My Health – Anemic, Helicobacter+ and more

I thought I would write a little post about my health. Don’t worry, it isn’t too bad. I have had my issues with being anemic though and they flared up again in the last couple of weeks.

Time number 1 – Vegas/San Diego

So to start with, a little history. In April/May 2009 I went to a conference in San Diego.  I got there a bit early and headed straight from San Diego to Vegas, where I spent a few days. I then headed back to San Diego for about 5 days.  My life wasn’t very healthy generally back then. I guess I weighed 90kg or so, but I was training for La Marmotte so had been cycling quite a lot.  If all had gone to plan, I would have been a 11h finisher (I finished in just over 8h in 2013), but it is hard to say exactly.

My short stay in Vegas wasn’t exactly a healthy time either. I drank lots, I ate lots. I stayed up all night and even took an ADHD pill that was offered to me by someone who I met when I was there.  It was a really fun few days, but when I flew back to San Diego I wasn’t feeling great.  I remember very clearly playing pool with a colleague of mine Ed, and having to go to the bathroom.  A deep black tarry mess came out and I even commented on resuming playing pool that that was the worst thing ever to come out of my body!

Continue reading “My Health – Anemic, Helicobacter+ and more”

Lindenseelauf Run Part 1 2016

I am writing this late for a few reasons, but I don’t want to not write a race report, so here it is!

Lindenseelauf

On the 15th, so 11 days ago, the Lindenseelauf series started.  It is made up of 3 races. A 10km run in October, a 15km run in November and a final 10k run in January.  I have done the 15km and the 2nd 10km before, but I fancied trying the whole series this year.  My form obviously isn’t tip-top after a pre-marathon taper and post-marathon rest, but what the hell, I like racing and it is good to have a reference point to know where I stand.

I went to the market with Katja and had a coffee, before cycling to Russelsheim for the race.  I got there about 40 minutes before the start and signed up for the whole series.  Sebi Dahl and Konrad were both racing too. Both are fast but Sebi is about as fast as me, so he is a good goal for me to beat. Continue reading “Lindenseelauf Run Part 1 2016”

Swimming – review of my swimming 2016

Now that Berlin Marathon is in the books and I have taken 1 week completely off, and this week has been an nice easy week, I am thinking about the future, more specifically about swimming!

I went to the TCEC swim training yesterday, I was awful!  We had a 4x200m set in the middle, I swam the first 200m in 4 mins, then it was a downward spiral to 4:20 and even as low as 4:30.  I could feel that my technique was falling apart, my muscles ached and I was just so slow!  So today I decided to have a look at see how I got to where I am today, the best way to understand the future is to understand the past.

I didn’t go swimming at all this year until March 28th.
In April I swam 6 times,

all after the 16th of April, so I guess I can say that is when my season started. I was worried about the Woogsprint Triathlon at the end of May, so wanted to get some swim fitness going. Continue reading “Swimming – review of my swimming 2016”

Berlin Marathon 2016 – 2:55:16 a PB but…

 

So finally it was time for the Berlin marathon.  I didn’t know what to expect, and that is exactly what I got!  so let’s start at the start and go through my training going into the race.

12 week build up

I had decided that I would do a 12 week build to the race, starting straight after the Maratona.  It would be 3×4 weeks with an easier week every 4th week.  I was aiming to run 100km on my up weeks and obviously less on my down weeks.  My routine for Rotterdam worked well and I wanted to do that again. That means running 8 times a week, with intervals on Wednesday, a ML run on Thursday, an easy double on Friday, and a long run on the weekend. Continue reading “Berlin Marathon 2016 – 2:55:16 a PB but…”

Rhein Ahr Triathlon 2016 – Triathlon Season Over!

Only a few days after my good 5km run and 2 weeks before Berlin, I had my last triathlon of the season planned.  Ideally 2-3 weeks before my marathon I would have done a 10k-HM run, but actually I think it worked out well in the end.

Sinzig or Remagen (which is what everyone calls the race) is kind of an Olympic triathlon.  You swim 2.8km in the Rhein with the flow, then cycle 45km with quite a few hills, then a 10.5km run.  The swim should actually be faster than a normal 1.5km swim, so that wasn’t a bad thing for me.
We had arranged to meet at 7am at the pool on Sunday and I set off in partial light at 6:30am.  I met up with Heiko B and Wieland and we drove to Remagen which takes about 90 mins.

It was surprisingly cool when we arrived, it has been consistently warmer than 28 degrees for a while now, and was predicted to be 30 degrees for the race.  The water temperature was 22, but we could still use wetsuits, phew!  The teams were pretty different to our usual set up, in the 2nd team we had Heiko Maris, Walter, Marco, Andre and me, I have only raced with Marco before, so didn’t really know what to expect.

Continue reading “Rhein Ahr Triathlon 2016 – Triathlon Season Over!”

Mainzer Firmenlauf 2016 – 10th place

For the 3rd year in a row, I was signed up to run the Mainzer Firmenlauf.  In 2014 I was anaemic so didn’t run well, doing about 19:40 for what may well have been a bit short course.  In 2015, well you can read the post here, but essentially I was pretty dead after my Iron-distance race a few days beforehand, but still dragged myself around in 19mins, though the course was long!

This year my well of excuses seems to have run dry. I am in full training for the Berlin marathon in 2 1/2 weeks and things are going quite well.  It has been relentlessly hot and sunny for the last month or so, so my workouts have suffered and I have only managed 2 real long runs, so my confidence isn’t top notch, but I feel like I should still have my form after a good year of running.  I am at about 79kg too, which is pretty decent for me, I wouldn’t mind dropping 1kg more before Berlin if possible though.  My aim in Berlin will be a sub2:50, the equivalent 5k time would be 17:44, so faster than that was my goal time. Continue reading “Mainzer Firmenlauf 2016 – 10th place”

Merzig City Triathlon – Olympic Distance

It’s been quite a while since my last race, mainly because it’s been hot, and I don’t race well when it’s hot.  Berlin marathon training has been going well though, I am half way through and starting to feel a groove coming.  Long runs haven’t really happened yet, I just can’t run 28km+ in training when it is 30 degrees and sunny!  Anyway, though running training is going well, I haven’t exactly been a regular fixture at the pool, or on the bike really!  Since Italy 6 weeks ago I have ridden about 4 times, twice longer than 60km.

That all being said, it was time for Merzig City Triathlon, a proper Olympic distance triathlon, 1.5km swimming in the River Saar, 40km of flat cycling, and 10km running.  I have been a bit worried about the swim, it goes 750m upstream, then 750m back downstream.  The riverflow is very slow, but it still makes a small difference swimming upstream. Continue reading “Merzig City Triathlon – Olympic Distance”

Maratona dles Dolomites

I have wanted to ride the Maratona for a few years now. In 2014 and 2015 I didn’t get picked in the draw.  Last year I got together a few people and made a team application, which apparently increases the chance of getting a place.  Sure enough I got in! I could look forward to what is said to be one of the best organized and prettiest sportives in the world.

I have ridden 2 major European sportives before. In 2012 it was a nightmare in the Marco Pantani Gran Fondo. I went too hard on the Gavia, nearly died on the Mortirolo and cut short my planned long route to the medium route.  In 2013 I had decided to was time to get serious. I rode La Marmotte.  With 5200m of climbing over 176km, it is a bit of a beast, especially when the weather is hot, which it was at about 38 degrees!  I was very happy with my training and performance though. I snuck in a Gold Medal time and surpassing all of my goals I had made earlier in the year.

The Maratona has 4200m of climbing over 138km. It’s pretty hard, but not as bad as the Marmotte.  I certainly didn’t have the fear this year, in fact I went to Italy with only 1300km of cycling behind me in 2016, including 2 100km+ rides and one 200km+ ride.  I did my first real climbing of the year 1 week before the Maratona, climbing 2000m over 110km in Taunus. Continue reading “Maratona dles Dolomites”

Zell Sprint Duathlon

I hadn’t planned on doing Zell, as it is a team sprint and as I may have mentioned before, my swimming isn’t that good.  It turned out though that the 2nd team didn’t have enough people to make a team without me, and due to high water levels in the Mosel, it was changed into being a Duathlon, absolutely perfect for me.

I had done a little online stalking of my team mates, I know Stephan already, he is a great runner and biker, Volker seems like he must be very good, he was in Hawaii and still runs fast, then there was Marco, who ran a 4h+ marathon in Mainz, it seemed like he might be out limiting factor.  We met up in Mombach at 8am and headed to Zell, which is about an hours drive away.  Heiko was with us and was racing in the 1st team, that race started much earlier, hence the early start.  We were there at 9am and it was pretty clear why we wouldn’t be swimming, the current was crazy!  I reckon you could float 750m in about 12 minutes in that stream!

We had a little chat about our tactics when we were all there, I suggested that we run our first 2.6km at 10km race pace, then ride like crazy and run the 2nd 5,2km run as fast as we can, whilst staying together.  Marco said that he thought 4:30/km would be ok for him, so that was out plan.  We watched the Regionalliga and saw that Konrad was doing great and the others were giving their all too, our race started at 11:55 with a mass start.  We started at a good pace, but not over doing it, we were just over 4:00/km and Marco seemed ok, so we held about 4:05/km for the 2,6km.  We weren’t first place, but we were far from last too, so it was ok.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Continue reading “Zell Sprint Duathlon”

Wallertheim 10km 2016 – 2nd Place

On Thursday when I went for a run, my knee started hurting a few km from the end.  It was pretty painful, but went away after a few minutes.  On Friday I ran to work, and it happened again, and again when I ran home, not ideal and I considered having a few days off running to let it heal.  Wallertheim 10k isn’t the most important race of the year for me, so I could run it or not, no problem.  I did worry that if I didn’t run, the fast guys wouldn’t turn up and I would miss my chance to win the race.  Then on Friday evening Jochen said that he would run too, so it was decided, I would run.

On Saturday morning Jochen wrote again, he wouldn’t run, he drank too much on Friday night, so I thought I would just cycle, I got ready to ride, then saw another message, Jochen would run after all, but he would drive to the start, so I put my running stuff in my bag, and cycled to Wallertheim. Continue reading “Wallertheim 10km 2016 – 2nd Place”