The little engine that could

Sort of.

Two weeks until nepal and my training still focuses on rock climbing. My aim is to climb harder these days because I won't touch a handhold for three weeks. The problem with climbing just a wee bit harder is that my unaccustomed body rebels and gets injured. Sure, you would say (and so did I), injury is ok because anyway you are going to rest for three weeks, wether you want to or not (usually not). Sadly, this is not the case.

On Friday we climbed mostly on slopers and pinches. I set a route that Sandra said was shouldery, but I did not see it as such and I tried a few times. Lo and behold, by next morning I was experiencing the first signs ever of a shoulder injury. I am hypothesizing here that a shoulder injury is much freakish than your usual torn pulley tendon (been there, done that) or your golfer or tennis elbow (been there, done that), specifically because you experience a weird disconnection from your limb. Something like: before you and your limb were happily connected and doing all right, and then suddenly there's a painful something that seems to pull your arm (left, in my case), away from you. It has gotten better but I am not climbing today - responsible, I am! (yeah right)

Thank god for modern backpacks though, because I was still able to train on Saturday morning. This time it was MacRitchie (10+ 2km) with a pack that weighed around 12 kg. Managed to finish it without major events, but I don't think I could have had i not had most of its weight on my hips. I also noticed that my performance on Saturday morning trainings (12 hours after climbing) is worse than my performance on wednesday night trainings (24 hours after climbing). It could be that either I am accumulating fatigue or that I am getting older and as such need to rest more. I AM looking forward to sleeping on the plane to Kathmandu (7 hours mofo!). In view of this, tonight is light running rest night!