Support-Maddie Activated

Zach and I have now spent a full week in Germany, and I've put a solid dent in my rest month.

Because I started resting back when I was still in Canada, September 12 officially marks the halfway point, despite the fact that we've only been home for a week!

We've now gone out into the world and done crazy things enough this year that returning to our home base here in Langen really feels like a return to normality.

It's not often that we are treated with a direct flight, so our travel day from Toronto to Frankfurt was notably easy, although it happened to be a red-eye flight.

I didn't sleep a second on the flight, but I think Zach got a few decent hours in. This flight's entertainment selection included Keeping Up with the Kardashians and Sex and the City. I was straying a little from my normal content, but not as much as you'd hope.

We got home around noon on September 6th and had a good 14-hour sleep that night. In the morning, Zach was off to the gym while I stayed home.

Zach usually likes at least a day after a long flight to compensate for the sleep interruption, but you know Zach - he likes to make the days line up just right.

I spent my first few days cooped up in the apartment. I swear, in the 4 or 5 days after our flight, I didn't leave the apartment except for one or two grocery runs across the street. I was certainly feeling the boredom - you can only write and clean so much.

Eventually, I decided to join Zach for a session at Studio Bloc Mannheim for a session a few days ago. It was a blisteringly hot day - 32 degrees without humidity. Mannheim is also known as the greenhouse - it has a wonderful ceiling that lets all of the natural sunlight in and thus all of the heat.

It was a terrible session for Zach, tainted by heat, anger, and failure. It was certainly one for the books and will make for a great video when it comes out on our YouTube channel.

I'm glad I could be there for it too, so I could have the opportunity to contrast it with today's session, where he ventured back to Mannheim to rectify his mistakes.

Rectify he did, and another great video will certainly come of it.

Speaking of videos, Zach and I have spent this past week really doubling down on our YouTube channel. Since I'm completely off, I've taken it upon myself to read all about what makes a channel succeed. Channel Makers has many great tips and philosophies for YouTube, and I've largely been following their lead.

I've also started to watch more climbing on YouTube. My coach Libor recommended this to me as a way to expose myself to more climbing movements and techniques, seeing as I have never been one to throw on climbing for entertainment.

By some miracle, I've developed a little inkling of excitement for watching climbing, namely Tomoa Narasaki's YouTube channel. I'm crossing my fingers that it doesn't fade so I can get my beta deficiency under control and avoid having to shove IFSC streams down my throat.

I've also been joining Zach on more of his videos. Since I started making my own CompClimbs right before rest month, I have to admit I'm a little disappointed that I'm not climbing right now and can't make more. For me, jumping on Zach's videos is a happy medium and keeps me sane while I finish out the remainder of the month.

I'm set to return to training on September 25.

Until then, I'm jumping on a quick solo flight over to Helsinki, Finland, at the end of the week to check out a new country and take a few days for myself.