Friday 15 January 2010

THE JOURNALIST

Tomorrow I will take an early train to go to Slovenia and interview power monster, old school wad Tadej Slabe.
He's been one of my idols since when I read his training feats on a old italian magazine in a hut in the Dolomites. I had been climbing for just one year at the time, but I immediately recognized the power in the man. It's not a case that two of his 8c+ routes from the early '90s saw the first repeat after some good 15 years.
Why do I want to interview him? First because he's an absolute wad, and second because everyone has to know that he's an absolute wad. End of.
My small painful problem is slowly getting better but still I can't properly train. So tonight I did two easy circuits, the hardest being a whopping 6b+, that made my forearms the size of Popeye's.
After what seemed an eternity I had partially recovered and I did some fingerboarding. My front two are getting decent, my middle two are getting just weak instead of baby weak, and my back two are still useless on their own. Oh well, put together, these four little bastards still allow me one complete pull up, on a 1 cm edge, with 40 kilos on. Easily. I know it's nothing compared to the strong ones, but considering that I haven't properly fingerboarded for months it's still something.
The best thing about this old school training, is that it's also quite impressive to watch. Still, when a girl started talking to me while I was there putting away iron plates, at first I was a bit puzzled. She asked me a few questions in "sincere" awe, all smiles, and I was at ease, playing it cool. Then everything became to crumble. Absolutely without a single care in the world, she asked me if she could touch my back muscles, and I couldn't believe what was going on. People in the gym looked at us in disbelief, and I can understand that: I was literally being sexually harassed. Still, the really incredible stuff began when she asked if those were my biggest muscles, or if I had some other "big muscle" (sic) out of sight. The funny thing, if there's one, is that beyond the evident embarassment, my body was racting on its own.
I let you imagine the rest. Life is crazy sometimes.

1 comment:

Richie Crouch said...

Your animal magnetism knows no bounds! Bravo :D