Injuries! 25th Sept '08

Well, I'm back climbing, hurrah! I don't have Tennis Elbow but the pain in my arm and the numbness in my fingers has been coming from the C5/6 disc in my neck. Me and my blasted spine!! I've felt reassured though by both my GP and Mark, my Chiro, that it won't be anything like when my lumbar L5/S1 ruptured. Mark thinks I possibily injured my neck in a whiplash type way (???) and my GP thinks it's age and wear and tear. I don't recall any injury and my lower disc is 100% dessicated and the one above on it's way so I can see similar issues with the neck ones. Anyhoo, I'm stretching my neck religiously, still trying to remember to do the arm stretches too and doing some weights also. My neck gets horribly stiff and sore when sitting for too long and my shoulders start burning sometimes too. But GP was right in saying it's nothing like as painful as when my lower back gave me grief. I'm finding the belaying ok as long as I keep stretching my neck out and don't hold it in the same position for too long and I can manage to climb but my arm seems to tire and sore pretty quickly and it seems a bit weaker than normal (least I can have a real excuse for being a feeble weakling now, lol!)

Couple of weeks back I took my Mum up the Glen Shee road and we took a walk down Glen Callater to the Loch and back. Mum suffers from Fibromyalgia and did fantastically to manage a 7mile walk, the best she has done in a good few years :o)

Sat past, Henning and I were supposed to climb at Limekilns where there are a couple of VS's I want to try but the weather wasn't playing ball and we ended up at Dunkeld Upper Cave Crag. The V.Diff there was sopping wet and the Severe was seeping at the bottom and though it seemed dry higher up I wasn't convinced as there were what looked like jamming cracks and the prospect of them being wet inside didn't appeal! Henning led the Severe to warm up on and right enough it was fine higher up and you only needed one move of jamming and after having a good look about, there were good holds a plenty. Next, Henning wanted to try his 1st E3, Marjorie Razorblade, reputedly one of the most failed on E3's! He managed the bottom crack with just a little grunt and was quickly up on the ledge before the crux crack. A steep S shaped crack with blank and smooth side walls. This was going to be interesting and I was prepared for a fall at any moment! It never came though as Henning dogged his way up the crux and onto the next ledge and the upper crack. Had a few problems here too as he was knackered by this point and eventually bailed out on the Severe. Down below I had been thinking that I could give the lower crack a good go, but there was no hope in hell of me getting off the ledge on the crux without aiding and I couldn't be bothered with that and it was much quicker for Henning just to ab down for the gear. It was an interested ab for him with me keeping some tension in the rope below so he didn't swing too far, but he got there in the end. That was it for the day route wise. All that seemed left dry was an E1 but AllyF from UKC had turned up and him and his partner were doing that route. That was a weird one. I'd been in touch with Ally via email about our back/neck injuries but never met him before and I didn't actually realise it was him until Henning mentioned it later on the way home. Small world!

We did a little bouldering after that which involved traversing the lower routes and the sport routes (or me trying to! The sport routes there are bloody steep!) Then Henning suggested a run. Aye, sounded good to me, so we finished the day off with a 7mile run through the woods, around the lochs and up and down the hill.