Sending and Crashing,Week 4

It has officially been a month since I left home, I almost cant believe it. Time moves in such strange ways in the magical Rocklands… Anyway, this week was preeeetty good again.

 

Monday was a chilled rest day with a lot of chilling.

 

Tuesday all my friends decided to go to Nardouw to finish some business. I however, had some other business that I had to finish. Heading out on my own I decided to drive to the pass with one goal in mind. Sending Nutsa! After the 25 minute walk I arrived at the boulder. It was a nice sunny day which isn’t necessarily what you want but it was still early and cold. I told myself that I would warmup on some surrounding blocks first instead of warming up on the proj. I think this might have helped quite a bit. I felt strong on the first few moves which have always been an issue in the previous session. It would always take 30+ minutes to feel good on them. After warming up and feeling some more moves I went for the redpoint attempts. After punting the final hard moves a couple more times I felt quite solid on the boulder. I had a lot of faith. And after all my hard work it finally paid off. I send my second 8A! It was an amazing feeling to be on top of that boulder after all these tries. It was a little sad that my friends weren’t there to celebrate with me but it was still unbelievable.

 

After going to The Henhouse to celebrate with a coffee shake, I headed up to Nardouw as well. Here I found my friends and climbed a bit more. A memorable boulder from that afternoon session was All Night Dinner a sick roof problem with a crazy finger jam. After our Nardouw session we headed to Travelersrest to celebrate my send with burgers and fries.

 

On Wednesday we went to The Sassies to concur my fears. Most of you probably remember the accident from week 1… Max and I headed out to Ghost In The Darkness (7C+) a cool roof boulder with a hand jam, toe jam and kneebar. Very sick! It was very busy at the boulder and you kind of had to fight for a go. After warming up, putting on my kneepad and taping up, I got surprisingly close on my flash go. Giving it a few more tries got me on top of the boulder. A few Americans wanted to get on Leap of Faith (7C+) which is this crazy high dyno problem. The perfect opportunity to concur my fears… After giving it three pussy tries, I decided to call it quits. Earlier that morning I extended my trip, and this would be an awful day to break something. So yhea I’m officially staying longer. I’ll be here two more weeks. I also gave Shosholoza a couple tries, and this was very promising. I did the second move a couple of times and felt good in the first move.

 

Thursday, we headed out to The Pass. Mason wanted to try the Rhino before he left. I didn’t feel very good that day, the past weeks of sending had me feeling a little tired. Mason send The Rhino while I headed home to lay in bed for the rest of the day…

 

The day after I felt a little better and decided to come support the boys. I couldn’t control myself and went and tried some boulders. I did a quick send of White Arrow the softest 7C+ in Rocklands and I played around a bit on Black Velvet (8A). This was a promising session on it! I did the jump and got pretty close starting from the bottom. Sticking the jump messed up my right shoulder a bit though… This didn’t stop me from retro flashing Hole In One (7C+) though.  

 

 

 

 

Today is Monday and I have been knocked out in my caravan for the past three days… A lack of rest and quite a lot of emotional and physical strain has gotten me exhausted. Today is the first day where I’ve been feeling a bit better. The rest days are kind of welcome though. Especially since I extended my trip. I hope the rest is going to do me well, so I’ll feel strong and refreshed when I get back on the rock. This week was Masons last week and I’m going to miss him a lot. It was quite the shame that I couldn’t boulder with him these past few days. But I’ll see him soon enough.  

 

For this week there is only one song that comes to mind,

 

Superfan, Too Tired

 

The pressure is lowering since the weeks that I have left are doubled. Let’s hope i can do something cool with the extra time. See y’all next week. And don’t forget, be nice, think twice and most importantly, crush some boulders.