Week 4 of my training at McPlaf started with me being… tired. 5 days of climbing with that volume of moves was just too much for me. I know from experience that I don’t have fitness enough to go full out for 3 days or patience enough to climb a little easier for 3 days straight. So Tuesdays training found me completely worn down from last week in the Organya-area. One day of rest was not enough and I found myself in even worse shape for Thursdays climbing. A long warm up and some help from a friend turned the session into something really fun and really hard. Luckily I had clients Saturday so I got to enjoy two days of rest before heading to Margalef Sunday by lunch. We climbed there Monday too but I do the week-break by Sunday for now. The photo is from last year, me climbing a really nice 6b in Margalef.
Tuesday – first real training session! 100 warm-up moves. I was super tired from the weekend, still with muscle pain in my forearms. Then started the bouldering series: 5 boulders/5 times/6 moves/2 minutes rest/4 minutes rest. So, I did 5 boulders with 6 moves 5 times each. And 2 minutes of rest in between each attempt. Then 4 minutes rest when changing boulder. So tired! Finished with 100 moves straight on the 10 degrees overhanging “kids” wall. David did really fun and HARD boulders for me, just at my maximum. Probably the most fun indoor session I’ve ever had!
Thursday – 5x/4x/12m/3min/5min. By mistake I did 5 instead of 4 tries on the first couple of boulders and rested too little in between. It was also hard to construct 5 perfect 12-move boulders but they where more or less OK. On the last problem I got some support by another climber at the gym and did a very hard boulder. Then ended with 150 moves straight on the kid-wall (10 degrees overhanging). Probably the single hardest climbing-training in my life. Slept 10 hours straight after.
Sunday – Margalef for two days. I can climb fairly hard in Margalef as long as I look for the vertical routes with a lot of magnesium. My only 7a-on-sight I did in Margalef last year. Well, I know I can climb vertical routes so instead I warmed up and then tried two overhanging and fairly intense 6c+. Failed on both but especially the first route was fairly close, falling with only one bolt left to the anchor. Well, actually the sad truth was that I didn’t even fall but instead yelled “Take!”. Gha, really bad. Next time, I’ll ask my belayer to give me more slack if I say take…
Final words
Wow, I thought I could handle a little more volume on my training. But this week showed that I could not. My forearms are just dead. The 3 days on rock on the weekend before was too much, right now I can’t handle the extra load. A lot of work and stress made this week a little different, I look forward to when the tourist season slows down just a little bit so I can focus on climbing for a month or two. For now I’m happy with having all these things happening around me and I try to enjoy it even if it makes me suffer a bit some of my climbing days.
It was very good to get back to Margalef, it is such an amazing place! The climbing is excellent, I just love it and the vertical stuff there suits me perfect (spoiler alert, Monday I did a 7a). But the way that people treat this area is just so f***ing sad. HOW can there be toilet paper on the middle of every freakin’ trail!? And the free camping site was even worse. I filled a couple of bags of trash and brought out, I just couldn’t leave this beautiful place without doing so. Since it is also a Parc Natural and a protected area we must take care not to loose this fantastic climbing area. The climbing is on private land as well and the farmers are not happy to have shit everywhere in their fields.
I talked to some people in the village and there are plans for a camping site in the village and also talk about toilets. This is a couple of years away, until then, please bring plastic bags and pick up as much trash as possible, throw your used toilet paper in the trash or bury it and consider staying in the refugio, in the hotel or one of the houses available to minimize the impact on this fragile nature. The rock in Marglef doesn’t polish very bad so if we do this right we can have this fantastic place to climb in for many, many more years and at the same time give the people living here a chance to survive on tourists instead of agriculture.
