Monday 12 March 2012

CWIF

On saturday I took part in my first larger competition, it was a great day and extremely nerve-racking morning within the hours prior to the competition.
As it was my first 'big' competition I said to my family "I will be happy with making the top 300; therefore 299th would be great!".

I visited the Climbing Works in the morning to watch some of the British Bouldering team and various other top climbers do some of the problems. I walked in and saw Shauna Coxey sending one of the problems; this was very weird seeing her, as I've watched so many videos of her at the world cup etc.

I then returned to the hotel and relaxed but all that was happening was a rise in my anxiety, as I ate some food and listened to music. I then got a taxi to the Climbing Works and after arriving I quickly started to warm-up and look around to see the do-able problems- As I looked around I believed that I was only capable of doing two/three problems...
I then found Alex Waterhouse and decided to go around with Alex trying the problems. I got on an easy-ish problem first and flashed it, then I got on a medium difficulty problem and flashed it too; this raised my morale and belief of completing more than two/three problems.

I paced through severalm of the problems before getting on some of the harder one's.

I left the Climbing Works, returned to the hotel and worried that I hadn't achieved my goal of making the top 50. Later that evening I checked the results and came looked at the bottom of the list and I wasn't there, so I scrolled up and found my name sitting next to the number 56; I had came 56th and missed out on 55th by one point...