(September 14th – 20th: <10 mins read)
TL;DR:
– 🧗 “Climbing for adults” – lead climbing w/o trainer
– 🏃 5k time down to 25:45
– 🧗 First time doing ‘proper’ rock climbing 🥳
– 🤹 Slacklining (my goal to juggle at the same time)
Milestones (click to collapse)
| WK48 | Milestone / Significant Event |
|---|---|
| D-1 | 🏃 Day 2 / hill climbing: 5k / 10 circuits – 33:05 / 6:37min/km / 136 avg. pulse 🧗 Day 19: “climbing for adults” with J – her suggestion: lead climbing w/o trainer 🤩 – slacklining beginning to take shape 🕺 |
| D-2 | 🏃 Day 3 / lovely surprise 6k run with J – hoping she’ll find the same love of running 🧗 Day 20: daily PT and slacklining |
| D-3 | 🏃 Well, THAT was a short streak 😅 🧗 Day 21: daily PT and slacklining |
| D-4 | 🧗 Day 22: belaying S for the first time 🏃 ‘Speedy paces’ run: 5k – 25:45min / 5:09min/km / 154 avg. pulse |
| D-5 | 🧗 Day 23: routesetting back to normal: – bouldering back on the ‘menu‘ |
| D-6 | 🧗 Day 24: Slacklining 4m backwards 📆 this is 11 months post-injury |
| D-7 | 🧗 Day 25: 1st day rock climbing 🥳 – a looooong day … but a GREAT day! 🤹 on top: 10mins of slacklining 👣 48 weeks / approx 16k steps per day |
< Note: For a list of milestones click <here>.
Real-world exercise (& movement)
Turns out, I love slacklining … I just never tried properly practising it. With pretty much daily practise (sometimes just 5-10mins, other times getting on for an hour) I’m finding it’s coming quickly – I can walk from one end to the other of the (at 4m / 15′ admittedly short) slackline at the climbing gym, even backwards. Not every time, and it sure don’t look pretty 😅, but a week ago even that would have been unthinkable – I struggled to take even 2 steps in a row.
Achilles sports rehab physio, Chris Smith from Achilles.Rebuild, confirmed it’s an ideal way at my stage to strengthen the ankle and improve core strength; on top of that, with my pulse at 120-135 over the entire session, it appears to be good cardio on top … which is perhaps another reason my weight is continuing to fall (in the meantime almost hit the 64kg / 141lbs mark).
So I’ve set myself the goal of improving my juggling parallel to learning how to slackline … to, at some point, be able to juggle 3 balls whilst slacklining – not sure how feasible this is for me personally, but since both skills are mostly ‘just’ practise … I’m gambling that it ought to be doable if I stay consistent with daily practising of both!
< Note: For my physio protocols click <here>.
Walking / Hiking (empty)
Nothing special to report here, too much time doing other stuff!
Running
My runathon idea is on the build-up … with my first ‘streak’ ending after just 3 days 😅. Well, it’s not about a streak as such … it’s more about getting in as much movement as possible – the idea behind the daily runs remains, more or less, getting out, moving, and building the habit of doing so coupled with some basic leg strength stuff. And this, I think, is working / going to work.
What has been way more rewarding this week was my bouldering friend, J, turning up with her old trainers to our Tuesday session – her fingers are still recovering, there have been no new boulders for 3 weeks now, so she’d thought it would be an ideal time to take up my offer of giving her a ‘mini-coaching’ … which I, of course, was more than delighted to do! On went the running shoes, down to the nearby river, and then off we went in the mixed sun and shade of the woods with the sound of running water in our ears.
She was amazed to find that she didn’t struggle – I’d guessed she’d easily be fit enough after a couple of walks together; the key, really, simply being to run at a slow pace where one can still hold a conversation; at any incline where that becomes tough, walk instead of run. Following this simple schema, we actually put exactly 6km behind us in about 50 mins … not going to win any races, but, of course, it’s not about that, just like the ‘runathon’ is not about a strict streak. Instead, we had a great talk and enjoyed a run in a beautiful area. Win-win. Just the way it’s supposed to be!!
The other runs of the week were a little plainer, but also good: Monday, as usual, the hill climb … this time, with 10 circuits capped at 5k:
Another not really explainable peak pulse around 180, which is definitely odd … again, didn’t feel it at all, rather noticed it on the iPhone and slowed to a walk, which brought it back down. Have to admit it is a little unsettling and, if it happens again, I shall make an appointment at the doc’s for a loaded ECG to double-check.
Thursday was going to be an ‘easy volume’ run … so I’d planned, at least. However, it turned out I’d misunderstood about a climbing session with S – I thought it had been moved to Friday, but nope, that was as of next week. So I ended up only having time for a short run … and decided to see what kind of pace I could hold on a 5k. Now, it was mid-afternoon, warm and sunny, a good lunch was not far enough in the past … and nevertheless, I clocked 25:45 despite there even being some noticeable absolute ascent:
So, I reckon if I run early in the morning, with nothing more than a banana in my tummy, do a flat 5k circuit in the woods, that time ought to drop to under 25min almost easily; going forward, with increasing fitness and decreasing weight, I’ll be observing the trend to sub-24min and beyond … without it necessarily being a goal as such, I think this will simply happen, so long as I don’t overdo it and injure myself 😅.
Next week, I’ll be re-targeting the daily runs, with the expectation that most weeks will feature 5-6 runs rather than 7 … we’ll see.
Climbing
It was in the climbing part of my life that other highlights happened this week, such as J suggesting on Monday that we try lead climbing without a trainer present (this first time we added the auto-belay for safety, as she had not yet belayed a lead climber). This went pretty well – she’s a quick learner and I’d trust her with my life.
The next highlight was on Thursday when S decided it was time to put her trust in me to belay her whilst on a top-rope … Sunday last week had been her first time in over 8 years where she’d trusted ANYONE to belay her, so I felt kinda honoured that she was so quick to trust me too. We only did a couple of relatively simple routes, but they went well and the second was obviously already easier than the first.
Sunday was the ‘crowning glory’ of the week, however: the first time out doing some ‘proper’ rock climbing at the Zellerwand near the Chiemsee in Bavaria for S, J and me, with our trainer friend, R, having organised the trip, the rope, and all the rest of the equipment we needed. We had perfect weather; the short ‘climb’ to the routes was dry, we were more or less the first ones there (there are something like 210 routes, it’s close to Munich, so on such days there are plenty of climbers at all levels there).
We spent from just after 9am until about 4:30pm at the short section of the ‘wall’ shown in the topo(graphical book) … as beginners, we stuck to just one rope for the four of us, taking it in turns to belay and climb. For the first time, I not only lead-climbed on rock, but also took up and hooked in the quickdraws … THAT was a bit scary in a couple of places on slab, almost called it quits twice, but only almost – once I’d reached the top, I breathed a sigh of relief … and felt pretty chuffed, if I’m honest 😎.
Once we’d finished climbing, we headed back down to the campsight at the base of the wall … where there is a mini lake used as a swimming pool – was pretty cold 😅 … but made for a very welcome refreshing dip (too cold for one of us though 🤭 … although she took a great pic of the rest of us out on the diving platform):
What an amazing week. In fact, what an amazing summer it’s been … one of the best of my life!
