Monday 19-Oct: Off. (Physiotherapy appointment) Tuesday 20-Oct: 4.4km lunch walk (101m elevation gain) (Strava); then doing my first real sprint training in quite a while at the track in the evening. I was holding back on the speed, but I’ll take whatever the achilles lets …
Monday 12-Oct: Lunch-time MTB ride. About 50/50 road/trails split. 49 minutes, 16,5km, 233m elevation. Tuesday 13-Oct: 2km lunch walk to grab food, then another Rollingergrund stair running session with the club in the evening. Managed 5 repeats this time, starting strong (48″1, 48″6) and ending …
Monday 5-Oct: Boring 2km lunch time walk without GPS to grab food
Tuesday 6-Oct: First stair running training of the fall season. Did 4 repeats at the Rollingergrund stairs. 49″, 50″, 54″, 73″. In other words, OK for the first two, managed to mostly hold on for the second, and had no energy left on the fourth. (Strava)
Wednesday 7-Oct: 52 minutes on the bike at lunch-time. Rode on the flat and paved cycle path to Hesperange and back, but felt like I was cycling into a headwind both ways. (Strava)
Thursday 8-Oct: Again the 2km lunch commute, and then ran about 7km on pavement and track for an evening club training. (Strava)
Friday 9-Oct: 2.4km lunch walk. (Strava)
Saturday 10-Oct: Headed to the Saarschleife across the border in Germany to do my first hill running workout for the fall season. Kept it quite simple by only going up twice: one run and one walk. It went OK: no major pain from the achilles, and the one run up was about the same time I did last year when I first discovered the place. 7.2km, 431m elevation (Strava)
Sunday 11-Oct: The newspaper wanted me to cover a 73km MTB race. They thought covering the final third of the race was sufficient, but I figured that with competitors being really spaced out in long races, I wouldn’t catch too many before I had to be at the finish line for the winner. So I decided to head out on my own MTB to catch the riders roughly 1/3 of the way in, then return home (after clocking 6.5km and 148m of elevation) and cover the rest of the race the traditional car-based way. (Strava, Photo gallery). In the afternoon, I drove to a cyclocross race, where the Garmin supposed I did 2km, but that may be a little optimistic. (Strava, Gallery)
The wife had wanted to go to the women’s volleyball world championship semi-finals and finals in Rotterdam and insisted I come along. So I got to spend 4 hours on Saturday in a bus, then many more hours in cramped seats surrounded by thousands of …
At lunch, I walked 4.21km in 48:10 (11:26/km) with 110m of elevation gain. In the evening, I once again went to a club training. I forgot to switch the GPS back on after some stretches, so I don’t have complete numbers for the evening, but …
I had another four physiotherapy appointments and two doctor visits in September. Fortunately, my left Achilles tendon finally started to improve; which enabled me to incorporate some running in my training again.
Road, trail and track running: I did a full “reboot” this time, barely running for two months and then restarting from zero. As such, my first run in September was a mere 20 minutes, on track (so without climbs or irregular surface), at a slow 6:30min pace. Overall, I did four sessions on track or grass in the second half of September, totaling just 16.6km. However, that’s much better than zero, so I’m happy. Baby steps.
Walking: 37km, and a mere 652m of elevation. This is the lowest number in 2015, but can easily be explained by lunch-time physio appointments (which I drive to), biking instead of walking, a few days of illness; and also by a desire to give the Achilles tendon enough rest.
Cycling: Did 9 outings on the bike in September, ranging from a quick 26 minute 10km ride to a somewhat extreme (for me) 2 hour 52.5km ride. I spent more time on the roads than in the forest. This is not really what I planned – I’d rather ride forest paths or single trails than braving pot-holes and traffic – but that’s how it worked out. 11 hours in the saddle, 253km covered, with a total of 2339m of elevation.
Total time outside: 22h31
Average body weight: 82.62kg. Body fat 15.03%. Only a minor improvement from August, and still a couple of kilos and a few percent off what I would consider a competitive weight and shape.
At lunch-time, I did a 4.1km walk at a leisurely pace (10:46/km). In the evening, I joined the sprint group at CSL. Did a warm-up on my own (on grass while they jogged on pavement outside), then joined the team for some more slow/faster running …
Did another lunch-time bike ride. Fairly average, 26.98km, 1:02:02 duration, 26,1 km/h average speed, 184m elevation gain. The bad part (and I’m not sure if it’s entirely the fault of today’s ride) was that in the evening, I had excruciating neck pain, which in turn …
Just like the previous weekend, I headed to my favourite training track, at the INS (“Institut National des sports”); reasoning that since my achilles was still on probation (so to speak) I shouldn’t subject it to anything extravagant. So laps on a flat track it was.
Straight away, I found myself moving quite effortlessly at a 6 minutes per km pace, which is 0:30 min/km faster than 7 days ago. I ended up running for 24 minutes and exactly 4km; and then did some stretching under a perfect blue sky (but with temperatures that served as a reminder that summer is over and fall is here).
The achilles tendon hurt a little, but not too much; which is just the way it should be – at this point I should do reasonable efforts that stimulate the achilles, without resorting to the kind of extremes that could mean a re-injury.
Boring Strava activity. At least my pace was reasonably consistent (5:59 min/km, 5:58, 6:02, 6:01).
Driving your car for 35 minutes just to get to a spot where you then ride your bike for 2 hours seems a bit redundant; or maybe even wasteful because why not just start biking at home? But that would mean I’d always be hitting …