TrainerRoad Sweet Spot Base I Mid

At the end of 2016 I bought myself a Wahoo Kickr Snap so that I could train in winter for Roth. I used it occasionally, but pretty soon the weather got better and the trainer started collecting dust.

Winter Training

As this season was such a nightmare, I think I could do with laying some base for next year nice and early. My cycling was realy weak this year, it used to be my strength, but this season I would frequently lose minutes to Michael, Basti and Christoph.

TrainerRoad

So I decided to start on the Trainer Road Sweet Spot base plan. There are three levels- low, mid and high. The low only has 3 workouts per week, which seems like it would be too little for me. The mid has 5 which might be a little too much and the high has 6, definitely too much.

I decided on the mid, thinking that I could always skip the easy ride if I want. The next step is the FTP test. I know that there is an 8 minute test and a 20 minute test, both of which aren’t much fun, but now TrainerRoad has a Ramp Test which it uses to quickly find your FTP.  The Ramp Test kicks up quite a few watts every minute until you can’t go on anymore. My FTP was set at 325 from last time I had used Trainer Road, so I left it there. After not very long I was done, and my FTP was said to be 282w, a bit disappointing but not too surprising.

One weird thing was how the test showed up on Strava

It showed me not hitting the blue bar watts, although I was in Erg mode with powermatch. I decided to switch off powermatch after that so that I could rely on the Kickr Snap, even if it is wrong it should be consistent.

The Workouts

The first workouts didn’t feel too taxing, so much so that I decided to start eeking up my percentage for each ride until I found my level. After really struggling with a weekend 90 minute over/under ride at 105%, I was happy to set my FTP at 292w.

I’m not finding riding on the trainer too bad surprisingly. I thought it’d be incredibly boring, but even the 90min rides are ok if you always have something to do. During the easy parts I do 2-3 minutes in aero with 1 minute rests, whereas when it’s more difficult, I just try to survive, or do the cadence drills that the software suggests.

Illness strikes

After 4 weeks of the plan, I was going to Nice for the weekend, I had rearranged the plan so that I would ride before leaving on Thursday, and do the hardest workout of the week (the over/unders of McAdie +1) on Sunday. I’d increased my FTP to 301w after feeling like the workouts were getting a bit too easy. But when I got home on Sunday, I suddenly felt really ill, so training was called off.

I was ill until Thursday, but on Friday my Dad came to town for the weekend, so I decided to take off until Monday, meaning I had 10 days off the bike.  I jumped back into the final hard week of the plan and though the first couple weren’t great, I managed everything with my 301FTP.

This is the last scheduled workout of the plan, it’s called Galena and it sucks! it’s not that hard, but it is 90mins long and has 3×20 minutes at sweet spot. It is mentally draining, normally I have breaks or some change in effort to make it more interesting, but damn Galena is boring!

Strangely the 2nd last hard workout was this one: Palisade. It’s also 90 mins long, but it wasn’t too bad at all! The intensity is higher than Galena, but you can split it up into sections and something is happening quite often. I’m starting to think that indoor training is 90% pyschological!

Anyway, I should have had 1 easy week left in the plan, but due to me missing a week, and the easy week looking incredibly boring, I switched in a sweetspot week, along with McAdie that I had missed after Nice

McAdie was tough, 4×12 mins with 1 minute under FTP, followed by 2 minute over FTP, 4 times in a row. I managed it ok though. The next day, and the final day of my amended plan, I decided to do Carson +2.

The final workouts

I have done Carson a few times, it is 6×5-7-minute intervals between 88-94% FTP totaling 36 minutes of Sweet Spot work. Carson +2 is 90 minutes long though instead of 60 and had 9×5-7 minutes instead of 6.  With tired legs from McAdie, it was a real fight to finish it, I was even ready to bail out after 1h, but managed to talk myself out of it!

So that was Sweet Spot Base I Mid. It’s 80% fairly easy/manageable, with the over/unders sometimes being hard as hell. I’ll start on Sweet Spot Base II Mid after Christmas, that looks like it starts sprinkling of VO2max stuff, which should be interesting!

So the only thing left to do now is the Ramp Test again. I had a 282w FTP before the training plan, and afterwards… 330w! I think that’s a bit high, but wow!

Swim Block 2018

So yesterday we had our swim test to decide the teams for the season in TCEC. Basti and Peter swam about 11:45 for 800m. Michael and Christoph swam about 12:50. I swam 13:30.

Now that is pretty much what I expected I would swim, ideally it would have been 15 seconds quicker, but 1:41 per 100m in a 50m pool is about my standard at the moment. Actually looking at it, it was slightly faster my best 1000m pace from last year, so really good for me historically.

The thing is though, it isn’t good enough! I need to be getting out of the water with Christoph and Michael at least, otherwise I’ll have to fight like a dog on the bike to be near the front for the run.

I am considering doing a swim block to try to knock off my 5 seconds/100m deficit in quick time. It fits well too as the tri season starts in 10 days, but the Freibad (outdoor pool) season starts on Saturday 19th of May. That means I have much better access to a 50m pool during the week.

So what would a swim block for me entail? Well Monday and Thursday are the team swims, so they would stay. If I could swim at least 5 days a week, for 16km or more total, that should be a pretty good kick in the right direction, shouldn’t it?

I’m going to see if I actually get my ass in gear and do this, if I do, this will be published along with some results. I have my baseline of 13:30 for 800m. I want to be able to swim at least 12:30 for 800m, that is 1:34/100m. I seem to benefit more than most from wearing a wetsuit, so I think if I swim 12:30 in the pool, I’d be getting out of the water with or ahead of the main RTV group in open water.

Week 1: 14-20 May

It’s kind of week zero, but whatever. My weeks total was about 15km over 4.5 swims, easily my biggest swim week ever.

Week 2: 21-27 May

Swam 750m in 13 minutes in openwater in Hachenberg, it seems like it was long though.

Longest swim ever, 3900m, miscounted or I would have done 4k! So I did just over 16k in 6 swims this week, not bad with a race in the middle.

Week 3: 28 May – 03 June

5 swims for a total of 16km again.

Week 4: 04 June – 10 June

5 swims for a total of 17km! Was a good swimming week.

Week 5: 11 June – 17 June

Just 2 swims – one shorter one before my seminar and one longer one on Thursday evening after work at TBB. Lets call it a down week!

Week 6: 18 June – 24 June

800m test in 12:58 on the Monday. 5 swims this week.

Epilogue

Writing 6 months later, I have decided to publish this after all! I kept swimming for a while after stopping writing here. In week 7 (25 June- 01 July) I swam 4 times, week 8 (02 July – 08 July) only twice but good long swims, week 9 (09 July – 15 July) 3 long swims. I was definitely starting to slack off on the swimming in week 10 (16 – 22 July) where I only swam once.

Then I got ill with my stomach bleed again, so I swam once, twice and once in the next 3 weeks, all for less than 1h. I actually remember the swim where in retrospect, I noticed that I was ill.

https://www.strava.com/activities/1724103086

I felt really weak in Mombach in the Freibad, I thought that I’d overdone it in the gym the day before. Then on the 24th, I felt like shit and went home early from work. I took the 25th off and that was that, I had had another stomach bleed.

So here I am in January, 12 pools swims done since the 23rd of July! It’s time to get started again, 6mins for 400m is a goal I’d love to hit in 2019, lets hope it works out better than my swim block in 2018.

I did swim 78 times in the pool in 2018, only down from 84 times in 2017 when I was actually fit and training for Roth.

 

ALV Nikolauslauf – 6km

Last weekend we went to Nice. It was really good and I did a nice warm weather run along the promenade on the Saturday before we came back on the Sunday.

Nikolauslauf

Almost as soon as I arrived home, I started feeling ill. I had a headache, felt weak and thought I was going to vom. After 24h I felt a lot better, but that’s when the diarrhoea started. That was pretty dreadful until Thursday, with everything just going straight through me.

I’d signed up for the Nikolauslauf in Gonsenheimerwald a couple of weeks ago as we were offered free start spots from ALV Mainz (Thanks!). After my week of being ill, I decided to not to the 12km, and just do the 6km instead.  My Dad was in town too, so that meant we ate Eritrean food on Friday night and drank some Feuerzangenbowle, perfect preparation for a race!

First ones there

So on Saturday we got up early and all headed to Gonsenheim. There were going to be loads of TCEClers there, so I just had to look for the yellow/blues and get my start number. When I arrived there was no yellow//blue to be seen. We were the first and it was only 30mins before the start!

Bit of trail

Anyway, the race started and it was a fast start. I wasn’t too far forward, probably about 15th place or so. I settled in to my tempt though and as quite a few kids were running, they had started fast but didn’t have the endurance. In the first few km I overtook a few, including the first woman.  I didn’t push too much, not that I could have done much more anyway. The route is mildly rolling and slightly more technical than normal for me as it on trail with lots of roots all over the place.  I could manage the little ups and downs fine, which was a good thing.

Third place

After about 5km the first woman passed me back, I hadn’t slowed down but she seemed to have another gear. I didn’t try to go with her, and couldn’t have anyway.  I was happy to overtake a guy with a GoPro on his head in the last km, before crossing the line, happy not to have to do another lap.

When I heard that I was 3rd place, I was surprised, and I was only about 12 seconds behind first! I mean the fastest 12km guys were well clear, including Lukas who won again (he always does :)). All in all it was more successful than expected.

Missed the prize giving

The Nikolauslauf prize giving was at 11:30, but I was done at 10:25, so we went to a cafe around the corner to let Katja warm up a bit. At 11:20 we went back, but the prize giving was over, they’d moved it forward because it was too cold. Facepalm.  Anyway I got my prize and we were off to go to the match in Frankfurt, which turned out to be on the day after!

I’ll be back on the trainer next week, I’m happy that my running isn’t dreadful, even when I’m hardly running. I hope it comes back 100% when I train it again net spring. 

Rüsselcross Duathlon 2018

Don’t worry, I’m not dead! I just haven’t raced in a long while. I’ll give a bit of an update, then get on with the Rüsselcross duathlon race report.

An Update since Remagen

So Remagen was a nightmare. I mean really bad. I took a bit of time after the race to recover and get into the off season. The weather has stayed lovely through all of September, October and even now in November it’s pretty good, so I decided to ride some longer rides on the weekends and collect a few extra kms as some base for next year. That went pretty well. I did some fairly hilly rides including Feldberg and Hohe Würzel and Hausen and really enjoyed them on my new road bike.  I even did a CTF, which is a cross bike ride. I’m so bad off road that I didn’t really enjoy it too much though.

Back to Base

At the start of November, even though the weather wass still good, I decided to hit the trainer. I’ve started the TrainerRoad Sweet Spot Base Mid 1 and I’m at the end of the 2nd week now. I think I’ll do a post about it sometime.

I wanted to increase my running again, not a lot, but back to 40km or so per week. Though my fitness seems ok (not good, ok) I started feeling my piriformis and groin again as soon as I started running 3 days a week. Last week I discovered as I lay in front of the TV that I always lie on one side with my legs bent. I tried lying on the other side and it was agony! My piriformis felt very short and seems to be pulling on something that affects my groin.  I’ve been stretching it as much as possible for the last week and it seems to be loosening up, I’m fairly hopeful it will get better now.

Rüsselcross Duathlon

Anyway, to the Rüsselcross duathlon. I was fairly unaware of the Rüsselcross duathlon until Basti asked if anyone wanted his start slot. I looked it up but was too scared. Fast forward 1 week and I decided to give it a go. It is a 5km train run, 20km cross bike, then a 2.5km trail run. My bike handling skills are very limited so I was glad that the course was pretty dry and flat, though there would apparently be some sand to watch out for.

Lots of TCEClers were taking part, so we had a nice group and I had plenty of people to hang around with and chat to. One awkward moment was when I arrived and some young woman came straight up to me looking almost excited to see me asking what I was doing at a cross duathlon. Unfortunately I have no idea who she was, I didn’t even recognise her! I had to talk unspecifically for a couple of minutes, thinking she may have mistaken me for someone else before getting the hell out of there.

Start Easy

So the race. I didn’t want to push the first run too much, so from the off I settled in to a tough but manageable pace. It was 2 loops and not a difficult course at all. My GPS says it was 100m long, but I finished feeling good in 20:09. My transition wasn’t bad considering I don’t have mtb shoes, so was in normal SPD-SL shoes and cleats.

Crash Hard

I came out of T1 with the first woman in about 9th place. I decided that although her pace wasn’t too fast, I would sit in and see what the course had to offer. After a few km a teammate of hers passed us and pulled in in front of her to work as a domestique. It was perfect. I was drafting at a good pace whilst riding fairly comfortably.

 

After maybe 7km came a left turn, I was losing time on the turns due to my crapness, but catching back up on the straights. This time though there was the sand. I know you should carry speed through sand, and I needed to catch back on, so on I went. I remember my front wheel sliding, I guess I over-corrected then I was airborne!

The good thing about crashing on sand is landing on sand. I wasn’t hurt. I jumped up, got my bike, struggled with the chain for a while and got going again. It seemed like a bit group had passed me as I was struggling. Having crashed once, I was very cautious for the rest of the ride meaning that lots of people passed me. The rest of the course wasn’t so bad though. There was only one muddy part which was a bit scary on the 2nd lap for me. The 2nd time in the sand section I crawled around it on the grass. 15 seconds lost is better than a 2nd crash!

Finish Strong

So I was happy to be finally done on the bike, even though I would probably be in abut 30-35th place now. I had a good flying dismount and quickly got my shoes on, before realising that I had a chap stick in my shoe. I had to take it off my shoe again, remove the chap stick and go again, stupid.  Off I ran feeling pretty good. I overtook 3-4 people and near the end realised that I was right next to the guy I ran with on the first run – he must be a crap cross biker too!

12th Place – not so bad

He had a little sprint left so finished just ahead of me, no harm. Sprinting for 30th place wasn’t so important to me. I chatted with the TCEClers as they finished and got ready to ride home before realising that, somehow, I was 11th place (since changed to 12th) and 4th in my age group, with the sprinter being 3rd! Again, it wasn’t a big deal, I wanted to head off anyway rather that wait for a bottle of wine, but I need to fight for every spot in the future.

So that was my first cross duathlon. My runs were okay. Apparently my 2nd run was faster than my first – 3:52/km vs 3:57 – so that is decent. My bike handling skills are so bad though. Even though I crawled the 2nd lap, I was 45 seconds faster on the 2nd lap. I have to think I could ride 5 minutes faster if I could handle the bike better (and not crash), and that would have had me in about 5th place.

Future Races

I’ll have a think about doing another cross duathlon in the future, but until then I will be back on the trainer laying some base for next year. Who knows I might even swim at some point, it’s getting a bit embarrassing how little I have swum since Remagen!

I guess it won’t be as long until my next race now. I owe you a new bike post and a trainer road post, so I’ll see you soon!

Rhein-Ahr Triathlon 2018

The last league race of the season is usually in Remagen. Last season they cancelled it, but it was back on this year. We could swim even though the Rhein is really shallow at the moment.  TCEC decided to meet at 6:30am on Sunday, which meant that I was up at 5:15 (before my alarm) and out of the house and cycling in the dark by 6:05.

I had ridden my new road bike on Saturday and was pretty fast for little effort. Later in the day though I had some pretty dreadful diahorrea. No worries though, it should sort itself out.  On race morning I had slpet really badly then ate my bog standard breakfast of cornflakes and an omelette. I really didn’t feel great and couldn’t stomach the whole omelette, so I threw it away.

After losing a few more fluids, I was on my way to Mombach. We set off and were there in good time. I messed up a few things, such as forgetting a new pair of shorts for after the race, forgetting my towel and not putting my wetsuit bag in T1, meaning I couldn’t store it away as you are supposed to.

Anyway, we got the bus to the swim start this year and then got on the ferry to the middle of the Rhein. I remembered that last time I swam near the coast and took ages, this time pretty much my only goal was to swim in the middle and pick up the stream of the river as much as is possible.  We started and I worked my way to the middle. I breathe to the right and could see the kayak on my right the whole time. I didn’t swim well, I felt pretty weak, but I got out of the water after about 22:40 which was minutes faster than last time, I even saw Basti in T1, meaning I had done well.

After putting on socks, and hiding my wetsuit out of the way, I got onto the bike. I wasn’t gaining on anyone and a quick look at my power showed about 230w, pathetic.  I really just couldn’t get going, it was a fight from the start and people passed me a lot, which isn’t usually what happens. Near the end of the first loop Robert passed me and was out of sight pretty quickly!

I couldn’t hold aero position for more than a few minutes as my shoulders were aching, after finally getting to the top of the climb for a 2nd time, I was happy to be able to roll back down to T2. My average speed was 32km/h, really bad.  Not only that though, I felt like death, I really didn’t know how I would run 10k after that ride.

But 10k is what I had to run, so after a decent T2 I set off. I saw Michael coming to lap me almost immediately, I worked out that he was about 13 minutes ahead of me. Running is usually my strength, but this time I had nothing. I was being overtaken all the time and was just hoping to make it to the end.

Slowly, and I mean slowly, I ticked off the loops. I was so happy to be finished, but so disappointed with my day. It was without doubt my worst triathlon ever.  I kind of finished in a daze, light headed and feeling weak.

The others were chatting so after I had a bit to drink, I went over to them. They looked at me and I felt like it was pure pity, I had to go to the side to have a few minutes by myself to get myself together, rather than cry in the group!

I felt like shit for at least the next 45 minutes, then after having a coffee and a shower I started to feel better.  The day after as I write, I still have diahorrea and feel weak, so it seems that I was ill going into the race.

So that is the end of my 2018 triathlon season. There was the Hachenberg team sprint where I struggled on the bike and ran badly, there was Mußbach where I cycled badly, then Worms were I cycled dreadfully. There was Neuwied where I was a drop out due to health stuff and now my worst triathlon ever in Remagen. It’s been a helluva season!

Over Winter and Spring I plan to keep traithlon training, rather than just running. Actually I’d rather cycle more and run less, whilst ticking over on the swimming. I just need toget myself right though, I guess they will be planning me for the 2nd team next year, I need to get myself back fit, healthy and on form to get some points for the 1st team.

Firmenlauf 2018

I’m not going to whinge on too much about how I’m not fit and have low iron etc, so this will be an attempt at a more positive race review!

The annual Firmenlauf is early in September, last year I ran 17:08, 1 second slower than 2 years ago I believe. This year I had 18:25 in my head as a reasonable time for me, that would be about par.

We met up for the team photo as is customary, but we didn’t have any fans to look after our bags this time. We all trotted off to Thomas’s car to put them in there, but he had parked miles away! By the time we got there, it was 15 minutes before the race start, so I jogged back to the start area to go to the toilet and try to get a decent start place.

Last year I waled into the starting pen from the front and could run freely from the start. This year they wouldn’t allow that so I was stuck trying to find a way to the front. I saw a few TCEClers who invited me to jump the fence and start with them, but the steward wasn’t having it. I walked a bit further back and saw a gap, so asked the person next to the gap if I could jump over there – it was Karin from TCEC too – a weird coincidence.

So I started and got stuck in a fair amount of traffic this year, but after the first 400m it wasn’t too bad. There were some pretty aggressive girls from the Uni who were happy to push people out of their way, so I ran behind them for a while 🙂

I felt alright really, after 3km I had 11mins on the clock, so 3:40/km. I could see Jochen ahead of me (Schott were taking part for the first time), and I very slowly pulled him in. When I caught him I gave him a shout and he answered something strange about recognising my footsteps… He seemed to speed up for a while, but I soon passed him.  Near the 4km marker I passed the first woman, it was pretty obvious as all I could hear was from people on the course was – oh here comes the 1st woman – all the time!

So after the last few turns I knew I was almost done and without much of a sprint, I crossed the line in 18:05, about a minute slower than last year, but 20 seconds faster than I had predicted.

In the finish area I saw that Timo has run well and was 3rd in 16:0x, and Steffen from TRON was very close to breaking 20 minutes (he wasn’t sure, he didn’t start a watch but his gun time was 20:30 – turns out he ran 20:06)

So that was that for another year. I was still very comfortably the fastest in TRON and Biontech, especially as their fast girl didn’t run this year.  Next year sub17 – hopefully.

Vereinsmeisterschaft 2018

I just read my post from last year about the Vereinsmeisterschaft. I ended it by saying that it had been my best season ever and that I’d be kicking on this season. Well this season has probably been my worst since getting into endurance sports properly – how the world turns!

Some background – about a month ago I’d been getting a good few weeks of training in and went for a pre-work run. I ran at 4:37/km with a low 135bpm heart rate. I was back! I hadn’t been running that much, but I was swimming a bit and cycling lots.  A few days later I felt ill. I was weak and nausious, then came the black stool, I’ve seen this story before.

I was hopeful that it was just stomach ache or so, but a couple of days later when I felt a little better, I did a test run. 4:55/km with 151bpm – bugger. I went to the doctor and had a blood test, my haemoglobin was down from 15.8 to 13.2, so I had had a bleed again.

I’ve been trying to recover, but that is easier said than done! My ferritin was already low, now I needed to recover about a litre of blood and get my ferritin up – good luck.  This all happened 3.5 weeks before Neuwied, so I decided to drop out of the race, I wouldn’t be able to compete at a decent level.  1 week after Neuwied is the Vereinsmeisterschaft, that seems like a check to see where I am in my recovery 2 weeks before Remagen.

So I was up and ready on Sunday at 7am. I hadn’t ridden my Tribike in ages, but I got ready and set off to Nieder-Olm. After about 6km I stopped and realised  -I had my bibshorts on, not my trisuit! I had to go back and get it and set off again. Time was now a little tight, but I was still there 40 minutes before the start at 9:50.

I managed a 100m warm up swim, then it was go time. My lane worked out pretty well for me in my current condition. I swam in the pace line quite easily and had a decent swim considering (no clock – don’t know the time).

In the spirit of the day, I decided to put on my socks for the bike, I need to train so don’t want blisters.  The bike started slowly but I got caught in a group of Stephan, Heiko B, Heiko M and Pascal. We got stopped by traffic a couple of times making it tough to separate out, Pascal cheats massively too, so that didn’t help break up the group!

I decided to push on the uphill towards Setzen, it’s a bit longer and steeper there, so I could give it a kick and split the group. That worked well and I was away from the group, though Stephan caught my up and passed my on the more technical part that followed.

I got off the bike having failed with my flying dismount (it’s downhill to T2, so tough to get ready to dismount). I struggled to find my shoes but then was away. Stephan was ahead of my, Heiko maybe 50m behind.

I don’t like this run route of our Vereinsmeisterschaft, it is tough and hard to find a rhythm as it is often fairly steeply uphill or downhill. It’s also a nightmare when you have blood issues, as I have no top end speed at the moment.  Stephan ran away from me and on the out and back I could see all the people ahead of me – where I should be! Heiko was holding firm behind me, maybe edging nearer to me.  With only about 500m to go, he caught me but kindly offered to run in with me rather than run away from me.

A girl was getting encouraged to pass us by the crowd, so we sped up to make sure that didn’t happen. We faked a sprint finish and crossed the line next to each other, but they read my chip first so I was ahead of him, pretty unfair!

My time was 51:26 compared to 48:59 last year (I was off form last year too, but more due to my season being over). My run time was 90 seconds slower this year over 3.8km! I’d like to have a good race at the VM some time, I just need to stay fit through the summer some time, and not get ill. I’ve not managed that so far – maybe in 2019!

Worms Triathlon 2018 – 1. RTV

The 3rd race of the season was in Worms this season, as it is in most seasons.  Unfortunately my training hasn’t been going very well, I’m not injured or anything, just struggling for motivation as I don’t have any goal races planned for this year.

After being at the Punk in Drublic festival all day on Saturday, I was a bit unprepared on Sunday morning. I had quickly packed my bag the night before, but as I cycled to the train station to meet up with the team, I realised I’d forgotten my goggles, so I had to ride back for them.

Otherwise all went to plan and we were at the start before 10am, the start time for the 1st team was 13:15!  I had had some brake problems when switching my wheels the day before, so played around a bit more with them, then I could relax before the race.

Unfortunately the water temperature was 22.0°C, the wetsuit cutoff is 21.9°C, so we would swim without wetsuits 🙁  I’ve been swimming lots in training recently and had a dream situation in my head where I come out of the water ahead of Michael and Christoph and can latch on for as long as possible on the bike, so that I don’t lose too much time, then I can run and pass Chris and Jonas on the run.

Well my dream didn’t happen! I swam ok, but had water in my goggles from the get go.  I got on some feet for the 2nd half, but when I got out of the water I saw 13:02 on my watch and saw Robert behind me in the water. Chris and Michael were gone and I wouldn’t be pulling them back on the bike!

I got going on the bike and was starting to find a rhythm. I had decided to concentrate on being aero, as I’m not that fit so I need to save watts rather than put more out!  I went round a bend after 3-4km and heard a crack. I didn’t know what it was, so continued on. A few minutes later my left arm went through my arm rest, which was broken into 2 pieces – fuck.

I had to do what I could, so I rode with the other arm in aero and my left arm on the brake caliper. It was shocking uncomfortable! A few people passed me, but once I got the hang of it, I could catch back up.  I justed wanted to get through the bike, so I didn’t push it as hard as I’d like.  I wasn’t going to pull out though, even though it wasn’t a great situation.

After nursing my bike round the last 15km or so, I managed my best flying dismount ever, mainly because I thought I wasn’t going to stop before the dismount line, so I just jumped off!  I was then onto the run.  I saw Michael and Christoph almost straight away, they were miles ahead of me.  I felt like I was running quite well though, I passed all the riders who had been around me, including number 401 who had sat about 2m behind another rider for most of the ride. I gave him some abuse as I passed him 🙂

The run was otherwise pretty uneventful. I ran fairly well and was gaining on Christoph quite a lot (I would have needed at least another 5km though!), Michael was faster than me and Robert was holding fairly steady a couple of minutes behind me.  I looked around and saw no one ahead of me or behind me, so cruised in the last part.

All in it was a pretty crappy day for me. I am fairly unfit at the moment, whereas the others are flying! I need to get motivated and train for Neuwied, otherwise a middle distance will be too much for me.  It looks like TCEC were 3rd in the league again, cementing out 3rd place position. We could come 2nd or even with some luck even win the league this year! That would be crazy and scary as the Regional league guys are monsters. The pretty much all swam 11:30 or faster!

So, now we have an 8 week break. I need to start riding and running more and hope that my swim training starts paying off. Otherwise my next race report will be much like this one…

Mußbach Sprint Triathlon 2018 – 1.RTV

One week after the first league race of the season, came the second league race of the reason! This time it was an individual triathlon, so it would be balls to the wall from start to finish, though it was last week for me anyway!

Recceing the Course

I decided to travel to Neustadt on Saturday so that I could see the course and sleep a bit later on Sunday, we would have to be there by 7am.  Neustadt isn’t a very interesting town and I also couldn’t sleep very well due to a hot hotel room without air conditioning.  At least seeing the course worked out well.  It is quite hilly, with 1 big climb from km4-7, then a steep short downhill followed by a 160° turn. A few km later in the valley, the road is badly broken up and shaky as hell, then we would be back onto open roads to battle to the end of the route through traffic.

Early Start

So I was awake at 5:30am after a few fire engines went past, luckily they had their sirens on full, otherwise drivers on the empty roads wouldn’t know to move out of the way… I ate and checked out of my hotel and picked up our 17 starter bags for the 1st, 2nd, masters and women’s teams.  Soon enough everyone else arrived and we chatted about how the bike would go.

Swim training not paying off!

It was a 500m pool swim with 7 starters per lane. The masters and women started about an hour before us, then the 2nd team started 20 minutes before us and finally it was our turn at 9:35am.  I have been swimming lots recently so had hoped to stay on Christoph’s feet, but I didn’t manage it.  I was soon in 7th and last place in the lane, but could swim with 6th place.  I overtook him after about 300m and got out of the water after 8:20, so basically exactly the pace I would expect if I wasn’t doing a swim block…

Hilly Bike

I ran to my bike and saw that everyone else was gone, I knew that already though. They were pretty much all together after the swim, about 50m ahead of me (45s). I got on the bike and set off, I passed more often than I was passed and on the big climb could see a TCEC rider ahead of me. I knew it wouldn’t be Basti or Michael and probably not Christoph, so would have to be Peter. It was Peter and I caught him right at the top of the climb and moved ahead.

Lovely Asphalt!

The valley wasn’t so bad at speed, the bad road surface also felt better than it had the day before.  The traffic was very annoying though, cars were trundling along and blocking the road, then stopping at roundabouts just in front of me, it was annoying.

Hilly Run

Anyway I got into T2 and was told to park my bike the other way around. I had parked as I always do, with the aerobars pointing in, but I had to swap it around costing me a few seconds. Peter arrived in T2 and was next to me, he isn’t a bad runner so I was slightly worried that he’d catch me.

start and end of the run

The course goes straight uphill after 400m then rolls until the turn around, then it is largely downhill on the way back. I saw that Basti was 1km ahead of me, then Michael behind him, and Christoph was also well clear of me, I wouldn’t be catching him today. I could also see that Peter was falling behind, so I would at least not be our Streichergebnis (the person who doesn’t count in the results).

The downhill was fun, especially the steep last part. I bounded down at full speed, even though it was hurting my feet. I passed one last person, but couldn’t get the guy just ahead of me in the stadium.

Better than last time, still not good!

I finished, it was a better effort than last week from me, but to be so far behind Christoph and Michael having been with them last season is obviously not ideal.  I saw in the results that I lost almost all of my time on the bike, that was slightly surprising to me, but I guess shows that I need to ride my TT bike much more from now on.

Overall it was a decent day for TCEC. Basti was 4th in the league and Michael 12th. I think we were 3rd in the team results, so better than last week. It’s not going to be easy this year, lots of teams are starting with better athletes, for example Boris Stein who is a top Ironman pro started in our league. That’s just crazy, he was 10 minutes faster than me!

So now there is 3 weeks until Worms. I hope my swimming training pays off by then and my TT bike riding should be better too. If I’m not going to be the Streichergebnis, I will have to beat most probably one of Jonas or Christoph. That isn’t looking like being an easy task at the moment!

With no races planned until then, that will probably be my next post, I’ll try to get some better photos next time!  See you then!

 

Hachenberg Löwentriathlon Team Sprint 2018

The long awaited start to the 2018 RTV season had finally arrived. It was a team sprint, so 750m swim, 20km bike, 5km run but with 5 people in the team, on road bikes and the 4th man over the finish line counts. Oh sorry did I say 4th man? I mean 3rd man! We had assumed it was the 4th man that counts, but found out 1h before the race that actually the 3rd man counts.

I had ‘won’ my place in the team by the skin of my teeth, basically because Peter’s far superior swim (11:45 over 800m) couldn’t be fully utilized as Chrisoph and Michael are much slower than he is (12:50 over 800m), so he’d have to wait for them, then quite possible get dropped on the bike.

Our ‘pack leader’ Sebi decided to suggest to our team that they leave me behind in the water if I fall behind, and that they could cycle as a 4 man team. This pissed me off quite a lot. I wasn’t there to swim 750m and be left to suck my thumb for the rest of the race.  The team rejected his suggestion and we had decided to wait for me in T1.

preparing for the race (with cake!)

The race started with 2 teams running into the lake, then the next 2 teams started 1 minute later. We would start at 16:01, 1 minute after the first 2 teams.  I got a good start using the John Newsome ‘leave on 2’ tactic! I was soon into my stride/stroke and was swimming on Basti’s feet pretty well.  My fear was that they would swim away from me at pace, but actually they didn’t get away from me at all. After the turn around, which was surrounded by very thick weeds, I actually felt good and started moving ahead of Christoph. I got out of the water about 5-10 seconds before him, so they couldn’t have left me behind of they’d wanted to 🙂

warm up loop

After a slow T1, we started on the bike course. We had expected a pan flat course, but had done a loop as warm up and it was far from flat!  We set off like a bat out of hell and I was worried, I couldn’t keep up this pace!  Luckily Christoph couldn’t either, so they slowed to let us catch back on.  The first loop was tough for me, it was just too fast.  The 2nd loop was tough, but better, I was keeping pace. On the 3rd loop I felt strong, I could even start doing my pulls at the front, probably as no one else really wanted to by that point!

After destroying ourselves on the bike for 30 minutes, I did not feel like running a fast 5km. I messed up my transition badly. I pushed my bike by the stem and lost control hitting it against my knee and drawing a little blood. Jonas decided he wasn’t going to run, he’d worked hard on the bike. Christoph was ahead of me heading out onto the run course. I hoped that he would be strong and I could drop out, but after a few hundred metres it was clear, I was our 3rd best runner on the day, and I would have to suffer.

Basti and Michael pushed me most of the way round. The course was rolling and all not on asphalt. It was also hot and humid, far from my favourite conditions.  I felt like I would vomit after 2-3km but I didn’t and could keep my fairly crappy pace going for the full 5km. The last few hundred metres were purgatory, but Michael especially was so strong, it felt a bit like I was Jonny Brownlee being carried by Alistair in Cozumel at times!

We crossed the line with a 20:20 run split, ever so shit! I need to start running properly again, otherwise I won’t be having any good races like last season.

Our team finished 6th from 12, but some of teams had dropped down some top athletes from higher teams for the first race of the year, so although it wasn’t a great result, it wasn’t a disgrace either. We were in the main pack, a small improvement would have had us near the front.

So on we go. The next race is in 8 days in Mußbach.  It’s a 500m pool swim, 18km hilly and technical bike, then a 5km technical run. Why can’t we just have a nice flat race??