(June 1st-7th: <10 mins read)
TL;DR:
– A ‘good’ week of almost zero app-driven PT
– ‘Rucking’: 12km / 480m ascent / 16kg pack
– 25k steps / day for the first time
– Weight finally dips under 69kg 🥳
Milestones (click to collapse)
| WK33 | Milestone / Significant Event |
|---|---|
| D-1 | Drive 920km / 580miles – Isle of Norderney, German North Sea |
| D-2 | 20km (non-ebike) cycle on Norderney |
| D-3 | (this is 227 days / 32w 3d post-injury) |
| D-4 | Drive 920km / 580miles back home |
| D-5 | 🧗 A great boulder and climbing session |
| D-6 | 12km hike with 480m ascent / 16kg pack – 4 rounds of my local training ‘mountain’ Crack 25k steps / day for the first time |
| D-7 | Weight finally dips under 69kg / 152lbs 🥳 33 weeks / approx 12k steps per day |
< Note: For a complete list of milestones click <here>.
Real-world exercise (& movement)
Starting with the end of last week, I took a ‘good week off’ from doing app-guided PT exercises: combined with the increase in activity of running, hiking, biking and climbing, I have to admit that the gradual return of ‘normality’ meant the priority for PT exercises drooped. For example, most days now I get out of bed and walk to the toilet first thing with little to no restriction, more or less without feeling the recovering ankle/Achilles … this automatically makes the first-thing mobility less … urgent.
I do emphasise the use of the word ‘drooped’ … I’m not healed, it’ll still be half a year plus before I get properly close to a state I might call ‘healed’. It’s just that I sometimes can’t bear doing another set of PT exercises, that I’d rather go for a run in the morning than do an hour’s worth of PT. Chris said at this point it can help to take a few days off and come back ‘freshly motivated’.
< Note: For my physio protocols click <here>.
Walking
On Saturday we had some great weather – perfect timing for a trip out to the local 917m high ‘mountain’ (the car park is already at 760m, just to put that in perspective 😅 … it’s more of a hill, with mostly easily manageable wide forrest roads, and certainly zero tricky paths). Having already done 3 rounds last weekend, I figured I’d aim for 4 rounds this time.
The main point is for me to put some mileage on my calf with some metres of ascent plus heavy pack on my back to increase the load. Due to unsurety on how much I can take, I’m doing multiple 2.7km rounds with about 120m of ascent per round … this means I can cut short at any time if I’m having a bad day or I target too hard.
The first 3 rounds were easy, on the 4th I started feeling it; although I think a 5th round would have been doable, I did have some ankle pain the next day (Sunday) which was still partially present on Monday; come Wednesday it was completely gone. Note: zero tendon or calf pains, only ankle joint.
Running
I did zero running this week – after a successful sub-30min 5k last week, and being in a ‘foreign’ environment this week, I figured I’d let my body rest for a few days.
Cycling
During a short holiday on the island of Norderney (northern coast of Germany / North Sea), I borrowed a (non e-)bike and headed off for a bit of a tour of the island; the last part I was cycling reasonably hard, motivated by an approaching storm and the first few drops of rain 😅!
It’s a beautiful island with both relatively densely populated areas, restaurants, bars and so on, as well as nature reserves:
Climbing
The main thing of note this week was less any performance on my side, rather the heart-warming development of one of my boulder buddies, J. She and I spent some hours on Friday in the climbing gym after my return from the North Sea, first bouldering, then climbing.
As mentioned previously, she is managing to overcome her fear of heights, bit-by-bit. Just in this second session of tackling this fear head-on, she made some real progress again. She had been bouldering on her own in a different gym on Wednesday … when I asked her if she’d tried some climbing there, she said she hadn’t had the courage to try on her own. So it feels really nice to know that I am, apparently, helping her in some small way to ‘grow’ in this way ☺️.
I did do some climbing myself too … and can see I am slowly but surely making progress too, beginning to approach the level I was at pre-injury. In fact, at 69-70kg / 152-155lbs (should be more like 62-64kg / 135-140lbs), my weight is probably limiting me more at the moment than my injury status.
Achilles Rupture Recovery 