(August 3rd – 9th: <10 mins read)
TL;DR:
– 🏃 Spontaneous 100% sprint frees up ‘sticky’ tissue
– 🚗 Mini roadtrip takes us to Belgium, France & Amsterdam
– 🫂 Finally meet 2 fellow ATR redditors in person 🤩 !
– 🏳️🌈 Spontaneous participation in World Pride march
Milestones (click to collapse)
| WK42 | Milestone / Significant Event |
|---|---|
| D-1 | 🚗 Off to 🇫🇷 France … via 🇧🇪 Belgium – procrastrination -> unplanned stop 😅 |
| D-2 | 🏃 Spontaneous ‘accidental’ 100% sprint: – 1m beach ball fumbled in the wind 😬 🙈 |
| D-3 | 🧗 Bouldering ‘on the rocks’ at the beach: – fun, if not exactly a big challenge … 😁 😎 |
| D-4 | 🚗 We move on to 🇳🇱 Amsterdam … 🎤 … for amazing Turkish food & karaoke … 🫂 … with 2 fellow ATR redditor friends 🤩 ! |
| D-5 | ⚓ Boat tour of Amsterdam’s canals 📆 this is 292 days / 41w 5d post-injury |
| D-6 | 🏳️🌈 World Pride day in Amsterdam – unplanned smack bang in the main parade |
| D-7 | 🚗 Next stop 🇩🇪 Insel Norderney: – a north sea coast island (Germany) 👣 42 weeks / approx 12k steps per day |
< Note: For a list of milestones click <here>.
Real-world exercise (& movement)
Having left home on Sunday 2nd August to start a 10 day mini roadtrip, running took backstage for this week. At least in the form of an ‘actual run’.
What I did do was move plenty. Including playing ‘football’ with my 16 yr old son on a beach in Dunkirk with a 1m beach ball. It was windy; he took great delight in whacking it. Naturally I fumbled it at some point … and with it going full pelt towards the sea, I just instinctively turned and legged after it, full pelt 😅. Sprinting 100% effort on sand (albeit wet, firm sand, but still …) – turns out the tendon is healed enough to take it 😬 🙈 … lucky me.
< Note: For my physio protocols click <here>.
Meeting 2 friends from Reddit in person
I started using Reddit for the first time shortly after my injury. Not that I hadn’t been aware of Reddit … not at all – several of my kids had made me very much aware of it since some years … I just hadn’t felt any need to even look at it. And then I ruptured my right Achilles …
During the hours I spent researching this injury in the first few days, I inevitably stumbled across the sub-Reddit, r/AchillesRupture. Probably like many, I lurked initially before commenting … and then posting. In the ensuing weeks, I ‘met’ a good handful of people I’ve really enjoyed writing to; a few of these I’ve actually talked to on the telephone; now, I can say I’ve acutally met a couple in person … and it was great!
More coincidence initially, then planned as a part of the roadtrip I was planning on doing with two of my kids, we met up in Amsterdam for a great meal and rounded the evening off with a really fun karaoke session – I’d never sung karaoke before (had always ‘successfully avoided it’ tbh 😅), but it was such a fun atmosphere and I really enjoyed it, as did all of the others too.
I think we all found it a little weird to start with … meeting ‘physical strangers’ from the internet in real-life probably doesn’t happen that often outside the dating side of things (?), but it didn’t take long before it felt really natural.
This is another example of the many positive things this tough injury has brought into my life – as weird as it may sound: if I could go back and undo the rupture, I really wouldn’t any more!
