Achilles Rupture Recovery

So I’d ticked off 3 of the 4 pre-requisites (which Chris shows on Insta) over the last 3 weeks; the only question left was whether my 10+ SLRs were good enough to get the ‘green light’ of approval to re-start running. Apparently they were.

Althooough … Chris’s reaction to this first video here (me running upstairs two at a time) meant the vid may have helped a little 😎: “Ha ha, this caught me off guard, nice work! Even forcibly pushing off that affected leg (pretty much a single leg jump which is great you are able to do that!)”. I did build up slowly to this, though, btw – I live on the second floor, no lift, do these stairs quite a few times a day, often with a 15kg / 33lb or so rucksack; pre-injury, I would be running up like this as standard, sometimes taking three steps.

Whatever, as you can see, I got out on a beautifully sunny Wednesday and did my sort-of-a mile’s worth of walking/jogging. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t painful at all … I did have some pain in the ankle, more than the calf or tendon, maybe a 1/10, TOPS a 2/10; however, this disappeared within something like 5-10 mins after I’d finished running.

The second run on Saturday (5 x 150m walking / 300m running) was less painful; on the 4th ‘set’ I bumped up my cadence -> pace unintentionally (honest!!) dropped to under 5:30/km (8:45/mile). Again, no negative effects during, directly afterwards or the next morning.

It’s now feeling almost completely normal, even standing up on the pedals one-footed, even going up or down over a kerbstone. On the 7km Sunday speed trip to bouldering, my pulse was up to over 150 – yes, I’m on an e-bike; no, that doesn’t mean it’s not sport … basically, I’m putting in peaks of up to 300-400W, averaging around 150-200W – the s-pedalec just means I’m then doing up to 50 kph instead of 30-35, with an average of >40kph from start to finish. A good warm-up before climbing 😁.

(Note: see here for benefits of low load cycling for Achilles rehab)