Tag: project 2015

Race Report – Frankfurt Half Marathon

I have been ill this week, my lungs haven't been happy and I have been getting muscle ache from normal work outs, on Thursday as I gave up on my intervals after 3 of the planned 7km repeats, I was not confident.

On race morning I was feeling much better and my PB seemed on again. My PB is 1:27:35 but my recent 10k races suggest that should be destroyed! I woke up at 6:15am ate my omelette and porridge and left the house at 7:20. Pre-race 'preparations' went well and I got to the start line a few mins early.  There was a 1:24 pace group which looked interesting to me, but after 2km in 7:50 I was still behind the 1:29 pace group!

I soon passed them and settled into a 3:55/km tempo which was fast for me, but felt comfortable and my HR was in a good zone.  After what I thought was 5km I checked the GPS and saw 7km were done, another good sign.  The ks ticked away and soon I was at 15km in 59:30, flying.  The one incline of the day followed, I had been just behind the 1:24 group almost all the way, but after the hill I decided to push on ahead of them. The overpass next to Commerzbank Arena was the last tough bit and the long run round the stadium was quickly done.

The last 50m are in the stadium I gave a little sprint and stopped my watch – 1:23:40 about a 4 minute PB and 6 minutes better than last year!

All in all, it went well. My average HR of 169 is lower than normal, and I think that fully fit I might have had a few more seconds off my time, but I'm not complaining! This run sets me up nicely for a sub3 attempt in Bonn in 6 weeks time, that would be awesome!

It is also my second goal of the season reached, I think the 5k time goal is a sitting duck now!

Week review to come, but this was easily the highlight!

Start of week 10, Frankfurt half week!

This week is all about Frankfurt half marathon for me. My hm PB is 1:27:35 but my recent 10k times suggest a 1:23:00 half could be on! 1:25 is a minimum for me, otherwise something has gone badly wrong!

On Monday I was at my Nana’s funeral, so had a day off. On Tuesday I will run slow and with sore lungs no doubt! At least 10km. I will double up 2 of Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and cycle on Saturday, maybe an easy 100km

I might do a week recap and a race report on Sunday, at the moment I am just worried about being ill on Sunday, but I am rarely ill for so long, so it’s probably a non-issue, fingers crossed!

End of week 9

The week that wasn't. So the good part was that on Monday I ran my intervals, 7x1km but the last one was actually 1.5km at 16km/h, I didn't feel great before doing them, but they went well. I did a bit of strength work beforehand, which was also a good bonus..

On Tuesday I swam in the evening. I hadn't planned anything specific but managed 2.5km with some fast hundreds in the middle. I mountain biked there and back for 23km extra.

Wednesday was the best day of the week, I got up and ran an easy 11.5km before work and cycled 1:15 on the road bike in the evening. My legs felt good, maybe not super fast, but they kept ploughing on up Col der Wahlheimer hof, the best local climb.

Thursday was to be long run day. I ran 10km easy, then 10 at race pace, and 12-15 out would have been ideal. My stomach was not playing ball, so there were some 'pauses' but after my 5th stop after 22km and a really bad stomach ache, I called it a day at 25km. The marathon pace parts were hard but manageable, I ended up doing 4:13/km on a hilly loop.

On Friday I worked late and had to fly to London in the evening, so had a planned rest day.  I noticed whilst travelling that I started feeling under the weather, on Saturday when I woke after 4h sleep, I felt like I had a cold, with a sore throat, running nose, sneezing and headache, bugger.
Exhausted and with a cold, Saturday became an unplanned rest day 🙁

Now my chest is almost always bad when I visit home, due to all the animal hair. That, on top of a cold, left me feeling like death. I still went out for a possibly unadvised 10k easy run, which ended up at 5:06/km which was faster than expected on a bumpy route.  And that was it. A poor few days of training, but I just hope everything clears up in time for Frankfurt half on the 8th.  I head home on wednesday and if I'm healthy again I'll pile in some training on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, before the first big test of the year, Frankfurt half Marathon on Sunday

Running 57km (462.3km YTD)
Cycling 53km (747km YTD)
Swimming 2.5km (22,75km YTD)

Start of week 9

I wish I could say that this week will be a return to unbroken training, but I need to go back to England for my Nana’s funeral. I fly on Friday evening and come back a week on Wednesday.

I will try to front load the week to get everything in. Tomorrow run before work, Swim in the evening. Tuesday 7x1km, maybe outdoors, it’d be good to do them with others. Wednesday, run before work and cycle after work. Thursday I need to get my long run done, I put 35km for Jantastic, so I will do 35km! I will see on Friday how everything goes, I have lots of work to do, but might be able to get out for a rare lunch break run.

Saturday: if I manage anything I’ll be happy, a swim on Saturday or Sunday should be doable, with a run on the other day.

It won’t be impressive but I am ticking over. My running volume isn’t high enough, but the key workouts are all there. Frankfurt half is fast approaching and I’ll be amazed if I don’t PB, I expect sub 1:24 really.

I will try to get in a midweek update as most of my stuff will be in the first half of the week.

Have a good one!!

End of week 8

8 weeks have passed already, damn where did the time go?! I was travelling most of the week this week and had some serious problems getting in my workouts. All things included it ended up ok, but not great.

So Monday I tried some new intervals in the gym in Berlin, 5x2km at marathon pace. They aren’t difficult intervals and outside I think I would cruise them, but on the treadmill they are mentally quite tough.
Tuesday was packed as it was our one full day in Dresden, so I didn’t work out. I also ate too much but hey, lets call it a full rest day!!
Wednesday in Leipzig I did some leg strength work and my beloved 7x1km intervals. I think the treadmill was a tick easier than normal, but I did the same as always, with the last km at 16km/h.

On Thursday I desperately searched for a swimming pool that was: open, bigger than 12m and allowing adults to swim! The one I found wasn’t where google maps said it was, so I took rest day 2 of the week, not good.

After a hectic week away exploring the former east Germany, I was a bit over wandering through cities, visiting museums and churches and eating badly, so when it was decision time as to whether we should go home a day early, or spend a day in Jena, we decided to head home.

That certainly made my weekend a lot more productive. I ran a quasi-tempo 11.5km run on Friday evening, the first half was 4:45 pace and the second 4:15 pace, but my bad diet of the last few days was playing havoc with me…

On Saturday I did my 2500m swim at mombach 50m pool. I tried to do the 1:40 100m repeats off 20 seconds rest, but it didn’t seem to be happening after the first few. The metres soon passed and I finished my longest swim of the year so far. It’s a bit embarrassing really, I should be doing at least 2500m three times a week, but I struggle with cramps too much, I will keep on increasing the work outs and hopefully it will improve. There was over an hour on the mtb too, it doesn’t count as a training session, but I count the KMs in my total.

Saturday just before sunset was a 15.5km slow run, slow being 5:06/km. It was very pleasant.

Today I followed the Ebersheim RTF (like a sportive) route. It was 113km plus a few km to and from the start line. Awesomely I followed it in the wrong direction so my GPS told me about turns just after I made them! I started go tire at the end but still had something left in the legs. It was 122km at a tick under 27km/h with 1200hm, not a bad days work for winter.

I’ve decided to start doing some press ups, 30 a day to start with, building over time. I hope it will marginally help my swimming and avoid me embarrassment when someone calls for press ups at training!

Running 46km (405.3km YTD)
Cycling 134km (694km YTD)
Swimming 2.5km (20.25km YTD)

all bare minimums really.

My weight was 78.2kg the day after my holiday, I will check it during the week to see where it settles. Since I got back I have pretty much just eaten vegetables, sprouts in mashed potatoes with red cabbage being my personal favourite!

Start of week 8

I’m still on holiday this week so it is going to tough to keep on schedule. As I am writing this on Monday afternoon, I can accurately say that I will do 5x2km at 14.1km on the treadmill on Monday.

I plan to do my 2.5km swim tomorrow and on Sunday I will do a long ride, the days between will be whatever happens to happen! Intervals once more and 2 easier runs, maybe one outdoors if I can persuade Katja that it isn’t too cold. It should technically be an easier week, but as I will mainly be in the gym, it’ll be hard to keep the quality down without dying of boredom.

End of week 7

Organisation has never been my strong point, but this week I messed up my plans quite a bit. As I wrote last week, I was going to play poker on Tuesday, so on Tuesday I ran at 6am for 11.7km so I could play on Tuesday evening, long run Wednesday evening, swim training on Thursday, jobs a goodun. All went to plan until at 5pm on Tuesday I realised that poker was on Wednesday… so no time for a long run. I ran again before work on Wednesday, the same route but abut faster at 4:48/km and decided I would do my long run on Thursday morning. I needed to leave the house for Berlin by 9:40am and a 32km run takes 2:40 or so, so a 6am start should be fine.

With my now free Tuesday I did a 75min mtb ride, it wasn’t ridden hard but better than nothing.

On Thursday evening I cycled to Nieder-olm for my last swim training session. Though it was pretty good, I didn’t get as many tips as I was hoping for. Ine good thing was that as I was doing sub1:40 100m repeats, he recommended that a good session would be 100m in 1:40 with a 20 second rest, 18-20 times! That sounds hard but its worth a go. Including rests that would be my half ironman pace from last year…

So to Friday. Luckily I woke up at 4am, so ate a little and drank some water. The alarm went at 6am and I felt ready to go. It was damn cold, probably a few degrees under zero, against the wind my fingers really hurt, even though I was wearing thin gloves! After an hour it was feeling like a slog but the ks clicked down and I was on the route home soon enough. I’ve had better gastrointestinal days! But the run itself was fine, I could have gone harder and/or faster, next time I think I will push it a bit more. An average HR of 140 showed a not too high effort level quite well! 

Anyway, Jantastic was almost done for the week, I just needed a single run to finish it off, so I did my 7x1km in the hot clever fit in Berlin. Job done!  On Sunday I did a strength session at the gym, but no endurance stuff.

Running 65.8km (359.3km YTD)
Cycling 43km (560km YTD)
Swimming 2km (17.75km YTD)

Start of week 7

On to week 7 then, and it is looking busy, not great for training. On Tuesday I have poker in the evening, Thursday is swim training and Friday I travel to Berlin, Saturday is my birthday in Berlin and Sunday I am still in Berlin…

For Jantastic I need to get a 32km run in, ideally that will be on an evening this week. I think I will try the long run tomorrow, Tuesday swimming before poker, Wednesday 7x1km intervals, Thursday swimming followed by cycle. Friday pre-breakfast easy run, Saturday either nothing or gym intervals or swimming in Berlin. Sunday could be an outdoor run or the gym, hard to say.

I am away for 9 days total, I want to keep it ticking over in that time though. Next week will be an easier week anyway. Not much more to report, lets see how it goes!

End of week 6

So week 6 comes to an end, and it was a good one.
On Thursday I did what ended up being a quite fast 11km run in the cold and wind.  I had to work late and couldn't really bring myself to do a longer run, especially not when it hurt to run against the icy wind. The last few km were at marathon pace or faster, so the end pace was 4:40.
On Friday I went to the gym and did some general strength work and a tediously slow 30min 5.5km treadmill run. Saturday was race day, look to the last post for details but it was a big PB in a 10km race. With warm-up and warm down I'll claim 12.5km for the day. Afterwards me and Jochen went swimming. I did a few different sets to keep it interesting, my fastest 100m being 1:39… nice! I swam, as usual, until I got cramp. 1.6km at the end.
Today I did my dreaded 125km cycle. Luckily it was not snowy, as had been predicted. I cycled to Oberdiebach, which is a 360m climb over 6km. I took it easy on the climb and the first few km were ok. Soon though there were a few slushy patches to be avoided, then the whole road was covered and the slushy bits were the best bits. A few hundred metres later I was spinning my back wheel out on the snow, and couldn't go on any further, so did a 180 and slowly descended the first part. That left me a few km short of the required 125, so by the time I got back home, I had 15km still to go, so I looped around a bit until the kms eventually ticked down and I could go home. It felt hard, mainly because I just haven't done any long rides, but the strong northerly wind wasn't too pleasant either.  Anyway it's in the bank now.

https://www.strava.com/activities/252200193
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Running: 38.5km (293.5km YTD)
Cycling: 175km (517km YTD)
Swimming: 5.1km (15.75km YTD)
A good week for swimming, a good winter cycling week too. Running was successful but it's a bit light on Km, something to keep an eye on.
Weight-wise, like I said I was 76.4kg on Wednesday and Thursday, but was 78kg today, so I expect to be peeing lots tomorrow!

Rodgau 10km Race Report – Year goal number 1 completed!

Race day = Race report!

Build up was just a normal day, slept well, ate omelette and porridge (not together) for breakfast, then went into town for a bagel and Kona coffee (cue jokes about that being the closest I will ever get to Kona) before meeting Jochen to go to Rodgau.  Judith kindly came with us today as support.  I knew that there are lots of fast runners who do Rodgau 10km, so my PB wouldn't get me near the top 20, but that meant there would always be people to run with, which is a good thing.

It was really cold, so I put off getting ready until 25 mins before the start, then 'prepared myself' for the race adequately, and warmed up.  We were quite a few people back from the start line, the usual idiots were pushing to the front, even though they will quickly fall to the back.  That made the first 400m a bit annoying as I tried to overtake the rolling roadblocks.  After 600m or so I was pretty much free, with Jochen behind me I couldn't see how he had negotiated the traffic.  The course seemed to have occasional slight downhills, but never any uphills, I know that is impossible but that is how it was!

The first 4km felt pretty easy, I didn't have HR and ave pace showing on my watch, as it was all in a forest, so I expected that to be wrong anyway.  Looking at the time and the KM markers, I saw that I was at about 3:50/km pace, which is faster than PB pace, but slower than 38min pace.  In Rüsselsheim, I felt like it would be hard to keep my pace up after 4km, in Rodgau it felt easy.  After 5km my time was exactly 19 mins, and I mean exactly! I had noticed though that the slight breeze had been against us in the first half, and should, thus, be behind us in the second half, bonus!

I continued passing people, whilst not once being overtaken myself.  The next km was in 3:46, wow, that means I am faster than 38 min pace by quite a bit, and still feeling good!  the same happened in the next km and the next, all of a sudden 37:30 seemed on the cards, if a stretch. After 8km I saw 30:04 on my watch, I could run almost 4min/km for the last 2 and still break 38!  At this point I was aware that there were some gastro-intestinal issues on the horizon, but I had seriously decided that with my black running tights on, I wasn't going to miss my PB for anything, and I mean anything! Luckily it didn't come to that, but it was a serious fear for a few minutes there!

Finally in the last km I caught a small group of guys and a girl ahead of them.  It crossed my mind that I could just follow them for the last few hundred metres and be happy with my time, but memories of missing 3rd in my age group in Rüsselsheim spurred me on, so I sprinted on by.  With 100m to go I passed the woman in front of them, maybe she was the first woman I thought, that would be good, not to be chicked in a good field.  I sprinted in and stopped my watch at 37:22, unbelievable!  A 3:30 last km and my first goal of the year not only reached, but destroyed! I gasped for air but got it together enough to watch Jochen run in a 38:45, a good run and a big PB for him (it's only his 2nd 10km and the first went far worse than it should have).

The one slight disappointment was when the results came out.  I had seen that they had little silver running shoes as prizes in the age groups, after my race I had thought I had a chance of one of the 5 in my age group, but I soon saw that I was 9th and would have needed a 34:48 to get 5th!
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I was 48th overall, but bugger it, I can't help others being dead fast!  I saw that the woman I passed at the end was the 2nd woman, only 20 seconds behind the 1st woman, so close.

A 50cent honey waffle and coffee were perfect after-race nourishment before heading back to Mainz for a swim.

With no more 10km races on the horizon, this PB might stand for a while.  The next planned race is Frankfurt half in 4 weeks, sub-1:25 looks very likely now along with ticking goal 2 off the list 🙂

https://www.strava.com/activities/251639160
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