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)

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)