Monster 8c+/9a by Pedro Bergua (40)

Pedro Bergua has done Monster 8c+/9a in Alquezar, which is a 50 meters link-up of two 8c+'. The 40-year-old has a PhD in Sport Science and has climbing training blogspot. (c) Miguel Ángel Campo

"I tried this route in 2015 for the first time. That winter I sent four 8c+ routes in the same Alquezar cave. My daughter Julia was born and I had to work a lot on my doctoral thesis. After a six months break from any training or climbing, I never came back to try it. Later I have not been motivated to focus on any really hard route. I wanted to climb more routes and faster.

This year, due to circumstances, I had to climb closer to home. One day this winter I accompanied a friend to try his project in the cave and I almost did an 8b in that day. Because of that and the fact that I'm not too bad at cave style, I got motivated and kept going. I did a couple of 8bs and two other fast 8cs and decided to give a new opportunity to "Monster". I worked on it for three days and, to my surprise, I did it in a perfect try in which I had no expectations and I simply went up to gain rhythm on it."

How can you explain peaking again at age 40?
About my state of form, what to say. I'm turning 41 this month and I'm physically "far" from the shape when I was younger. But the long routes of the cave are not as demanding in terms of specific finger strength and endurance as the shorter routes. Yes, they are very psychological because they don't have super hard moves, but you can fall on all of them until the end. So an important part of performing here is learning them very well. Let's say that, at the level of specific indicators, these routes are not that demanding. In routes that are more demanding of your fingers or do not have such good rests, now I could not perform at this level. The most important thing for me about doing such a hard route (apart from having removed the thorn from 7 years ago) is that I have learned to control the process and understand how much I have to rest to be recovered and what I have to train to improve in each moment. The day of the send, I knew that I was recovered and that I had the skills that the route demands..., and I took advantage of it!