Wednesday, March 07, 2012

Relax in Bruixes


Breathing fresh air and pulling on large holds on a crag away from home for a change - Bruixes, a little gem in the vicinity of Lleida, perfect for endurance-improving, tufa-pulling, yellow-colored start of spring.  Bruixes actually means witches in Catalan, this is supposedly a bewitched spot, and for me it symbolizes all the overhanging tufa climbing that I once ago discovered in Kalymnos, and so far have been totally unable to master.  

Following my strategy of antagonist forces, I flailed over all the untried 7bs of the area, trying not to get injured as I did a month before in a similar situation of recovery from training in Siurana.  Tufas were nicer to me, only trashed skin and tired muscles resulted from the trip this time.  It was also the week-end of too much food, over-eating dinner, breakfast, and dinner again at the Hotel du Lac, nothing like the local "cerranito" sandwich to get all the energy back in a mouthful.

Pau getting more than warmed up on Ansia, a polished 7a+

And Pau again, battering power-endurance on Orient, a classic tufa 7c+

{ rant }
Oh, one day, one day, I will come back and send those overhanging projects.  One day, I will not be tired, I will do Energia, try Primera Linea, cruise Occident, and maybe, oh, maybe, even have the power-endurance to go floating over the moves of Orient.  So far, those dreams remain dreams, and the hard reality made up of few pull-ups, insufficient core (body tension), limited endurance, and generally low power combine to make it another dream crag for the un-foreseeable future I still dare to dream of. Maybe a long stay at Rodellar during the upcoming season will help, maybe my training efforts will one day convert me into an overhang-climbing machine, maybe one day... I will give up on dreaming and start climbing long routes and serious mountains again instead of obsessing about 30 meters of juggy limestone.
{ end of rant }

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