 Right, so yeah, you grew up on a tiny little island, well fairly small, which is just east of Madagascar, so a bit in the middle of nowhere for a lot of people, I think. But how was growing up there in terms of doing outdoorsy things? As a child, did your parents encourage you to go outside? So yeah, Green Island is an island just like the UK, there's a few small differences, it's tropical and it's only 100 kilometers north to south and it's a mountain. It's actually a volcano who came out of the water and it goes until higher than Ben Nevis. Really? Yeah, 3,069 meters high, so yeah. So even if this is a tropical island, it's actually all about the mountains, but my parents were not climbers at all, they were maybe Sunday hikers, but I remember them walking with a big cooler for the picnic, so I guess our walks were not very long, but so I was sailing a lot, my parents were sea people, so sailing, scuba diving, snow, not surfing but with the boards and then horse riding, tennis, dance, yeah, so I had a sort of parents who would bring me to an activity every night, so yes, I had a really active childhood, but they did present me with everything possible until I found climbing alone at school. Okay, so how did that come about? Climbing in France is one of the main school sports, yeah, so on the side of my school there was just buildings where you have the class and on the side it just holds, I mean it's a really bad role, but for a beginner I was craving to have a go at these routes and that's how I started, so I was 12 and first I just did the 2 hours 4 to 6 on the Monday I still remember, and then there was another course on the first day, so I could do the 4 to 6 and then the teacher was a really motivated teacher, she brought us outside really quickly like two little crags all around the island, she would take like a bunch of like 20 kids a bus and like, this is mad, I mean honestly in terms of responsibility for one teacher to handle 20 kids thanks to her because she made my life different and so she showed me that climbing could be going out, going camping, touching the rock, discovering birds especially on the Green Island, the access is amazing all the time, camping in a, it's called Syros, it's like a circus with tropical flowers everywhere, a waterfall, so I've got amazing memories from my first year of climbing. Sounds like a horrible place to grow up, don't go there ever. You'll never go back to the UK. Yeah, it's a slightly different weather on show. I mean I wouldn't, you guys have amazing rock, I mean in terms of, you call it God's own rock and the more time passes, the more I've got to say yes, I mean if only there were more of this great stone all over the world, but it isn't. It's unique, isn't it? So you obviously did pretty well in like league competitions, so how did you go from like school climbing into like competitive climbing? I was a really competitive kid, so when I told you sailing tennis, dancing, everything was in competitions, I don't know if it's Green Island being like that or, so I came back actually to the island as a grown-up and straight away the kids jumped on me and they showed me their medals, so I think there is kind of a competitive spirit on the island. So as soon as I started climbing, I started competing, my first competition, it was Top Rope and it was a 5C+. And I fell off it, but I came second because that was already good, it's a 5C+, so clearly the level wasn't very high. But then I won the reunion championship and then, I don't really know how this happened, I won the French youth championship and I got really lucky. This year the French Federation was inviting all the French winners to go to see a World Cup. They didn't expect that one of them was going to come from 12,000 km and they were going to have to pay a flight ticket, but they had promised, so they sent me, they flew me back for the World Cup of Nantes and I remember, you know, I was just 16, I had my little camera, I was alone, I didn't know anybody and I can, you know, just remembering it, it brings sparkles in my head, you know, it was this big, so many people, maybe 10,000 people in a big arena, a massive wall, everything in the dark and the lights and it was Yuji Hirayama won and the girl lives on so and I was just 15 and I decided I wanted to be part of the stars, I wanted to be part of this world, it just, it really made me dream, you know. So on the flight back, alone again, 12 hours of flight, I still remember, I was writing in my notebook and I decided I wanted to leave my parents and go train in a youth training center because it was too far, it didn't have the climbing facilities, so I kicked back and I told my parents, I'm going and incredibly, they let me go. I mean, I was a good kid at school and they trust me, but I mean, for a parent to leave your 16 year old kid to go 12,000 kilometers away, so that was the end of my childhood when I left, realistically, because I then stood them once a year, but yeah, I mean, I'll never regret that because it gave me life. That's a big decision to make at age though, isn't it? The right one, clearly. But yeah, it's really quite funny, I never had any doubt in that one. That's good. So was there anyone like when you were growing up or when you were competing or even throughout your climbing career, is there any key individuals that you feel have had a big impact on how you're climbing? You mean in terms of heroes? Yeah, yeah, that sort of thing. Not necessarily climbers or just family. Well, I am super thankful for some people who were my first coach. I was 12, he was 18, but somehow he ended up being the volunteer coach of all the youth team. So he was not being paid or anything, he just, he had no idea how to train us. I remember doing like millions of pull-ups and push-ups, but somehow he just had all this energy to make the group train together and you don't, yeah, maybe you just don't need to read the books, sometimes you just need to really put your love and your energy until we climbed all, as much as we could all the time. We were all pretty good really. Like in this little group, there is one of my best friend now and she's an 80 plus climber. Something was right. Yeah, and obviously I've got heroes from this time and my biggest hero is usually Ayama, the one, I saw him win this World Cup and I think my dad is from Asia, my dad is Vietnamese. So I guess I immediately identified to Yuji because he was Japanese and at the time there was, well it changed a lot, but at the time there was no Asian climbers at all, not even in the semi-finals and then there was Yuji who was winning World Cups. So I did identify to his climbing, his style. He became my hero really quickly and since then I've been lucky enough to meet him in real life and not just that, I can really say we've become really good friends and now we go on expedition every single year together. So in 10 years I'm going to Japan with James and we're going to climb with Yuji again. That's cool. Yeah. That's great. So obviously you competed for quite a while, didn't you? Yeah. And then what changed? Like suddenly you decided that you had enough of competing, given that you seemed to be obviously a very competitive person or growing up anyway. So I did compete overall from 16 to 25 and in this time I think it's a big amount. I did like 65 World Cups, I did like something like 15 podiums and I think I always knew that a 20, I think I had in my head that around 25 I would be old. No, mainly I wanted to do something else with my life at some points because competition is really interesting. If I were 16 I would do it again because it pushes you to the very limit of what you can do. It's like an inside exploration and it taught me that if I really want to do something I can do it. What an amazing knowledge to have in terms of self-confidence that was amazing. Yeah, but at 25 I think I was reaching that point. There's something about competition, especially the way I was a competition climber. I had to hate my enemies, you know. And the French team is very, or at least was really pushing us in this direction of like it's competition, you're going to war, which is pretty crazy. I think I heard of us swimming into a James at some point and said something that a quote from you that you said that when you went to a competition that it was like you were going to kill the competitors. That's how you looked at it. I guess I had to be, I mean it looked weird when I say these words. I know at the same time obviously I was going to... But you go there to win basically. Yeah, I was going there to win and I had, there were a few competition climbers saying I just want everybody to be happy and do the best they can and I just wanted everybody else to fall so I could win. And I mean I don't know, this is the way I got taught and I can handle it, this is fine. But there was a point where I realized that I wasn't a very nice person, you know. So I was, it's been interesting, very good for my personal development but in terms of my interaction with people, I need to change. I can't, you know, I had really good friends out of the climbing world but I couldn't have climbing competition friends, it was not possible. So... So then you, how did you get into like track climbing then? So I thought that when I was going to get 25 and stop competition climbing I was going to go back to a normal job because I'm a biology teacher. I was going to go back to a normal job, get a dog, a husband, a house, children, get old and then die, you know. I had this in my head, you know, a normal life and then I met James and I think at the time I didn't even know that a professional climber could be existing out of competition. I had no idea what was track climbing, you know, I met James and I was like, we went to a sport crack and clearly he wasn't a really good sport climber and he told me he was a professional climber. I was like, why? And he told me I'm a track climber. No idea what that is. I just had a really small world, you know. So I googled him. And I immediately found a video of Jean-Mine Trentieu falling off Gaia. You know, it's like an E8 in the Peak District that is maybe 12 meters high. And you see the climber, it's really intense, precise climbing and suddenly it takes a huge fall, just about misses the fall and smashes his leg against an angle. And at that moment I decided, this is mad. I am never going to do that ever. But somehow James and I, we bumped into each other and I thought it took a while but after maybe one or two years I realized if I wanted to understand James I needed to at least understand what track climbing was about. So I asked him, show me how to play track gear and explain me how to do it. And the first time it was on Little Roots in Austria and I was placing track gear and the bolts as well and James was going behind me and giving a great quality to every of my gear. This is a 1 out of 10 or this is a 10 out of 10 in terms of how good is the protection because the way James sees it and I think this is how it should be taught. You need to be able to assess your track gear otherwise you're suicidal. You know, if you're just placing gear and just hoping that you won't fall stop climbing right now, this is just not fine. And then, what was that? We went to Pembroke I was still doing loads of World Cup for that period and James wanted to try Winkaliente which is an E-10 and I saw that coming, you know he saw Tim Ahmed do it and straight away he had it in his head to try to flash it but I mean Winkaliente you take a ground fall if you fall in a section that is 80 so first I was like this is my James and I realised he was serious, you know so he started to train with me well, he was doing maybe a quarter of my training you know, I could lift much more iron and he could, I still can and after six months he went and I thought I need to be there, you know I kind of if something happens and I'm not there it was only maybe a year that we were together but I just wanted to be there for him just for one week while he was going through this tough time and I thought, while I'm there I'm just going to try climbing so I went into I can't remember the name an E-3 in Pembroke and it's only it's about 6A French grade maybe three quarters of an hour I placed my entire rack and I finished the route and I was like ok, next and so my second route was Point Blanc which is an E-8 and it's an E-8 that is run out but really easy gear and James abseiled with me just to show me how to place the gear I mean, this is not perfect style but I mean, at some point you need to be realistic I couldn't place gear so he showed me how to place the gear and the slings and then I went for an onsite well flash at that point attempt and it's an E-tae about so I was ok and I got really really pumped and I was about to do it and then I had a zip and I think I took the biggest I was so pissed when I arrived on the floor I undid my nuts pulled the ropes and then I did the routes like pulling all the track gear and placing it back and after that I realised ok, more of that I think what I realised was what I really like about climbing is that it's a complicated thing you don't have any space to think about anything else you have to disappear in the movements you have to place your hand where are the holes and in track climbing you multiply that because you have to think about the movements you have to think about the track gear which rope to use basically it's like as if the jigsaw was even more complex and I really like that you have to handle the fear obviously this is the best part keeping it at bay and that was it so now I barely spot climb and it's all about tread I spot climb for training but my goals are tread so talking about goals now you've just recently did the quarryman you looked at that maybe what was it a couple of years ago you've had your eye on it for a while what happened then and what was different this time I heard about the quarryman I'm pretty sure I've seen the quarryman in the magazines a long time ago but I didn't think more about it but everybody knows about the quarryman you've got this amazing died roll and I think as soon as you see the picture and you realize how glassy like it is everybody's like I wonder how I would do in that you know it's just so unusual what would it be like so two years ago when I was preparing for the wapiti I decided I wanted to go try the groove pitch of the quarryman because to me it felt like it was about engagement even if it's bolted the place is really impressive it had a tread spirit so I felt like it was a good mental training for even if I didn't do it just being in that place for the wapiti like I wanted my tread kind of putting my courage together thanks to the quarryman for the wapiti and at the point I could do the correct pitch I did the correct pitch but actually the correct pitch isn't the correct pitch the quarryman is what is it? E7 and then E8 and then another E8 the quarryman is actually pretty long and at the time I knew that there was maybe one day I would go back but at the same time I was quite afraid of it so I think I even told myself I won't go back but I had excuses like the correct pitch on the top is not so pretty and it doesn't really make sense in terms of line and two years went by and I started to realize these are just excuses you're afraid of the quarryman this is why you don't want to go back and as soon as I realized I'm afraid of it I realized okay so I have to go back in it and so I prepared myself for maybe 3-4 months for the quarryman how did I do that so I did more trot climbing again I know the quarryman is kind of nearly not a trot route but it still definitely has a trot spirit like the first pitch you have to place a lot of trot gear and then the bolts are I don't know what year they are from but you don't really want to follow them so I prepared myself you know I did a lot of stretching for the quarryman because I saw Steve McLeary's video and his legs are always like that and I thought I'm smaller than he well maybe not actually I need to stretch and I did a lot of shoulder reinforcements with rings as well I trained specifically for the quarryman and as soon as the actually end of March we were in the UK in between as soon as you had a I did set aside 2 months because I knew Wales weather is not exactly wonderful and I knew a big part of the game would be to be patient and so I went back and it took me maybe 3-4 days to work all the movements again for the first time I went back in a room like I can't do that anymore but actually you just need to get ready for the it's just weird you know it's really hard to prepare for the quarryman the slight is so weird like this no friction thing and little by little I put all the movements together and then I decided ok next weather window I'm going for it and then there was a weather window and it's like I'm too tired my shoulders are really hurting because I tried so much the crux movement of the quarryman but I have to take that weather window because then there is like 7 days of shit coming I mean Wales you don't decide so I thought ok let's take this first attempt it's just like a preparation attempt because I was really worried about the first pitch it's only I said it's 6 or it's 7 on paper but it's like 7C plus ish but there is only 2 bolts on it the rest is only trap things and it's really precise you have to be perfect in that pitch otherwise you fall and so I went and first attempt I did the first pitch straight away and actually it was fine I was like not struggling that much and the second pitch obviously which is about 5 meters long and it looks like nothing then the groove took me 3 tries because I kept falling and finally on my shoulders were getting really painful ok this is my final try for the day and I'll have to just give up otherwise I'll hurt myself and I started in that groove and it's my method I have to turn around in the groove so I'm basically like a gymnast turning a knee and turning around and something went to be wrong in my method so I fell so there is this moment where clearly I was off except instead of falling and falling on the rock I jumped my ass and my legs between the diadrol not on purpose so I had like maybe 20cm of fall and I had a few minutes of like where am I ooh so the rope is still under me ok and I still couldn't process anything and it was James who was like come on Caroline you can do it, keep on going oh yeah backup and then I finished the pitch which is still then it's a really nice diadrol really quite tricky and I remember pulling over and being like I'm so glad I don't have to do that again and then we had to take a long rest because the sun was coming on the last pitch and the last pitch is a 7A grade E grade but one movement so I fell again 3 times on it and I had to wait for the shade because it wasn't working and actually there's a video of me and I did it by the skin of my teeth I pretty much fell up the movement and then I arrived at the top and I was like I just did the quarry van and yeah I mean I didn't the whole preparation I was never sure it was going to happen it was really not easy and somehow it happened to me on the wapiti again I did manage to put myself in a mental state that was like really unusual I knew that because one week after I went back in the route for pictures and I took like 3 falls everywhere and this movement I was fighting so much again to do the movements and I knew the pitch one it wasn't easy the pitch one I just did it perfectly when I tried it so when you like that fall you had how do you then get your head game back in because you even said if I fall and that's out I can't keep going to obviously a different place for a second so that was a really extreme one I think I'm calling it a fall but it wasn't a fall clearly like an extreme weirdly unusual movement I wasn't prepared and it surprised me but I've learned from competition climbing to be ready for surprises I even used to I did visualize when I was preparing for the let's head finals I would have one go in my head visualizing what could go wrong let's say I could have a foot zipping here or this hold could be completely different from what I thought or this place I thought it's a rest maybe it's not a rest at all so I will be surprised and I'll have to get back in it so this is exactly what I did I got surprised but I got back in it I think it's just maybe it's just this simple concept of don't expect things to go smoothly because they want and it is fine if you don't have to be perfect to do your route you just have to keep on trying cool, brilliant I think that's pretty much everything thank you so much no, it was very interesting very insightful, thank you very much