Freshening up.

After a involuntarily two week brake from climbing, it felt fantastic to be on my way to Innsbruck with climbing climbing climbing on the agenda.
When the plane cut through the dark and rainy clouds hanging over Oslo, I felt like the virus that had been haunting me the last couple of weeks, was finally left behind. In front of me where only sunshine and blue skies.

My optimism and the sunny day continued when I landed in Munich, but with my feet firmly back on the ground, I was once again reminded that thought I was feeling much better, my body was still not back to 100%...
The thought of a relapse to the sickness and more time spent without training scared me enough to hold back and not push it too far in Innsbruck. As a compromise I climbed on hard routes...just not that many of them:)

I really like Innsbruck, It`s a great place to shape it up! The combination of incredible training facilities and so many talented climbers cheering each other is just uniq and super motivating.

I wish I could have stayed a bit longer, but after "just" 4 days of climbing, my time in Innsbruck was up. Together with Magnus I headed back to Norway to the southern city of Kristiansand for the amazing DWS competition Norwegian Rockmaster.
Like last year's Norwegian Rockmaster in Arendal the competition was once again a great success! This mainly thanks to Børre Berghaven and he's crew who really put in an incredible effort to make the event a great show.
Loud music, speedboats, hot tubs, big price money, great people, good party and just an amazing atmosphere! I really hope Børre will keep up this tradition and I am allready looking forward to next year:)

"the first qualification route"

"Halfway up the final route... and a scary victory jump from 14 meters to come"

Thanks to Lars Verket for the pictures!

Results in this years Rockmaster:


Women:

1. Hannah Midtbø

2. Mayan Smith Gobat

3. Helena Aleman



Men:

1. Magnus Midtbø

2. Jan Hojer

3. Daniel Jung

Sick of being sick!

Since I returned to Oslo in May I have been focusing on hard indoor training.
Primarily I train for the next season in Spain (late fall), but to put in some more short-term goals I have decided to attend a few comps. The training in the gym is similar to what you get in the comps, so this seemed like a good time to check out some of the events.
This was going great untill about 10 days ago when I suddenly had to stop due to some kind of illness. I`m now pushing my tenth day of suffering... and I still feel bad.
I´v been feeling strong and super psyched for training latley, so I find it very demotivating to get sick and have to slow down the pace.

This weekend is the World Cup in Imst, an event I was looking forward to attending. When I first felt sick with a cold 10 days ago, I'd never thought that it would keep me from participating. Instead optimistic as ever I saw it as a chance to squeeze in a bit longer rest period.

As expected the cold knew it`s visiting time, and a short lazy week later it seemed all but gone.
Unfortunately for me the cold aparently left the door wide open for some of it`s nasty friends as it was leaving, so after the cold went out, I have literally been HOT.

The last week has plagued me with high fever and heavy headaches, and left me in a body with muscle pain and no energy.
I'm not really sure what kind of new illness I have gotten, but I guess it's only a "harmless" virus...

Before I got ill I felt in a great shape. Even after many hard workouts, the body managed to recover and build it self up quickly. It's strange how quick the body repair's it self from hard training, while when it comes to removing a illness it just seems to take forever...
After the first week when the cold seemed to let go, I imidiately exposed myself for training again, but as soon as I started to climb I got completely overheated and dizzy.
The signal for not wanting to pull hard was quite clear. The body simply shut down the system...

I like to think that I have control over my body, but when you get sick is noticeable (and kinda scary) how little you really can control.
I was really looking forward to be competing in Imst this weekend, but no matter how much the head like to be in charge, the body will have the last word in the end.
Sometimes it's hard to face the facts, but when it gets like this I guess you just have to give in and let the body do what it needs to get back on track again.

With my flights to Imst already booked I have choosen to stay optimistic and postpone the departure ticket to Sunday, instead of throwing it away completely.
The competition will be done Saturday, but the Norwegian national team will have a training camp the week after in Innsbruck and Imst. If I finaly recover by then, I will join them.

I am hopeing that even thougth I won´t get to compete I might at least get the chance to try the routes. Guess that's a pitty comfort.
My first World Cup in a long time which should have been in Imst is no longer happening, but for this small set back I am hopeing I´ll soon be back on track and ready for the World Championships in Paris!