After a very long (too long) six-month break from speed climbing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I was finally able to get back on the wall in the middle of September. I have to say that I missed the wall a lot.
While I was unable to perfect my speed beta over the six-month layoff, I worked harder than ever on my resistance, plyometric, and aerobic training to significantly increase my strength. Those efforts paid off despite sometimes having to endure temperatures as high as 95 degrees in my garage gym in the heat of the Texas summer!
Over the last 3.5 months, I have taken 11 trips to the 15-meter speed wall at Momentum’s climbing gym in Katy, Texas. I will freely admit that the first couple of weeks back on the wall were difficult. I had to work to regain my beta, finger strength, and skin toughness. It was painful to have to restart climbing after such a long layoff. Luckily, the effort and pain were not without significant rewards.
After only four trips to Katy and seven sessions on the wall this fall, I got a new PR of 8.37 seconds on October 16th. This was a significant decrease in time from my previous PR of 8.58 and showed what my increased strength could do on the wall. Such a large decrease in time can often take months to achieve, but this was only the beginning.
Even though getting to 8.37 was an accomplishment, my beta was still lacking, my fingers were still tired, and my hands still stung after each run, but my strength was unprecedented. I felt the strongest I have ever felt on the wall. That feeling of strength has pushed me to work even harder in the weight room. It is a tremendous feeling to have increased ownership of the 15-meter wall because I am stronger.
From November to December, I got a new PR but not just one. I got a PR every single time I went to Katy! I dropped my time to 8.19 on November 21st. That run was the first time I executed the one-handed dyno move without hesitation.
Three days later, I returned to Katy just before Thanksgiving and dropped my time to 7.97, and then later that night, I burned out a run of 7.89. Double PRs in one session are extremely rare. Not to mention I ran another run at 7.98 later that night. I was now solidly in the sevens!
Despite my accomplishments of having gotten fifth place at the last Nationals and sixth place at Pans Ams a year ago, breaking eight seconds for the first time ever was one of the biggest triumphs in my climbing career. And I did it repeatedly that session. My dad filmed the runs and told me to savor the moment because all my hard work had come together to create those milestone runs.
After years of training hard on and off the wall, I had finally gotten a time under eight seconds. In addition, I was not only reaching record new speeds, but I was surpassing my previous PR by roughly 0.20 seconds every time I got a PR. In a sport where winners are sometimes decided by 0.001 seconds, I quickly made back all those months off the wall.
After Thanksgiving, I had to take three and a half weeks off the wall due to finals and projects at school. I was concerned that I would lose the momentum that I had gained in my previous trips to Katy. In order to not lose my new found ownership of the wall, when I took breaks from virtual school and studying, I constantly did pullups and hit my garage gym frequently.
It turns out that I did not need to be concerned. When I returned to the speed wall in Katy just before Christmas, I burned out a 7.70 run after an hour of warming up and practicing my start. Santa Claus delivered an early gift of a new PR. Once again, my new PR lowered my time by almost two-tenths of a second. While this pace of improvement cannot continue forever, I still feel that I can push lower into the 7s in the coming weeks.
The COVID pandemic has significantly impacted everyone’s lives, but I was able to overcome COVID keeping me off the speed wall by just doing everything I could to gain strength and increase my aerobic stamina. While there are numerous aspects of my life that I couldn’t control the last nine months, I have learned to not worry about the uncontrollable and focus on what I can manage and do as much with as possible with the limited resources at hand.