Monday 16 March 2009

FIRE AND FORGET

The sense of impossibility that was vaguely surrounding the Amiata roof finally lifted and disappeared as a summer morning mist, when I completed the problem twice, yesterday morning.
I woke up early, managed to put my girlfriend in the van and proceeded at full speed to Amiata, with the pressure of the entire Earth on myself. While I knew that the presence of my beloved would have only done good to me, I also knew that an eventual failure would have meant not a failure burden shared between the two of us, but to the contrary a double heavy weight upon my own self.
My first two goes were poor, I missed the first dyno on my first go, and cut loose on the following move (a thing that had never happened in ages) on my second go. The pressure was on.
Then I starded sticking the dyno, doing some mess afterwards and blaming my thin skin and the +15° temps.
As a true professional I had taken my precious mini fan with me, so I pulled this rabbit out of the hat, and started cooling my hands before very try. At first I felt them too cool, but lately it just made the magic. One very good try saw me exploding from the slippery crimp down to the mats while I was charging the last dyno. One other go saw me stick the crimp with just the tip of three fingers, far too little a grip.
Then, in a magic moment when every atom of energy present on this galaxy concentrated in me, I switched the fan off, I blew on my fingers and left ground. I grabbed the poor pinch and felt every grain of the rock, I tought that I wanted to squeeze it and I did. I landed on the good hold as an F-14 Tomcat airplane on a carrier ship: heavily and precisely. The hold felt enormous, and I paused to tap my left hand on my trousers to dry it. I got the undercling crimp, felt it, put my feet exactly where I wanted (unlike previous attempts), then I found myself on the crimp, four fucking strong fingers folding on to it, then I dangled a couple of times and was on the final jug.
I got back on the planet and my legs were trembling, then I spent some time hugging my girlfriend on the mats.
I don't know how, but then I felt the strong desire of doing it again, so I tried. Everything, to the contrary of what I expected, seemed even easier. The holds bigger again, the moves shorter. I destroyed the problem for the second time.
I climbed in an amazing way, yesterday: powerful, relaxed, precise. Never did I cut loose, not even on the last move. Never a groan of fatigue came out of my mouth. I kept breathing and pulling holds down: Tom, you would have been proud of me.
So now it's over again. Years and years of dreaming, of touching the holds, of imagining the feeling of impossible moves.
As my only, single, fast yell was echoing down the valley, away from us humans, I felt different and we walked away, at an uncommon early time.
Thanks for sharing.

3 comments:

Mikael said...

congrats lore!

great job/achievement....once again!

See u n Font in two weeks!

Richie Crouch said...

BESTIA! =)

Ghostface said...

This is what it's all about. You fucking animal. Silent strike, I love it.