(May 18th-24th: <10 mins read – just notes at the moment)
TL;DR:
– Returning to running working well
– Finally eMTBing to work ‘n’ back again
– ‘Rucking’ on the treadmill
– First 6er boulder topped post-injury
Milestones (click to collapse)
| WK30 | Milestone / Significant Event |
|---|---|
| D-1 | RUN 7: 3 x 150m walking / 1050m running – avg. pace over 3.5km: 6:24min/km, peak 5:19 |
| D-2 | 🧗♂️ flashed a VII / 5.10c (this is 7 months post-injury) |
| D-3 | (this is 213 days / 30w 3d post-injury) |
| D-4 | Treadmill after physio with 15kg rucksack: – 2.5km @ mix of 19%/3kph – 4%/6kph First time eMTBing to work ‘n’ back – 42km with 450 metres of ascent |
| D-5 | RUN 8: 2 x 1650m run / 200m walk – avg. pace over 3.5km: 6:43min/km, peak 5:19 |
| D-6 | |
| D-7 | 🧗♂️ Topped my first 6er boulder post-injury 💪 31 weeks / approx 11k steps per day |
< Note: For a complete list of milestones click <here>.
Real-world exercise (& movement)
< Note: For my physio protocols click <here>.
Walking
‘Rucking’ on the treadmill was my plan to see how my body tolerates some incline mixed with weights: approx. 15kg / 35lbs in the form of my rucksack.
Running
The seventh ramp-up run on Monday (3 x 150m walking / 1050m running; end at 3.5km) went well, just marginal discomfort for the first half or so – deliberately not aiming for any speed, rather during the running periods, I was looking to get an average pace around 5:40-5:50min/km. This I more or less managed; I was too warm for the first time, and running in ‘new’ shoes for the first time (Ulysses Waya Urc1 – don’t think they’re going to cut it), but ‘the plan’ more or less worked out:
Directly after, with a good 1km walk back to my apartment, all was good; discomfort came back briefly after half an hour of work … but that disappeared again inside 100 steps or so on the way to the shops. Next day, no negative effects.
I delayed the 8th run (2 x 1650m run / 200m walk) by a day to Friday due to the ‘uphill hiking’ on Thursday … for which I was rewarded by beautiful weather; on top of that I finally managed to not just wake up at 5:21 but also get up shortly thereafter … and thus could go for a first early morning run – BEAUTIFUL!
You’ll see I didn’t exactly stick to the plan … because I actually stopped a couple of times to take pictures it was so nice to see the sun streaming through the trees and the mountains in the distance:
I mean, I’ve ‘tweaked’ Chris’s plan a bit anyway, on top of adjusting the distances from imperial to metric – I have over a km walk to where I run anyway, which makes for a good warm-up, so no need for a walking start; the same stretch on the way back serves as a cool down -> aim is to take a short walking break around halfway through the run.
Cycling
Main thing this week was my first time biking to work and back post-injury – it’s not quite 21km (almost 13 miles) with a great downhill stretch on the way to work -> on the way home there are around 200m of ascent. Actually, due to a valley in the middle, it’s actually more like 300m ascent in total plus 100m descent.
Climbing
Tuesday’s boulder session was a bit of a damp squib: after the boulder cup at the weekend, we knew the routes, and they hadn’t yet had a chance to ‘fill up’ the hall -> instead of around 60-70 routes, there were only 25, with plenty of empty wall space, so no chance for traverses either. I think mostly because of this we were down to two, just S and me.
Still, once S had left to pick up her kids, I switched to the climbing hall, prepared for a ‘muted’ session … but was pleasantly surprised with a few good climbs including a flashed VII (5.10c):
By the time Sunday rolled around, the route-setters had been busy filling up the ‘holes’ between the competition routes which made for a lot of nice new routes, including a bunch of 5er routes with overhang which are a bit of a ‘sweet-spot’ for me at the moment: a reasonable challenge without being too hard aaand no real height involved.
On top of that, I cracked my first 6er boulder: this was a crimpy route, blue holds; during the competition I had made it to the ‘zone’ … Tuesday saw me getting to the third-to-last hold … but on Sunday, I’d planned it a little better, learned from my ‘mistakes’ on the other attempts, and stuck it first go – no video, but here’s the route:
Achilles Rupture Recovery 