Melissa i
Strong

So stoked -- training with David Mason was paying off--I was feeling stong and excited to text my strength. Out in the Park, pulling down on a crump I heard the dreaded noise and instantly felt instability in my finger. I have heard tales of fingers snapping loudly, but when you hear it from your own body, the rupturing noise is louder than imaginable, especially coming from a small finger.  Slowly rehabbing, attempting to make the best of the situation, and trying to move forward was most of my summer.   Four solid weeks of absolutely no climbing was the result of my finger, but man, I did a lot of pull-ups!  Getting back on the path, feeling weak and still not healed, I picked up where I had left off, with David attempting to gain what I had lost.  Being cautious, I had to fight the urge to run into The Park and try hard.  I picked back up at Phase 2, week 4 of training—thankfully, we had expanded our climbing wall last fall, and I had an amazing training facility in my garage!  Being injured in Colorado is not so bad when you still have two legs to take you places, and that is what I did—hiked to new destinations in RMNP on the hunt for new boulders while enjoying the splendor that surrounds us.