Marmot UK - Lucy Out Injured

The plan was to spend three to four weeks climbing outside, part onsighting and part redpointing and then finish up fit and ready for the Chamonix World Cup on 12th July. The second part to gaining loads of fitness, was to then head back to the UK (with hopefully a good comp result under my belt) and try and headpoint some of Britain’s hardest trad routes. Something I’ve never done and was quite excited and psyched for...

Things started great. Climbing at a totally awesome (secret crag) in France, I came within millimetres of onsighting 7c+ and 8a, so I knew my fitness was starting to make a comeback, which was good news for Ceuse. Having already onsighted five 7c+’s at Ceuse in the past (mostly the classics) I was going to have to delve a bit deeper into the delights of Ceuse and not just go for the classics.

Speaking to a local hotshot, who happened to be only a couple of inches taller than I was, he recommended some good routes to go for so after a few days of acclimatising to Ceuse and getting used to the climbing again, my plan was to warm up in the morning, climb a few low to mid 7’s, try to onsight a 7c+, then put the clips in an 8a+. The following day I hoped to redpoint the 8a+.

This actually worked very well and for two cycles of climbing days, I onsighted two 7c+’s and redpointed two 8a+’s 1st or 2nd go (At this point if I had been at another crag, I think I would’ve been Onsighting 8a’s but Ceuse is the 7c+ crag and seems to have a dearth of 8a’s to try and onsight).

With three climbing days left before resting up for the Chamonix World Cup, I wanted to drop down the intensity a bit and not get involved in anything too hard. I didn’t try to onsight anything harder than 7c and wasn’t really trying to redpoint anything. However, there was an 8a that was bugging me at the Cascade area and as I was going up there every morning so I thought I'd try and redpoint it.This proved to be my downfall...

The route ‘Rosanna’ has a tricky crux with big moves on poor holds. I tried to redpoint it a couple of times and was getting to the crux easily then falling. I got quite angry and started to work the move quite a number of times with not much rest in between goes...not a good idea!

I had said to myself it would be my last go- how right I was. After I fell, my finger felt very painful so I sat on the rope mulling it over for about five mins and then tentatively tried to pull on it.

"OUCH!"

It was not going to happen. Dejected, I was lowered down.

Not being knowledgeable about pulled fingers (it rarely happens to me), I decided to go to Cham anyway, thinking that with three days rest my finger might have calmed down and there might be a chance of competing. This turned out to be pie in the sky and my hopes for doing well at the Chamonix comp were dashed. This also meant my plan for attempting some of the hardest trad routes in the UK has had to go on hold too. I’m really disappointed about this, as I was climbing very well and think I could’ve got some hard routes done.

So with eight weeks out, I’m trying to maintain what I’ve gained. It's turning out to be quite hard because my normal methods of training are out. It's too painful at the moment, so I am just trying to modify things.

...Oh well, c’est la vie. I hope the time goes quickly (I’ll try to get lots of mountain biking done) and come back to climbing psyched!