Fridaynight I arrived back in the Netherlands after three months living in Vienna. Just in time for the National sportclimbing championships! I was tensed, feeling fit after all training in Vienna and very eager to show everyone what I was capable of. Also I was stressed, because moving all my stuff and finishing my internship in Vienna took more energy than I expected. When I woke up Saturday I had musclepain due to carrying the luggage, but fortunately the stress was less. Later that day, in the isolation, most stress was gone and I mostly wanted to climb a nice route and enjoy it. But when I saw the route we had to climb, doubts came into my head: a bouldery route, starting with a jump was set; completely my antistyle. I tried to talk to myself: "you are prepared for this, this is exactly where you trained on in Vienna, you can do this!". It seemed to help and when it was my turn to climb, I smashed the jump, continued climbing, every move felt terrible as if I was doing the move wrong, but I kept on climbing til the middle of the route, where I really didn't saw the sequence. After some up- and downclimbing and wasting a lot of energy, I finally saw what to do and fighted for another couple of moves before I fell.
Disappointed about that I was not able to show my skills and strength and happy that I manage to continue climbing this high despite that it was completely not my style I went back to the ground. It turned out to be enough for the third place. It was impressive to see Nikki van Bergen dealing with the high expectations of the public and taking gold again, and it was even greater to see the progression of Tiba Vroom, cruising through the final route to the second place!
The National ice climbing championships where hold one week later. This was for me the first time this season I was holding ice axes in my hands again, but I knew I am strong and I think that is one of the most important things for ice climbing. Very happy I was to top both qualification routes, making my expectations for the finals high. Unfortunately, a long move already in the beginning of the route I did not controlled enough, after which the final was over for me. A disappointing 4ht place was the result. Hopefully I can improve my skills in Tromso!
