Montag, 30. Juni 2014

Rock climbing around Graz 1.0



Hey guys :-)

The rock climbing season has begun for me and I feel very grateful for the change. During the last two weeks some exciting stuff happened. First of all, my friend Luki climbed Gräfin Mariza (8a), which was awesome to witness, as I accompanied him since he tried the route for the first time. He went through a remarkable progress of improvement but what impressed me most was his endless patience. Being so humble and collected didn't leave any room for frustration. That's definitely something I should try to learn from Luki, as I tend to freak out every now and then :D. Respect buddy!

A few days later I witnessed another superb ascent. My friend Bernd climbed Small Change (8b+), a real classic, after numerous tries. Maybe I should add that this route was established back in the late 80s, which means the climbing is really complex and shouldn't be compared with a fancy modern 8b+ at any of the popular crags. Well done! Keep it up!

As for me, I decided to climb a couple of 8bs before trying something harder. Right now there are 3 routes at 3 different crags which I attempt alternately. So far, I haven't been successful, as some skin issues were putting a damper on my motivation. However, I'm confident that my luck will change soon :-). Yesterday I spent a great day with the Styrian climbing team in Wörschach, a crag close to Liezen. We joked and laughed a lot. It was a rather relaxed climbing day, which fit very well into my schedule. I climbed some easy routes just for fun, including a brilliant technical 7a called Dreamteam. Later on I came desperately close to flashing Minderwertigkeitsreflex (8a). Unfortunately I got confused on the final technical slab and fell right below the anchor. After checking out the delicate finish I managed to climb the route quite easily. All in all it was a super funny day.


One of my projects, Stalker (8b)

:-)

:-/
Returning back home after a long climbing day



Well that's it for now :-)
Keep crushing ;-)




Montag, 9. Juni 2014

Spring's plastic fever




Hey :-) 

Time flied and it's more than 2 month ago that I wrote something. So let me summarize what happened in the last weeks. I participated in three Austria Cups and in between I trained solely in different gyms because I simply didn't have the time to climb outdoors. The first Austria Cup was a lead competition in Mitterdorf. The comp went quite well and I got 7th (results). Two days later the next Austria Cup took place in Neunkirchen. This time it was all about bouldering. I wasn't too pleased with my climbing that day. In the end I finished on the 15th place (results). After this event I had roughly three weeks to prepare myself for the Austrian lead championship which took place in Dornbirn. This comp was my main goal for the season so I was a bit nervous, maybe that's what caused my failure. I felt strong and well prepared but unfortunately I messed up the first qualifying route. I climbed nervously and misread a sequence in the upper third of the route. The result was bad, I was 22nd  in this round. I knew that I would be almost impossible to get into finals with this performance in the first round, so I climbed the second route with indifference.  The result was ok, I came 12th in the ranking of that one. Altogether I finished on the 18th place (results) which was definitely below my expectations, as I my objective was to make finals, but I guess it’s part of competitions to sometimes fail in reaching one’s goals. Nevertheless, it took me some days to get back on track. The national lead season 2014 is over now (overall ranking) and in the next weeks I’m going to do some rock climbing. After all the training in the gym I’m really psyched to touch real rock again :-)

¡Venga!

Some impressions of the comps (massive thanks to my friend Andi Aufschnaiter who took a couple of these amazing pics, feel free to check out his webpage, you’ll find some exciting stuff there!) …