
By the early February the exams came to a close and we had freedom at last!! However, my body was on its last legs, running on fumes and ready for a rest. Luckily for me my last week of exams was also a rest week in my training, just what I needed to restart and refresh. A big night out to celebrate the end of exams, a day watching the rugby with the family, perfect way to finish exams. Well I thought so anyway.
The day post no sleep and watching the rugby I was hit with one of the worst colds I have had in years! Generally, I would say my immune system is pretty good but right now, it was in tatters. Throwing in the 3 component of the triangle and removing sleep had hit hard. I was bed bound for 3 days and although I could move around after this, I still felt lethargic and battered, the easiest tasks becoming the biggest effort in the world. After a week I was back on the wall, though it wasn’t quite how I’d remembered it. Things that felt easy before were now hard, really hard. This feeling didn’t leave for nearly 2 weeks, although I felt better, my body was still catching up, still tired, still recovering. It was frustrating.
So, where are we now? Well, I’m no longer trying to juggle everything at once, I won’t be making that mistake for a while. The biggest lesson from this was to listen to my body. Before I’ve always had the mentality of, “well, it’ll probably be fine” and for the majority it has been. But for now I’ll be on the side of caution (must be getting old..). Also, CWIF, one of the best comps of the year is in a week and a half and this should be mega. This year the line-up is insane! The semis and finals are likely to look like that of a world cup rather than your local bouldering comp. This being said I’m still looking forward to putting my recent training both physical and mental to the test, to see how I feel in my climbing compared to previous years and previous comps. Should be a good one.