The repeat—when you send a former project for a second time—is a proud milestone.

(The term repeat can also be used when someone gets the second ascent of a difficult project, but I’m talking about the first definition, which has to do with your current performance in relationship to your past performance.)

We all get lucky sometimes and pull sends out of thin air. When you repeat a project, it confirms that it wasn’t a fluke. We only have to do a route once in order to say that we’ve sent it. Maybe that one time we sent it was out of 100 attempts. But that doesn’t matter, because we did it. Once. Done! Next!

When we start repeating projects, that’s an indication that we are increasing our control and our mastery of the route—and of ourselves as climbers. Perhaps we start doing it one out of every five attempts, or every time, or it becomes a warm-up, or a part of a training circuit.

When you have a small local crag (as we do here), you have to get creative to keep things exciting, and you can do this by creating new challenges, such as repeating old projects.

Last year, I proposed a circuit challenge in which we repeat three of our former limit projects in the same day. I call it the Triple Crown (to appropriate a term from horse racing).

Currently this challenge for us is to do three 5.13s. As we get stronger, it could just as easily become three 5.14s. In the past, three 5.11s would have been at our limit. It can be anything you want it to be—remember it’s all made up—as long as it’s fun.

My current primary partner created an early season training program for himself to increase power endurance and rope fitness by doing two back-to-back laps on former projects (this can be the same route twice or two different routes—variety keeps it fun). He calls this The Obstacle Course.

Not everyone will want to repeat routes, and honestly not every route should be repeated. Some should probably only be done once (if at all); there’s just way too much rock out in the world to waste time with shitty lines. But if you enjoy mastering lines, improving your flow and control, and can make it fun, then why not?

There are countless ways to increase complexity even with limited training options or routes. Repeating former projects may be that challenge.