Impatient patient.

I’m not a good patient, being injured. I’ve managed to take over a week off climbing, attempting to improve my elbow through some total rest (although I’m not sure how much rest non-climbing is anyway, I seem to aggravate the injury in odd ways, sleeping on it funny in particular). But despite that I am not being very good at letting it heal properly…

The problem being, I think I love climbing too much. Sure I like other things too, sure I can take time off it, sure I realise that for the greater good of keeping climbing in the future, resting an injury is crucial. But when I’m out there and there’s quality rock/routes/problems in front of me, how can I resist. It’s just too much FUN, moving over rock.

Actually, the problem being, I think I have no willpower :S.

Take yesterday, for example. I went out with a couple of mates in the evening - quite an incredible evening in fact. It was light until well after 8, but in the breeze and the shade, utterly outrageously cold, equal to the best and bitterest winter days. A real “stick to anything” grit day, except possibly even too cold, my fingers never got past painfully numb. And yes I kept my clothes on.

Anyway I wasn’t really there to climb much, more to hang out, spot, potter around, and feel the grit. I’d spoken to another mate (a veteran of training hard and getting past various tweaks) earlier about my elbow injury and he’d warned me to stay away from anything except slabs. Cool, slabs! So, okay, there was this neat little slab at the crag to play on, and naturally I got sucked into it. Unfortunately there was a slight technical hitch - it was pretty much at my limit, and the steep angle and nature of the holds required one to pull fairly hard, for a slab. Thus, after a couple of times at my highpoint (locked off on tiny pebble and a non-ripple that you wouldn’t even use as a smear yet felt “good” in such baltic conditions, eyeballing the finishing hold but no free limbs to grab it with…), my elbow felt familiarly achey and I felt familiarly regrettful that I’d set the healing process back yet again.

So I need to be more diligent and more disciplined…

Hmph!