Meeting a positively crazy dude during swim training/ Climbing (and running) in the Ardeche/France/ List of vegan climbing shoes

Meeting a positively crazy dude during swim training/ Climbing (and running) in the Ardeche/France/ New TV show appearance with Björn Moschinski

I had to hurry up with training this week since I knew I was neither going to ride my bike nor to swim so I wanted to have the bike sessions done at least, before leaving for rock climbing in the Ardeche/France.

So well... my last swim training took place on Friday 31^st. I went to the Südpool in Herne directly after school. I have seen another dude training real hard. He looked a lot like a triathlete (trained body and tanned) so we started talking. He told me he will start off this season with an Ironman 70.3 (half the Ironman distance) and do 3 full Ironman challenges throughout the year. Crazy dude! I have also discovered something on his upper chest that looked like a broken bone at first sight. Later on he told me he has a (hartpacemaker) but he also had a chemotherapy but finished an Ironman a couple of months later. Real crazy dude... but much respect for his motivation and eagerness from my side!

So on Friday evening I got picked up by a van packed full of teachers that want to complete the teachers qualification for climbing and this time in the Ardeche in France, outside on real rocks. It has been a nice overnight drive and I didn’t have to drive until 8 in the morning, so I just drove the last hour and went running directly until the other van arrived. I just went up the long road to our guest house La Residence du Chassezac and turned around after 25 min. A few minutes later the other van overtook me and offered to take me to the house but I just ran back. 50 min in total, pretty nice for a morning run in the sun.

Little swimming session

Abseiling

Le Chassezac captured from the rocks.

So this was our first day!

Then we had breakfast and afterwards went to our first rock climbing session. Amazing view from the rocks onto the river “Chassezac”. Around twenty degrees and we’re sliding down the rope towards the bank of the river. Yes! Afterwards me and 2 others went back by feet. We went through the river (it is not deep at all) and climbed up to the pension. I unintentionally slided down three times and got scratches on my belly and arms. We did a few exercises after that and then cleaned ourselves in the pool (cold, cold pool!).

The cold pool.

Abseiling

Right before the first abseiling on the first day.

Climbing up

Heavy route

The bible of climbing in the Ardeche Region

So the following week I was experiencing beautiful nature, breathing clean air, listening to creeks and rivers, discovering several different birds of prey and climbing, climbing, climbing! The Ardeche is just beautiful for outdoor sports. Many people do kanooing, climbing, cycling or walking and there are many camping sites. We were lucky that the weather stayed very nice. We had more than 20 degrees Celsius on the first three days and did our run back to the apartment topless (the other two sport nerds and me).

Many germans were there and also many families spent their vacation like this. In April it is still affordable and not too busy. The temperature is also mild, which benefits outdoor sports.

Training March 27th-April 4th
27th: swimming 3km in the morning and cycling 81km with my mate Florian in the evening
28th: 1h running, nothing special
29th: 65 min cycling on my fitnessbike for strength endurance
30th: 70 min running incl. 3 sprints
31st: 3km swimming and meeting the (posi) crazy triathlete
April 1st: 50 min running in Maisonneuve in the morning, climbing in front of the camping site (Mazet Plage), back to our guesthouse running and with backpack on. Then stretch and toning Yoga outside in the garden as the sun set. Awesome!

2nd: 80 min running searching for the bakery and finding this nice castle, climbing and then again 25 min running back, exercises outside
3rd: 35 min running, climbing, 35 min running back home and through Chandolas.
4th: 18min cycling really fast to the bakery, then climbing in Chauzet and riding the mountainbike back from Chauzon to Maison Neuve. Beautiful villages on the route! Awesome! Then we went running with 3 guys to the other bakery and did several speedups. We did 8,7km in 41min and did exercises after this again before jumping in to the pool.




Here's a little list of leatherfree and vegan climbing shoes:
German list but the brand names can be read in every language ;-)