Achilles Rupture Recovery

Developed a cold this week. Not the ‘Deadly Man-Flu’ as it’s called here in Germany 🤭. Just a plain ‘head-cold’. Enough to make you feel grotty first thing, coughing and blowing your nose … enough to make you really not want to go for a run … but not really enough to justify not working. Particularly when there are a bunch of international visitors at work for a 2-day work ‘prototyping summit’. I avoid shaking hands; I cough, as and when necessary, into a tissue; nobody complains.

Now, I know there is a whole spectrum of opinions on this topic, from “If you sneeze, you stay at home for 2 weeks” thru “If you’re not bleeding from all pores of your body, you get your ass into work!”. I’m kinda somewhere in the middle 😅.

Example: in 2021 I got whacked by the Corona virus … I mean, really, properly, dumped on. For 3 days I ate nothing; I crawled to the bathroom on all fours, other than that I stayed in bed, sweating; I lost over 3kg (6.5lbs) in a week … there was no way I was doing ANYTHING else other than curl up in a miserable ball in bed. 10 days later I was more or less clawing my way back to normality. The second bout of Corona a year later was nothing … felt a bit under the weather for 3 days, that was it.

This cold was somewhere between those two experiences … in fact, definitely towards the more harmless second bout. So I avoid unnecessary bodily contact, make sure I don’t cough on people, reduce my physical exercise somewhat, but other than that, I go about my daily business – one needs to consider, in my opinion, that most people getting sick will be infecting others well before they even notice they are sick themselves … in the supermarket, the busses / trains, everywhere.

So it is ridiculous to assume that I am the only / the main source of any sickness, just because one can see I’m not 100%. Well, just my opinion – like it or lump it 😁.

At any rate, definitely not sick enough to stop slacklining, although I did go for a week without climbing / bouldering – didn’t want to be leaving germ-ridden hand-sweat all over the place (see, I’m really not totally anti-social 😅).

Ditto wrt sticking to a weeks-old plan of hitting the Oktoberfest on Thursday – the world’s biggest festival, with millions of visits during the couple of weeks it runs for. If you’ve never been and/or don’t know what it’s like, click on that link and have a look …

Running

Although the week started off pretty ‘flat’, by the time Thursday came, I was already thinking, ok, so where to from now … ? During the last bit of the Saturday slacklining, an idea came to me: a bit of easy trail running along the local river, close to the climbing gym.

I looked a bit on Komoot … nothing; remembered I’d MTBd here and there, came up with an idea, decided to try it out (including a barefoot river-crossing, since there was no bridge within a reasonable distance, and the water level was pretty low).

Hey presto, suddenly I had a pretty flat 7km loop with a good couple of km of easy trail plus a reasonable mix of gravel, forest and tarmac ‘roads’ (no cars, just people cycling and jogging).

Seemed like an ideal place to start for someone who’d never run a trail before …

So I figured I’d suggest the idea to J and she thought it sounded like a good plan; Sunday morning: off we went … and she loved it … particularly the crossing the river bit 😁. Was a really nice start to the day’s activities, just right for me not being completely healthy, perfect weather too.

Climbing

Due to sickness and work committments, the first climbing/bouldering of the week happened on Friday. BUT, before that, on Wednesday, during an unexpected break in the summit agenda, I went and picked up a brand-new 60m Petzl climbing rope for J and S: I had offered to chip in, but they were quite sure that ‘my contribution’ should ‘simply’ be going to the shop and buying it (due to a bit of a creepy guy working there, whom neither were overly keen on seeing again). No sooner said than done!

Together with the other stuff we’d bought, we three ‘suddenly’ had a complete outdoor-rock-climbing set of necessary kit. We were sorted ! The enthusiasm this triggered had the three of us, plus K and R, doing all sorts of fall training, lead belaying, overhang routes, stuff we just couldn’t do up until now – as much as some of us love the Toppas auto-belays, they have their limits (no big overhang routes 😔), and the new-found freedom of ‘climbing for adults’ with ropes and belay stuff was really cool.

This included, right at the start, a top-rope route for S, who was still struggling a little with the trauma caused by the asshole over 8 years ago, who let her drop ‘as a joke’ a horribly long way. She was super jittery, back on the floor, but determined to get over it, to move on.

Indeed, by the end of the day, she was sitting in the rope totally relaxed being lowered from the very top of the biggest overhang tower, simply enjoying the view – amazing! REALLY great to experience … and, yes, I was feeling a little honoured that she trusts me enough to belay her on such a route 🙏.

K and J also progressed nicely, with R’s help and support. An all round superb session!