Tag: putdownthefork!

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)

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)

Midweek update

It’s Thursday morning so I thought I should give a little midweek update.

Last week I flew out of the gates with 4 workouts on Monday and Tuesday, ending up with 9 workouts for the week. This week, not so much!
The long run on Sunday apparently took more out of me than I knew, or lack of sleep caught up with me, or both. I took Monday as a rest day, only doing a bit of strength work. On Tuesday even though I wasn’t up for it at all, I went and did my 7x1km intervals, and actually they went really well, no issues and a lower HR than last week.

Last night I still couldn’t much be bothered, but I went and cycled about 90minutes on the MTB outside. I went with my big headlamp and set off in the direction of Nierstein. I wanted to climb the little hills, whilst avoiding any traffic. All went well until I decided to loop back home on an unknown route, instead of just doing a 180. The path went on for a while, until it ended, so I went off road. Then the track ended too, so I turned back to get back to the track, except that the wet track was so muddy that my tyres just span out without going forward! I walked back to the path, then looked around for a way home. After a few dead ends I was getting worried, aware that my light won’t last forever, when I found a path leading back towards Lorzweiler. By the time I got back to Hechtsheim my ultra-bright headtorch was more like a glow stick, I was happy to get home! I don’t know how great training it is, but it is certainly more fun to MTB than go on the rollers. I think I will just do what I can be bothered to! I see a sufferfest video in my near future too.

So that is where I am, only 1 run and 1 cycle in 3 days. The plan for the rest of the week is: tonight hilly treadmill with some leg/core strength. Tomorrow swim training no. 3 with Max (might squeeze a short run in beforehand). Saturday I want to do the Rüsselsheim Lindensee 10km and go under 39 minutes, then slow jog the 18km or so home. Sunday I will cycle, where and how long is weather dependent.

In other news, I have been eating like a pig for the last 2 evenings. Granted, yesterday I ate very little during the day, but Pizza, porridge and 500g Quark is way too much! I will try to get that back under control today. I am trying to get to bed earlier, so I can get 8-9h of sleep, but I am not sleeping very well. I will keep trying though.