Injured!

Damn it. The past week has been a major bummer. I have seriously learned something that I always pretended to know: never climb with pain. Ever since I campused a lot previous to my flu in February I have been dealing with slight pains in my left elbow. Now it`s time to fully cure that inflamation. Of course it takes longer now than if I had given it time to cure after the first pains. 

After being thoroughly frustrated at the gym Tuesday last week...sorry to Verena for bitching around like a fucking bastard...I went to my Doc on Wednesday and my golfer`s elbow has been in intensive treatment since. The kids in my training group of course realized the needle marks from the Diclofenac injections and asked me if I had become a drug addict. With the weather being perfect and me being in desperate need to climb after 4 weeks of flu related break, the whole thing feels fucked up! 

The weekend subsequently was queer too. I hiked to the Hochgern on Saturday which was great after some emo epicing on Friday evening. Sunday I spent looking for a wall to bolt, which resulted in the most dangerous thing I have done in my life. I order to get to the wall I wanted to check out I foolishly decided to climb a steep bank/wall with shit rock, a couple of tree roots to hold to and a lot of slippery dirt. I also underestimated the height of that thing. Resting in the middle and catching my breath I realized that I was soloing a chossy wall with no option to downclimb and a 100% chance of dying if I slipped. The whole thing is kinda like in the middle of nowwhere...that`s the deal when you`re roaming to find something new...and if I had fallen and still be able to cry for help, nobody would have heard my cries. 

I made it. No fall. Desperate trust in a couple of tree roots, some solid looking rock and a final high step on a dubious foothold gained me the trunk of a young and very green tree at the top of the wall. Lot´s of leaves on that tree. It was in the bloom of life. Therefore, I felt immensely relieved grabbing it. Damn it. I´ll never ever climb that wall again. The biggest chosspile I ever did. Not to mention the wall I checked out. Looked nice from the distance from where I spotted it but with a closer look...

In the end, I got lost on the Schnappen. I found a path and followed it. It was probably an ancient hunter`s path, always close to the steep flanks of the Schnappen. When I found a halfway good looking gully that was looking like the most natural way to the valley, I scrambled down, almost fell and slipped when I crossed the slippery grass flank to get to the gully and then kinda liked Sam-Frodoed my way to the valley. Schnappen seriously is a place where you can get in a hell of a mess. I wish I had had a rope. 

The new week has continued to start like shit. I woke up super early. Gulped down the coffee. Got things packed for university. Rushed out to get my bus...and then felt something wet on my ass. The orange juice in my backpack was leaking. I sprinted up to my flat, rescued my laptop from my flooded backpack and swore a lot. There goes my grammar course. I´ll have to apologize. 

Hoping the week will get better. The weather forecast is crap, though. Some fools managed to set pig influenza virus free in a swiss train. The container the virus was kept in blew! Everybody is freaking! There`s gonna be a pandemie! I seriously wonder...there are so many things that get me freaked out and this totally leaves me cold hearted...

On a final note, Bayern Munich sacked coach Jürgen Klinsman yesterday. Big Mistake! Good for me still, since the result of their games gravely affects my landlord`s mood. He hated Klinsman`s guts and blamed him for the bad results, almost exclusively so to speak. His mood is gonna be better now, so I might be able to borrow a car once my elbow is cured. The future is what we think of it to be. Climbing undoubtly helps me think positive, I will have to learn to keep my Zen Mind in moments of stress. There is no practice unless you have had practice under strain. There is no real calm unless you have kept it safe under attack from outside. 

It´s been a while

It´s been a while since I last wrote something. The past weeks have been really annoying, since my brother`s visit I have been down with the flu.

Now that the flu is finally gone, I will shortly resume a winter of superlatives. We had tons of snow and I didn`t ski once due to a knee injury. Fucked up luck on the big scale.

To the present: I am finally able to climb again. Since the spring has finally set in -the sun is finally shining- me and Verena took advantage of that and went to Kochel, an area famous for stiff grades and being very...mhmm, different. You either like it or hate it. I like it. We spent the day at the Celtic wall and it was perfect, the grades are sandbags -which I like- and the climbing is really my style...big moves, athletic. You have to  be strong if you wanna send anything in Kochel.

The day after that, that is the day before Easter Sunday, I went to the Zellerwand where I warmed up sending the beautiful Workoholic onsight -35 metres of perfection, at least if we`re talking Zellerwand terms- and then turned to La Princessa Negra. I cleaned the whole project again and throughly, put some chalk on the holds and had a go after getting properly warmed up on Saubär (the lower part up to the crux, Saubär completely will be my proj. after sending the princess). I can say that it is a really amazing and good line, despite the shittalking from a lot of envious bastards. Wait until you see my next strike, bitches! You´re gonna drop your jaws.

The crux had me making Sharma sounds pretty soon. I stuck the move before the crux move, which leaves me with two moves unsolved. After those two there is a moderate shake out with medium holds and crap footholds. The key to success will be to use it the day I link the crux.

Hopefully more to come soon. The season has finally started. The summer has come.