Guess who’s back?

Guess who’s back?

Hi there! It was time for an update on my path to recovery (and the funny thing being, this starting of blogging was not intended to be some kind of melodramatic story about injuries, but to write about the challenges I did, while being fit ;-))

First, let me give you an update about the cycling experience, while being unable to hit the road or hills on foot. 

just look at that bunch of excuse sportmen in a group racing from one pub to the other

By now the bike has had it’s first official first-month maintenance, while I put a rough 500km on it. Those km’s really go by fast! The cycling takes you places where you’ve definitely have not been before. What I mostly do is create a route on google-maps and export it as a gpx (using this) on my Garmin Edge 1000 (hey, who said sports are cheap) and that leads me to some really nice cycling routes. Quite often I cross fellow cyclists, the slow ones and the fast(er) ones, which every time confirms to me I will never go cycle in a group, because.. well, c’mon, just look at that bunch of excuse sportmen in a group racing from one pub to the other. Not my thing (well, the pubs are).

I did do a cycle-tour with a fellow sports addict from the US (who is very good in triathlons) and she also triggered me to keep the pace up, so two is a really nice number to go cycling with :). We ended up cycling about 85km and I loved it, we went trough landscapes and little towns (with curb-stones which literarily shake everything on your bike and yourself, since you need to put at least 100psi in the soles). Oh and we fell, yes, we both experienced the foot-clip-you’re-stuck-but-want-to-put-your-foot-on-the-ground. Hey, part of the game and it’s a GREAT ice-breaker I can tell you! πŸ™‚ (Hi Michelle, how are the bruises? πŸ˜‰ ) Read her side of the story here, and have a look around her accomplishmens, impressive!

Let me do some show-off of the landscapes we went through, which is an invite to come over here and see for yourself! (click for larger picture).

This tour convinced me to do more of them and go beyond the 100km target and enjoy the scenery of our little flat country. And so I did, have a look at my Strava profile if interested.

cut the crap and let’s fix this thing

At this moment of writing (nov 2017) the ankle issue seems to be fixed, it was diagnosed being an anterior ankle impingement, not the bony version. I tried all kind of things (with the physio) ranging from doing specific exercises twice a day, up till doing a very repetitive exercise every hour, for a whole week, which did not help. After almost three months of no running, cancelling a planned run and watching the Amsterdam marathon from the side, I was getting really fed up with it and switched to a new physio for a second opinion. His diagnose was roughly the same but his treatments were, let’s say, cut the crap and let’s fix this thing (which also resulted in rather painful treatments, but that only confirms me things are happening).

In the end we decided to put some physio-taping on the ankle and calves to trigger the muscles to build up strength around the ankle-joint. And so we did and I was also allowed to do a little test-run of 2km. That test-run of 2km was a start of a very, very happy period. Obviously I could not temper the pace and I think the average was round 4:50/km but, hey, ever seen a hurdle of cow being released on a field after having been inside for a few months?!

From that moment on I started building up the amount of km’s within the following week. I plan to do a 30km run this weekend, which is basically is two weeks after that 2km test-run and will be my fourth run since, how’s that for some recovery πŸ™‚ What I also noticed is the ease of running with regard to fitness level, I guess the cycling really helps keeping at least your base up to par, because I will be running a 30km within two weeks, after not having run for three months…. and the biggest thing is, if the 30km go well, I will run the Athens Marathon a week after that (enough with the tapering).

So there we go, looks like the #injuredrunner tag will no longer be used, I hope for a long time.

Next post will be after and about the Athens Marathon, which is on Nov 12th.

Cheers!

One Reply to “Guess who’s back?”

  1. Hi Roel! I am so glad we β€˜ran into’ each other. πŸ˜ƒ It was an unforgettable ride (and fall). I had the adventure of a lifetime cycle-touring your country; thank you for your part in that. Who knows, maybe we can meet on the other side of the world for a jaunt on foot or wheels someday? Until then, be safe and remain the #UNinjuredrunner. ❀️