12 / 06 / 2024
Since the competition in Slovenia I haven't spent a day in a gym. I was pretty fed up with indoor training. It bothered me that I forgot to listen to my body and I trained with the whole team more than I knew it's good for me, so I got injured and that made me really angry with myself, because I knew I was playing with fire. But at that time I wanted to keep up with everyone trying to prove to myself and the others, that I can. So stupid.
For the holidays in the beginning of May I went to Magic Wood, which was like a therapy for me. I was stressed out after the competition and I needed that short trip to clear my head. It may not be the best place to go climbing if you can't crimp but it's one of my favourite places and spending days in that forest is always nice. I was just forced to choose longer problems with bigger holds. I did Sideways 7C, a nice traverse below my favourite warm up: Blue Sky of Mine 6A. And Blown Away, one of the best lines in the forest. Every time I went by it before, I wanted to do it but then I got stuck in my other projects. So this time was just perfect and I really enjoyed the climb.
Picture: Katja on Blue Sky of Mine 6A
That was a few weeks ago. Since then I spent the days climbing in local spots. We only have limestone around here and lots of crimps. But a few spots are near the river or even in the riverbed so it's all polished from the water. It's the worst friction you can imagine but you really get strong on those slopers, where you need to squeeze hard to hold on.
So I tried a problem called Zero History 8A. I tried it a year ago but at that time I had no idea how to climb it. The first two moves seemed incredibly far. This time I came back because there are no crimps and a friend showed me the beta for the upper crux move. So I first did the short 7C version called History. The lower, original start (8A) with the huge first two moves and a hard foot transition still seemed impossible. Until the other day when I was sitting down there for a few minutes trying to figure something out and I found this small hold in between and it worked for me. And that is when I did all the moves. Now I have something to work on for the summer.
Picture: Kajta on Zero History 8A
In Trnovo I did FA of Javelina 7B+. Trnovo is a place with some more potential by the beautiful So?a river. Last summer we spent many weekends there. But usually I found myself only repeating things the guys cleaned and climbed. But this time I also put some work into cleaning and building landings and so on. I was happy to make the FA of this problem. We cleaned it together and it just happened that I climbed it first.
After that there were two weeks of bad weather and last weekend we went to ?rnoti?e cave. I surprisingly did a long and pumpy traverse called Alibaba 7C. ?rnoti?e is a cave with endless possibilities of links and when the weather is bad (like it was for the last two weeks) it stays dry sometimes. So we went to check it out on Saturday and Alibaba was practically the only dry thing in the cave and I did it. I tried it many times before always falling on the last moves...totally pumped.
Summer is here and so is hot weather. For me it's time to work more than usual, which is perfect for my finger. It'll finally get some time to recover. And then I'll train for the fall hoping to send some projects in the mean time.
Picture: Katja on Javelina 7B+