, and enjoying the job a bit more.
Maybe clever, little finger front levers...

I can't take any credit for this, its been brought on by a few injuries, and the weather and other stuff.
In a world that likes success if not yesterday, then this morning, its hard to realize that you are a bit further off than you think you are.
Power to weight related sports or silly games, are a real bugger, theres always the danger that the more you do them that your weight slowly creeps up, the danger that the better you get, the more you think you are a winner, when really you have to understand the most important rule, its your total weight against the weakest link in the chain. And how many weak, or significant weak links are there in climbing, theres loads unfortunately!
I thought at the start of my climbing this year I would get a hard route at the end of October with the better temps. If nothing went wrong that is, a few things have gone wrong, so at the start of the year I knew it could take longer, well it's going that way. And here's the trick, so what.
Training just after two consecutive knee surgery, Second ascent of Octopussy a week later..
 
Yep this is why I will succeed, its either that or suicide, and before suicide mad mayhem.
And if you are interested in my weak links (because if you identify the enemy they are easier to eliminate)  they are ; wieght=too heavy, fingers=poorish full crimp. Strong points are everything else, I have seen some great climbers recently, and apart from the guys who will place high in the World cup, the rest are human!
So its back to the drawing board, or empty fridge in this case, and the finger boards. And please God of the Crimp please, please protect my A2 connective tissue just for a few months.