2 Months Later

So, here we are.

2 Months to the day after I suffered the tragic injury.

I went to the SSP centre in Guildford today and it was a giggle. Couldnt really do too much, but found myself trying things, that if I had been sensible, I probbaly wouldnt have tried.

On the good side, my finger doesnt feel worse.

Sore - yes, but not broken.

I also think I identified the place in my forearm where it started to hurt later on. Perhaps I can massage this in some way to aid recovery, seems like it might be the insertion point to the muscles.

Following on from the vague advice of the physio, I wonder if the pain I feel in the hand is somehow connected to the insertion point. Which would also explain why icing the hand doesnt seem to do much good. I shall start icing my forearm instead and hope for some improvement.

1 more month?

Who knows?

Dying a little bit inside

I'm going to write this in a style

not well known for it's class or it's guile,

you can tell I am bored

do you want an award?

I might go and change my hairstyle.

For that seems to be what I do,

when I dont have something to view

I watched Shutter Island

American Dad and-

I think I preferred number two

My finger is still not much better

so I thought I should write out this letter.

To my blog I shall post

nonsense of no note

perhaps I should go make it wetter.

I've tried taking pills and icing,

I've tried liquid gels and erythromycin.

Neurofen works

my tendon just smirks

perhaps I should just stop this whining

My life, of course, could be worse

I could be lying still in a hearse,

or worse even still

I could be really ill

I hope that don't bring on a curse.

Right...after 5 passages of garbage I am going to stop and write something sensible.

or not...

I dont really have anything to say...

Welcome to my insanity.

11 days on.

And still not much improvement in the hand.

I keep myself occupied with other stuff and try to forget about climbing for now. It seems to be working. One of my most fun days so far was last Monday at the Westway centre.

For the first time in a year and a half I played fives. I also went home with an 0-4 record...not awe inspiring but considering the competition I dont think it was too bad.

I ached for a week afterwards and could barely do anything with my right arm but it was well worth it.

I am going to go back this monday, and I think I will try and get in some more training in during the next few weeks to see if I can compete in the U25 championships in a month or so.

Fortunately I can play on the nearby courts at cranleigh. Cycle in, play some shots, cycle back. Easy as 1,2,3 and with any luck I wont embarrass myself on the 19th.

I also attempted to swim for the first time in absolutely yonks. It was fine while I was in the pool, but once I got out the hell started. I have some sort of allergy to chlorinated pools and Cranleigh is heavily chlorinated...so I spent the next 5 hours (at which point I went to bed) in a state similar to a bad bad cold. My nose is still raw from the number of times I wiped it and I will not be trying that again any time soon...which is a pity because I really enjoyed myself. Oh well.

A climb!

I went for my second rehab climb at craggy island today,

Did some lead climbing on some very easy routes and my hand doesnt feel too bad so far, very happy in a way.

I realised how much I love lead climbing again, I looked in my logbook today and the last time I did a lead climb was almost 2 months ago on the same day I tried my first 7c.

Today I was just climbing 4s and 5s but I still had a lot of fun getting back to what I love doing, nothing hard, nothing tough, I hung around on big jugs looking for methods of doing way harder routes for my partner and just pissed about mainly.

I dont think I have been missing that with my normal climbing sessions as such, but it was nice to have a solid reminder that I really just enjoy being on the wall, with some fall potential below me, some nice moves above me and problems to be solved.

I would also like to wish Lisa luck on her travels, may she be lucky on her routes and not get any injuries.

In other news

this dyno is sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet

http://vimeo.com/13865479

Hoorah - The video is finally back!

Jack has finished the video from font, and after apparently suffering some set backs (like loosing his first cut) it looks pretty good.

I shall post the link here.

http://vimeo.com/13654049

Please do go watch it.

and in other news I climbed yesterday, and it kinda hurt my finger. Not any worse than it was already so no extra damage done, just need to lay off for a bit longer really...like another 2 weeks perhaps. I need to start icing it too, definitely been lazy on that aspect of treatment.

Righty ho

Another lame post of not much happening.

On the plus side I think I might be ready for some light rehab in about a week or so - and I mean light.

Jugs on the vertical I imagine.

This is positive.

So. While I am on holiday, doing not much, I have to keep myself entertained in other fashions.

As I mentioned in the last post I went to the world cup which was neat.

Then about a week after I ended up going surfing in Sennen Cove (cornwall) where I saw the most awesome line of holds on a problem.

I was super psyched to find out what it was so I could do it some other time. After traipsing through ukc and a few shops in Sennen I eventually found out it is an E7 with death fall potential...perhaps one for a top rope ascent methinks.

My other attempts at keeping myself occupied are fairly varied I guess.

Watching films - Braveheart is good. - Eclipse is very much on the opposite end of the scale.

Rubiks cube (new pb 33.30)

Cycling

Photography

and Ukelele (I am still pretty rubbish after 2 whole days of practice - what is that all about?!?)

I also got involved with a game of ultimate frisbee the other day which was interesting.

I am thinking about going to London on Monday to play some fives in the Westway centre. I could do with a partner though.

unfortunately one is in Germany,

another in Devon,

another in Kenya

and the last one is being non commital because he has one of those job things.

Balls!

Oh well. Might go anyway.

Some of my favourite pictures from the last few weeks

Kilian on one of the WC problems

Bobby midway through a jump on Leith Hill

Looking towards Lands End (note the wreck)

Bobby on the Beach

This is going to be a long one.

Hello to everyone who has been waiting in earnest for news of my life.

I can only express my deepest apologies for keeping you waiting for so long.

However, as Michael Jackson once said, 'This is it'

Right - Last time I posted one here was just before leaving to go to Fontainebleau.

I had just about recovered from the A2 Pulley injury

I was just trying to get back fitness and whatnot.

Due to this I had no idea what I should try to attempt over in France, and set no real targets for the trip. I tried a few problems and my hand seemed to be holding up ok, so I moved onto tentatively trying some harder stuff. Everything seemed to work out alright and I managed to tick:

Insistance 7a Rataplat 7b L'Oblique 7a Le Lepreux direct 7a Envie d'Ange7a Retrofiction 7a Jo Dalton 7a+ Entorse 7a+

It isnt a bad list, and it is equal to my list last year(slightly better grades actually). I think this should be taken as a positive because of the length of time I took out before the trip and the injury I was still carrying out there.

Unfortunately in the last few days of the trip I managed to screw my hand over again.
A 2 finger pocket on the top of the classic highball - Big Jim 6c strained my hand and after seeing a physio at the World cup I apparently have a strained Tendon. This is another month or so out again... I seem to have spent about a third of this year out with injury so far so this is just lame.

You can see some of my favourite pictures from my trip at:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=53094&id=1614090061&l=e11dd7ba44

Onto the second bit of 'news':
I went to the World cup this weekend and won! (but I'll get to that in a bit)

On Saturday we watched the qualifiers and went to Curbar for the afternoon.
Ondra and Fischhuber both looked very impressive during this session. The problems were set quite easy though and many people succeeded on most of the problems.

On Sunday we watched the Semi finals and Quarter Finals.
Unfortunately Kili went out in the Semis due to some tough setting and the rules of qualification, needless to say he looked a little unhappy with the state of affairs. Ondra however cruised through with ease and rocked up in the finals looking impressive.

In the finals Hori from Japan (#3) failed to do anything and ended up in last place which showed how tough the competition was this round. We then watched the other 5 competitors come out and achieve varying levels of success. Last of all came Ondra. The kid really is a machine, some of the moves he made were simply out of this world. On problems that the other climbers seemed completely stumped on, he walked up and every so often looked a little confused by the harder moves. On the first 3 problems he put in a quick onsight in the first minute and I think he did the last problem in 2/3 attempts to win overall.
Very, Very impressive.

Now onto the important victory of the weekend. Mine.
We stayed at the Alpkit Shakeout campsite on friday and saturday and enjoyed it thoroughly.
On Saturday evening we were entertained by the marvellous Bell Hagg Orkestar who's myspace account does no justice to the performance they put on. Gypsy madness to dance to. Brilliant.
Anyways- The theme was 80's rockmasters so I donned a bad wig, bad lycra, bad moustache and quality aviators for my entry. Of course, since no one else entered I won the contest with ease :-D

The next day I picked up my prize of a new head torch and a new drybag from the alpkit store at Cliffhanger. Unfortunately I don't know of any photographs from the evening so you will have to imagine the quality of the costume for yourselves.

Anyways, I think this is the end of my post for now.

Another month out now, maybe I will be able to climb again before the end of summer...targets are looking unlikely right now...