Sarah Hueniken: challenges and rewards of competing
Recently I participated in the Festiglace pro competition in Pont Rouge Quebec. Steeped with a long history of ice competitions stemming back into the 90’s, the area has a true feel of mixed climbing at its purest form. Overhanging walls of ice daggers interspersed with some of the worst rock/shale I’ve ever climbed. Its magic.
I had spent a half day a few years ago here and never really made it up a route. I was so terrified of the uncertainty of the rock quality and the unknowns. This fear was paralyzing and I gave in to it.
So why return, and especially to compete? Life is short. I am turning 50 this year. I still have so much to learn and experience and I hate being held back by fears that aren’t justified. I knew I had to put myself in a position where the fear needed to be contained in a good way. Festiglace offers just this. All the routes are prepped in advance, by an amazing amount of volunteer labor and love, allowing minimal actual consequences of falling.
The comp consists of 3 hours of climbing as many routes as possible. Will and I spent a few days prior to the comp climbing some of the routes. I promised myself I would try and not complain and was proud of myself for onsighting 3 routes the first day. Only problem was that those 3 routes took a long time and we would only be given 1.5 hours at each side of the canyon to climb as many as we could.
As luck would have it- or perhaps, as my nervous system would remind me, I got the worst flu and my menopause induced late menses two days leading up to the competition. I tried to rest while still learning the routes, lots of hot baths and breathing steam and cold meds, but the perpetual knot in my stomach of anxiety and stress didn’t help me combat the beasts with much strength. I recognized this friend, the one that tells me to slow down and STOP pushing. I have felt it before in my past 5 years after a major trauma and I knew I needed to respect it and honor what it was telling me. I also really wanted to compete, and try, and I had come all this way and I didn’t want to give in to the illness and the full body retaliation of what I was asking it to do.
I have spent the last 5 years consciously removing stress. The avoidance of this stopped me from pursing things that made me uncomfortable because I had to. At the time, I really couldn’t live in that perpetual state of anxiety one minute more. It was very limiting during a time in my career where physically I was my strongest. This knot that returned now reminded me of that worst time of my life and it was a challenge to separate the present from the past. Our history follows us and our nervous system doesn’t forget.
The comp day came and we all tried as hard as we could. Competition is evolution at rapid speed, and my hopes of climbing 3 routes per sector quickly were surpassed as I climbed 7 routes in my first hour and a half. The second sector I fell near the top of a hard route, which burned 15 minutes of my time and in the end only climbed 4 routes. Had I finished that one route my score and placement would have had me much higher but that is how the cookie (or the rock in this case) crumbles!
In the end, I placed 3rd in both enduro and difficulty and 8th overall with men and women in a field of folks that I admire, respect and are mostly less than half my age. I was so impressed with everyone and their ability to push themselves in this real environment (the stress and fatigue was obvious in everyone), especially my husband who absolutely crushed it getting 2nd and 1st! . He turns 57 in two days.
As an ageing “athlete” I am learning so much about full body care. Prior to the competition I embraced the perks of this ambassadorship and visited the Back At It Chiro, had an amazing full body massage and did my first visit with the Naturopath. All of these gave me the jump start to take on this event with as much extra ammunition as I could. I look forward to going back again next year with so much more knowledge about the climbing, the competition and my own body and how to manage it. Thanks Back At It for believing in the older athletes and helping us learn how to keep the body not just moving, but excelling!
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