Race Report – Erich Fill Triathlon

I found out about an olympic distance triathlon in Taunusstein a while back, and decided to give it a go.  It's not a real olympic distance as the swim is only 1000m (in a pool) but the cycle is pretty hilly, so it looked like a good training event.

I met up with Jochen this morning at 7:30 to head over to Taunusstein, we got there in good time and could check in and watch the jederman race and the sprint start before the olympic started.  I had forgotten my HR monitor, so don't have any HR data for the day, a travesty I know, but what can I do.  Jochen started at 9:30, so I watched his swim, a not great 22:20.  Then I got into the water.  There was a bit of discussion in our lane about who wanted to swim at what pace, it turned out that only me and 1 other thought we would go sub-20 mins, so I took the lead.  I was hoping to swim 18mins or less, and having started and leaving the other 5 in my lane behind, I felt like it could happen.  The swim went by quite quickly and easily, and I jumped out to see an 18:34 time, a bit disappointing but no nightmare, 3:45 ahead of Jochen.

My transition was decent, I found my bike easily and got my stuff on easily enough.  I went sockless and didn't try a fancy flying mount, so it was all standard.  I started passing people pretty quickly on the bike route, especially as it went uphill from the start.  The other TCEC guy there – Jörg Zech – was a better swimmer than me but I caught him near the end of the first climb.  Someone came past me like a train on a short sprint hill, I thought that he was either awesome, or an idiot, I passed him a few mins later and didn't see him again, so I will let you decide which he was!  My recce from last week paid dividends a couple of times when going around corners leading into steep climbs, I could get into gear in advance and have a good flying start.

There is a really steep hill which was tough, I reckon at least 15% for a few hundred metres, but I got over it in my bottom gear at 400w, then overtook a few more people, 1 of whom had passed me on the downhill when I was busy messing up the corners.  It started to get a bit quiet on the bike, I was riding really well and after passing a girl and a guy on the last big climb, I didn't see anyone else, so I started to think I could possibly be in 1st place.  I got over the last hill and kept the pace up on the slight downhills that followed, right at the end I managed to undo my shoes and get my feet out for a faster dismount, though not yet flying.  I put my bike on the rack but couldn't see my shoes.  I was a bit confused until I noticed that some cock had put his towel over my running shoes, what a dickhead, I wish I had thrown his shoes away in retrospect, but I didn't.

I headed out on the run.  I had seen that there were 2 bikes already racked, and no one entered transition while I was there, so I seemed in a solid 3rd place in my start group.  I was worried about my run as I haven't been running enough, so I feared a 42m+ 10km run and was also a little worried that the girl I had passed would be really fast on the run, but I started off well.  I asked the helpers how many were ahead of me, 2, disappointing.  The course is 4 laps, the first half is against the wind and goes a little uphill, the 2nd half is with the wind and downhill.  I liked that route as it is hard work followed by an easy rest downhill.  My GPS said that I was running 4:05/km after the first lap, I thought that would naturally fall to slower than 4:10/km.  After 2 laps my pace was actually faster, but I was also disappointed to see that my time was 18mins, so the course was way shorter than advertised.  The last 2 laps went by pretty uneventfully, no one passed me, I lapped or double lapped lots of people but didn't catch either of the 2 ahead of me that were for position.  Lots of people were saying to me that I looked like tit was very easy, I had to say something like, "it doesn't feel it!" but actually it wasn't the hardest run ever. My pace actually increased on each lap, and to be honest, I could have gone much longer at that pace on that course.

I ended at 36mins, pretty happy with my day, even if it was only an 8.9km run.  My swim wasn't perfect but decent, my bike was good and my run stronger than feared too.  My time was 2:05:11, about 5mins40 ahead of Jochen, meaning he lost almost all of it on the swim!  I was 5th overall, with decent gaps to the top few, the winner did 1:58:28, swimming 1 min faster, cycling 6 mins faster than me and running a few seconds slower than me. My Swim was 25th, Bike 5th and Run 3rd from the 57 entrants, lots to do still on the swim.  I need to swim 16 mins to get a top 5 swim time.

I got my medal for 3rd in my age group and went home happy, but not too exhausted.  No races now until 16. August, so the next 2 weekends will be big training weekends, I don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing anymore!

Next up Merzig City Triathlon Sprint.

Week 30 – Long rides

Week 30 was a good one. I have been struggling to get in my miles, but this week I hit 2 of my 3 targets and did 18h of training, so I can’t complain!

Monday was a complete rest day, I was feeling tired and it was deserved! On Tuesday I went for a 10.5km run, just 5m/km, nothing special.
I took Wednesday off work so that I could do a long ride. I left the house at 10am and rode to Bingen. That was the easy bit, then came the hills! It was up and down for the next 80km or so, with the wind against me whenever it was a bit flatter. I felt strong on the climbs (on my road bike) and put some effort into some of them. Near the end of the day I was getting really tired, but still could keep an ok tempo going. It ended up being 184km at 27km/h with 2700m of climbing. My TSS was 365, which is much more than the bike leg of the ironman will be (270TSS is my plan), though I definitely didn’t feel like running a marathon afterwards, so that was good news!

strava of long cycle

On Thursday I had to go to Wiesbaden after work, so took it as a leg stretch totalling 33.6km, including getting lost a few times!
On Friday I was worried that I hadn’t run much so I ran before work, 10.5km again at about 5m/km.. standard.

On Saturday I went for a swim at TBB. It wasn’t a good one at all really, with my 100m times near 1:50-2:00 all the time. I got in 2500m before having to head into town, I thought I might manage another swim on Sunday, but it didn’t happen. Later I went for a longer run. I had planned to do a bit more than 20km, but my stomach wasn’t having any of it! I did 17.8km officially before deciding to call it off, but I ended up jogging home as I was still 1km from my flat, but I haven’t counted that. The pace wasn’t great at 5:08/km HR of 145 is ok, but my guts were just hurting by the end, I will have to get a proper longer run in next week.

On Sunday I met up with Jochen to do a recce of the Erich Fill triathlon that we are doing next weekend. We went on the Wiesbaden 70.3 bike course for a while, then went up the Platter. For some reason Jochen likes this climb, even though it is quite long, quite steep and on a main road, not the sort I like at all. I was on the front and setting a decent pace, like 310w or so. About half way up he came past me and decided to push it as hard as he could, I was hanging on as he really gave it all! If it was a mountain top finish in the tour that would have been a decent amount of effort, but with plenty left to ride, I think he went a bit hard! We rolled down to Taunusstein and found that start point of the triathlon route. It goes straight uphill, pretty steep at times. We managed to take the wrong turn at every opportunity but eventually found the right way. Just after the 2nd loop of the 8 shaped course starts there is a nasty incline, maybe 15% for 500m, that will be interesting next week. That is followed by a long 300m vertical climb, all at a reasonable gradient, but a leg sapper, before a roll down to the end. It’s a good course, but dangerous as it will be easy to destroy the legs before the run. We cycled back to Mainz and ended the ride after 127.4km easily getting me past the 300km weekly target. It was also 273TSS, making it as hard as my Ironman bike leg, twice in a week, nice!

Later in the evening I went out for a run to get me to 50km for the week. I had planned an interval session, but my legs weren’t good and it was humid and windy, so I just jogged around until I got in my 11.1km to get to my 50km goal.

It was a good weeks training, it’s a shame about the swimming, but as I plan next week to be a bit easier, I will be able to get in more swimming then (maybe twice and the 1k triathlon swim). I feel like my cycling is coming together but my run isn’t so good. I will start increasing the runs a bit in the next (and last) cycle before Köln.

Running – 50km (1311,1km YTD)
Cycling – 344.7km (5324km YTD)
Swimming – 2.5km (102,35km YTD)

Week 29 – Punctures aplenty

As last week was a really bad one for running, I decided to get going on some intervals early this week, so did a late evening 6x1km interval session.  I was running 1km slightly uphill at about 4:05 then 1km slight downhill at about 3:35 pace.  It wasn't too bad really, the weather was much cooler and I felt like I could go on.  It was 14km total at about 4:40/km average.

Tuesday I ended up doing nothing, I forget now why, I guess I was tired, but who knows!

On Wednesday I got up at 6am and ran my 10,5km route at 4:57/km pace.  In the evening I cycled to Nieder-Olm and it wasn't crazily full for once, so I got 3000m in before heading home.  It was a good session with the pool gradually getting emptier as time passed as I got there about 90 mins before it closed.

Thursday I stupidly went for a run in the evening after eating quite late after work.  That meant that my stomach was all over the place, but I got through it anyway, even if it was very slow at 5:17/km for 10.5km.

Friday: I knew that I had a lot of cycling left to do if I would do my 300km for the week, so I cycled 75km on my road bike in the evening.  It was really nice and at a decent clip too.  I attacked the Muy de Dittlesheim which was fun too, 1min at full power.  I got back feeling good and ready for my real long ride on Saturday.

So as prep on Saturday, I found a GPS online and downloaded it.  I wanted to go to Odenwald so found a 80km route from Mainz into the Odenwald.  Apparently I didn't check that it was for Road bikes, and I spend a lot of time on quite questionable paths, but usually it was ok.  It was slow going though, so my average was just over 25km/h.  I got to Zell and the road I was supposed to take was closed, and I had 85km+ on the clock already, so I turned for home.  I didn't want to mess around too much, so headed straight for Darmstadt, from where it would be an easy 40-45km home.  I saw a sign saying it was 7km to Darmstadt, then a left turn saying 10km to darmstadt, so I continued on the shorter route.  After about 1km the road ended at a motorway, with a bike route going on through a forest.  I took the bike route, but it was a bad one, very bumpy and lots of sharp stones everywhere.  Sure enough, I got a puncture after 1 or 2km.  I stopped and changed the tyre, but that went again a few hundred jaw breaking metres later, leaving me in the middle of no where.  I decided I had to push my bike to the nearest town, Roßdorf, and hope there was a train station there.  It turned out there wasn't one, but I could take a bus to Darmstradt, then a train to Mainz and Tram home 🙁  I had at least cycled 120km, so it wasn't a dead loss, though it was a lot of effort and 2 inner tubes and my cleats ruined.

On Sunday I had to ride again to get 300km in, so I rode 54km early on.  My planned run was chucked and I cycled to the pool later for another 3km swim.  I needed another 20km to get to 300km, so in the rain, I cycled an extended route home, ending with 302km for the week!

Running: 35.1km (1261,1km YTD)
Cycling 302km (4979,3km YTD)
Swimming 6km (99,85km YTD)

(The nearly forgotten heatwave of) Week 28

I didn't get around to writing last weekend, as work has been busy.  So here is a quick update of the last 2 weeks as best as I can remember them.

So the day after the Worms triathlon was boiling hot, the start of a heat wave.  I decided I would go swimming in Nieder-Olm in the evening, except that is was a) too warm water and b) jammed with people swimming anywhere but straight ahead.  I only swam 2k before chucking it as I was getting too annoyed by people swimming across me and not being able to swim at a proper pace.  I cycled to and from the pool (extended ride through Sörgenloch on the way home) for 30km extra riding.

On Tuesday it was too hot to run, so I cycled after work.  It was just a 90min ride but I got through my 2 bottles and was thirsty at the end! Usually they are pretty much untouched for rides under 2h.  Average speed was a tick over 30km/h on the road bike for 45km, I couldn't be bothered to switch the power meter over, but I planned to soon. Though it was hot, I blasted up Harxheim for my best time ever, when the wind is friendly I will set a real time up there and get higher on the KOM list.

On Wednesday it was another 35degree day, so I planed to get up at 6am to run, but when the alarm went, I was too tired and slept another hour.  I went to the pool in my lunch break (as I had to stay at work until 10pm) it was so full that I went to the indoor pool and did 2100m before heading back to work.  On Thursday I dragged myself out of bed at 6am, but it was still 26 degrees when I ran!  It was fairly standard at 4:59/km for 10.5km, I did that again on Friday, when it was just as hot again.

On Saturday I was behind the 8ball and wanted to go for a long long ride, but it was 40 degrees and sunny all day.  I finally went out for a ride in the evening, but only did 75km at a slow 26km/h.  I was getting through bottles like it was going out of fashion, stopping to fill up at a questionable well in Partenheim!  It really wasn't a good one for me, but better than nothing I guess.

Sunday was Frankfurt Ironman day, so I met Jochen and cycled to watch how the pros do it!  The ride wasn't hard, but the temperature was still crazy.  It was about 45km there and a bit less back.  I also cycled to the Nieder-Olm pool for another short swim in the evening, even though it was too full again, and the normally crystal clear water was milky white, apparently due to sun cream not dissolving in the water!.

Not a good training week, but with the weather as it was, I couldn't do much more 🙁

Running 21,2km (1226km YTD)
Cycling 262km (4677,3km YTD)
Swimming 6.1km (93,85km YTD)

End of week 27 – easier week

So I hadn't planned an easier week, but that's how it ended up, so I will just have to live with it!

Things started well on Monday with a 10.7km run at 4:48/km. Average HR was 138 which is great, my aerobic base seems to be good.  On Tuesday I cycled to the pool in Nieder Olm, swam 2.7km before cycling into town to meet friends for a few beers.  It totalled 25km cycling, again pretty decent.

I had Wednesday off work so wanted to do a long ride.  There was a wasps nest in my window shutters, so an exterminator had to come around, so i had to wait until that was done.  I also had arranged to meet Katja at 2pm and I was tired, so I lounged around and napped instead of riding!  I finally got myself out to ride in the late afternoon, though only for 91km at 32km/h on my road bike.  It was actually good fun, I really attacked the hills, setting some Strava PBs.

On Thursday I ran late with Katja.  It was a pretty relaxed pace.  I was in work until late and the weather was hot, so we ran at about 7pm for about an hour.
On Friday I went straight from work to the pool and swam 2.7km again.  On Tuesday I had been fast, with my 200m repeats being at 3:25 or so.  On Friday I was slow!  Repeats were more like 3:50.  I guess the water temp (26 vs 20) and clothing (trisuit vs loose shorts) played a part, but I didn't feel so good on Friday either, whereas I was flying on Tuesday!

I should have cycled on Friday evening, but didn't.  That left me needing a big ride on Saturday to catch up.  I woke up to heavy rain…  It dried up by about 11am and I was good to go by 1pm, when an almighty flash storm hit, so I decided that this week could be my easier week instead of next week.  So I did nothing on Saturday except nap and generally be lazy!

Sunday was Worms Tri day.  I cycled 18km to the start then did the event, see the race report.

Running 26.2km (1204,8km YTD)
Cycling 154.1km (4415,3km YTD)
Swimming 6.2km (87.75km YTD)

Race Report – Worms Nibelungen Triathlon

I made my debut for TCEC yesterday in the 2. Landesliga.  The event was the Nibelungen sprint triathlon in Worms, 750m swimming, 22km cycling and 5km running.  It had been cold most of the week and stormy, so I had expected that it would be wetsuit legal.

Troubles even getting there

Jochen picked my up at 8am, he was going to Lampertheim sprint triathlon, which is quite close to Worms, so I joined him and would cycle the last part.  Obviously the roads were closed between Lampertheim and Worms, so my 10k cycle became an 18k cycle, but no harm done, my start time wasn’t until midday anyway.  I found the TCEC tent and the organisers had no idea who I was, I guess that’s what happens when you never go to team swim or run training!  Karl-Heinz seemed to be in charge and was a really nice and friendly guy, he gave me a TCEC polo shirt, told me where to put my transition stuff and explained a bit about how it will all work (there are 2 separate transition zones and they take your bike in T2, you don’t have to park your bike).

Waiting

I rolled over to the swim start area with the masters team as they were starting at 11am, even though it was barely 10am.  I got my bike checked in, but ended up sitting doing nothing for nearly 2h, except for watching the Masters start and finish their swim.  They had worn wetsuits… Christian Hafner was in the masters team, another nice guy, I spent most of my time before and after the race talking with him.  He had done a 1:26 last year and was hoping to get below 1:20 this year with a bit more experience and training behind him.  About half an hour before the start we were told that it was not wetsuit legal, some rubbish about the youth teams swimming with us and that means we can’t wear wetsuits…  It was cold, so that wasn’t ideal.

No wetsuits allowed

We started on the dot at midday.  I settled into my swim pretty quickly.  I gave up a few places in the manic start, but soon started catching people and overtaking.  It was a one loop swim and it was over pretty quickly.  I saw 12:13:59 as I stepped out of the water, so a 14min swim, ok not not spectacular.  I got to my bike and a team mate was already there, another – Christoph, arrived immediately after me.  My transition wasn’t great but ok and I left just behind Christoph and a bit behind Tim (the guy who was already there).

Technical Bike

On the cycle I found pretty quickly that I was about the same pace as Christoph, so I tucked in 10m behind him. We passed quite a few people, including Tim.  The course was quite technical with lots of right angle or more turns.  Otherwise it was flat and fast and there were always people around me.  I wanted to pass Christoph for a while, but as the route was narrow, I couldn’t.  Eventually I managed it, apparently annoying him in doing so, he came back past me a few seconds later.  The cycle ended pretty quickly and I was soon in T2.

Although we had been told that they would take our bikes from us, they didn’t, and apparently we should have just known that we should hang them on the rack at the side…  After a few seconds lost there, I ran to my shoes.  I was number 231 but couldn’t find where my place was.  It is obviously mainly my fault for not making a mental note earlier, but as I ran back and forth along the rows, I was getting frustrated.  It must have lost a minute there.  I hadn’t got my watch set to run, but looked and saw it was just after 12:48, so I could expect a 1:08 end time with an ok run.

Strava Bike File

Hot Running

It was hot and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky for the run.  I set off and soon saw that I wasn’t the slowest!  Only one overtook me near the start, whereas I passed a few.  It was 2×2.5km, but the first loop seemed to last for ages!  There was a TCECer was behind me and that the 2 ahead of me (Christoph and Max) were long gone.  I ran ok, but seem to be lacking my top gear, same as all of my other races recently.  I got overtaken by the TCECer behind me (Stephan Jung), and ran in to finish in 1:07:37.  It was  pretty decent overall, though my transitions were rubbish and my run could and should be better.
.After 3.5km with Stephan closing in on my

So that’s the end of the Nibelungen Triathlon and my 5 weekends in a row of racing. I am glad that it is over to be honest, now I can get back to training!  I still plan to do Merzig Sprint on August 15th and the club championship 1 week before Köln.  A Taunusstein Olympic distance is also my list on the 26th of July too, though the 550m of climbing over 40km cycle route seems tough!

10 weeks to go!

End of week 26 – JPMCC DNS and Swim Sets

Ok week 26! Half the year is over, it's gone by fast!
I started off the week on Monday with run before work.  It was 10.7km (poop runde) at just under 5m/km pace.  Nice and easy and a good start to the week.
I went swimming straight after work, and this time the pool was warm enough and not full, which hasn't happened so often recently.  I took my fins with me and tried mixing together a full work out using the pull, paddles and fins, not all at once!  I ended up swimming 3200m, my longest swim ever.  I feel like my swimming is coming on nicely, and I am quite enjoying it too, who'd have thunk it?

Tuesday I decided to try my first cycling intervals for ages.  I just cycled to Wahlheimerhof and did 3 mins at 360w 3 times, then did an easy loop up to Sörgenloch, then another 3x3mins.  I should probably do either more intervals, or longer intervals, but it was a start.  I will try to fit in some intervals every week from now on.

Wednesday was the JP morgen corporate challenge in Frankfurt.  It is a big 5.6km race.  I left work just after 5pm and set off to cycle to Frankfurt.  GoogleMaps told me that it was about 40km, so I would have plenty of time, even on the route next to the Rhein.  Soon enough I got lost in Raunheim and ended up cycling round lost for quite a while.  Eventually I just went to the river and hugged it all the way to the sign in point.  Unfortunately it was already 7:20 when I arrived after 55km, so I signed in and jogged to the start.  I got there 3 minutes late, but found 30k people at the start line waiting.  After 30 mins I had hardly moved forward, then after 1h I decided it wasn't worth it, so left without running – DNS.  I tried to cycle as far as I could back to Mainz, but apparently took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up back in Frankfurt after 16km, so just got the train.  Not a hugely successful day, but 71km cycled and 2 T shirts and a pari of running shorts for the collection so I won't cry too much.

Thursday was another swim day.  I went straight after work again and did a planned set.  It goes like this.
200m crawl easy warm up
50m Breast – 50m crawl, 50m back, 50m crawl, 50m breast, 50m crawl. 500m warm up total.
5x200m crawl, no training aids
3x(200m paddles and pull, 200m fins, 200m pull)

for a total of 3300m.  It felt quite interesting all the time, with each different 200m testing something a bit different.  I felt quite fast too, I think the seconds are starting to fall off.

Friday I ran after work.  I wanted to run a bit longer than normal, but I was pretty hungry and went too fast really.  I only did 13km, but at 4:42/km and 143bpm HR, it was pretty good overall.
On Saturday I was feeling very tired and lazy.  I knew I had the Wiesbaden Duathlon on Sunday, so didn't want to burn out my legs.  I had decided to go to Mombach for the TCEC swim, usually that is from 2-4pm, but in Summer apparently it is 10-12 instead, too early for me on that day.  So I had a nap, and watched rubbish online, before final dragging my ass out for a 91km ride.  It was actually pretty good, with some hard efforts and a 32.1km/h average speed.  I felt like I should have gone on for another hour, but I turned back for Mainz mainly as I had started out with the wind, and feared that after the turn I would be in a world of hurt (it wasn't as bad as I had feared.)

On Sunday I enjoyed my sleep in until 6:30am, when I had to get up to eat before the Duathlon.  I cycled to town to meet Jochen, then we went to the start.  Though the weather forecast was quite cold, but dry, it was wet.  About 30 mins from the start it really started raining hard, which on a hilly and technical course is a nightmare.  I will write a race report, but it didn't go well for me.

Again when I got home I was feeling tired, I wrote off swimming and cycling and had a nap.  That was until 7:30pm when I decided finally that I wanted to do something, so I cycled to Nieder-Olm and swam.  I only got into the water at about 8:10pm and it closed at 9pm, so I was time limited.  I did a fast 2k swim, with 2 times the sets I described on Thursday after my warm up, then did 300m to finish.  The entire 2000m took 39mins or so, then I rode home.  I was happy with my decision as I enjoyed the swim and added 21km to my cycling week.

I think I have to be careful with over-reaching at the moment.  I am feeling tired, maybe because of the races at the weekends.  I am going to do this week normal, then next week take an easier week to recover.  I have Wednesday off work this week, so I will try to get a long ride in then, that should reduce the stress next weekend of getting in my 300km for the week.  I have realised that my base mileage I want to do per week is actually 17+h of training, so on a 'bad week' like this one, where I only manage 14.5h of training, I think I can cut myself a bit of slack!

Running 33.6 (1178.6km YTD)

Cycling 255.7 (4261.2km YTD)
Swimming 8.5 (81.55km YTD) biggest swimming week ever

End of week 25 – Tired

After Wasserstadt on Sunday, I decided to have Monday off, so no training.  I have felt like that was a good choice, but that I wanted to get my full week of training into 6 days hasn't been such good thinking, especially with a race on Saturday meaning more intensity and less long stuff.

On Tuesday I went for an easy run with Katja, 10.7km at 5:26/km.  Wednesday was swim/bike day.  I went to Taubertsbergbad and swam 3km.  I did my fairly normal set, with 500m of hand paddles too.  I had the feeling that my pace is slowly increasing, normal pace seems to be more like 1:48/100m instead of 1:50+ of a few weeks ago. I got home and though I couldn't really be bothered to cycle, I managed to get out for a 30km ride at about 32km/h.  It was actually quite nice, low effort but decent pace – 222w AP 239w NP.

Thursday was a longer post work cycle.  I went out to do my 72km loop that I have done a couple of times, but somehow I managed to get lost in Alzey.  After getting back on track I got through the ride pretty comfortably and with a nice 33km/h final speed 236w AP 255w NP.  It was 74km too, which is a long evening ride for me!

On Friday I got up early and ran.  There were 2 reasons for that, I am starting to fall behind on my running, I am fitting in 3 runs a week but with little to no intensity and nothing long.  That means that I am ticking through 30-45km per week, which isn't a nightmare, but it isn't ideal either.  I might have to do more pre-breakfast runs to get some extra km in.  It was also going to be HOT on friday, so I didn't want to run in 30+ degree heat in the evening.  I did the run anyway, 10.7km at 4:56/km, felt easy but already quite warm, crazy.  I went for a swim on Friday straight after work, even though I knew that the pool would be rammed.  It wasn't as full as last week, but still pretty damn full.  I had decided to swim 1500m, but ended up doing 2000m.  I actually had planned to go further, but a few idiots were blocking the lane, and as I passed someone I accidentally hit a swimmer going in the other direction.  As that was after 1990m or so, I just called it a day.

Saturday was Wallertheim 10k race day.  That is covered in the race report, but I cycled on my road bike to the race.  It was just over 27km.  I cleverly avoided getting on the podium so I could leave early and do an extended loop to Mainz.  I did about 45k back to Mainz, feeling pretty dreadful.  I had bet with myself that my average speed was 23km/h or so, but checked it and saw it was 30km/h, so I guess I was just feeling down.  I cycled straight to the charity event 'Run for Children'.  This team event is held at a running track, loads of company teams run laps for 10 hours, with each lap completed resulting in a 1€ donation to charity.  Me and Katja were running for a Schott team as Jochen had invited us.  I knew that running 400m intervals probably wasn't the best idea after a fairly long day, but I did it anyway!  I pushed the pace for the first few, but soon decided to settle into a comfortable pace for the rest.  I would guess I was running 1:30/400m, so not crazy fast with long breaks between runs.  I think I did about 14 loops, but it could be more or less.  Our team did our 2 hour stint and I was finally done for the day at 9pm.

Today I could feel yesterday's exploits, but it wasn't as bad as I had feared.  i wanted to ride the Kloppenheim duathlon cycling route to see what to expect next week.  To get to 300km for the week I would need to cycle 125km today, which seemed doable.  Jochen messaged me early to ask about riding together, so I met him to ride the loop.  I wasn't really up for a fast ride, so did lots more sat up riding instead of in aero.  We arrived at the start and went for the loop.  It is quite hilly, but not crazy really.  I didn't time it as I wasn't pushing the pace, but apparently we did 47 mins or so.  I reckon there is plenty to come off that time, but we will see next week.  We cycled 94km at a slow 27.6km/h average 188w AP 221 NP.  With the weather being so warm again, I decided about 30 mins ago to bin cycling to the pool for a swim.  That means I won't have met any of my goals for the week, but I am feeling pretty flat at the moment, so I don't think it is worth pushing through to hit some made up goals, better to recover and start afresh tomorrow.

Running: 37.3km (1145km YTD)
Cycling: 270.8km (4205.5km YTD)
Swimming: 5km (73.05km YTD)

Wallertheim 10k Race

This was part 2 of the Wingertscup for me, it wasn't a big goal for me, but I did fancy trying to get a decent time and hopefully gauge my running fitness, which I expect to have tailed off quite a bit since Bonn marathon.

I cycled over to Wallertheim against a fairly unfriendly head-wind, it was about 27.5km to Wallertheim, and I arrived in good time.  I didn't warm up much, but was ready with 100 or so others at the start line at 3pm.  It was quite warm, but I hadn't thought it was too bad.  The race started and as always everyone sprinted off like idiots!  I looked at my GPS after 30 seconds or so and saw 3:20/km, far far too fast.  I settled into my pace and fell into a group with a few people ahead of us.  Soon enough the group slowed down and after about 2.5km I had left them behind.  The route was 'flat' but wasn't pan flat, more like always slightly up or slightly down.  It went in a small loop through the town around lots of tight turns, before going on a long out and back on the way back to the start line.  Each loop was 5km, so we would do it all twice.

As I approached the turn around I counted about 4 ahead of me.  I could also see that lots of people who had been in the group with me were falling way back.  Running back into town was directly with the wind, and it was absolutely boiling hot, very uncomfortable.  I could see that only 3 were ahead of me who were doing the 10k after the first 5k loop was finished.  I was only a few metres behind 3rd place too (see above photo), so I thought I had a good chance of the podium if I didn't fall apart.

The 2nd loop was just hot.  I think the humidity was the main problem.  I had looked at my heart rate after about 2km and had seen that it was 180, even though I felt very comfortable at the pace.  I wasn't really able to get my heart rate down, so I would guess it was from the heat.  I ran just behind third place for the next few km, at the turnaround I had caught him, but as we turned with the wind again, I was starting to boil again and he moved a bit ahead.  I had counted that it was 20 seconds after the turn before I passed the next runner, so that meant I had a 40 second gap, I should be ok unless I almost stop!  The gap stretched to 3rd place and I kind of gave up the ghost.  At the time I felt like a bit of a loser, as I felt like I should run faster, but I just couldn't in the heat.

The last 500m or so were the home straight, I started to pick up the pace and got close to 3rd, but couldn't do enough to pass him, so finished 4th place in 39:49.  I was very disappointed with the time, but I really do think that in a cold race I would have been a lot faster.  4th place isn't bad though, the same as last time!  So my 2 results are done and dusted, I need to do 2 more from the next 3.  I am not sure if I will do Oppenheim as it is 1 week after my Ironman, we will see.

End of week 24 – Easier week before Wasserstadt

This can be a shorter post, as I finally managed to fit in an easier week of training!  I had done a big month for me in May, so this was a perfect chance to rest up before my half distance on Sunday.

Monday – I did nothing!  My first full rest day in a long while!
Tuesday – I went for a 2.5km swim.  I wore my wetsuit and noticed a 12 second per 100m improvement over non-wetsuit swimming!  It was crazy fast, but I didn't want to overdo it and my shoulders were tiring so I only did 2.5km.  The water was so cold I was glad of having the wetsuit!

Wednesday I ran after work and managed to lose my spare key that i take with me for running.  The run itself was good at 4:37/km, but I wasn't too happy to have lost my key 🙁  I went out to find it on my mountain bike, but couldn't.  It was 13km run increasing speed as I went.

Thursday – I ran most of the same loop as on Wednesday and managed to find my key!  The run was pretty average, plenty of stomach problems, but I was happy to get the key back!  10.7km at 4:54/km.

Friday I swam after work.  It was really hot, and the day after a bank holiday, so the pool was jammed, so I did 1.7km.  I just wanted to keep my feel for the water, job done.

Saturday I just rode my TT bike to the bank to get cash out.  I hadn't ridden it all week and wanted to make sure everything was ok.  It seemed to be fine!  No training though.
Sunday – Wasserstadt Triathlon!

Running: 44.8km (1107.7m YTD)
Cycling: 118.6km (3934.7 YTD)
Swimming: 6.1km (68.05km YTD)

This week I will get back on it.  I had Monday as a rest day, but want to get back to 300km+ cycling weeks, but with intervals included.  Running is still on the back burner, so 40km+ per week is enough and swimming at least 3 days a week, I want to start increasing the amount per session too, to over 3km and soon to 3.5km or more on occasion.

Next up is part 2 of the Wingertscup series on Saturday in Wallertheim, a flat 10k race, lets see how much run fitness I have lost!  I predict about a 38min run, slower than 39 would be bad, faster than 38 good.