Ain’t No Mountain High Enough

Here’s a story from my wife, I hope you enjoy this one.

Climbing has always appealed to me, since I was a little girl. My mother says that she was never disappointed that I was such a tomboy, but I suspect that she’d sooner have seen me take up dancing or something. At least, that it, until she saw just how good I’d got at climbing and how much I enjoyed it. All those years shinning up to the top of the old tree we had out in our back garden and down again had counted for something – so she told me when I came home with a trophy from my first rock-climbing event. OK, so it isn’t the same as climbing a tree, exactly, but the mindset is the same. I basically sum it up as “I’m down here – and I want to be up there!”. The rest is pure instinct.

There is something indefinable about how it feels to be so far off the ground. Sure, I’ve got all the safety gear and even if I slip I’m not going to fall far, but the view is something else. Lately, that view has tended to be sand at the bottom, then some rock, and then the other girls in the race chasing after me. It sounds boastful, and I guess it is, but I don’t mind that. The only way to keep your edge in racing is to keep in mind that other people want to beat you. I don’t like losing, and if it can be avoided I tend not to lose. But there’s a difference between being competitive and being blasé. I’ll never be the latter, and preparation is something that I take so seriously that my father has compared me unfavourably with some of the teachers he had at school. And some of the ones I had, now I think about it.

Nonetheless, the feeling of climbing higher, faster than anyone else is one of those feelings I would pay good money for. I know for sure that this is what I have always wanted to do, and being given the gifts that made me good at it is something I’ll never take for granted. One of those gifts is a kind of inner strength which is a combination between mental and physical fortitude. I value this very highly, and I look after my body to make sure it’s always there.

This means having the right stuff with me every time I race. Obviously you can’t carry a backpack the size of the average Ute – that will only slow you down. But a small first aid kit, a hydration pack and some spare gloves are absolutely indispensable. I remember a few months back, some other girl – a new member of the club – was beating me in our first intra-club race of the year, and not by a short distance. I was just pushing myself to catch her up and not really paying attention to her technique, but it clearly didn’t involve taking on water often enough, because she went to pieces with the end in sight. She’ll be some climber when she sorts out her strategy, but for now she still hasn’t beaten me.