(July 27th – Aug 2nd: <10 mins read)
TL;DR:
– 🥾 29km hike / 1140m ascent / 9kg pack
– 🧗 Cracked a new VIII- (5.11b) on auto-belay
– 🚗 Start of a mini-roadtrip thru 🇫🇷 / 🇧🇪 / 🇳🇱
– 👣 Crack 43k daily steps!
Milestones (click to collapse)
| WK41 | Milestone / Significant Event |
|---|---|
| D-1 | 🏃 ‘Speedy paces’ run: 5k – re-learning pace feeling gradually |
| D-2 | 🧗 Climbing with S and J: – S rediscovers her love of climbing 🫶 – J still struggles on auto-belay but pushes 💪 ✈️ Business flight to Taiwan aborted 🤮 |
| D-3 | ⚖️ Weight dips under 67kg / 148lbs 🥳 🪘Percussion at the school Sommerfest 🤩 |
| D-4 | 🧗 Started projecting a new VIII- (5.11b): – cracked it on auto-belay on the first day 🥳 |
| D-5 | 📆 this is 285 days / 40w 5d post-injury |
| D-6 | 🥾 29km hike / 1140m ascent / 9kg pack: – 10 rounds of my local training ‘mountain’ 👣 Crack 43k daily steps! |
| D-7 | 🧗 Short but sweet bouldering session 🚗 Start of a mini-roadtrip thru 🇫🇷 / 🇧🇪 / 🇳🇱 🎭 Zombie horror comedy ‘Pontypool’: – youngest daughter’s & her boyfriend’s play 👣 41 weeks / approx 16k steps per day |
< Note: For a list of milestones click <here>.
Real-world exercise (& movement)
During the hike at the weekend, I had PLENTY of time to ponder the world, my thoughts of the moment, things around me as I repeated the same stretch; the pics below reflect a tiny portion of this:
< Note: For my physio protocols click <here>.
Walking / Hiking
Kind of instead of a long easy run this week – particularly looking at the 10 days of holiday coming up next week – I decided to concentrate on a long hike this weekend, as I’d neglected this aspect for the last couple of weeks. The target was at least 7, preferably 8, rounds of my local ‘training mountain’.
As it turned out, despite slacking off at PT stuff the last few weeks, I’d obviously made progress since the last training hike: this time, the main ‘problem’ I had was completely normal bodily adjustment aches and pains due to a long stretch of activity: 6 hours to do 10 rounds.
Specifically: the ‘aches and pains’ were basically symmetrical, if anything, they were more on the non-injured side 😅. Next day I did have a bit of heel pain on the affected side … but 20-30 steps and it was gone; other than that, my knees felt it for a couple of days, but symmetrically, so 🤷.
Running
I used the ‘speedy paces’ 5k on Monday to practise pace feeling again: I reversed the target order (“negative splits”) to start at 6:00min/km for the first km, dropping to 5:45 for the second km, then 5:30 and finally 4:45 before returning to 6:00 for the final and 5th km. It sort of worked out kinda ok 😅 🕺:
No long run this week!
Climbing
One of the young ladies I climb with, S, had a traumatic experience some years back: a guy (an absolute asshole!) belaying her let her fall some metres unnecessairly as a ‘joke’ on a challenging route she slipped up on. As a result she ‘hung up her climbing belt’ 8 years ago.
However, after the Via Ferrata, she had questioned this decision somewhat, I think; I suggested she bring her belt this week … no one was going to push her into climbing if she really didn’t want to, but she could think about it, leave herself the option to say yes or no when she turned up on Tuesday.
Tuesday came and she was psyched … not sure how else I’d describe it 😅 👏 ! And after some bouldering, off she went … endurance is a bit of an issue after so long not climbing – she’s a strong boulderer, significantly better than me, but bouldering is a strength / technique thing way more than climbing at this kind of level (which is primarily an endurance thing).
Amongst others, we both tried the shown VIII- (5.11b) auto-belay white grip route; both of us struggled half-way up, around the first red-white line.
Thursday – after a planned and paid for business to Taiwan fell through for me – saw the two of us giving it a second go; another stronger climber gave us a couple of hints, we both cracked the previous crux; once S left due to time restrictions, I pushed on and managed all individual moves … putting them together will be the final challenge.
J continues to push back against her auto-belay fears … the two of them are so different, and yet they share the same type of fears in some areas … and both are pushing – it’s sooo cool to see them, the same as me, ‘stretching the envelope’ … climbing is simply such a brilliant sport as well as a personal development ‘tool’.
