The Month of May

Last month was awesome! I’ve started up a new training program which we wrote at the beginning of the month and although it’s pretty intense, it’s going really really well. I had two state comps two weekends in a row (QLD and NSW State Lead Championships), and a social ICP comp the weekend after that! All three comps were very successful and I placed 1^st in Open A’s.

Open A finals climb - QLD State Lead Championships. Photo by Chris Hampton from Climb Media

The first comp was the QLD State Lead Championships at Urban Climb and was sponsored by Pinnacle Sports. It was an absolutely awesome comp which went over 2 days (I competed on the Sunday). The turn-out was amazing too, with over 200 competitors. There were heaps of prizes and giveaways thanks to Pinnacle Sports who did an outstanding job as head sponsor of the comp! It was awesome to have so many of my interstate buddies travel up to compete as well! The climbs were great fun and super hard. I was the only female to top the first qualifying climb which was very technical but incredibly fun and perfectly at my limit. The second climb was quite different, with much more bouldery, strengthy moves. Visualising that climb was hard… I seriously thought I was going to come off quite early. But I was surprised, the holds weren’t as bad as they looked and I managed to get much further than I anticipated. I got pretty pumped as well… I did a funky heel-hook above my head to take the weight off my arms to give them a rest but it wasn’t enough… My arms were telling me that unless the next hold is a huge easy jug then I probably won’t be climbing much longer. I fell off dynoing for that next hold… hoping for my arms to change their mind before I reached it (which definitely wasn’t an easy jug)… but they didn’t haha. I was happy with how I went though and managed to get the furthest in the females. I was pretty tried when it came time for our finals climb, and I was the last person to go out of isolation. The climb looked very hard… We had the same finals route as the Open A males… so it was bound to be difficult. I managed to get to what I had visualised as the first crux and went for the next move, touching the next hold, but my foot slipped as I launched and I came off the wall. All the girls in the Open A finals climbed really well though and we all got to a similar spot on the climb. I placed first winning $1000!!!! I was incredibly happy and am very keen to put it towards an amazing climbing adventure in the not so distant future.

QLD State Lead Championships Podium
Photo by Ann Stirling

Open A finals climb - QLD State Lead
Photo by Chris Hampton from Climb Media

The NSW State lead comp was also great fun. I flew down to Sydney on the Friday beforehand and back to Brissy on the Sunday afterwards... another big thank you to Flight Centre for sponsoring my flights over there! It was so good to see all my NSW friends at the competition and see them climb so well. The gym had just put in a new wall which was really cool and very steep and pumpy. The routes were really enjoyable. I managed to top both my qualifying climbs and my finals climb, placing first in Open A’s. It was so great to have Liliana Scacheri and Rhys Brandon also fly down from QLD to compete at the comp. They climbed amazingly, both placing 1st in their youth categories and Lil also placing 2nd in Open A's! Go QLD!

NSW State Lead Championships Podium

Rhys, Liliana and I representing QLD at the NSW Lead State Championships

Last weekend was the ICP social comp at the sunshine coast! The comp was sponsored by Pinnacle Sports, it was great fun and heaps of people turned up to the themed comp: lights-out, head-torch pump-fest, making it an awesome night of fun. Alex and I had just finished our week of intense stamina training and we were absolutely exhausted, our hands were SO sore… but it was great fun anyway. The next day we had a great climbing day at Mt Coolum and I climbed a lot better than I expected, considering I hadn’t had a rest day in a while. I’m pretty sore now though and this week is the beginning of power and resistance training.

Alex and my sore blistery hands

So far the training is going really well and I'm feeling the strongest I've ever felt on the wall which is really cool. At the beginning of our intense stamina training week (last week) Alex and I did a "Super Awesome Endurance Challenge" where the challenge was to do 1000 moves on the steep bouldering wall in under 2 hours with the least number of attempts (so we were aiming for the least amount of times to come off the wall to rest). I managed to get 1001 moves in 1hr 29mins with 5 attempts (4 rests off the wall). It was incredibly difficult. My skin was getting very raw and blistery, it felt so sore and each move became a mental struggle (not so much because my arms were super tired but because I felt my skin might rip of my hand with the grip of another hold). In the end it was very rewarding and definitely good stamina training!

Sore hands right after the endurance challenge

I am really looking forward to heading to Nowra for a few weeks at the end of this month and doing a good solid block of outdoor cranking! It'll be pretty cold down there but at least the friction will be amazing. I’m also super keen for Lead Nationals coming up in Melbourne in July!!! Then Queensland State Boulder in August!! ...Gosh this year's going quickly. A huge thank you to my wonderful sponsors Pinnacle Sports, Flight Centre, Indoor Climbing Productions and REIZE for your amazing support.