Mittelmosel Triathlon 2019 – DNF

I had dreams of grandeur going into this one but it ended up being my worst race ever!

Zell am Mosel is a lovely little town, very picturesque and normally a good race too. We would swim in the Mosel with the flow of the river, so it was 2km swim instead of the normal 1.5km in an Olympic triathlon. The river was really slow though, I reckon it was more like a 1.8km swim, which doesn’t exactly play to my strengths!

This week the team was completely different again. Michael was back and Heiko B and Stephan J were filling in the 1st team, with me and Robert starting again.

After a walk along the river to the start, the race was finally underway with a mass start. The river is fairly wide, so it wasn’t aggressive like last week. I felt like I was swimming well at the start, but I realised that I was probably too far to the side, whereas the fastest stream is in the middle.

After what felt like an age, I saw the sprint start to my side, so we still had 700m to swim, damn! It all went ok though, and I was 2nd out of the water in TCEC, well behind Michael, with Heiko B and well ahead of the others.

In winter I messed around with my bike, I angled the tri-bars up so that I could get my head lower. It is really uncomfortable for me though, but I have been trying to get used to it. I set off on the bike in Zell but after 1km I was already out of aero and riding on the top-bar.

Heiko passed me, which isn’t normally the case. Then when we hit the hill, which was a bit of a beast, Mt Barlo, Stephan S came past me like I was standing still! I tried to take it easy, an Olympic is much tougher than a sprint and I could catch him later on the run.

Finally, I was on the descent and back on the flat, but that was only lap 1 of 2. On the 2nd lap, I caught Heiko again before the hill, but Robert and Uli caught me, that means they were way, way faster on the bike than me.

After the bike was finally over, I decided to put on socks and really go for the run. I was confident of catching everyone but Michael on the run. I set off and almost immediately was paralysed. I had a really bad stitch and couldn’t breathe. After 400 slow metres, I thought I should walk and try to let it pass.

It didn’t pass. I jogged slowly and it hurt like hell. I jogged very slowly and it was still dreadful. I knew I couldn’t run at all, so I would have to walk and make sure that we had 4 finishers. I hadn’t seen Stephan J at all and even after walking for a long time, I still hadn’t seen him. I knew that if he had dropped out, I needed to finish no matter what, even if it meant walking 9km.

Luckily Stefan was still in the race and passed me after about 2km. I walked to the end of the first lap and dropped out. It’s my first ever DNF and not something I am proud of at all. I feel like I let down the team, even if I had run well, it wouldn’t have been a good race, but this was just a nightmare.

As soon as I got home, I started to change the set up of my bike back to being a flat bar, as it used to be. I just can’t stay in aero with my arms in a slight praying mantis position, so it had to go asap.

Baumholder Triathlon 2019

The 2nd race of the season was in Baumholder. Where I hear you ask? Yes, Baumholder, it’s about 15km south of Ider-Oberstein. If you have to orient yourself using Ider-Oberstein, then you are in the middle of nowhere, and so it was in Baumholder.

It’s actually a nice little town and it works very well for a triathlon, as there is the lake which is just about big enough for a sprint tri, a hilly bike route and the run around the lake.

We arrived nice and early and were all ready to start. The team that started in Hachenberg was decimated, with only Peter starting for the 1st team again. Timo was subbed in, along with Robert, Stephan Schweiger and me.

The 2nd team were all between 16-18 years old. That’s not normally a problem in a sprint, but today the bike course was 26.5km long. They announce 45 minutes before the race that no one under 18 years old could compete, as it is too long. All in all 11 kids couldn’t start, someone from another team even cried!

As a compromise, the organisers shortened the bike course to 20km (22km actually) so that everyone could start.

They also changed the advertised swim. It was going to be 600m, but advertised at 750m, they added a short out an back to make it a bit longer than 750m and a real boxing match at the start.

Baumholder Triathlon 2019

So we started. It was really aggressive, I was hit and kicked and people were swimming all over the place, even with only 45 starters. After 200m it got much better and we had to swim once around the lake in an anti-clockwise direction. Sighting was difficult as they had different colour buoys. There was also an almost invisible rope that we had to swim around to get to the exit, I didn’t know it was there so it cost some time.

But the swim was over and I was just ahead of Robert, with Peter and Timo being miles ahead of me as expected. I took my road bike as I wasn’t sure what the best choice would be. It was advertised as 410hm over 26.5km. That’s hilly! It was also raining on the way to the race, so I wanted the disc brakes, even though it actually dried out completely before we started.

I rode ok, but think I made the wrong bike choice. I was overtaken by a good few people, especially on the flats/downhills. Robert came passed me after maybe 12km, but I managed to stay with him, even overtaking him on an uphill, only be overtaken again on the next downhill.

We got into T2 together, so I followed Robert. He ran into the wrong row of bikes though, so I did too. I decided to dip under the bike hanger and get my shoes, but the ref saw me and told me to go back out and around, that cost me quite a bit of time.

I set off on the run maybe 20 seconds behind Robert. He seemed to be keeping the gap pretty steady to me, but after 1.5km the elastic snapped and I caught him quite quickly. I passed him near the end of lap 1 and could extend my lead over the next lap.

Baumholder Triathlon 2019

At the very end, my guts started to feel really bad, but luckily it was only a 4km run, and I was done before it got bad. I crossed the line as 3rd in our team and 19th in the league, nothing great, but ok.

Overall I was satisfied with my day, my swim kind of sucked and I think if I had been on my TT bike I would have been faster, but who knows!

Löwentriathlon Team Sprint

Last year the team sprint was a stress filled affair. I knew that the others would swim better than me, I would struggle on the bike, but the run should be okay. This year I was in the 2nd team and expected a fairly easy day out, which is pretty much what happened to be fair!

The water temperature was 18°C after a few warmer days, so we swam. The team was made up of two youths, Alex and Janik, and a guy I had never met Danny and me. I had trained on the bike with Janik and Alex a little before the race, cycling isn’t their strength. Danny would be a dark horse, but he didn’t seem too confident in his swim!

We started at 15:23 and I knew straight away that I wasn’t the slowest swimmer. I feel like I swam well for me, even though I had water in my goggles from metre 1 onwards. Either I swam a weird line, or others did, as I could see people swimming way off to my right and left at different times during the swim! Soon enough I was out of the water in just over 12 minutes and on my way into T1.

I was told that I was the first TCECler, but I was actually 20 seconds behind Janik. We got out of our wetsuits, I put on my socks, start number was on and helmet too before Alex came around the corner. He too managed to get completely changed and ready and wait a while before Danny arrived. I helped him with his wetsuit and start number, then we were off. It felt like we waited an age for him, but it was actually 3.5 minutes.

Off we set on the bike and I went to the front to control the tempo. Last year we started too fast and blew up, this year I wanted a more controlled pace. Unfortunately even this controlled pace was too fast for the youngsters, so I had to back off some more. The first lap was a learning experience, trying not to drop Janik and Alex!

The next 2 laps went much better, we controlled the pace better so that we could stay in a group. We weren’t riding fast, but we were together as a team, after the 3rd lap came T2. I had a strangely good change and I was out well before the others. I had to stop myself as I didn’t want to risk getting the team DQ’s if they were too far behind.

We set off the run and I had no idea what to expect. The pace was decent and we started overtaking teams fairly quickly. After 1-2km Alex started to fall back but the other two seemed strong. Danny hung in behind so I didn’t try to push the pace too much in case he hit a wall. After the 1st lap all was good but Danny was starting to wane. I gave him a push now and then as best I could, but it isn’t too easy to do, especially from just one side.

When we reached the top of the hill, Danny had a 2nd wind and Janik seemed to start to struggle. We still kept up a decent pace though and I tried to get a good sprint going at the end to catch a team in front of us (it is irrelevant if you catch someone as we start at different times, but as a goal it seemed to work). We crossed the line for 8th place from 13 team, so pretty much in the middle.

It was a shame that we had weaknesses in each discipline that cost us a lot of time. We had the slowest bike split in the league by more than a minute, only to have the 2nd best run! Our swim time for the first 3 swimmers was decent too, but that isn’t how it works.

Anyway, the 1st team were flying and I’m not sure that I would have kept up with them on the bike and run and they swam a minute faster than me too, so I am happy to have been the big fish in the small pond today.

Mainz Half Marathon

I’m going to make this a short one, as I am actually writing 3 weeks after the race!

The super short version is this: I bought a pair of Vaporfly 4% shoes, I used them for one 6km run before the race, I set off at about 1h20 pace, but got weird cramps in both quads very early in the race (right after 5km, left after 7km). I had to back off the gas, I was going to quit but could hold about 4:00-4:15/km pace for the rest with only fairly severe pain in my quads, so i ran in a 1:25 half marathon.

Now I will extend it slightly more. I set off with Michael and he wanted to run 1:22 of so. I felt good and he seemed to be going well too. We caught the first women and were cruising. It was seriously only about 4-5km into the race that my right quad started to cramp, I hoped it would stop, as I have never had quad cramps when running before. The right leg was actually bearable, and I kept up with Michael and our group, but after the turn around so that we would be running with the wind on our backs, my left leg started to go. It was agony!

I still hoped it would subside, but it didn’t. I decided to stop and stretch, but that didn’t help, so I decided to drop out. I was in Mombach so just stopping seemed stupid, I needed to get back to the start, so I jogged on. My leg felt much better at a slower pace, so after 11km I decided to keep on and I could drop out in the city centre at km14.

I soon reached km14, Robert had passed me a while back, but I was still moving ok. I decided that dropping out when running sub1:30 pace seemed stupid, especially given how many people would dream of running such a time, so on I went. My main fear was the pain that I would feel in the next few days! Wormserstr was crap, but I could manage it okay and I soon realised that a 1:26 was on.

I jogged it in, actually I ran backwards over the finish line. I don’t know why I did that, I just fancied doing somthing a little wacky, especially as my time was irrelevant. As soon as I stopped, my legs seized up, I could hardly walk, but at least I hadn’t DNF’d.

I was surprised that my legs weren’t too bad in the coming days. I guess it’s because it wasn’t DOMS, just cramps. I sent the Vaporflys back and bought some Nike Streaks instead, it seems like a safer option.

I was disappointed that I couldn’d do a good time in Mainz, I will break 1:20 in Mainz some time, maybe next year?

Skoda Tour – Frankfurt/Eschborn Classic

I haven’t raced for a while, as you can see by my lack of race reports. Training is kind of going well, I am cycling well and running is a bit on and off, but generally good too. Swimming isn’t where it should be, but I have a base and should be able to build from here.

So where is the problem? Well my recovery has been really bad all year. I do some harder training and I have DOMS for days afterwards. Here’s a good example. We did a 10x800m set in run training. It went okay, but all the next day (Thursday) I was very sore in my quads. We had arranged a bike ride on Friday to Feldberg and I could ride well, but that on top of my pre-existing DOMS really knocked me out for 3-4 days.

Anyway, enough of that, this is about Eschborn. I decided to sign up on the day this year so I had some rest time on Tuesday. I had to get the 6:39 train from Kastel though, so I was up early! I ate a bucket of oats and was on my way. I had bought myself a speed suit for this race along and my upcoming Time Trial in Wörrstadt. I felt a little silly stading around in it before the race, but when were riding, it felt comfy and fast.

I set off just after the first starting pen and with the Team Skoda boys. There were a few of them who were really strong and wanted to push the pace from the start, which I was happy about! After getting into a rhythm we were moving well and after 38 minutes of hard work, we caught the/a main peleton. I made a stupid mistake of not moving to the front of the peleton.

Pretty soon the course started heading up, not steep at first, but soon it hit Feldbegr proper. My problem was that the peleton was falling apart, and I had to keep bridging to the next group. On Feldberg I was passing all the people who were falling off the groups ahead, but only slowly reeling in the big groups. Near the top I finally caught them, but decided to kick on at my pace, knowing that my decending skills are not the best.

At the top my average speed was 33km/h, last year it was 29km/h if I remember coreectly, so I was much faster. I also decended well for me, I could keep my place more or less, I mean some were faster, but I passed some people too.

On the climbs I generally seemed to be one of the strongest riders near me, often riding away from the group that formed on the flats. The tarmac on the roads was lacking quite a lot of the time, I don’t like hitting potholes at 70km/h!

There were more small uphills on the decent of Feldberg than I remembered, but nothing too hard. I was still feeling strong when we headed to Mammolshain, home of the famous stich.

This time I didn’t leave the entire group behind, but was still one of the faster riders. Very steep climbs aren’t my forte, but the 17% stich was still fine for me, even though I lost a lot of gears on my Merida compared to my Canyon I rode last year (36/28 vs 34/32).

At the top I knew it was all fast and easy to the end. A group formed again, but it didn’t work well together. I, and others, were shouting for people to take short pulls, but all too often they would get to the front and stop working, or try to stay at the front without having the legs to do it.

Anyway, I crossed the line in 2:48, which is about 30 minutes faster than last year, but the course was slightly different. Looking at Strava segments, I was much faster on every part of the course this year, so I am happy with how it went.

Post Race:

I headed to the Skoda VIP tent and ate some pasta and cake, then drank some Apfelschorle. I felt good and waited for Marco to finish to chat with him before heading home. After a while I headed off with rucksack on back and soon found that I felt like dirt! I couldn’t breathe, I think I had eaten too much or something, but as soon as my heart rate reached 130, I was in trouble.

I rolled home very slowly, and pretty disappointed after a good day up to that point. I guess it might really just have been a digestive problem, as my stomach wasn’t good for the rest of the day, but wheezing like that isn’t a good thing…

Anyway: next up is the results of my blood test to see if I have Diabetes (no need to get into that too much, long story short, I am sleeping badly because of a dry mouth, could be diabetes, probably isn’t) then Mainz half marathon on Sunday. I should run between 1:19-1:30 there, more exact I can’t really say, things seem very variable at the moment!

Frankfurt Half Marathon 2019

I’ve run Frankfurt half 3 times before, I have always set PBs there, but that wasn’t on the cards this time out! After my Berglauf a few weeks ago, I was fairly confident of running a decent time. Then I was ill for 10 days or so, not really bad but a lagging cold that I couldn’t shift. Just as that was going away, I went to TCEC track training the Wednesday before the race.

I haven’t done any speed work this year at all, and before the Half Marathon I only had 280km in my legs, not a lot in the middle of March. So off I went to the track training, where it was a bit slippy so I wore my spikes for the first time ever. I ran quite well, it was only 3x4x200m but my pace was good. Less good were my calves after the first couple of sets, I knew I would have some serious muscle ache afterwards.

And oh my god did I have muscle ache! My abs were sore from the stabi training, my hamstrings were a little tight, but I could hardly walk because of my calves, on both sides. The training was on Wednesday evening, on Friday I was really struggling but decided to try to run to stretch things out a bit. They were better when running than when I walked, but they were still pretty sore. I considered dropping out of the race.

The weather was also set to be as bad as is possible. Very windy with the wind being helpful for the first 10km, then a hinderance in the 2nd half. So all in I wasn’t expecting much going into the race. I did weigh in at 75.0kg on the day though, my lowest race weight ever 🙂

I met up with Jochen, Judith and Katha to get the train to the start, I got to the station early, so decided to have a large Starbucks coffee to get things moving. We were soon there and ready to go. There was a 1:24 pace group, I decided to run with them due to the wind, the pace should be about right for me anyway.

The start was fairly uneventful, I settling into the pace group and felt like I was running pretty easily. If I had more miles in my legs, I would definitely have gone off ahead, but I was playing it conservatively.

Between km 6-10 is on the Main river with the wind right on our backs. It was about 10°C and I felt very warm during this part. We were ticking off the kilometers nicely though, just faster than 4:00/km so that the first 10km were done in 39:40 or so.

Strangely as we started against the wind I started to feel even better. I was right on the shoulders of the pace runners in the group. That didn’t last too long though as they realised that we had slightly slowed and they kicked on after 13km. I stayed with them but the climb between 14-15km was enough for me to be dropped and meant the rest would be a solitary fight.

The out and back section was much longer than I remembered, I could see Lukas well ahead of me and Heiko, Jochen and Uli behind. I felt a slight stomach cramp after 17km and quickly realised I would need a toilet stop. After 18km I found a dixie and did what needed to be done, it wasn’t pretty.

The last few km felt very tough. I came out of the toilet right next to Heiko, but he was running faster than me. I was overtaken pretty frequently over the last few km, but I didn’t explode or anything. As I entered the stadium I could see that I would still manage a sub 1:26 time, not good but given my list of excuses, not bad.

As I met the others after the race, pretty much everyone was disappointed. Jochen ran 1:31, Sven somehow ran over 2h after running the first 8km at 4:30/km pace and Katha and Judith were both disappointed too. Strangely I was the happiest with my result of the bunch!

I knew that Frankfurt was just a warm up race for me really, Mainz in 2 months will be a much better test of form. I did learn a few things though. I have stopped drinking coffee and have had far fewer stomach issues when running. Thus drinking a big, strong coffee before a half marathon was a stupid thing to do for me! Also running with really bad muscle ache isn’t conducive to running well, my legs never felt strong, I feel like my cardio could have taken me faster, but with no spring in the legs, it was a fight.

Anyway, onwards and upwards. I will be doing more run training from now on, so hopefully my legs with get better and I can get back around the 1:20 mark for Mainz. Unfortunately I injured my calves a bit stupidly running 10x400m intervals the Wednesday after the half marathon, but otherwise I plan to get more quality in, and more miles.

Auf die Platte – Berglauf

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Everything has been going really well for me this year in training, I have lost a load of weight, am running well off very few kilometres, cycling strongly and even swimming a lot for me (3 days a week). I have been trying to not overdo things this year like I did last year, so races have been kept to a minimum, and I mean that literally, this was my first race of the year.

Something new

I want to try some new stuff, not just flat 10k races, so instead of doing the TCE 10k like last year, I signed up for an 8.1km hill run. I’ve never done anything like this before, but was looking forward to the challenge.

After a morning swim, me and Katja went to Wiesbaden and found the sign up for the race. I wasn’t expecting to know anyone there, but Basti had signed up late on so was another TCECler on the start line. Katja decided to stay indoors as we ran, as she was freezing cold!

Hilly Course

The race started at 3pm, pretty late but the weather was great for the time of year, 12°C and sunny. I had heard the course was flatish for 1km, steep for 1km, downhill for 500m then a 4-5% drag until the last few hundred metres, which would be about 25-30% up the Rodelbahn.

The race started and I fell back into about 20th place, I thought there had been quite a few good runners at the start, and it seems I’d judged them correctly! As we hit Neroberg it got steep and twisty very quickly. I decided not keep my pace manageable, I mean it was only the 2nd kilometre. I started picking off people who had started too fast, at first 1 or 2, then a few more, then a few more until I was suddenly in 4th place.

Overtaking

On the very steep downhill trail a guy passed me, but I was soon back with him as we started the long stead climb. It was more rolling than I expected, it wasn’t a constant gradient anyway. After about 4-5km I noticed that 3rd place was coming back to me, though I was running with 5th-7th right behind me.

I passed 3rd place, but someone stayed with me. I thought it would be the Waldlaufer guy who passed me on the descent earlier, but it wasn’t, it was someone else. He overtook me after 6km and I slotted in behind him. After 7km I thought his paced slowed, so I moved past but he picked it up and stuck with me.

The Rödelbahn

The final left turn onto the Rodelbahn showed the beast that lay ahead. It was just a steep dirt bank that went on for about 400m. The guy with me took off at a pace that I couldn’t follow, so I just stuck to my pace. It was tough and I did take some walking breaks, but to be honest, they weren’t much slower than running anyway.

As I got to the top, I could see that 4th was in the bag and I ran the last 100m over the finish line. The announcer said that I should smile for the cameras, I think I didn’t but the pictures show a different story.

Satisfying

It was a hard old effort, but oddly satisfying. Basti was 2nd, but 4th pace was a good result for me. Apparently the time on this course tracks very well with a flat 10k, so 37:35 for me, which I would be happy with at the moment given that I am running 20-30km easy per week.

We jogged back down to the start and found Katja, her feet were frozen and she didn’t much fancy waiting another 45 minutes for the prize giving, so I missed out of my bag of food and a waterproof bag, and we went to Hans im Glück to eat a burger instead.

Next up is Frankfurt half marathon in 2 weeks. I had pencilled in 1:25 as a goal time, but now I think a bit faster should be possible. With a good effort in the legs, I can see me going low in the 1:20s, but lets wait and see eh?

MyFitnessPal – Diet

For a good few years now I have wanted to get my weight down. It’s a bit of a longer story than that, so I will start from the beginning.

I was often a bit overweight as a kid, not obese but a bit chubby. I got back to a normal weight by the time I was 16-18, but after starting Uni, I started to put on a bit more.

After Uni, I was always a bit big, like 90KG, not ideal but not too crazy either. I was cycling in the summers and playing Softball and Cricket and Football in the winter. When I moved to Germany I stopped playing sports as I didn’t know anyone here and couldn’t speak the language, so Pizza was my friend and I started to balloon!

My turning point was buying some bathroom scales in 2011/2012, I weighed 106KG – obese. I started a low carb/ketogenic diet and got down to 90KG over the next few months. I started playing football again and cycling in the summer.

In 2013 I rode La Marmotte and wanted to get down to 80KG for the race, I just about managed it, but I was soon back up to 87KG in the winter. Since I started training properly and year round, I have settled more into a 77-82KG range, 77KG with more effort, usually in spring and then drifting back up to 80-82KG in the autumn/winter.

I have had the goal of getting down to 75KG for years now, but I never manage it! For Mainz Half Marathon in 2017 I had a big blip day and was 75.5KG, but the day before and the day after I was 77KG-ish. This year I decided to track what I eat, try to improve my nutrition and finally crack the 75KG barrier.

I started with MyFitnessPal in December, I immediately saw that I ate much more than I thought! For example I would eat 133g of oats, with 50g sultanas and 300mls 3.8% fat milk. That comes to about 835kcal, but I would think nothing of eating that with an omelette or toast or something.

I had to learn portion control. I looked at my ‘standard’ breakfast. For years I had eaten 4 eggs, milk, cheese and leberwurst for breakfast. That is about 750kcals (which is okay) but only 8g of carbs, 57g of fat and 47g of protein. To fuel myself for my workouts, I need more carbs, and although I don’t think fat in itself is bad, 70% fat for breakfast is high!

gI switched to 75g oats, 25g sultanas, 180mls 1.5% milk and 25g protein powder, that is 76g of carbs, 10 of fat and 40g of protein. That is 200kcals fewer, but has good carbs, little sugar, almost as much protein and most of the fat is gone.

I have been pretty religious about MyFitnessPal since I started, even on holiday I would try to write everything in, even if I overshot my daily target by 1,000kcals or more, it’s better to know if you ask me.

My weight has been steadily falling, I started at about 81KG, but soon got to 79, then 78, 77 and 76KG. It was still early February, so I moved my goals from 0.5KG weight loss per week down to 0.2KG. I think my base metabolic rate might be higher than the app thinks though, as I usually overshoot my expected weight loss!

Yesterday I was 75.6KG, that seemed like a steady weight for me, I certainly wasn’t dehydrated, but then today I was 74.7KG! Ok I think I was a bit dehydrated today, but I still cracked it. I changed my settings to maintain and will carry on (actually expecting to keep on losing if I eat for maintenance). I actually weighed in at 73.9KG the day after Frankfurt half marathon, that was pretty crazy, but I think 75KG is my actual weight at the moment.

I feel very good at this weight, my belly is very noticeably smaller and I am noticing definition where there wasn’t any before.

TrainerRoad Sweet Spot Base 2 Mid

After completing Sweet Spot Base I before Christmas, I had tested my FTP at 330w. I felt that that was too high, so after 2 weeks mainly off over Christmas, I set my FTP to 310w and started the Sweet Spot Base 2.

The first week started off fairly easily with 4 Sweet Spot workouts planned with one easier session during the week. I pretty stupidly decided to run for 15km on Saturday before my harder 90min session, so swapped it for the easier Sunday session (which also felt very hard). The problem was that on Sunday my legs were toast, so I switched from the planned 90 minute Kaweah to the easier and shorter 60 minute Kawaeh -2.

That led me to see that I was pushing it too hard for early January, so I decided to cut back on my weekend running and skip the easy midweek ride. That should make it possible to complete the plan.

Sweet Spot Base 2 has VO2 intervals on Tuesday evenings. I don’t have much experience with them, but the first week was fine with 14×30 seconds at 120% FTP repeated 3 times. The intervals weren’t long enough to bite and my trainer often shortens intervals by 3 seconds anyway, so it was all pretty easy. The next week was 6×1 minute at 120% 3 times. It was a bit tougher but fine.

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Mills

The next week was 3x2mins 3 times. The 2 minutes were 45 seconds at 120%, then slowly reducing to 110% until the end of the interval (see above – Mills). I found those tough. I couldn’t help but look forward to the last weeks intervals, 6x3mins at 120% with dread. I didn’t think I could do them, but when it came to it, I lived with the pain for the 18 minutes and could grit it out. Phew!

The weekends are really tough if you ask me. The harder 90 minute session on Saturday is usually hard, but doable, but that leaves me a bit cooked for Sunday, when I have 2 hours of ever increasing amounts of Sweet Spot to do! Due to being a bit under the weather in week 4, I had to skip the harder Saturday over/unders, but otherwise I managed everything in the plan.

I will point out that I once managed my full weekend rides and bricked it with a 7km run, that was pretty good! The only other brick I managed was after a shortened Sunday ride (due to illness).

Week 5 is just nasty! It starts with the aformentioned 6x3mins at 120%, then has 4x10mins at FTP, on Saturday is 6×10 minutes just below FTP, but with 30 second bursts above FTP (Laconte – that was the hardest session I have done), followed by 3x30mins at sweet spot on Sunday in a 2h session. I’m writing this on the following Monday and my legs are toast!

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Laconte – ouch. I even had to pause and have a longer break between the last 2 10 minute intervals

Just as a by the way, I did ease my FTP up throughout the plan, after 1 week I moved it to 315w, then 11 days later to 320w. A couple of days later I went to 325w before finally settling at 330w as my last Ramp test had given for the last couple of weeks.

So now I am planning on doing my recovery week (hopefully some outdoors, weather permitting), then starting the Base Half Distance triathlon plan mid. Now that looks a lot easier than Sweet Spot Base II, I don’t see anything as nasty as Laconte in there, in fact it looks easier than sweet spot base I, so maybe I can start to run and swim more to be ready for the season.

The next plan will start with a Ramp Test again – my result was …. 342w!

HPS San Silvestre 6km

New Years Eve Run in Gran Canaria

We were on holiday in Gran Canaria and I saw that on the 31st of December they had a New Years run. I know that I am not running very much at the moment, and I won’t do very well, but I wanted to run it anyway!  It would be 6km, starting at 5pm.

I had tried and failed to sign up online, so when we saw a sign up stall in the shopping centre, I took the plunge and signed up. It only cost 7€ and you get a T shirt, bargain! Apparently if you expect to run faster than 24 mins, you are classed as a professional and start at the front, fine by me.

Preparation/Holiday

Our holiday in Gran Canaria was really good, but I only ran once, meaning I’d only run 4 times in December going into the race! We also generally spend our days walking around in the sunshine and we climbed a local hill the day before. That’s all to say that my legs weren’t as fresh as you might imagine, given that I’d walked over 30,000 steps a day for a few days in a row.

Excuses out of the way (for now), we walked over to the start area and were there by 2pm. We found somewhere to eat and get coffee (coffee and cake is a big part of our holidays) then we headed to the start area again. We were still too early, but at least it gave me time to get my prerace stuff sorted out. That would normally be the case, but there were only about 10 toilets for 12k runners, and they didn’t have any toilet roll in them!

Starting Pro

After finally sorting that out, I was pretty thirsty, but there wasn’t anything to drink, so I would just have to deal with it.  I went into the front pen with about 45 mins left before the start. Everyone seemed to be taking it very seriously, I felt like I was the only one not doing a big warm up.  Everyone suddenly stopped warming up at 16:45, so I thought I might start, but then the mass starters were released, so to stay near the front, I’d have to line up now.

Racing Amateur

The race started on time and I felt pretty good. Lots of people started very fast, but I just wanted some wind protection. It was very windy with the first 2.5km into the wind, and the last 2.5 with the wind.  I felt like I was moving well whilst holiding enough back to finish well. After 3km my time was 11:25, almost exactly as I had expected (23:00 for 6km). The 2nd half started to bite though.

Even though the wind was on my back, I started to fade. A fast woman passed me after about 4km and a few others did too. I mean I was still passing more than I was being passed, but it still wasn’t well paced.

The time passed pretty quickly and soon enough I was on the home straight. I didn’t really sprint too much as I felt like my legs were dead, and I crossed the line in 23:07 for 103rd place.