Where do I start?! The last couple of weeks has been pretty heavy with a trip to China, a flying visit home, a funeral in Germany and a competition the next day in Slovenia. It felt like a bit of a handful but I was doing okay. I arrived at the competition feeling better than expected and I thought “yeah this could go well”.

Because there were so many competitors, we were split into two groups; I was in group A. Each group has different problems and to make semis you need to make top 10 in your group. Some of the problems are similar but it is really two different competitions, with people placed evenly in the groups depending on their ranking. I won’t go into the problems individually but I ended up topping out on one problem. I was disappointed with my performance but I have to remind myself that to make the top 10 in my group you only needed two tops. So although my placing puts me miles away from where I wanted, I was only one problem away.

This way of looking at it has taken me a few days. I have a habit of being very hard on myself, instantly thinking I am useless when in fact I am very capable. I have decided not to do the Vienna round of the WCs because my head needed a break. I lost my psyche and there is no point competing without it. Since being home I have come to realise that physically I am in good shape but I have neglected to work on the mental strength required in competition climbing. It turns out  positive thinking in the face of disappointment is pretty hard. And going out confident (truly confident) is even harder.

I have decided to do the Innsbruck round in a few weeks and in that time I am going back to training, climbing outside and also looking at how I can psychologically help myself. It should be interesting….

A big well done to Shauna Coxsey, an inspiration to us all (physically and mentally).