First Race of the Season

In four weeks I am going to run my first half marathon. I am entering the last third of my training schedule and will have my last long run this weekend. It's going to be a 20 km (12.4 mile) run and the longest distance I will be covering during my training. I am pretty confident that I'll be able to finish that run without any major problems since I have been steadily building my endurance since January. I have been running 3 - 4 times a week. Throughout the week I usually do shorter but faster runs and on the weekends I have been steadily increasing the distance. My long runs so far were a 16 km (10 mile) and a 18 km (11 mile) run and I felt pretty good about my performance. I did go slow as my schedule asked for the runs to be at 70% of my HF max. I am hoping that I can increase the speed during the actual race and I would like to be running at about 80%. But since this is my first half marathon I am also going to play it safe and am thinking about going for a negative split. That would have me starting the race off pretty slow (maybe 75%) until the halfway point. I will then see how I feel that day and try to pick up the pace for the second half of the run to finish that one faster than the first. But all in all this is not about results. I will be truly happy and excited if I can cross that finish line with a smile on my face! I'll let you know how it goes!

2012

Well, well... I am realizing that I am not a daily blogger. But whenever I get around to posting here, I enjoy sharing my thoughts and training efforts with you. 

So, here's what's been going/what will be going on:

First of all I turned 30. This makes me have to change the "about" section of this blog. This is hopefully going to be the year of my first (and second) completed triathlon, completed half-marathon, and relay-marathon. The first event is actually going to be the half-marathon in early April and my twelve week training plan for that will start in 1.5 weeks. Although I have been steadily running, I am excited to officially start my half-marathon training soon. If you ask me now, I find it quite hard to imagine that I will be ready to run a half marathon in about 4 months from now. Crazy! But I am a training-plan person and know that I will stick to it once I start. I guess it kind of has a placebo effect on me because I am positive that I will feel ready to go the distance when I have stuck with and completed the training plan.

For christmas I got myself the new and improved p90x program which is fittingly called p90x2! I have finished the first week of the 90 day program and am hooked. I like the challenge this routine poses for me after I have gotten used to the moves in the previous sequel. I am going to have to see how often I will be able to fit in one of the workouts since I will be running about 4 times a week and I will also be cycling and swimming. In any case, it's a great supplemental workout and since I like it so much, I am sure that I will make time to fit it in here and there.

I asked people to give me money for my birthday because I still need a lot of equipment for the triathlon. There's so much stuff I need and I just couldn't decide what to do with the extra cash I got. I am definitely going to need a triathlon suit and wet suit for the races, but I will have rare use for them during training. My road bike definitely needs to be a little pimped and I would like to get aero-bars and proper bike shoes. Right now it's just so cold outside and I am mostly using my stationary bike. Having said that I have come to the conclusion that I will use the b-day money for a indoor bike trainer that holds my actual bike. That way I will be able to use my bikey and I can work on my my position and set up. I have also found a series of indoor-bike-training-videos that I would like to purchase. That way I should be able to get through the second half of the winter with some nice cycling-sessions.

As you can see or read, I am totally pumped and ready to go! 2012 here I come!

Lightning Speed

In my last post I was talking about how I was having a hard time getting faster. After my workout yesterday I can tell you a different story. Here's my recipe to a new personal speed record:

Ingredients:

• A week full of dealing with the most ridiculous stupidities at work
• Wanting to leave on time on Friday to go exercise but having to work overtime because of ingredient no. 1
• Coming home on Friday just to realize that there's no time left for a workout before little brother comes for a visit
• Watching the husband getting serious on the indoor exercise bike
• A dark park
• A 7 km long distance to cover 
• Being hungry

Directions:

Mix all the ingredients together and lace up your running shoes. Get going thinking about how much easier your job could be if everybody else was properly doing theirs. Entering the park with really dim lighting and wondering about what some of the creepy looking people are doing there who are not walking their dogs or jogging. 

My Results:

• A 5:30 min/km pace as opposed to a 6:50/km pace
• Me panting like a dog
• Me wondering if I have been secretly slacking during all my prior workouts
• Me putting aside the worries about the job until next week

Finally :-)

Today was the day! I went out and did my first workout in 17 days. Yesterday I was already not feeling sick anymore and I decided that I would pick up my routine again today. This morning I got up and although it is a cold day, it is beautiful blue-skies fall day and I just had to go for a run. Since I didn't know how I would feel and how it would go, I just laced up my shoes with no real intentions for this run. I just wanted to get going and see what it feels like. I went down to the river, started to jog and thoroughly enjoyed being out and about. My breathing was good, no chest pain, no coughing and lots of sun and colored leaves. I decided to run a loop, crossing the river over one bridge and returning on another. That course is between 6 and 7 km long and I wasn't really going to check on my pace or anything. I felt so good that I was really surprised to see my heartrate when I checked it after I ran up the ramp to the bridge. The watch displayed a shockingly high 188 bpm! I don't think I have ever seen my heartrate go that high. And because I felt so good about my run I would have never guessed that it would be that high. I continued to go slower to reach an acceptable heartrate-level but it only went down to about 170 bpm which is still higher than normal for me. It took me 45 minutes to finish the run and I am happy that I went. I know that being sick can affect your heartrate and I will have to monitor it as I go on with my workouts. I wonder how long it will be until it really goes back to an acceptable range. The plan is to return to my usual 6 days of running, swimming and biking this week and I feel confident that I can pick up pretty much where I left two weeks ago. I might have to go a little slower and I am not going to push really hard but I am definitely ready to get going!

Marathon Plans

Hello! I am back… although, I haven’t really been gone anywhere. As much as I like my blog and talking about triathlons here, it somehow was not possible for me to sit down and take a couple of minutes to let you all know how the training has been going lately. But there are some exciting news: Some of my friends, my mom, my husband, my brother and I have signed up to run a relay marathon next spring. What started out as a (somewhat drunk) conversation about exercising at a friend’s birthday party turned into the eight of us participating in the marathon. The race is one of the biggest marathons in Germany and each team consisting of four members splits up the total of 42,195 km (26.2 miles) in four legs. Everybody will be running right around 10km (6 miles) and we decided that the slower team has to provide the beer for the after marathon-party. I guess that my run-training next spring is coming together. I will start the official training for my half marathon in early April in January 2012. After the half marathon I am going to do the relay race in late April and the first Olympic distance triathlon will be in early July. The focus on the running earlier in the year still gives me plenty of time to turn to the swim and bike training later although I am going to continue to incorporate the two throughout. It’s going to be interesting how I will manage to run and bike in the winter though. Time and weather will tell and I will continue to let you know about it here!

Training Recap

This weekend was a special one as far as my training goes because it included two 'first times'. As I've told you in my last post I started off this weekend doing my first brick workout on Friday. It was a beautiful, sunny day and I did a 1:50 h bike ride followed by a short 10 minute run. I dropped my bike off, changed into my running gear and dashed outside the door for the run. I know that I am not a fast runner but I felt as if I was going incredibly fast at first- way too fast. I had read before that coming off the bike, the runner's legs want to go faster than they should and that it takes some time to adjust the rhythm. I experienced that and found that I was just starting to feel more comfortable when I was almost finishing my jog around the block. I was still happy to be done after two hours of working out and am looking forward to getting more experienced at my bricks in the months to come.

Saturday morning I went for a swim at a local public pool that I had not been to before. It opened at 8 am and I was there shortly after. There were already quite a few swimmers, but it wasn't crowded and everybody could comfortably swim in their own lane. My plan called for a 25 minute swim only but I was so glad to be having so much space in the pool that I stayed in the water and did the full 1.5 km (0.9 mile) Olympic distance swim for the first time. It took me 45 minutes and afterwards I was very pleased with my work outs so far. Although I was considering to take Sunday off, I did a short 40 minute run first thing in the morning. It was another beautiful warm morning and I just enjoyed to be out in the still sleepy and quiet city. The fellow joggers and people walking their dogs in the park all seemed to be fairly content themselves. At least that's the impression I got and it sent me off to a perfect fall-Sunday.

1st Morning Run

Training for a triathlon I have to make time to swim, bike, and run plus I do strength training and stretching. When I go to work in the mornings I do leave the house shortly before 7 am and I usually return home between 2 and 3 pm. That gives me enough time to do my workouts in the afternoon but lately I have been skipping other chores by always putting my workouts first. Right now I am staring at a huge pile of laundry that needs to be ironed just to give you an example. I figured that I have to fit in some of my workouts before I leave for work to get all the things done that won't just disappear because I am into exercising. Well, I wouldn't say that I necessarily am a morning person and I have been hesitant to set my alarm earlier just to go running. But yesterday was the day that I gave a morning run a shot. To be honest I must admit that I didn't have to go to work normal time. I did have to leave the house for a meeting at 10:30 am. So I wanted to be back from my run by nine to be able to shower and eat before leaving. I decided to just go for a very short 3 km run down by the Rhine river. When I left the house at around 7:50 the streets were busy with people rushing to work. School kids were everywhere and I felt great because I was on my way to do something nice. I got to the river and settled in to a nice slow jog. There were just a few other people in the park. Some were running, others were walking their dogs. I would say that I definitely have to get used to be working out so early in the day but although this was just a very short run, the overall experience was great. I even stayed down there for my stretching which I usually do at home because I don't feel comfortable stretching in the park around all the other people but yesterday, I was pretty much alone and having a great time. What I hadn't expected was that the whole rest of the day I felt great because I had already gotten a workout in and didn't have to worry about when I would be able to do it.

It was a great start of my week and I am sure that I will be slowly trying to do more of my workouts in the mornings. Even before I have to go to work.