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18 July 2021 - A Very Special Route
This has been my project for the the past week or so. Spent a total of roughly 4 sessions and about 10? or 11 attempts.
The timeline are as follows:
7 July:
- Route was set by the head routesetter of The Rock School.
- Forerun try
- Surprising the route was fairly easy to remember, and I had the moves more or less memorized in my head after the forerunning.
8 July:
- Did 3 attempts
- All 3 attempts had me stuck at probably the main crux of the route at the 2nd overhang
- A ridiculous left hand pocket that requires the most insane precision
- The beta was to power through, to swing from 2 decent holds and use the momentum to hopefully gain enough "air time" to stick the pocket.
- At this point, I already have all the moves in my head, and is able to visualize all the hand movements and more or less the leg movements.
10 July:
- Did 1 or 2 attempts
- The rest of the day was getting close to the wall, self belaying myself, trying all the possibilities to refine the movement, figure out the crux, and also to test different betas and evaluate the possibilities of reducing the amount of moves.
- There was initially a possibility to get past the main crux, which I ignored. It was a swing to a "pretty bad pinchy foothold", and bumping up again to the pocket, significantly reducing the distance to travel, and the power required.
15 July:
- I believe it was another 3 attempts?? Like 3 was the max I could squeeze out, having to consider warming up and also due to the duration of the timeslot limitations during Covid-19
- After the 1st or 2nd attempt, I decided to re-evaluate the foothold possibility and realized that the foothold was actually a decent pinch, and rested for the 3rd attempt.
- 3rd attempt, all was going well, I stuck the foothold, and even bumped up to the pocket.
- I needed to do a footswap which did not happened as the rope just kept getting in the way and I finally pumped out.
- It was devastating, and really hopeful at the same time.
- At this point, I already had probably all the moves from hand movements to leg movements to clipping points in my head.
17 July:
- Been feeling a little unwell mentally since morning, and pretty tired as well.
- Warmed up a little
- Did not feel strong, or 100% confidence at all.
- Started the attempt, and for some reason, the pump did not come at all. Sure the fingers start to get tired and I have to rest and recover but the forearms just seems to kept going, unlike all the rest of the attempts where I was pumped as well.
- A total of 29 moves, just by counting hand movement only, inclusive of matching hands.
And with this video, I claimed the first ascent of this route (back in 18 July 2021)
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Song being played in the gym's background was, Love Not War (The Tampa Beat) by Jason Derulo, Nuka