Gijon: Day 3

After waking up to find that my fingers were not able to bend, I decided that climbing today was not the best idea. So we slept in, had a lazy breakfast and then strolled over to watch some of the qualifiers for the Men's Lead competition. As always, it was very impressive to see the ease with which some of these climbers ascend these hard, long routes.

Seeing how tall and somewhat overhanging the routes are makes me very nervous about my strength and stamina. I am also a bit bummed I am one of the first climbers, meaning I won't have as much time to read the routes and see other climbers climb it before me many times.

Start list and running order: http://www.ifsc-climbing.org/index.php/world-competition#!comp=1501&cat=121

Not excited about climbing first (NPD 1 - Women) and having a 3 hour wait between climbs.

Anyway, it is all nerves and I'm just bitching I guess. I also don't know how they decided which routes each of the categories will climb. I am guessing Route A is the hardest and D is the easiest, but that is just a guess. I really hope to at least put in a good showing and make it up most of the way up the routes, but I am guessing that will not be the case for Route A :-(

We took a gentle stroll around another peninsula/headland, which offered rather lovely views of Cimavilla and San Lorenzo beach. The coastline and geography is very North Atlantic, which is quite foreign to me.

Cimavilla

View of Playa de San Lorenzo

Also, Spanish public park equipment is pretty awesome: