(July 20th – July 26th: <10 mins read)
TL;DR:
– 🏃 Second running milestone: sub-60min 10k
– 🧗 My first ‘Via Ferrata’ 💪 😍!
– 🏃 Re-developing my sense for pace
– 🧗 Hard bouldering session followed by campussing
Milestones (click to collapse)
| WK40 | Milestone / Significant Event |
|---|---|
| D-1 | 🏃 ‘Speedy paces’ run: 3k – trying to re-learn pace feeling |
| D-2 | 🧗 Session with trainer R and others: – J’s shoulder and finger are on the mend 🙏 – hard bouldering followed by campus board |
| D-3 | 📆 this is 276 days / 39w 3d post-injury |
| D-4 | 🏃 ‘Easy volume’ run: 10k (sub-60min!) – 0:59:20 / 5:56min/km / 141 avg. pulse |
| D-5 | 🧗 My first ‘Via Ferrata’: – Hausbachfall-Klettersteig |
| D-6 | 🥾 No hiking today, rather: – a single round walk with my eldest daughter |
| D-7 | 🧗 5 hours at the climbing gym: – flashed a VII+ ( 5.10d) on auto-belay 👣 40 weeks / approx 13k steps per day |
< Note: For a list of milestones click <here>.
Real-world exercise (& movement)
Nothing extra to note above and beyond the stuff below; PT consistency was rubbish this week 🙈.
< Note: For my physio protocols click <here>.
Walking / Hiking
No strenuous stuff this week on this front … but nevertheless a nice single round of my ‘training stretch’ at the local mini-mountain with my eldest daughter, C, and little Fini ☺️.
Running
On Monday I ended up lying in bed too long … time got short, almost didn’t get out running, but then I pulled myself together, got dressed and headed out. No time for a 5k, so I decided to experiment a little with paces, trying to run 5:00, then 5:30 and then 6:00 without constantly looking at my iPhone. Realised I have lost the feeling for pace as I was consistently too fast. Oh well, could be worse 😅.
Thursday saw me cracking the 2nd running milestone ‘properly’: a sub-60min 10k run. I actually managed to pace myself vaguely, aiming for a bit over 6min/km the first half, and a bit under for the second half, plus a concrete 5:30 for the final km. Not breaking any records 😅 🤪 … but was really chuffed with this!
I mean, I did feel significant fatigue in the last couple of km in the calf (tendon was fine) … but my other calf was beginning to notice it at least a little. Either way, feels like it’s definitely moving in the right direction!
Climbing
Tuesday’s session was really good: trainer R cycled there with me; J came, despite having an appointment at a climbing doc in Munich – shoulder seems to be fine again 🙏, doc showed her some finger taping and gave her some putty / squeezing exercises; some good hard bouldering, then a campus board session lead by R and rounded off by a good coffee & chat before heading home, tired but happy ☺️.
Friday, however, was AMAZING: a relatively spontaneous ‘Via Ferrata’ (German: Klettersteig) was organised by S on Wednesday evening: she had arranged with J to do this, was somewhat unsure about it at the same time, as J had never done a via ferrata before. Somehow, S had gotten the impression that I’d done it a bunch of times, so she invited me as a kind of ‘extra support’ person … only to find that I was a beginner too 😅.
We all watched a video of the climb, I was sure it would be doable for us … and at the same time, it seemed like a good idea to have another experienced climber with us – enter an even more spontaneous invitation to R on Thursday afternoon, which he accepted on Friday morning 🙏.
Drive there: chat with R, traffic leads to being almost 10mins late at rendezvous; J still needs to cancel a certain appointment 😅; I announce rather late that I wasn’t using the sat nav 🤣; I get a bit nervous at the car park, am the last to be ready for the walk.
A nice, short walk past a chapel and the ‘bare-foot parcour’ leads up to the start of the via ferrata; a practice ‘run’ under the bridge / across the stream; am again the last to be ready with climbing belt on (follow J’s example and go take a last pre-climb pee behind the trees 😜). Then it was off onto the wall … S first, J second, me third and R bringing up the rear – hence at a couple of places I could get a pic or two (and one of me, which S took):
There were no panic dramas – all-in-all S had picked a perfect ‘Klettersteigstart’ for J and me; not saying that we didn’t have the odd hairy moment or three 😅 … some of the ‘C’ stretches were fairly taxing, although we got a couple of rests at a first plateau / ’emergency exit’ route, which a very fit looking young lady decided she should take (which shook our first-timers’ confidence a little 🙈).
I was the last to exit the route to find the other 3 all relaxing – there was a beautiful view of the local town, Reit im Winkel … and a slightly cheesy pic of me knowing I was being photographed and trying to be chill 😅:
The way down was a really nice walk too – not long, and with some really good views of the route we’d just taken up the mountain:
At the bottom of the via ferrata, there is a ‘bare foot parcour’, with a walkable foot bath as well as a drinking fountain (fresh mountain water); the whole, large area is amazingly well designed – I didn’t bother taking any pics because I assumed that there would be enough on the internet (wrong!) plus there were some other people who I wouldn’t have been able to keep out of the pictures.
Suffice it to say, the whole day, from picking up R to dropping him off home, and literally EVERYTHING between these two time points, was just brilliant … even walking barefoot from the ‘chill-out area’ over gravel and tarmac back to the Buzz.
Back to the usual Sunday get-together at the climbing gym: I spent about 5 hours there … ’twas just another wonderful bouldering and toppas session, what can I say?! Oh yeah: I flashed a new 7+ (5.10d) 😁 😎 !
