Post surgery: 4.5 weeks

In my last two days in Margalef, I managed to keep up the progress with my surgery rehab. I had a quick try on another 8c and although I got it in two halves, I still wasn’t able to get much power through my left foot or move with any confidence. However, even the next day I could feel it getting better and actually got fairly close to doing the route. My body movements are still feeling pretty foreign. That might sound a bit silly, but it’s a difficult sensation to explain. Because I climb a lot and have climbed for years, my brain has such a strong expectation of how my body ought to move. So when it doesn’t function that way, it feels like it’s someone else climbing.

On my last day, after a couple of quick tries on the 8c, I got a bouldery 8a+ redpointed in half an hour or so, and a 7c+ onsight. On both of those, although I’m still far off fitness, I felt a bit more myself during the climbing. I can’t tell you what a satisfying feeling that is.

So now I’ve had a handful of climbing days to get me started, I’m heading back to Scotland and can try and build a base of fitness and confidence again. The next stage is to be able to walk up a hill again. After this trip I’ve consolidated walking for 10 minutes or so on uneven paths. So if my upward progress continues I’ll hopefully manage to walk a mile or so, and then I’ll shoot for walking up a Munro and climbing 8c again. My goal (if it’s not to cold now) will be to complete my 8c project at Ruthven as soon as I can. The rest before the crux has a left foot toe hook though, so I might have to try powering on through instead!

[Update] Since writing the post above I managed to miss the last tube train back from a gig in Glasgow and walked at least a mile through Govan in the wee small hours to find some transport home. It might not count since it was under the influence of a few analgesics. I'll take it as further progress anyway.