Two heartbreakers from the fall

When I lived in Boston, I went out every April to watch an event with my friends called the Boston Marathon. Funnily enough, I happened to live close enough to a section of this race called "heartbreak hill", which although is not a very large hill, is often at the point of the marathon distance where the glycogen stores will be depleted, or as the wikipedia article has so eloquently put it, a phenomenon in which marathoners refer to as "hitting the wall". Funnily enough, I was thinking about this on my drives home from the gym, and thus, I'm inspired to write something. 

Although I'm not much of a runner, I'm experiencing the same phenomenon with two of my fall projects. The past Saturday, I went to Truffle Shuffle, and I wasn't able to get it done as quickly as I hoped to within a day. All in all, I shouldn't be as disappointed as I felt, as I accomplished the goals for the session (doing all the moves, linking portions, doing overlapping links, and topping out), but punting, no matter what, still sucks. The real disappointment, however, was that I ended up getting a bleeding and gushing flapper the size of my pad on my right pinky the third time I pulled off the ground. This said flapper hindered the crux toss and I fell there, or right at the very ending for almost a total of 6-7 times. The said flapper is now on the mend, but I have doubts that it'll heal in time before the forest roads closed, but my fingers are crossed. Additionally, this flapper means that I'll more than likely be sitting on the sidelines while the rest of my friends are busy enjoying the good temperatures by climbing, which makes this a double whammy for both personal and social aspects. At least I can focus more on school and work, which also have their own projects. It's just a fact of life that even if you're not projecting rock climbs, you're projecting one thing or another. 

On my way to punt off the gaston jug on Truffle Shuffle

The other project that's been giving me some trouble is GWP. In a similar vein, it is also a skin issue, and I have not been able to get back since having that unfortunate foot pop a month ago. Hopefully I can also get another shot at it. 

On my way to have a foot pop off on the last huck on GWP

For a while, I avoided my usual process of taking on projects i.e. writing down the beta, and visualizing it. I've been writing them off as maybe too easy to require the written paper, but perhaps I was just too afraid to admit that these two would probably require more mental and physical effort than I was hoping (or willing) to give.  I've now begrudgingly admitted that my ego did not like the fact that the effort for these climbs is more involved than I initially anticipated, and now a new problem has arisen. I suspect that my process for doing climbs isn't working, and I have no idea how to tackle it. I'll probably find a solution at some point but for now, while my skin is on the mend, I wrote down the beta for these two climbs, so I guess I'm taking these seriously now. I hope I have the chance to get back to these two and give them an honest chance before the roads close. At least, at that point, I don't have to wonder about any "what-ifs" while waiting for the rock to dry.