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)