The Inglorious Side of
Competition Climbing
The curiosity that lay within me was something that needed to be satisfied. I wondered why, I wondered why not. Some people advised me against it; that it might ruin my climbing career, but I didn’t care. It wasn’t for this reason I climbed, I climbed for myself. I wanted to learn, to challenge myself and to grow. I knew my weaknesses and fears were holding me back, yet coming face to face with them felt daunting. Public failure never feels good. Not being good enough or not measuring up to one’s own standard is even harder, because the person judging is myself.
For most of my journeys I was more accustomed to climbing rocks in the midst of a tree covered forest or a vast desert. My routine of chasing the Squamish boulders in the summer to the dry-winter deserts of the States felt stagnat, it was time for a change. The world of competitions had always been enticing, and incredibly frightening. Competitions and gym climbing have never been my forte, but I knew it was a place where I could learn.
Competitions, I discovered, are very counterintuitive to my climbing style and how I approach climbing. When climbing outside, time doesn’t exist. Intermediates are up for grabs and there’s enough time to figure out the puzzle while relaxing on a bed of moss. In the comp, there’s a whopping five minutes to figure out the problem, and then to give as many meaningful attempts until the loud buzzer rings and the judges wave everyone off the wall. There are five minutes to rest, recover and prepare for the next round. There is no room for error and the pressure requires strategies for which there is no manual.
In January, when it was time to train, I had envisioned being surrounded by psyched climbers, and was hopeful some kind of coach who could provide me with my training wheels would be around. Unfortunately, my home-on-wheels died just as I was to start my program which meant I was immobile. With no funds to fix it, I was stuck in a small village near Fontainebleau, in the heart of the world’s finest sandstone, but I was unable to reach any of it, let alone a proper gym to train.
Fortunately, this setback occurred in the beautiful village of Arbonne la Foret where the amazing family of Sandra and Fred lived. In winter, they opened their hearts and home to us, which is in the magical land of Gite Arbonne. From there I could walk to Bloc Age, a small bouldering co-op where I would spend the cold, wet days. It wasn’t the place for world-cup-style problems or training, as it lacked the essential campus board and hangboard, but it had a community which became my family. The grey winter had settled in, but the smiles and good sessions melted away the cold and loneliness of being in Europe.
The time arrived for the torture and fatigue, the discipline of pushing hard to the last set. I felt I was getting stronger, though tired. I was overdoing it slightly, but I was listening to my body more than I had the previous year, which plagued me with overtraining injuries so a compromise was considered acceptable. Stopping wasn’t an option; I discovered training was almost as addictive as climbing. Writing my program with very little advice and finding so many differing opinions on the Internet was more than perplexing. I wished the secrets of training were revealed to me in time to make a difference and hoped that I was doing it right, but I wasn’t.
It didn’t take long to realize the error of my ways once the first competition came around. The comps went like my program and I didn’t know what I was doing which ended in disaster. My ass was handed to me on the first problem and each problem after that the rampage continued. Big slopers, pinches and features kept me off, without sympathy. I lacked mental preparation which resulted in leg shakes like I was playing piano. None of the holds or features I encountered or would encounter at subsequent competitions would resemble any of the holds that Bloc Age provided me. The slopers were half the size of my body and the pinches bigger than my legs. The setting was obviously world-cup specific, I had never encountered climbing like it.
Nothing was familiar, I felt defeated like I had been practicing for a cross-country ski race, but showed up at a downhill event. After investing so much energy into something only to discover too late that I was doing it all wrong was discouraging. Being in the middle of a strong crowd who had been competing for years and had a support system like a strong Canadian hockey team, I was out of my league. I was merely a little fish not in a big pond, but a vast ocean, swimming blindly.
The mistakes in my training program, the errors of every problem, presented the opportunities for me to learn, mentally, physically and emotionally. Mistakes are things to learn from. A bad result didn’t necessarily entail failure, though humbled I did my best with my limited experience and knowledge in a world where I was a stranger. Sometimes I felt I was drowning in failure. Other times my head stayed afloat and each breath took in everything with acceptance. Every time I faced failure, either in a competition or while training, something was revealed. The emotional aftermath of the competitions where I was rehearsing my errors, breathing in the air of disappointment and, ironically, feeding off the psych for the next round, reminded me why I was there. A quote by Samuel Beckett, “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better,” rang true for me during the comps. Although my confidence as a climber was slightly squished into nothingness and my ego slaughtered, I can truthfully say, it’s for the better.