(August 10th – 16th: <10 mins read)
TL;DR:
– 🏃 Just short of a half-marathon: 18k @ 2hr 20
– 🧗 LOTS of climbing!
– 🪩 Echelon festival: 48 hours of electro 😁 😎
Milestones (click to collapse)
| WK43 | Milestone / Significant Event |
|---|---|
| D-1 | 🏃 ‘Easy volume’ run: 18k – 2:19:37 / 7:45min/km / 119 avg. pulse 👣 35k daily steps |
| D-2 | 🚲 24km on Norderney (‘bio-bike’ for me): – eldest daughter tries out an e-bike & loves it |
| D-3 | 🚗 15 hour trip home (including ferry) 🙈 |
| D-4 | 🧗 Thursday late afternoon climbing with J |
| D-5 | 🧗 Friday morning climbing with S 🪩 Echelon festival from Fri afternoon … |
| D-6 | 🪩 … thru Sat (electro music) 🥳 🕺 … |
| D-7 | 🪩 … and into Sunday 😁 😎 🧗 Sunday afternoon climbing session: – what a surprise, not great post-festival 😅 👣 43 weeks / approx 19k steps per day |
< Note: For a list of milestones click <here>.
Real-world exercise (& movement)
No hiking this week … but way more exercise than I’d expected, almost hit an average 20k steps a day for the first time post-injury!
That included Echelon 2026 … for a change, the weather was hot and dry (last year’s festival got interupted by heavy storms). So hot and sooo dry that dust actually became a bit of a problem – the folks working there in the car parks were wearing masks because of the dust clouds!
Two days electro / techno – it’s gotten harder and harder music the last years, unfortunately for me … still found some ‘soft enough’ stuff; whilst Boris Brejcha on Saturday afternoon wouldn’t exactly pass as ‘soft’ it was one of the more melodic sets, the mood was top. And nevertheless, for me and my eldest daughter (she’s been going since 2013), one of the biggest highlights was actually a tiny stage, the ‘Molecule’ (space for about 60 people!) where we witnessed a couple of great DJ souls (Mateø Vivës and Jean Marie) having fun, laughing and joking with each other, zero visible ego. The older guy, Jean Marie, even came out off the DJ stage and danced for about 90 seconds with us. Was brilliant 😁!
(that’s a dirt/dust line in the last pic, not tanning 😅).
< Note: For my physio protocols click <here>.
Running
Finally got some running in again, after 2 weeks ‘off’ – on the island of Norderney, Germany (North Sea coast), I took off early(-ish) before my kids were up, thinking I’d go for something like 8-10km or so. It was raining a bit, but very mild, not much wind. And then it just felt great … running along the sea coast, hardly anyone around; a mixture of tarmac, paved paths, grassy routes and even sandy dune trails – beautiful! And thus it turned into an 18km run:
There were occasional walks, photo pauses … even a coffee break around 11 km (that was the 16 mins ‘stopped’ time) – I mean, I was on holiday, riiiight?! Had I had time – I needed to get back to my kids for lunch as agreed – I could even have turned it into a first post-injury ‘half-marathon’ … buuut it wasn’t that important, that’ll come.
Cycling
Another unexpected positive thing was getting out on a bike trip with my eldest daughter: in fact it turned out she’d never been on an e-bike … so I figured this would be the perfect opportunity (the island Norderney has umpteen bicycle rental shops and certainly hundreds if not thousands of ebikes).
Typical male prejudice led to her being offered ‘an old granny’ ebike of the step-through variety … but having expected this, we’d already eyed up a very nice looking red Giant full suspension eMTB; I stuck with a ‘bio-bike’ to get a bit of exercise in – it’s pretty flat on Norderney.
It turned into a really nice afternoon, with some relaxed but fun biking around the island, doing a little bit of ‘exploring’, as well as getting a bite to eat and a beer; the way back was suprisingly hard work – quite exposed, the wind from the sea made it tough to keep up with an e-bike 😅.
Climbing
I’d not really reckoned with any climbing this week. However, coming back a day earlier from Norderney than I’d expected, there was time to get on the wall Thursday, Friday and even Sunday (after techno festival 😅):
- Thursday saw J showing how confident she’s become on the auto-belay – she’s still not completely comfortable with climbing to the top, but she does it, determined not to let fear dictate what she can and can’t do – SUPER proud 😁 👏 💪 🙌 ! Also, I flashed a VII+/VIII- (5.11a / 6c) with some margin left both on the technical side as well as the strength side, which was really nice … really almost back to top form!
- Friday was also a fairly long session, this time with S, plus a chance meeting with M … he didn’t have a rope with him, but we all three of us had a crack at a red VIII route outside with a fair bit of overhang; S just has no fear on an auto-belay … she got a nice half-dynamic solution for a long move where I just half shit my pants and had to do it statically 😅. All three of us cacked out on the crux just after the start of the overhang area, though … a bad grip, all three of us getting towards the end of our strength. Maybe next time!
- Come Sunday, I was on my own – the boulder hall was literally completely empty (nice weather, school holidays), and after the festival, I was just not on form, so opted for some rope-climbing … managed the same VII+/VIII- from Thursday, buuut REALLY struggled, slipped a couple of times – NOT a day of high-performance!!
