Zzzzzz

I've actively taken part in competitions ever since moving to Adelaide, even though I hate the damn things. Mostly to support the local community (especially the girrlz! go girrlz!) but also because they're fun and much, much less stressful than the Singapore ones - yes, not climbing in a team makes things less stressful, who would have thought?!!! Nothing at stake really either. I've finished on the podium (first and third) most of the time, and a career low was finishing outside the podium once. The field of open women is small and, when I move to masters in four years there will probably be just me and another varli varli strong girl in the entire category, so probably it will still be open women for me! It is not a fantastic achievement by any standards, but at least hey, I beat some of the guys!!! (On the one and only occasion when I came first, my score put me halfway on the guys' list - HELL YEAH!!)

We had another one of these beauties last night, at Vertical Reality Climbing Gym. It was awesome!! By far the best competition so far, there were zillions and zillions of problems and many many people trying them!! The problems were varied, both in the style but also in the types of holds, walls and surfaces they used, and, while the setters did not get very creative with the volumes, at least THERE WERE various volumes on the wall, which is a fucking achievement I must say. There were easy, medium, and very hard problem that kept people occupied, and at least thirty problems that I didn't even have time to try (for all of you Singaporeans out there, it was what we call a climbing carnival, like Climb On! -- they call it pumpfest here). Overall, I'm mildly psyched to get on them again. Unfortunately, this week I'm training endurance only as next week it's Thailand time*!!!

*Also known as "eat till you drop youwontfitinyourpantsanymore time!"