A Busy Start into Summer

The past few weeks have been quite stressful since I’ve been really busy studying for my exams at the end of the semester and I didn’t get to climb as much as I wanted to. It was probably the first time in my life I had to prioritize school over climbing and I hated it. Up to now I’ve always managed to squeeze through without having to sacrifice any of my climbing time. Lately even while I was climbing, I often felt like my head was somewhere else and I just wasn’t focused enough to climb at my best. Only now I started to understand what people had warned me about how hard it is to combine a demanding course of studies with being an ambitious athlete. I still enjoyed some great days climbing outside in Magic Wood, Val di Mello, Sustenpass and Göschenen. If nothing else, it helped me to relax and tune out the burl of cell biology terms haunting my mind. Especially the few days in Val di Mello were amazing, there’s so much great rock out there and each time I come back I stumble across more world class boulder problems. On top of that, we were a big group of really nice people, we enjoyed the Italian lifestyle with great food and coffee and on our last night, we even made pizza on a self-built oven over the fireplace, yummy :) We were really lucky with the weather, so we climbed four days in a row and in return, the unforgivingly sharp granite demanded every last bit of our skin. In the end I could finish up a pretty cool roof climb from last time called Nenopausa (7B+). Right before leaving, I also managed to climb L’opininone Dell’opoilione (7A+/7B), a beautiful steep little boulder with a few dynamic moves as a start and a very challenging ending.

Foto: Sander Lückers

The only weekend I made it to Magic Wood, we were joined by Luca and Florence who made a short film about Viola and me, I hope you like it!

I tried Höhenrausch (7B+) again and pretty quickly made it to the very last move but then was too scared to fully commit. After that my attempts only got worse and I figured I had to come back another time, at least now I know I can do it, next time it’s „just“ gonna be a mental battle. It was also nice to check out something new, since I’ve never been bouldering in Sustenpass or Göschenen before. Unfortunately it was way to hot during the day and we had to wait until the sun was gone. After that, the rock was still pretty warm but otherwise conditions were surprisingly good. I was especially taken with Dulcifer (8A+ sit, 7C+ stand), a proud line down by the river. I tried the stand start and figured out the beginning but couldn’t find my way through the crux, maybe next time… Remo did the sit start in a few tries and also managed to finish up Red Snapper (8A+) at Sustenpass. The whole Gotthard area holds so much good rock and I’ve only seen a very little glimpse of it, psyched to come back over the summer!

With my exams over and all the pressure gone, I can finally spend my time again doing what I love most: climb, climb and climb! :) One week after my last exam, we already left for Laval (FRA) where the last bouldering World Cup of this year’s season was taking place. Like I said, I didn’t get to climb as much as usual and I didn’t exactly feel well prepared but I figured I’d just try my best and see what happens. I had no big expectations and that was probaby the main reason why it went well. After a very poor performance on the first problem in qualifiers, I started asking myself what I was doing here

I needed a few tries to figure out the start of number two but when I finally caught myself and got to the top, it made me feel optimistic for the rest. I got another top on number three and managed to flash the forth problem, a dyno ;) It got really close but after the very last climber I finally had confidence that I’d placed 10th in my group and therefore made it into semis for the second time this year! Of course I was really happy yet also a bit surprised but I couldn’t wait to climb again, now I could only improve my placing. Unfortunately semi-finals felt really hard and I only got one bonus hold which got me tied on 19th place. All in all, it was more than I had hoped for and I’m really satisfied with making semi-finals again. Hopefully it wasn’t the last time and I can continue to improve, I’m already psyched for the World Championships in Munich at the end of August! There’s still time for some training and I’ll also go to Céüse for a few weeks, I can’t really remember how it feels being on a rope but I’m sure it’ll be fun and I hope it gets me some power endurance. I’m just really looking forward to having a long break from university with lots of time for climbing outside! Right now I’m feeling pretty exhausted and my body reminded me once more of how much I love to sleep ;)