my 2022 was …
Sunset at the atlantic ocean road in Norway (my favourite photo from this year)
2022 was a rollercoaster ride with a lot of ups and as many downs. On one side, it was the best year of my life, and on the other, it was one of the worst. The year started with an injury comeback and some nice bouldering in the beautiful Chironico. Although in the nights it had around -8°C over the day it had perfect temperatures for bouldering. I actually filmed a lot there but I never managed to finish the video.
In the next few months, I worked and trained a lot, and in May, I finally had my first official bouldering competition. Which went really badly :( I had some shoulder problems before the comp, but it was all ok again when I went there. But after the first boulder, I started to feel my shoulder again, and it worsened over the day. But to be honest, this wasn’t the only reason the comp went not the way I wanted. I was actually a little nervous and just not strong enough. Even though on one boulder, I did the zone very fast and could have reached the top if my shoulder had been good. But the rest of my performance was just not good enough.
After the comp, I was devastated but motivated to train and improve. But I had to accept that my shoulder needed some rest, so I took weeks off climbing. After that, I went to Magic Wood for a 5-day bouldering trip. As you may know, if you saw the video, I only stayed there for 2 days because I injured my foot while walking down the forest after bouldering. But I still managed to do my first 7b, and it made it even better that it took me only a few tries. I also did my first 6c+ flash. I will definitely go back to Magic Wood next year because it has excellent bouldering, and the valley is absolutely beautiful.
So here I was with another injury, but I could still train this time because it was "just" the foot. But in the weeks after that, I had a minor finger injury which wasn't bad (and didn’t happen while climbing), so I couldn't do any fingerboard training or hard bouldering. But luckily, all my injuries were gone shortly before my trip to Norway in August.
Training with one foot
The first stop in Norway was Hægefjell in the beautiful valley of Nissedal. The bouldering is located directly at the mountain, and it's excellent bouldering on granite. (Blogpost about Haegefjell is already in the making) After staying one night, I drove north to pick up my brother in Bodø. Then we went to Lofoten, where we stayed for 2 weeks bouldering and hiking (but mostly bouldering). We were lucky with the weather and had a good time there. Sadly I couldn't do my main project for the trip Monster Original 8a, but I got really close to sending it. But other than that, we had an excellent trip with good bouldering and mega sunsets. If you haven't already, you can go to my youtube channel and watch the videos from Norway. If you want to see more photos from Norway, then go to the gallery. And I will also write at least two or three other blogs about Norway.
After the trip, I was more motivated than ever to train. I trained a lot, but at the end of September, I injured my finger while bouldering on the Kilterboard, which was disappointing because I didn’t warm up properly. It wasn’t even a training session. The good thing now is I will always warm up properly no matter how short or “easy” the training is. But for the first time this year, the injury didn’t demotivate me at all. I changed my training plan, so I still trained a lot and after 6 weeks or so, the finger was finally good again, and I could climb again. Altough the injury happend on the Kilterboard I really fell in love with this board and every time I’m in a gym with a Kilterboard I have to do at least a little bit of bouldering on there.
In December, my Lattice Performance Plan started, and I’m looking forward to training with a coach for the first time in my life. So I will keep you updated on my progress and how it goes. I will concentrate 100% on comp preparation in the next few months, so I will probably not go out bouldering on rock. However, I will still try to produce some other videos for youtube.
I’m really looking forward to 2023 and the new challenges that will come with it :)
In the last months, I began reading a lot again and wanted to share some of those books with you. So I started a newsletter where I will introduce one book every month and keep you updated on new videos, blog posts, and other stuff that will happen in 2023. Because I will make some significant changes next year. So if you don’t want to miss anything, sign up for my newsletter.