Achilles Rupture Recovery

My sleep rhythm is fucked. Woke up again at 2:30am, as usual no going back to sleep – did some more research (topics and links in section further down). My partner brought our dog over before she went off on her usual Monday morning ‘egg delivery run’. Weather: ‘Arschkalt‘ – German, literally meaning ‘arse-cold’ … ‘fucking freezing’ is a suitable translation, I find 😎. But beautiful. The perfect weather for walking a dog in the snow. Unless of course, you’ve had a bad night’s sleep and then make a load of ‘duuuh!’ moments chained together before heading out -> time for a black out.

Not only was my ‘sleep tank’ running on empty, I hadn’t had a proper meal yet … but it was 1pm and I really needed to take the dog for a walk. I think, just going around the small block next door, will just take a single crutch (no rucksack). But it was really nice weather … and little Fini hadn’t had much exercise … so I thought, well, we can go a bit further … hmm … no rucksack … ah, it’ll be alright … and there’s a bench I can sit on at the half-way point.

Trouble was, not only had it snowed, but the bench was under trees which had dripped, the water had refrozen on the bench; because I didn’t have my rucksack with me, had nothing to sit on. Crap, I’ll have to walk back. Then a couple of 100s of metres later my foot feels like it’s in boiling water; I’m thinking: I should restrict the range on the VACOped, make it a bit easier on myself … but the key, normally securely clipped to the boot, was no longer there. I really REALLY should have taken that rucksack with me, I thought … that I otherwise AALLWWAAYYS have with me … I should have put that damn boot-key on my key ring.

I switch to the ‘Zombie Shuffle’, putting more weight on my one crutch – saves the foot, hits my already shaky cardio system hard. Another few 100s of metres and I knew I was going to have sit down before I keel over; found a small bit of fence to perch myself on. My body obviously thought that was the sign to completely start giving up, my breathing as deep as I could muster, came more like hoarse, slow panting; vision started to go a little tunnel-like.

Called my partner to come pick me up because there was no way I was going to manage the paltry 600m home without blacking out; whilst I was waiting, a friendly couple from the neighbourhood walked past and took my dog – man, was I grateful! A few minutes of my head between my knees, then I managed the last small incline to a car park breathing and sweating like an old man. Wait … I guess I am an old man 😅 👴.

Even sitting in the car was too much, I could feel that I was going to black out if I didn’t lie down; got taxied back to my place lying flat on the middle seats of the Buzz. A slow drive home, another 10mins rest lying down in the car before I could make it up the two flights. On my sofa, a glug of water, feet up high, another 15mins and things started to return to normal.

So all’s well that ends well; the moral of the story: I am ALWAYS taking my rucksack with me, with water, telescopic nordic walking poles (as emergency crutches), a mini fold-out camping stool, waterproof and padded sitting cover for wet benches / col stones, etc. even if I only have to go 50m outside; the boot key is now on my key ring, PLUS I am gonna get myself at least two more of those little boot keys. Man, did I feel stupid and get pissed off at myself. Otherwise so well prepared … and the one time I’m not … 🙄.

Positive Moment(s): My support network just grew by one – I now have the number and promise of help from the friendly couple from around the corner; that I can count on my partner was never in question … and nevertheless, I am super grateful for her support and help!

Coffee at my partner’s – ahhh … no time stress 😎! She drove me over to the climbing gym, where my boulder buddies (plus two of their kids, 6 and 9) were already there; the ‘Green Beans’ (men’s nr 1 final boulder from a recent challenge week) fell finally to one of them; coffee break including kids and a natter then it was off into the small boulderhalle, where I re-did the purple level 3 ‘monkey bar’ boulder (a very low-risk ‘ladder’ in an overhang area where my feet where at ground level the whole time); we chewed through a few possible solutions for a couple of the harder boulders then the friend with the kids had to leave; the other stayed, keeping me company as I did an easy (III / 3) auto-belay climb a couple of times.

The two of us then sat down for a cup of tea and a long talk ensued about friendships and important points regarding them amongst other things. I find forming good (new) friendships to be relatively rare in adult life, so I’m extra happy about this development (which is, to some degree, due to the injury); it is even rarer, that such friendships develop between males and females … but all 3 of us seem to be relatively similar in many ways.

The session was rounded off with 30 mins of stationary biking / netflixing (which was sweaty but good!) before heading off to a local restaurant for a ‘goodbye’ meal with all of my kids who were present; I hadn’t booked (of course 🙄) so we ended up with split tables, but the food was great, as always. On top, Fini was the perfect ‘model’ dog, sitting next to me on an ‘island’ of three stools.

Back home my youngest son, fascinated by computer modelling of complex numbers, got back into drawing fractals … I was suitably impressed 😁.

Positive Moment(s): Lovely dinner out with my kids (except for my eldest daughter – still recovering from her appendix op unfortunately!).

Did some video analysis of the ‘wedge’ (15°) and the ‘rocker’ (0°, aka ‘flat sole’), needs some video editing -> WiP.

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Positive Moment(s): .

The New Year started off with beautiful weather; I left my crutches at home, but folded out my telescopic Nordic walking sticks to have a little physical support … and then wandered over to my partner’s place. At 900m, it’s a distance which I – at the moment – normally cover in about 11-14mins with something like 1200 steps; this morning, it was so amazingly quiet and sunny, I decided to really concentrate on a steady, even pace / gait … I took over 20mins and nearly 2k steps, but if New Year’s Day (in the sunshine) isn’t the time to do this, I don’t know when is 😎!

The boot is now at 0° since yesterday, I’ve left the wedge sole on … but nevertheless, I can get a pretty even gait, despite the height mismatch. The music I’m listening to, where I’d normally be taking a 75-80cm pace on each 125-ish BPM beat, is perfect for a slow 35-50cm pace on every other beat; coupled with the paving slabs, where I have an easy, constant and ever-present reference on my step length, this really makes it easy to ensure you’re not taking longer strides on the one side, or rushing the affected step.

By the time I got to my partner’s, the uncomfortable ‘pulling’ sensation (present so far at every setting change of the boot) was almost gone; I could look ahead, instead of down at the paving slabs, and almost just stroll in time to the music. In the sunshine, this feeling already made for a great start to the day!

Later, after some time spent back at my apartment dealing with the unpleasant inevitables of having a bunch of people to stay for a few days 😁, my partner shuttled me over to the climbing gym – still one of the main highlights of my week! Through some of the changes due to my injury as well as other factors, I’ve made a couple of good new friends, a thing of relative rarity in adult age, I find (I’m not talking about acquaintances, rather, people who, in times to come, are likely to be there when one needs them); we’re around the same level of climbing ability (well, not right now, of course 😅), approximately the same body size (small!), we all have kids, one of them wears chucks the same as me, we all seem to be fairly uncomplicated … noice 👏 💪 🙌 !

Positive Moment(s): A smooooth ‘stroll’ over to my partner’s place; back on the wall for the second time in 3 days 🧗‍♂️ 👏 💪 🙌 !

Things started calming down, with all visitors (at least at my place) gone; my partner headed off with our granddaughter for the little one’s first ski school session near-by … so our little Fini doggo got to stay with me today 😍. What with dog-walking, a stationary bike session at the physio practice, taking Fini back to my partner’s once they were back from skiing, then a shopping session … up to well over 7k iPhone steps -> average for this week now nearly 8k.

What I do notice is how it only takes an hour of being sedentary for my tendon to return to being relatively stiff; other redditors notice the same.

I woke from a bad dream, where Fini was off the leash; she wandered onto the road … I couldn’t run after her, because of my Achilles, so all I could do was shout and wave my crutch. This had the undesired effect of distracting the driver of the oncoming who looked at me, instead of the road. Not a happy ending.

Real life looked different, fortunately: the sun shining from a blue sky, with a layer of powder snow everywhere just a couple of cm thick, Fini still very much alive. Despite the bad dream I’d actually slept pretty well; a banana and some orange juice to avoid the hazard of an empty tummy; rucksack packed with all the stuff I’d been missing on Monday; then it was off to the same place as Monday. I was determined not to let the last bad experience get a hold.

Turned into a really nice walk: Fini got to play in the snow with another dog after I met a friendly, talkative guy close to the half-way mark. Walking was no problem, by the halfway mark everything felt smooth.

Awake at 4am. No nightmares, no idea why; crawled to the loo on hands and knees. Didn’t touch my mobile for an hour and a half, but all sorts of thoughts just raced around in my head nevertheless as I lay in bed, hoping to go back to sleep: like Fini coming over again (my partner and granddaughter have a third day of skiing to end the weekend), mulling over my journal, just still appreciating the feel of the bed covers on my feet, some thoughts of work, kids, climbing …

Around 5:30 I ‘caved’ … Chris had responded to my last bunch of texts, despite it being Saturday night of a holiday week at his end. On Reddit there was a positive piece of news from a non-op guy at 9 months doing some running – he’s posted a few times during his recovery, the last ones including some plyo work. In the text he wrote about a ‘sloppy’ form, but, as he added, you could see it felt great to him just to be running again! I gave him some positive feedback – I think lots of people on the r/AchillesRupture sub are ‘lurkers’, reluctant even to give an ‘upvote’ let alone comment, so when someone takes the time to post, particularly if they are regular posters quite obviously looking to give others a boost, I like to ‘give a little love back’.

Just had an idea for the extension of my journal to an ‘Achilles Resource Hub’: find some like-minded people, preferably one just ‘freshly joined’, plus another maybe ‘alte Hase’ (German: ‘old rabbit’ -> veteran), so as to have 3 different stories running parallel, with different protocols, time schedules. There are plenty of people documenting their stories on various platforms … must be possible to find at least a couple who are willing to read, comment, provide inputs, perhaps actively work on it … 🤫 … ?

The afternoon was spent taking Fini back to my partner’s (1200 steps) before heading off to the climbing gym: train station (1500 steps), and then a couple of km at the other end of the 5 min train ride (3k steps). Three hours bouldering, chatting, drinking coffee, actually climbing for about 20 mins 😅 before wrapping up in the bistro with a beer (as I type these lines).

Positive Moment(s): “I really wish I could help … I just don’t want to … ” – quote from my middle son as we ponder ordering out. Here, one has to know that my middle son worked at a restaurant. They started to work with Lieferando. His boss, plugging in the English options, put an ‘and’ instead of an ‘or’ when listing the sides … so for a good week, all ordered meals were accompanied by a salad AND a baked potato AND chips (‘fries’ 😁). I laughed. Particularly when I heard this combination was all forced into a single package 🤣🤣🤣.

Tuesday at the climbing gym, I did some low traverses in the boulder hall, along with some static hangs / route starts plus a handful of low-level ‘cyclic’ moves – all low-risk, no proper climbing, just getting the skin used to grips and the tendons / muscles used to being active; the second part of the session was spent in the climbing hall … again, easy climbs, zero loading of the foot (took a redditor’s advice to get some knee pads – was a brilliant idea!) – a couple of III / 3 climbs on the beginner’s wall.

Friday evening during my ankle mobility exercises, I had some funny tingling sensations in the whole lower leg as I started to do the weight shifting exercises – not specifically my injury site, rather the whole calf and ankle area. Weird. It was the end of a long day, with lots of steps, so I abandoned the unit at that point, hoping that it was just over-use, or something I’d not felt up until now, rather than ‘impending re-rupture’. Saturday all was good …

Sunday saw me breaking the 10k step ‘limit’ for just the third time since the injury … although most of it was with at least some assistence from the crutches; no discomfort or anything else negative to be felt. In the middle

Elongation check: < pics / vid and description to be added >

‘Flat’ sole (also known as ‘medium rocker’): < video analysis in progress >

Have taken to doing 15-20 unweighted seated calf raises every time I take my boot off or put it back on again; both feet and knees together for a constant ‘sanity check’ on style and height. If I’m pushed for time, it’ll be 15 fairly fast-ish ones, otherwise I try and take time for 20 slow ones.