What I Miss Most

What I miss most is my sport. Climbing has been an important part of my everyday life for the past five years and now that the climbing gyms are closed a massive piece of my life is missing. My routine for the past year has being going to school for the first half of the day, coming home for lunch and completing my homework for the day, and then training until seven or eight in the evening. Online classes have provided some form of normality and routine to keep me occupied during the majority of the day, however it is much more difficult to find a replacement for climbing now that all of the climbing gyms are closed. I miss my teammates, the climbing community, and the competitions. I miss being able to train for the next big competition and feeling I have a purpose and a goal for my training. Now that the rest of the Canadian competition season has been canceled, all the training that I do at home is merely meant to maintain my current strength, with no specific goal to strive for in mind, which can sometimes cause me to feel unmotivated. Previously, I would train six days a week for up to four hours per training session. The hour long Skype workouts that my coaches have organized for my team are not quite capable of replacing what we were able to do in a climbing gym. Most of all, I miss my teammates and the climbing community. At competitions, everyone is extremely supportive in cheering every climber on, whether or not they know them well. My teammates and coaches would always be encouraging and supportive, no matter how well I did at a competition.  The pandemic felt like an interesting change from routine at first, however I am now looking forward to this all being over so that I can return to my former everyday activities, school included.