(May 4th-10th: <10 mins read)
TL;DR:
– Running slowly picks up pace
– Treadmill up to steepest setting
– First ‘proper’ MTB forest ‘trail’ ride
– Positive effect of helping others
Milestones (click to collapse)
| WK29 | Milestone / Significant Event |
|---|---|
| D-1 | “May the fourth be with you!” (sorry 😁) Walking first thing almost stiffness-free |
| D-2 | RUN 3: 7 x 150m walking / 300m jogging – avg. pace over 3.2km: 7min/km, peak 5:23 |
| D-3 | Some post-run ‘whac-a-mole’ ankle pains … … on both sides 😅 🙄 |
| D-4 | Treadmill: 6kph @ 19% Helped a good friend repair his bike – kneeling and crawling around on the floor (this is 200 days / 28w 5d post-injury) |
| D-5 | |
| D-6 | RUN 4: Lvl 4: 6 x 150m walk / 450m run – avg. pace over 3.5km: 6:36min/km, peak 4:34 |
| D-7 | First ‘proper’ MTB forest ‘trail’ ride 29 weeks / approx 10k steps per day |
< Note: For a complete list of milestones click <here>.
Real-world exercise (& movement)
< Note: For my full physio program click <here>.
Walking
Thursday’s physio appointment: got another exercise to do, one I’ve seen elsewhere, but one that the local PT thought might help my (pre-injury) back pain on the right hip – that’s been integrated into my morning routing.
Directly after the appointment, I got on the treadmill and fairly swiftly wound it up to its max 19% elevation and marched along to music at 6kph for 1.5km (with an occasional ‘break’ of much reduced elevation plus slower speed).
Finished with about 500m walking backwards, also at 19% at ‘just’ 3kph.
Running
Tuesday saw me heading back out to the local woods where, since years, I love to run, particularly when the sun is shining: the trees offer plenty of shade, shield from the wind too. My third run since the injury. I ran an average pace of 7min/km (11:15min/mile) over the 3.2km (2 miles) … and with it feeling good, this time quite deliberately (but gradually) pushed the pace to a peak of 5:23min/km in the last ‘set’.
Again, no negative effects the next day … other than a slightly stiff / slightly painful ankle on my non-affected leg. Go figure – I guess simply ‘disuse complaints’. This was almost gone by the time I’d done my exercises, and completely gone by the time I stopped at the bakery close to work for a coffee and sandwich in the morning.
The 4th run of the ramp-up (6 x 150m walk / 450m run, ending at 3.5km) was saved for Saturday – that made 3 days rest instead of just 2, which I think was a good decision. Went well, felt smooth, discomfort to start which faded as the run went on, which led to me ‘goosing’ my cadence and pace quite deliberately this time – even the peak pace of well under 5min/km felt normal.
Went for a walk with two of my kids and little Fini after this, before devouring a huge breakfast … and then conked out for about 3 hours; man, were both my ankles stiff after waking up … but this disappeared fairly quickly. Next day, the tendon was a bit stiffer than usual … but this also disappeared quickly, after not even 100 steps just around the apartment. So I guess I didn’t overdo it 🙏 🤞!
Cycling
Thursday: a short break after the treadmill, then it was a fairly intense 10min on the elliptical, some of it more or less at a running pace, and, to finish, also here, a ‘backwards’ stretch.
Sunday saw me taking the ‘long way round’ to the climbing gym: up and over the local ‘mountain’, the Taubenberg (peak is a massive 917m 😅). Hardly what an experienced trail-biker would call a trail (at least half the way is a wide, forest road for the foresters with their big equipment), but the 17km features at least a few km of narrow, stony paths, small drops, tree roots and other such fun stuff which mean standing up in the pedals and being active.
This was with the newer of my two beloved s-pedalecs, the M1 Spitzing Evolution … so yeah, not a ‘bio-biker’ 😅. Nevertheless, there is no mistaking from my pulse (even if my condition is a long way from what it was before) that this was not a little jaunt. Being on an e-bike really doesn’t mean it’s not sport – for me, it mostly ‘just’ makes a difference to the top speed at a particular effort, NOT whether I’m making an effort or not … I don’t just turn on full-power and let myself be pulled along the whole time.
Perhaps the best news was that there were no complaints from the tendon or the calf, during or after, with just one moment on a fairly significant bump where I even really felt the difference between ankles.
(Note: see here for benefits of low load cycling for Achilles rehab)
Climbing
Got back to my Tuesday morning bouldering session after a couple of weeks of missing it due to work – nothing special, just feeling my back into things. Even Sunday was not a day of high performance: although I did tackle a couple of 4er and easier 5er boulders which still had me a little nervous, it was otherwise more of an ‘endurance’ session – climbing-wise I didn’t go above a V+ level, but for that did a good handful of them:
Mental Health (& daily happenings)
Helping others / bike repairs & maintenance
Today, I helped a good friend (a climbing trainer I’ve known almost ten years) to repair his beloved bike. I’d already had a look at it a week ago or so – he’s had the bike for over 20 years, uses it often but essentially only as a means of transport … he seems fairly attached to it, but has never learned how to do more than pump up a tyre.
Last week, I’d gotten hold of the new tyre (the old one was literally thread-bare) and brake blocks (to replace ones already worn down to the metal on one corner!). In addition, I’d ordered a ‘Tyre Glider‘, something I had big hopes … yes, I have tyre levers, multiple sets in different materials, but I’ve always thought there must be something better.
It had been a long time since I’d done any such work on anything other than my own mountain bikes or similar … the super narrow racing bike rim and old, porous tyre was a ‘fun’ combination 😅. Nevertheless, crawling around on the floor doing the known maintenance/repairs and, whilst doing so, stumbling (of course) across a good handful of other things that needed resetting/replacing, was a great reminder of how far I’ve come already – my injury hardly limited me at all from squatting to kneeling, to sitting on my heels, etc. That was one positive experience.
The other, much bigger one, was how happy my friend was to a) have learned what he can do himself in the future, as well as b) have his beloved bike back in ‘floating on air’ condition again. It was very much a ‘teach a man how to fish’ moment, instead of ‘give a man a fish’ … and I’ve always loved that kind of ‘giving’ experience.
End of my personnel responsibilities at work
Monday saw me clearing my desk at work as the (more-or-less) last step of me changing my role at work – I had decided I was ‘one manager too many’ and my small team of 3 would be better off after a re-structure; the company should also benefit … and hopefully me too 😅 – potentially a win-win-win situation.
It felt odd. For many years I had felt like a real, integrated part of the small(-ish) family-run German business I left England to work for in 1999; I had been able to identify with the company, the people I worked for and with; my work place had been home to many personal artefacts (such as drawings and models made by my kids for me, or photos of my loved ones, dog basket and toys), a mini home-from-home desk.
Since the takeover in 2021, all of this identification and family-ish connections had simply died one-by-one; this gradual transformation, then my injury … together, both have changed me and brought me to the point of needing a ‘shake up’ (I realised during the last few minutes that this has been the way with me every 4-6 years, let’s just call it a 5-year change cycle).
Now I have no permanent desk, no personal artefacts in the company at all. And I feel better for it, as much of a shame it is (to some degree) – I just am not a ‘big company’ person. I’m looking into the future with some hope of enjoying more technical work, instead of being bogged down by managerial HR stuff and pointless meetings.
At the same time, my daughter, who has taken on some of my responsibilities (by her own choice), is going to spend a period of time definitely well out of her comfort zone. I’m super proud she decided to ‘step up’ (as my current manager calls it), know that it ought to be good for her personal development … and at the same time, as a parent, one wants to see one’s kids happy, and not stressed (knowing full well that life cannot always be sunshine and flowers 😅).
Achilles Rupture Recovery 