The 5 Stages of Grief: Climbing after Circuit Breaker

We were all forced to stop climbing for 2 months. Other than needing time to heal an injury, I don't think any climber I know has ever completely stopped climbing for that long. Even when I sprained my ankle, I think I only stopped climbing for a month at most. But here we were, with no choice but to halt 😞

To be completely transparent, I did not do any hard core maintenance during CB. The first one month of CB I attempted to do HIIT and hangs, but when the lockdown was extended I just gave up. I feel like I needed my energy somewhere else given all the changes, like you know, energy to *just* cope.

Given all that, coming back was hard.

I thought coming back would be like this: 

But it felt more like this:

I knew it would be hard at first but I I thought that things would get better quickly enough. But I was so wrong. With all that expectations unmet, I feel like I went through the 5 stages of grief when I came back to climbing:

• Denial
  • No, I can't be this bad. I couldn't have possibly gotten *that* weak. It's probably the mask that's affecting my climb.
• Anger
  • Is this possible? Why is this route so convoluted?! Why are they setting the routes this way? This is over-graded! 
• Bargaining
  • Maybe if I just climb alone then I'd get back to it faster... Maybe if I just do the latest set then I won't be so tired to try hard... Maybe I need more caffeine... 
• Depression
  • I'm never going to get back to how I was prior to CB. I'm not as strong as I used to be. My peak has passed. My glory days are behind me. I will never be able to catch up. 
• Acceptance
  • I get pooped faster when climbing on roofs than I do on flat walls. Okay, 15 mins core-HIIT before ending the session. Small steps... just try to build some consistency. I can fix this.

I don't think I'm fully in the Acceptance stage. I still go back-and-forth in the Denial-Anger-Bargaining-Depression stages. 

Right now, I got a lil bit of my groove back. I'm finally climbing 3 times a week, which was my schedule pre-CB. That said, each session is shorter given the safe distancing measures placed in the climbing gyms. So, I'm not climbing the same intensity as I have prior to CB. I can barely last 3 hours, if I'm being completely honest.

I'm trying to be a bit more disciplined with my time and I'm trying to supplement my climbs with a bit of strengthening here and there. 

Hopefully, climbing will soon feel like this for me:

That no matter the curve, up or down, it'll always be a good and happy climbing day.