Down with the sickness

Being sick sucks. After nationals last month I got bronchitis for two weeks, so had to stop any climbing, then just as I was finished with the antibiotics the Cape Town winter gave me flu for another week, just for good measure. So now I'm finally feeling better and have managed to get a few training sessions in at the UCT wall, feeling rather weak and fingers are tweaky. I always find after taking a few weeks break from climbing it always puts strain on my fingers, which I guess is understandable. So the usual process is to tape my fingers for a few weeks, and slowly tape less and less until my fingers are crimping hard without any pain whatsoever. When that happens its pretty awesome. Watched "Frequent Flyers" the other day, and there's a scene where a guy is crimping with two fingers, and really pushing himself, until you hear two loud cracks. He snapped something in his finger and whatever it was it sounded pretty horrific. Either way I hope I never have to deal with an injury as severe as that. I think most of my injuries are light, and go away fairly quickly if looked after, and I hope it stays that way.

So the past few weeks have been busy for me. Got a new job, and it has rather unusual work hours, from 12 till 8pm. Today was sweet as I got to leave work at 2pm, so my first thoughts went to bouldering. I decided to head out to old redhill for a session. I wasn't too phased on what I tried, I just really needed to get on rock. Robbie was keen on "Black Hoodie Rap" (7C) so I figured I would try it as well. It was super misty and rather cold at Redhill, so the conditions were good, although there was a bit too must moisture in the mist. Firstly we practiced the finishing dyno to warm up, then after that I almost sent it first go. It went 3rd go, and felt pretty good. Robbie managed all the moves only to fall off the dyno at the end. Seems really close though. After that I was psyched on trying "Black Demon" (7C/8A?). The problem is super crimpy. I had tried it once before in poor conditions, only to get shut down horribly. So this time I started from the one good slot in the middle of the problem, and managed to do all the moves from there onwards quite quickly. The start is another story, as you basically move out of a little overhang into two sharp credit card crimps, and then into the slot. I realised that the only way i could hold the small crimps was to close my crimps with my thumbs and just taste the pain. So I managed to go from the start and match the sharp crimps and move towards the slot. So I just have to hit the slot and hopefully I'll be able to give it some go's from the start. The question is whether the problem is actually 7C or harder. I think its harder than 7C, so either 7C+ or 8A, possibly the latter depending on how hard it is to link the two halves. The problem was opened in 2005 and has yet to receive a second ascent. After working all that, I managed to flash "The World Is Out To Get Me" (7B).

Johannes Schlemper on the FA of "Black Demon" (7C). The really small crimps are in the first and third frames. Photos courtesy of Cutloose Boudering.

So I'm feeling psyched to get strong and hopefully climb as much as I can in the coming months...