Lucky Man 8c

It’s long time from my last blog, but now I have a good reason to write again. I want to explaine my summer season in my favourite crag in Aosta Valley, precisely in Gressoney, called La Benedizione.

La Benedizione
Pic. Pierre Zanone

The “season” start in June just after the trip in Frankenjura. So I was really psyched to start seriously the sport climbing period in fact I had in mind to try “Lucky Man 8c” my first 8c ever tried. Since that day I felt in love with this route and each day of climbing on it, I felt  my self more and more obsessed and motivated to come back to try it again.

At the end of June I spent 4 days trying it and everytime I felt a little bit closer and all the moves seemed to be easier since I started to assimilate the hardest part of the route and to get confidence on it.

During the month of July I was really busy with training for the competitions so I spent a lot of time in the gyms. I climbed just two days on easy stuffs in the Valley and 4 days in Magic Wood but “Lucky Man” was completely stuck in my mind. In the first days of August I took part in a Italian National meeting in Arco to train for the World Championship in Munich but in the first day I did a strange move and I felt a strong pain on my left biceps so I had to stop climbing for a couple. The day after I was really sad because my left arm was  weak and the pain was stronger that the day before.

After Arco I took some days of rest for the left arm but in the week end I went to Gressoney  to touch some rock again and to see how my biceps was. During the warm up I felt it ok but when I decided to try some harder stuff the pain returned again.

Devils and Dust 8a+( i.m.o. one the the best routes in this cliff)
Pic. Marco Zanone

August the 12, Gabri, Stephan and I were ready to spent 10 days around Frankenjura crags but mainly for training in climbing gym to get train for World Championship in Munich. We checked some fantastic gyms in Munich and Numberg like: Boulderwelt, E4 and Cafè Kraft but my injury was still alive driving me crazy during the training sesh, so I wasn’t able to train as hard as I expected.

During the qualifications round of the World Championship  seemed that the injury was heal but somehow I was not able to express my best so I did a quite terrible competition. I have to say that the boulders were way harder than a normal World cup comp and I was defintely not enough strong the solve even one problem; I was really proud to be there anyway. It was an awesome experience.

When I came back to Germany, I finally had the time to go to Gressoney to try my project again.

In the first day of trying I was in great shape and the conditions was perfect. I did my best attempt on “Lucky Man” falling ,at the very last move, with the first rest-point  in front of my eyes… what a pity! 

Marco Zanone on the second crux of Lucky Man
Pic. Pierre Zanone

I started to understand that this thing was possible even with my poor endurance.

I came back in Gressoney  with my family during the week end, the conditions were a bit warmer that the previous days but I was quite hopeful and super syked. I climbed  two easy route for warming up and then I felt ready for the first try because I have not real expectations since the warm up  is everytime not enough to try hard on such an hard route. I started to climb and moves by moves   I grabbed the rest-point , I shaked up my arms and then I started for the endurance part, the feelings was quite good but after 20 moves I got pumped in just one second ,because my forearms were not ready enough to struggle, so I locked as hard as I could the last crimp before the second rest-point but I was too tired and I fell down. I was like incredulous and I started to scream every kind of words came to my mind.

When I touch the ground I was switch off and for about 30 min I didn’t speak with anybody, my  mind and my body were completely destroyed.

I thought  alot about the possibilities I had to climb it on the second go after this big effort but the sun was coming so I had to get a try. 

I took two big breaths and I started my ascent, I climbed the first part quite fast and I got the rest-point again and in mind I said “wow, how is possible?” I focused  my last mental energies for the endurance part and I climbed really fast until the second rest-point (where I felt the try before), everything went in the right way and finally I grabbed the jug. I had some difficulties to reach the chain because I was really really pumped and tired but when clip the chain any kind of effort and hard work turned into happiness and satisfaction, MY BEST MENTAL BATTLE WAS OVER! I couldn’t describe my joy, a little dream came true.

 It was a pleasure share this magic moment with my brother and my family, thanks everybody  for the big support and also a big thanks to Alberto Gnerro for having bolted all these amazing routes

the first crux of Lucky Man
Pic. Francesco Longhini