My knee likes Cycling!

After my recent problems in starting to run again, I figured that maybe cycling would be a better idea …

Photo by Kevin Saunders

In the information that I found cycling was quite often mentioned as a good rehab sport after a PCL injury. So I did my exercises as mentioned in the previous post, and when my knee felt better, I got out my bike (even the sun came out a bit!).

At first, I had a little bit of tightness at the top of my pedal stroke, but that was totally bearable and didn’t get any worse. 30 minutes were quite enough though, thank you. After one day of not doing much else than my exercises, I was confident I could tolerate another session today. A little bit longer (45 minutes), but this time it wasn’t the knee that made me end the session but rather the cold. (There is a foot of snow in the weather report for us and rather nasty and cold Easterly wind.)

This was much better than my previous tries of going out for a run. If I’m okay tomorrow morning, then I think I will try to end the year with a little jog. If my knee doesn’t complain after that, then I’m confident that I can get back to training in January. We’ll see how it goes …

Knee not better at all

Haven’t had much fun with my knee in the last days. Every time the pain was gone and I thought I could get back into training, the swelling and pain flared up again so I needed another few days off. I didn’t do anything big, but even two 30 minute runs within three days seemed to be too much. Bummer.

So I think I have to take things a bit slower than I planned and do a few exercises before going out for my next run. Here’s a couple of ideas that I found for strengthening the knee:

1. Front thigh (repeat 10 times)
   Contract the front thigh (knee cup should move up), hold for 10 secs
2. Leg raises (repeat 10 times)
   Lie on the back, one leg extended, the other bent at the knee. Raise the entire leg from the heel up, hold for 5 to 10 secs.
3. Backward leg raise (repeat 10 times)
   Lie on stomach, then lift one leg as high as possible, hold for 5 to 10 secs.
4. Knee bends (repeat 10 to 20 times)
   Stand with feet about shoulder wide (or closer). Bend the knees with a straight back and stop at about 90 degrees (or earlier when there is pain).

These exercises should be done for both legs (so that the uninjured leg is also strengthened) and you should slowly work up to doing them up to three times daily.

Then there are some ROM (range of motion) exercises for the knee such as these:

1. Heel prop
   Elevate your heel on a pillow and allow gravity to straighten your leg (may be done in conjunction with (1) from the strengthening exercises)
2. Prone hang
   Lie on the stomach with your knee and lower leg off the edge of your bed. Again, let gravity extend your leg.
3. Heel slides
   Lie on your back and slide your heel towards the glutes as far as possible. May use the other leg for assistance in pushing.

Hopefully, these exercises will help me get back to regular training. The good news is that swimming and biking should be much easier on the knee. While cycling is not much of an option (it’s been snowing a bit and it’s really cold outside), I might benefit from a swim focus while my knee is healing. I’ll wait a bit before making plans …

Getting back to regular Running

After my recent injury, I’m slowly getting back into something that can be called training.

Last week (my first week back into running after almost three weeks of break, I did three runs. With 23 (Mo), 28 (Fr) and 40 minutes (Su), I didn’t break any training records, but I managed to run without any issues. The knee was okay, and it felt great to be able to get out of the door. Also, I’m way back on my sports podcasts, so I had to get back to running! It’s good to be back on the trails behind our house ..

.. even if it’s mostly dark when I manage to get running after work.

This week, I’ve managed to 48 minute runs on Monday and today (Wednesday). I’m sure I could have run faster and/or longer, but for now the goal has to get back to running on a regular basis. I hope to be able to get at least two, better three more runs in (each shorter than hour), and then to slowly increase the duration of the runs.

It’s always tricky to run around the Christmas holidays, but I should be able to get a few runs in. By the end of December I want to be back in shape to run a decent 10k race that’s on my schedule for New Year’s Eve. I’d like to be able to get a longer run (around 1.30h) in by then, but that is less important than regular running and a bit of faster running.

After all, there are more important goals for next year than just a 26k race I missed because of my injury!

First little step back to fitness

Managed to get my first little run in today. Felt good all the way around. My quadriceps held up fine, no complaints at all (and I was listening very closely!). It felt good to put on the running kit and get outside for a while.

Didn’t do much more than twenty minutes, but it felt like a little victory. On to the next little step!

Planning training after injury

My injury is much better, but after some gentle reminders by my wife to be patient I’ve decided to give it a few more days. So maybe tomorrow or Tuesday.

Photo by Sundaybrunch

In the meantime, I’ve been taken the time to get some extra r&r. After all, when I’m back in full training, there won’t be too many chances to sleep until noon (like I managed to do today). Not sure if I really need all that sleep or if I’ve gotten lazy.

As I can’t do any training, I’ve been reading up on how to plan for starting training again after an injury. As a rule of thumb, for every week of no training, I should expect about two weeks to “recover” any fitness I’ve lost. I haven’t done any training for more than two weeks now, so I can expect to require all of December to get back to the level I was at. I’m tentatively planning one of the New Year’s Eve races on December 31st, but that’s still a long way off and I haven’t managed to run a single step yet. Maybe I’ll better take another nap …

Recovering from my injury .. planning for 2010

It’s been more than a week that I’ve hurt myself again. Apart from eating some Diclofenac pill, wearing a knee bandage and the occasional stretching I haven’t done any sports activity at all.

I’m still not completely healed, but the swelling in my knee is mostly gone and I can move around without thinking too much about my knee. Bending and extending is almost back to normal again and I’m optimistic that I can slowly start running again, depending on my schedule either tomorrow (Thursday) or Friday. Not much more than an easy 15 or 20 minute jog, but I’m getting anxious to get out of the door again.

In the meantime I’ve been on the phone with Mitch from CounterpartCoaching and we’ve been talking about my 2010 season plan. For December the main goal is to get back to regular training, so I don’t want to get too excited now writing about all my goals for 2010. Once I’m back doing my regular training, I’ll post some more details. For now all I’m going to say is that I want to PR in the half-marathon in late winter / early spring and have a decent Ironman in Frankfurt, “running the run”. That should be another PR (marathon within an IM .. currently at 4:36), maybe another one for the full IM (currently 11:58). A long way to go!

Good knee news .. but no race on Sunday

Went to the doctor to let him have a look at my knee. Mainly, I wanted to make sure what was going on and if this would have an impact on my next season’s Ironman plans …

It was the first time I went to this specific doctor, but felt very comfortable. He manipulated my knee quite a bit, but other than the swelling and the resulting inability to properly bend and extend the knee, it wasn’t too uncomfortable. He then went on to take ultrasound pictures and soon gave me the good news that my knee was okay. Based on what he was telling me, I had torn my posterior cruciate ligament twelve years ago, which is something that is not operated on even today. So absolutely no need for an operation.

But what caused the swelling? Based on the ultrasound, I had torn some muscle fibers in my quadriceps muscle which caused a lot of fluid build-up. Here’s the picture:

I’m not sure I got everything he explained, but here’s as best as I understood it. The picture is taken from the knee (on the top right you can still see a bit of the kneecap) up the femur. The top is where my skin is, the bottom goes “into” the thigh towards the bone. On the bottom you can see the femur, on the top you can see the quadriceps. In between is a big “black hole” which is the fluid that has built up.

This fluid will get slowly absorbed by the muscle and weaken the muscle for a bit. Therefore, even when the swelling is gone, the muscle is not yet back to its original strength, it takes a bit longer for the muscle to properly heal.

He estimates about two weeks for the swelling to be completely gone. I can slowly start some training once I can fully extend the knee, but I should start slowly and carefully in order not to hurt the muscle again (like I did last time). A start in Ratzeburg this Sunday is totally out of the picture, I wouldn’t be able to run very well and would be in grave danger to really hurt myself. (Plus, it won’t be any fun at all to have an injury “out in the boonies”.) So I’ll give myself some extra rest this time and figure out how to get back on track during December.

Some good news and some bad news. But I’m totally relived that it’s not anything serious, and that I can still go ahead with my racing plans for 2010!

.. still on!

Another setback

On Friday, I hurt my knee again. Not a chance of running this weekend .. probably means that I can forget my race next Sunday in Ratzeburg. I’m really pooped and disappointed.

But now the first order of business is to find out  what’s causing this and what I can do about it. There’s no way I can train for an  Ironman like this. So I’ve scheduled an doctor’s appointment tomorrow. Hopefully he can give me some more background on what is going on.

In the meantime, I’m reading up on knee injuries, ACL tears and so on. Not exactly encouraging literature …

Weighty Issues – Mid November Update

After taking a little injury break, it’s time to fess up … so here is my latest update from the weight front.

Another photo by radialmoster

Official weigh in Nov 16th: 88.3kg; 17.7% body fat

My goal was to get under 88kg at the end of October. I was hovering around that mark when I hurt my knee, and had a full week of no sport, “tricky situations” with a business trip and conference, and quite a bit of worries and frustration. Then another week of slowly ramping up my training, so I’ve lost two full weeks (which corresponds to one pound at my goal rate of 1kg a month). No magic is going to help me get that back, so I’m relaxing my goals a little bit .. as December will be a bit tricky as well, I’m shooting for under 87kg at the end of December now.

Of course, I’m a bit disappointed, but I think I have realized where my mistakes were and am ready to be better. The frustration led to some poor decisions, but I’ve also gotten a bit less strict in my diet. This makes it hard to get the weight down, especially around all the extra goodies that float around at this time of the season. So, I have to save the treats for the special occasions and not make them a regular, almost daily occurrence.

What has me a bit puzzled is that my weight seems to be moving all over the place. I’m stepping on the scales almost every morning, and I’m seeing shifts of three to four pounds from one day to the next. While some of this is pretty normal, I don’t really have a good explanation for these larger movements, sometimes I eat pretty late in the day, sometimes I have to get up a bit earlier and so on. But four pounds?! All of this makes it pretty tricky to evaluate where I am which sometimes gives me an extra excuse (or extra frustration) for another goodie. Weird.

I’m a bit worried that all my lofty weight goals are starting to get eroded little by little. At the end of last season I had identified weight as one of the areas I have to work on, and I hope I can remain committed to my goals of getting down to a decent race weight by summer. I hope that making my goals public in this blog helps me keep myself honest and focused on this goal. Hopefully, with my knee better, I can get back on track. I’ll keep you posted …

Fun Fall Run

The last few days, I had a chance to finally do some decent training. My knee was feeling better, and the whole week was full of little successful tests if the knee is okay. Unfortunately, I was stuck in Hamburg because some trains weren’t running, so I missed my regular winter Friday general conditioning session.

By Saturday, I was really anxious for a harder run. But first things first, I had to get our garden in winter shape with my wife. The weather didn’t fully cooperate, but we got the job done when it was getting dark. So that meant another headlamp run. I wasn’t really sure what was going to happen when I turned up the pace, so I had decided to test the waters with something demanding, but not too fast: 3* (1k@Marathon pace, 1k@ 1/2 marathon pace), all run without a break. It went really well, running fast wasn’t a problem, and I was able to crank it up even a bit faster on the last interval (4:27/k as per the Garmin).

For Sunday, we were expected at my Mom’s for lunch, so I used that for a longer run. It’s about 10k to them, but I can add some little extras to make it anywhere between a one or two hour run without too much effort. I slept a bit too long for a really long run, but it was to be the longest run since starting training after my vacation in August, so I took my iPod, my FuelBelt with some water and Clif ShotBlocks and a camera – so this post will have a lot of pictures.

From the start, the sun was out and quite some traffic on the trails:

(If you look closely, you can see some mountain bikers that had just overtaken me.) It was really beautiful today. Most of the leaves were already down, but the sun was out in full force, and it was quite warm for Mid-November - 12°C, about 55°F. Usually it’s about 5°C (40°F) and gloomy grey skies with some fog. This was a lot better:

It was a bit tricky to see the trail with all the leaves, but it made for some soft running. After some nice trails, I ran along a forest road in glorious sunshine:

It’s a bit tricky to see, but although we don’t have any mountains were I live, there is a lot of up and down .. hopefully that helps me get stronger for the next season!

After the forest, there was a bit of open fields, then some more steep trails
a river crossing and then the next forest

The sun was still out in full force and it was getting quite warm. As I was getting closer to where my parents live, the traffic was picking up again:

But I can live quite well with horses and a little family as companions on the trail!

The run was over almost too soon. I tacked on a little extra loop and ended then run after just under 1:30h. Without really noticing, I had picked up the pace a bit and ended up with a 5:30 average pace (as compared to my typical 6:00 min/k pace on longer runs). The last few k’s were even close to 5:00 pace!

All in all, a great run. I didn’t think too much about my knee, and I even though at times I listened hard for any pain or instability, I didn’t notice anything. I guess I’m on for Ratzeburg, though it’s hard to guess where I’m at. Some predictions have to wait for the week before the race!

Slowly getting back on track

The picture in this post is a cool word-art of all the words in my blog’s feed, done on http://www.wordle.net/create. I really like what you can do on this site!

I hope that my knee swelling was nothing more than a little scare. I took a whole week off, but I got more and more movement back. By Saturday, I was so ready to get back to running, but anxious that my knee would act up and I’d have to turn around after a few minutes. Luckily, everything felt okay and I ran for 30 minutes without any problems. On Sunday, I did another 40 minutes, and was quite relieved.

I’m giving myself this week to get back in shape and will not do anything really hard. (Today’s one hour run was quite sufficient to get me tired, thank you.) This will give me about ten hard days (a week and two weekends) to get in shape for Ratzeburg, but at this point I’m just happy if I can continue to train for IM Germany next summer. I’ll reassess what I can do in Ratzeburg after that.

The one thing that really bugs me is that in my frustration I neglected to take care of my nutrition. I’ve also had quite a bit of work to do and went on a business trip on Thursday and Friday. I haven’t gained too much weight (and it’s coming off quickly now that I’m running again), but my weight loss goals for October and probably also for November are out of the window. I'll write my “weighty issues update” next weekend, but I’m already setting things back a bit. Strange how these things take a back seat when other, more important issues are coming up …

For now, being able to run again is the most important thing. I was really missing that feeling of strapping on the shoes and getting some fresh air! Now, if I was only as fast as this guy …

Happy Halloween ... and an injury setback?

Photo by Flatbush Gardener

Happy Halloween to all of you, whether you “celebrate it” or not. In our family it is a pretty big event, and we’ve done some decorating to scare the kids away .. but more and more are ringing our bell trick-and-treating. Halloween has gotten quite popular here in Germany, and a lot of kids take the chance to collect some “Naschis” (sweets). As my wife was on a weekend trip with some friends, I was on duty and opening the door for hours.

I had to do some hobbling around as I twisted my knee yesterday. It was the first time we had an indoor session this season. It’s always nice to meet 20 people or so from my tri-club and do some fun stuff .. some little games to warm up, some running drills, some strengthening and stretching. In one of the little games I slipped on the newly done floor in the gymnasium and twisted my left knee. At first it hurt like hell, but it quickly got better and I was able to continue with the session. I had some problems when bending or straightening my knee, but I wasn’t much worried as there was no swelling at all.

This morning I felt a bit stiff, but still not too bad and was thinking of getting a quick bike session in in the afternoon. I spent the morning at the birthday of my godchild, and when I came back home any movement in my knee hurt quite a bit. I also realized that I had a bit of a swelling, so I scratched the bike and probably also the long run I wanted to do tomorrow. Cooling helped a bit ..

I just that it’s not anything serious. I tore a ligament (for those in the know: the ACL) in my left knee in 1998 or so, but never had any problems after that healed up (there was no operation to re-construct the ACL). When I tore that, it hurt a whole lot more, and the swelling was immediate and much worse. So even while something happened when I did the twisting, I hope that a few days of resting will take care of the damage was done.

While I don’t think that my Ratzeburg race in in trouble (after all it’s four full weeks until then), I’ve got to shred the plan I had put together. Not much use in running hard when I can’t move my knee properly. First order now is to be patient while the healing takes place. As I’ve got a little business trip at the end of next week (Thursday/Friday), I’ll take things easy until then. Maybe a little test run on Tuesday if the leg feels better. Now I’ll just go to bed, ice the knee some more and read a bit.

Keep your fingers crossed for me, it would be a real bummer to be injured now that I was getting in shape ..

Lübeck Marathon 2009

Yesterday (Sunday), I took part in the second running of the Lübeck Marathon. There was an option to run the full marathon, but I “only” ran the half marathon which was long enough for me at this time of the year. As I described in my previous post, it was an out-and-back course.

The morning was a bit grey and overcast, but when I stepped out of my front door, I realized that it was quite warm for the season – we had the first night frosts a week ago, and now we were at over 10°C (about 50°F). So definitely no cap, but I decided to run in my long sleeve.

The race

Thinking that the course would be relatively flat, I was hoping to be able to run a sub-1:35h half marathon which would be a 4:30/k pace. So I started out pretty quick, even a little bit faster than that. I felt good, the course was a bit downhill, and I felt in control. But I was starting to get worried about the return leg, it would become quite hard to keep a good pace going. It was also getting quite worm, and we started to run down into the Herrentunnel, I noticed some people were taking off their long-sleeve-shirts and continue to run in short sleeves.

Here’s a screenshot of my Garmin GPS data on Google Earth from the race. We started in the lower left section on the old island center of Lübeck and went out North-East:

The Herrentunnel is the section were there is a gap in the GPS track, so it was about the 8k mark. Running downhill into the tunnel I really let it rip – it feels great to run with a quick turnover without the HR shooting up. But when I hit the bottom of the tunnel, the street out of the tunnel looked like a vertical wall and I felt very sluggish running out of the tunnel. The HR went through the roof, and I had to take things a little bit easier in order not to blow up.

Thankfully, there was an aid station pretty soon after the tunnel, and I took some coke to get some power back. I was struggling a bit longer, but felt okay when we hit the turn-around point. I was almost exactly at 47:30, on pace for a 1:35 finish. But I had given back all the time I had gained in the earlier parts of the race and I knew that it was going to be really hard to go at the same pace for the return leg.

I took in some more coke and mentally prepared for going back through the tunnel. I decided to limit my HR running out of the tunnel in order not to kill myself, even if that meant loosing some time. So running through the tunnel for the second time, I kept to my hard pace HR limit of 150 beats, and there were quite a few people running by me. There was some more uphill after the tunnel and it was at this point that the wind was quite strong. We had it in our back on the way out, but now it was straight in our face. I was quite happy that I had my long-sleeve shirt on, it would have been quite cold otherwise.

After some more Coke, I was on the last 6 or 7 k for the race. The course was still pointing upward, but not very steep. I had planned to pick it up at this point, but my pace was hovering at a bit over a 4:30 pace so it was clear that I would not be able to make up the time I had lost going through the tunnel. Even so, I managed to stay focused and go hard towards the finish. I managed to overtake some others, and was totally spent when I reached the finish line. My parents (who came to see me finish) were a bit shocked to see me totally wasted but were relieved when I recovered pretty quickly.

Evaluation of my race and planning November training

Even though I didn’t manage to quite make the time I wanted to, I’m still happy with my race. I went out fast, but still reasonable enough to give me a chance to make my time goal. When I ran into problem at the first pass through the tunnel, I properly regrouped and managed not to explode completely. I ran strong towards the end, so even if I started out too quick, my race didn’t turn into a disaster and I managed to run a decent time.

Comparing this course to what I know the Ratzeburg course is like, I’d say that they are similarly hard and hilly. If I’d have to take a pick, I’d say that the course in Ratzeburg is easier, as it has long totally flat sections. So as I ran at a pace faster than what I will need for a sub-2h finish in Ratzeburg, I’m confident that I’m on a good track. I’ll continue with the faster sessions for the next weeks, but also want to include a few 2 hour long runs to extend the endurance that I have now. I’ll keep you posted …

Evaluation of Lübeck Marathon

I’d like to finish with a few words about the Lübeck marathon so that if you ever think of running it, you’ve got some information. I can only offer a perspective from running the half, but it should be a good indication of what things would be for the full marathon. Be sure to drop me an email if you have some more questions!

As you may have gleaned from my race report, the course is not very suited if you want to run a PR – it’s just too hilly for that. But that’s almost the only negative thing about the race. The only thing I’d add is that along the course there are some sections that are not all that pretty as the course uses one of the big roads leading out of town.

On the positive side, the start is in the beautiful old part of Lübeck and it’s very interesting to run through the tunnel (even if it takes some toll on your legs). The rest of the marathon course will also be along mixed territory but there will definitely be some very beautiful sections. You didn’t have a ton of spectators outside the start/finish area, but there were a lot of sections where people were making quite some noise.

Also, from what I was able to see, the race was really well organized. The course was well marked, kilometer signs were clearly visible, there was a lot of stuff available at the end stations (at least for the half-marathoners who came first .. but I haven’t seen many half-marathons that offered coke and bananas etc. starting at 5k). Race packet pickup worked well (even though I had to use the “emergency pickup” on race morning) and there were all the usual amenities after the race (drinks, food, massage etc.). I don’t think that there is much to improve upon.

All in all, it was a fun race to run, and I’m glad I put this on my schedule for this year. It was a valuable step forward in my preparation for Ratzeburg, but it would also be suitable for a season-ending race on its own.

Thoughts before Lübeck Half-Marathon

This Sunday, I’ll run my next race, a half-marathon in Lübeck. It’s part of the 2nd running of the Lübeck Marathon. They’ve got a full marathon, a half-marathon, a 4.2k fun run and 10-person marathon relay. Last year, I was registered for the first running and even picked up my race number, but felt too sick to run on the day of the race. So, a new course for me …

Lübeck Marathon

The race starts in the middle of the old down (basically where the Lübeck City Run ended – the race I ran two weeks ago) and goes out toward the Baltic Sea. The turnaround for the marathon is in the port city of Travemünde, Lübeck’s “sea-side resort”. (Readers of Thomas Mann’s epic novel “Buddenbrocks” will have heard of it.) Of course, the half-marathon turns a bit earlier, after having gone through the “Herrentunnel”, a road tunnel under the river Trave:

Screenshot from Google Earth

Coming out of the tunnel will be the steepest section of the course, and I assume that the rest of the course will be quite flat.

What I’m a bit worried about is the fact that the half-marathon starts 15 minutes after the full marathon, and the full marathon starts with a short loop around the “Holstentor”, a pretty gate in the old town wall dating back to the middle-ages:

Photo by Frank Hamm

So I expect that we will run up to the slower marathoners pretty quick, but hopefully the number of participants will not be that high that there’ll be a lot of congestion.

Goals

After my successful Lübeck City Run I’m quite confident that I can run a decent fast half-marathon. I’ll shoot for a 4:30/k pace which would result in a sub-1:35 half marathon. That’ll be a hard pace and I’ll have to work to hold that pace for the whole race, but it should be possible. My base goal would be to run under 1:37.

All of this is of course based on the time I want to run in Ratzeburg at the end of November. That’ll be a 26k race around the “Großer Ratzeburger See” (Great Ratzeburger Lake), mostly on trails and with some quite steep hills. I’d like to be able to run that race in about 2:00 hours – a 4:37/k pace. (4:37/k pace is a 1:37:24 half-marathon.) As the course in Ratzeburg is probably a bit slower than the road-marathon course in Lübeck, I’d like to have some extra cushion – 1 minute for the hills at the start, and another minute for the hills towards the end. That results pretty nicely in an even 4:30/k pace (that would be 1:57 for 26k, plus two minutes of cushion would give me a 1:59).

So I’m confident that if I can run a sub-1:35 half marathon this weekend, I have a good shot at a sub-2 race in Ratzeburg with another five weeks of training.

Training in the last weeks

The last two weeks I have not managed to get a lot of training in. First, I was quite tired after the Lübeck City Run and took the first few days a bit easy. On Thursday, I did an Interval session (1k @ Marathon, half-marathon and twice at 10k-pace) that I found to be very hard, and I was really tired after that. I had a few days off work after that and did a lot of things with my wife (she had her birthday with the regular family and fried parties, some shopping trips etc.), and I barely squeezed in short runs on these days. Also, I didn’t feel like doing any longer or faster sessions.

On Tuesday, I felt a bit fresher, but I still shortened my initially planned 19k run to 13.5k. But I included a good length of faster tempo, about 5k @marathon pace and another 3k @ half-marathon pace. I wanted to go a bit faster towards the end, but I didn’t have enough juice in me to run a consistent 10k pace.

I wanted to do another faster run today (Thursday), but I had to work late and take care of my sick wife, so I had to move that to tomorrow. 2 days before the race is probably not a good time to do fast intervals, so I’ll probably just run 2k or so at marathon to half-marathon pace in order to be fresh for Sunday’s race.

Hopefully my performance on Sunday will give me confidence for the next training phase …

Lübeck City Run

This Sunday, I ran another short race – the Lübeck City Run, an 11.3k race in Lübeck’s beautiful old city center.

Here’s a picture of the last few meters:

(Of course, at the time of the race the chairs, tables and umbrellas
were removed and we had a free course.)

Here’s another look at the course from my GPS data (a screenshot from Google Earth):

It shows Lübeck’s old city center on the island in the middle. The island is formed by two rivers and some artificial additions in order to defend the city in the middle ages. A lot of pretty buildings and magnificent churches, some of them dating back to the 11th century, are located on the island.

The race started in the lower middle part of the island, we did two full loops (counter-clockwise) around the city and ended with a half loop on the old “Marktplatz” in the middle of the island. The GPS data showed it was exactly 11.3k, and it was a good proof of the accuracy of the course and the accuracy of my Garmin 405 when not running under tree cover. (Even though the paths from the two loops are quite distinct in the upper part.)

It was getting quite cold during the night before the race (about 5°C, about 40°F) but the rain stopped in time and the streets were dry by the time the race started. It took some thought to figure out whether to run in short or long, but I still decided to go short/short. It turned out to be warm enough, but if it had started to ran it would have been quite cold.

The race itself went really well. I was confident I could run in under 50 minutes, and I wanted to get close to my course PR of 49:05. This would require about a 4:25 to 4:20 pace. I started off pretty fast. After the initial congestion at the start (lots of first timers .. seems they have to start in the first or second row), I got into a fast but still comfortable pace, one I was confident I could run for the whole race. My Garmin data showed that I was running at about a 4:10 pace .. it didn’t feel that fast but was confirmed by the first marker that I saw at 3k. I just hoped that I’d be able to hold that pace!

I noticed that my breathing got a bit harder, but I was able to hold my HR pretty even – always a sign that I manage to keep my focus and don’t overpace. Towards the end of the second loop I was catching up and overtaking one of the people from my club that is about my level but was beating me in the last few races. Another positive sign that my race was going well!

My pace was dropping a bit into the 4:20s, but I was running as fast as I could at this point. There was some movement in the field, but I was still overtaking a few people. The last uphill was really hard and I lost a few spots but still managed to come in at 47:57, a 4:14 average and a PR by more than a minute. Excellent!

It’ll be interesting to see is how much recovery I need before I can get into my next hard training sessions. There’ll be some things to do with my wife, so I hope that I’ll be able to get a few hard sessions in before my next planned race, a half marathon in two weeks. Should be interesting to see how much I can improve within four weeks since my last half-marathon …

Looking forward to Lübeck City Run

I’m writing this while the Ironman Hawaii race is going on … go Mitch!

(Photo by Bret Arnett)

Tomorrow, I’ll be running the City Run in Lübeck. As my wife and I have our wedding anniversary on Monday and plan to take a little trip, it’ll be a while before I’ll get to post on the outcome.

The race is in the pretty old part of Lübeck (I’ll try to find a picture for the results post) and it’s add the odd distance of 11.3k. (Don’t know why they didn’t try to find a 10k distance, but whatever.) I ran this race a few years back (2006?) in 49:05 (a bit over 4:20 pace). I’m not sure if I was any fitter that year, but I hope to go at least under 50 minutes (4:25 pace).

My training this week has been going pretty good. I did an interval session on Tuesday where I managed to get some faster k’s in. But still, anything faster than a 10k speed is very hard and I cannot hold it for very long. I can hold a 4:30 for quite a while, but anything faster than a 4:10 just kills me. I’m not sure what it is, my HR is not really that high. On Thursday, I did a tempo run with 5.5k at marathon and half marathon speed with a fast finish tat felt quite comfortable.

I wanted to do a nice easy bike this morning, but it started to rain, I got cold pretty quick and pulled the plug. Still took me a few minutes under the shower to get warm again. Hopefully I didn’t catch a cold. Also, I don’t know what influence tonight’s IM is going to have – it’ll be 3am before I go to bed.

Wonder who’ll have won the IM by then. Chrissie looks like a safe bet for the women, but the men’s race is wide open. Love the IM Live broadcast so far!

Weighty Issues – Update after September

In earlier posts (Weighty Issues and Planning Rest of 2009) I described my weight loss goals for my 2010 race at IM Germany. Here’s the update after one focused month of training.

Photo by radialmonster

October 1st: 89.3kg

My goal weight for the end of September was to get under 89kg. At the “official” weigh-in on October 1st, I was at 89.3kg. So – I missed my first goal. But my weight was moving around quite a bit: By next morning I was at 88.3kg, the day after that I was at 88.7kg. A bit strange to see that much movement, but all in all I was not too worried and I don’t see any reason to change my weight goals. Next up: Under 88kg by November 1st.

September training

I’m quite happy with the progress I have made in my training. I’ve put a pretty solid month together, and I’m hungry to do more in October. A couple of things show that I have a lot of potential:

• no top speed
  As noted earlier, anything faster than a 10k speed is very hard for me and I can hardly do any reasonable intervals with 5k or even faster speeds. I hope that’ll change, at least I plan to do another short (11.3k) race and do short, fast interval sessions.
  
• relatively low volume
  Because I’m not doing really long sessions (longest runs are about 14k or 1:15h), my total volume is still quite low. I think that later in the year I’ll be adding some longer sessions (at still pretty fast speeds compared to the long and slow session in preparation for my Ultra). That should also help me to loose some more weight.
  
• long time to recover from harder sessions and races
  My fitness is still not were it was, and it shows in the time I need to recover from harder sessions and races. For example, after my half-marathon in Alstertal, it took me until the end of the week to get some freshness back. I was still going out each day, but the sessions were short and slow. Once my fitness gets better, I hope to be able to recover faster and get back to harder training sooner.

October plans

There are two more races I have lined up in October:

• October 10th: Citylauf Lübeck – 11.3k – goal: sub50 minutes (4:25min/k)
• October 24th: Lübeck Half-Marathon – goal: sub1:37h (4:35min/k)
  

These races should get me closer to the fitness required for my goal race at the end of November where I want to run 26k under 2 hours (4:37min/k pace) on a pretty hard course. The goals for October are attainable if I manage to get my training in.

In the first half I want to do some faster intervals (10k pace and faster), in the second half I want to add some longer tempo pace runs (20k run with 10k at half-marathon pace). If the weather holds up, it should be fun!

Another big item on my calendar: Watch IM Hawaii on IMLive on October10th. There is a lot of contenders for the top spots .. should be a great and exciting race!

Half-Marathon Alstertal

Sunday, I was racing the second leg of my Autumn campaign, a half-marathon along the river Alster in Hamburg.

Photo by Haemmboerger

It was a great day for a running race – a perfect sunny autumn day. After the morning fog cleared, the sun came out and it was nice and warm, but not too hot. My guess for the temperature was around 20°C – about 72°F.

Race report

I was going into the race with a goal of running sub-1:40 which translates to a 4:45 pace. After my speed session on Tuesday, I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to manage going that fast. But I was very confident to be able to go 5min/k pace which would be sub-1:45. So I decided to build my speed during the race, but still start reasonably fast to run a good time.

I was warming up while it was still pretty cold (the sun hadn’t come out yet), but I was already getting thirsty. So before starting I made sure to sip some extra water. (I had already decided not to race with my FuelBelt and left it at home.) By the time the race started, the sun was out in full force and it was getting quite toasty.

During the first k of the race, the pace was quite slow as there were still slower people in front of me. (Both because I lined up with a couple of friends towards the back, and you have the usual slower people that want to start at the front.) Passed the first k in about 5:30, but then it was thinning out quite well and I didn’t really have a problem to run my pace.

After the first 5k (split: just over 24 minutes) I had made up the time lost in the first k and I knew I was on track for a decent time. During the second 5k I tried to pace myself – I knew that more hills were to come and it was still a bit to go. Also, I got these usual doubts .. “I’m going pretty fast, not sure if I can hold this for another 15k”.

But everything went well. I was able to pick up the effort and the pace a bit, and by the 15k mark I knew that I had 1:45 pretty much in the bag, but I probably wouldn’t be able to make it in sub-1:40. I was working pretty hard and picking up quite a few people, but the last two k or so are just borderline hard. I managed to come in after 1:40:39 (by my own watch), well spent and needing a few minutes to get my breath and smile back.

I was pretty happy with the way things worked out, I managed to pick up the pace and effort ( even if it wasn’t quite enough to go sub-1:40). I felt pretty strong during the race, and I hope that my training during the next few weeks allows me to get some more faster next time around.

Racing with a GPS watch

This was also my first race with my new GPS watch, and I was looking forward to seeing how accurate the GPS data would be. Most of the race course was under pretty thick tree cover, so it would be quite hard work for the GPS unit. Also, having run the race quite often in past years, I knew that the race course would be pretty accurately measured, so it was a good basis for comparison. If the course was off at all, it was long, especially with the little deviation made necessary by building activities.

The GPS track ended up being a bit off course (maybe by 10 or 15 meters). The following screenshot from Google Earth shows the out and back section that were on the same path on the upper bank of the river that shines through the trees:

But I don’t think that this is really an issue. The total distance as measured was 20.49k – compared to the half-marathon distance of 21.1k it was maybe 3% percent off. For distance, that is not really a problem – 3% accuracy is probably much better than what you can get from any other way of measuring or guesstimating. It’s also good to know that the GPS distance is shorter than the “real” distance. My explanation for that is that there were quite a few turns on the course, and with positions saved every 10 meters or so, some of these turns get “flattened out” – makes sense to me.

But looking at this 3% accuracy gets tricky when you want to pace off the GPS unit, especially at the “sharper end” of my speed. 3% at a 5min/k pace is a difference of almost 10 seconds. This can make a big difference. I’m also not sure if the pace that the watch displays is going be “slower” than the real pace. When looking at the watch, the pace I was seeing was almost always quicker than the real pace. So, the pace displayed is a good indicator, but certainly not good enough to pace off it. “Perceived Effort”, HR and clock time with the course markers still seems to be more reliable. But the GPS is one more measurement that may point to being off, and it will be sufficient to keep the pace in check during the first few k’s in the IM marathon.

All in all, the Garmin 405 passed this test easily. I’m still very much impressed with the unit!

Thoughts on my training before this weekends half-marathon race in Alstertal

This Sunday, I’ll be running my next race: The half-marathon in Alsteral. It’s a pretty nice race, most of it on a packed-dirt path along the river Alster. “Along a river” sounds like a flat race, but there is not too much space along the river, so there are a lot of ups and downs on the banks of the river. Definitely not a PR course. I’ll post some GPS data from my Garmin 405 after the race.

(Photo by mike warren)

The best time I have run there is a 1:38:30, and I would like to be able to run in that neighborhood. They had to change the course a bit this year, and it sounds like this means another few hills, so I’m not sure how comparable the times will be. Sub-1:40 should be possible, but the race is a B or C priority, so I’m not too focused on a specific time – I just want to run a nice, focused race at a faster pace than in my regular training.

Mixed Intervals

Speaking of my training, I’m really enjoying the new possibilities with the 405. This Tuesday, I was doing some mixed interval session. I was trying to do the following faster parts:

• 2k @ marathon pace (~5:00 min/k)
• 2k @ half-marathon pace (~4:30)
• 1 mile @ 10k pace (~4:10)
• 1k @ 5k pace (sub 4:00)
• 800 @ “really fast pace” (no idea .. maybe ~3:30?)

In between these segments there were 3 minutes “active recovery”, so some walking and easy jogging. (Advanced versions of this have shorter recoveries, but I’m certainly not ready for that.)

Maybe I don’t have a good understanding of my paces at this point, but as soon as I got to 10k pace, it was getting really hard. Anything faster than 10k pace was almost impossible, and I had to bail after 500m at 4 min pace. No top-end at all!!

So shorter, faster intervals will definitely be something I have to work on. As I have another 10k race in two weeks, I would like to do some interval sessions at 5k and faster paces. I hope that I don’t have to go to a track but that my 405 allows me to do sessions such as these on the road:

• 5 * 400m @ 3k pace
• 4 * 1k @5k pace

The total distance for these runs would be around 10k total.

I’ll do some running at 10k pace, but that will be more like a Tempo Run rather than fast, short intervals. A sample session would be 2-3 * 1 Mile at 10k pace within a longish run (maybe 13k).

Focusing on “Short&Fast”

All of this goes to show that my training focus has changed a bit (and I’m still struggling with it). While in the first part of the year I was doing longer and longer runs at a leisurely pace, now I’m trying to shake things up a bit by focusing on short and fast stuff.

Hopefully this will allow me to loose some weight as well. I’m still in line for my end-of-September goal of sub-89 kg …

Thoughts on Training Toys and the Garmin 405

Last week, I’ve bought my new sports watch. Of course it’s not a simple LCD watch, but a heart-rate GPS-enabled Garmin 405:

Garmin GPS Forerunner 405 mit Herzfrequenzsensor, schwarz

Before making the purchase, I was thinking about my relationship to these toys. In the past, I’ve bought a decent Polar watch (an S410 which was a top-of-the-line model HRM back when I bought it in 2002), a bike (in 2004), a FuelBelt or two, an Ergomo power meter (in 2006), a Camelbak, tons of shoes, socks, shirts and shorts and a lot of other smaller/cheaper gizmos. My parents joke a lot about the fact that I always have the best equipment available. On one hand – looking from people outside the sport, that is probably true: When I spend as much time as I do on my hobby, I want to use tools to help me get better or just enjoy the activity a bit more. (One can certainly argue if the tools did indeed help me get faster, but that’s another discussion.) So yes, I’ve been spending quite some money on “toys”. On the other hand – comparing myself to people in the sport, I don’t think that I’m atypical. My bike (bought in 2004) is probably one of the cheapest bikes in any IM-distance transition zone. A lot of friends have bought three bikes in the meantime and spent a lot more on race wheels. I also think that my purchases are not mainly for flash. So I think that I don’t have to be ashamed of plunking down 240€ for my Garmin 405.

Short Review of the Garmin 405

Now that I’ve had the 405 for about a week, I’m really impressed with the GPS watch. I didn’t run into problems other people have noted (GPS pickup is quick and operation is reliable so far). I’m still a bit skeptical about the battery life of the unit (advertised as 8 hours in GPS mode), but for the normal training runs (still under two hours at this point of the season) this is not an issue.

Here’s a list of the things I really like:

• Distance appears to be pretty accurate, even under trees
  Some people noted that when running in a forest the track is off. For me, it’s working fine so far, even when I’m running in our nice forested areas under a thick canopy of leaves.
  
• Feedback on pace is almost instantaneous
  Any changes in pace are picked up pretty fast by the unit – so you always know how fast you’re running (in “meaningful” units such as min/k – or min/miles for the US/British people).
  
• HR is working reliably
  My “old” Polar watch had some problems near power lines and the train tracks (not much of a problem, but a bit annoying), the Garmin is not having these issues at all.
• Setup is not too difficult
  At first the setup is a bit tricky, but I’ve got things down pretty well now. Usability is as good as the Polar (and much better comparing to other watches I’ve seen).
  
• Transferring data to the PC works
  After installing the required software, transferring data to the PC (and the Garmin program) is automatic. I never got the transfer working on my old Polar, with the Garmin it’s a total non-issue .. just move the watch close to the ANT+ receiver, and everything works automatically. Really well done, even easier than synching an iPod!
  
• Export to Google Earth is easy and cool
  Seeing your running route on a Google Earth blows my mind every time. This was impossible only a few years ago, now it’s a snap.

Already I’m starting to plan different sessions that what I was doing before. One big benefit for me is that I’m much more flexible in doing interval sessions. I don’t have easy access to a nice track, but I still want to add more speed stuff to my training. With the new watch I can do all kinds of intervals at different lengths (both time and distance) and speeds and will be able to get feedback if I’m running the speeds I want to.

Hopefully this will help me get faster in the next months!

Racing a shorter race – Volkslauf Bad Segeberg (9k)

This Sunday, I was doing the first race of my “rest of 2009” campaign. It was a 10k type of race around a lake in Bad Segeberg, a beautiful off-road race 20 minutes from where I live:

In the two weeks after my long vacation/break, I just managed to get back to regular running. My fitness had gone quite a lot during the vacation, so I was happy to manage a one hour run in my training without too many issues. Four or five relatively short runs per week, some cycling – that was all that was possible. Certainly no speed work, but hopefully I’ll be able to do that now. But back to the race …

The official distance of the race was 9.5k, but I was looking through last year’s results and the times seemed to be really good – so I was assuming that the race was short. I hadn’t run there before, but I spoke with some friends that were there in the previous years and their guess was just under 9k. I didn’t go with any specific time goal into the race as I didn’t know where I was. I just wanted to run a nice hard race and maybe come in under 40 minutes (more because of the nice round number rather than a specific pace goal).

When I got to the race site, I immediately ran into some friends I hadn’t seen since my last race (Reinfeld Swim/Run). Sure feels good to catch up to what’s going on, talking plans for the next season and exchanging some trash talk. After collecting my race number I went for an easy warmup – just looking at the first (and last) k of the race course. After a little section on roads through town down to the lake the rest of the course was on a nice little path around the lake. As it was “around the lake” I assumed there wouldn’t be too many hills, but some ups and downs were to be expected …

The race

When the gun went off, I settled into a pretty fast clip. I usually don’t start at the very front but maybe a quarter back. So in the first few ks I was overtaking quite a few people that didn’t really belong to the front of the race. After about the first k I had a few people around me that were about my level (well, my usual level when I’m a bit more fit) so I was quite happy with were I was. First “official” 3k were under 12 minutes (short!) and my HR was around 160 – right were I wanted to be.

But alas, I had started a bit too fast. At about five k there were some short, steep uphill sections and I pretty much fell apart – even walking for a short stretch at one of the steeper hills. I still managed to keep my HR at the same level, but my pace dropped to around 4:30/k pace (k’s as posted, again short). Some people started to overtake me, and there was nothing I could do. I managed to keep my HR up, but my pace didn’t get any faster. At the end I was pretty spent and finished in 40:22.

Analysis

So, what do I make of this? Obviously, I’m a little bit “out of form”, but that’s not unexpected (but still a bit sobering). Also, as I haven’t been racing shorter races for quite a while, I have to do a bit of relearning on how to properly pace such a distance and I also need to do some faster training to be able to properly race such a distance. The fact that I could hold my HR was a good sign that I could focus for the race distance. I just need to get better at running fast ..

Converting my time back to the “guesstimated” 9k distance, I’m right at 4:30/k pace. I was hoping that I’d be able to run at that pace in two week’s half-marathon – I think that will be tricky. (I was hoping to run better than my course record at the race which is a 1:38 – around 4:40min/k.) For now, there is nothing else for me to do than to continue training as planned and see how much I manage to get back in the next two weeks. After all, I’ve just started training again … and I still enjoy that a lot!

It’ll be interesting to see how soon my training is going to show results …

Planning the rest of 2009

When discussing my season plan with Mitch from CounterpartCoaching, I described my goal for 2010 and the upcoming IM race as “run the run”. I also said that I’d be happy with my slowest IM times in swimming (1:18) and cycling (6:23) and then have a decent marathon (4:10) which would allow me to PR (currently at 11:58).

General Goals

Mitch told me that with these goals the best use of my time was to focus on weight loss and running for the rest of 2009. At first, I had thought to get back into a more balanced, tri-like training plan as I had focused on my running for the first part of the year with the ultra marathon in May. He said that my bike can be quickly built up to a decent level within a relatively short time in spring and that swimming doesn’t really matter anyways. If I built up some bike fitness in the fall, I’d loose most of that fitness in the winter anyways.

Also, as I want to loose some weight (see last weeks blog post on weighty issues), he said it would be a bad idea to take December as easy, unstructured training.

Instead, I’ve set the following goals for the rest of the year 2009:

• weight loss (get down to under 86kg by the end of the year)
• shorter, faster races (some 10ks, which I haven’t run for a while) and the accompanying training (interval sessions, tempo runs, etc.)
• volume through frequency

This is the way my training plan looks like when put on a calendar:

1st half of September

Get back into regular training after my vacation. Add some biking and swimming (if time allows). At the end of the phase, I’ve put a 9 point something running race – my first shorter race in quite a while.

2nd half of September

Increase the length of my “long” run and overall volume. Continue with swim and bike as time allows. At the end of the month, there is a “traditional” half marathon race I’m going to do again and meet a couple of old friends.

At the end of September, I want to be “back in swing” and run a PR on the course (currently 1:38:30 – I’ve run faster half marathons, but the course is not too easy and it was in spring when really preparing). Weight goal is under 89kg.

1st half of October

Add some interval sessions to the mix and work on my speed. Three hard running sessions in two weeks – one longer run with some faster sections, one interval session (1k repeats or so) and probably another interval run with some tempo segments (for example 3*7 min at half-marathon pace or something similar). Starting in October, I want to get into a better swimming shape, so I can start swimming in my squad by November when the new “winter season” starts.

I’ve also got another short race lined up on October 11th .

2nd half of October

Next two weeks, probably similar to the first two weeks in October. Another possible half-marathon race (Oct 25th), maybe find a 10k race instead. Weight goal for end of October: under 88kg.

November

At the end of November there is a big race that I want to do really well. It’s a very popular, beautiful  26k race around a large lake in Ratzeburg. Because of the time of year, usually I’m not very well prepared for it. This year I have a chance to really prepare for it in November rather than just start doing longer runs again. It would be great to complete the race in under 2 hours which would be a huge PR for the course (currently at 2:09h).

After the October race, there are five weeks to the November race. I’ll probably take a couple of easier days after the October race. Also, I’ll want to freshen up for the race – almost another week. This gives me three full weeks (maybe including four weekends) of training. Within this time, I want to do about five hard sessions (two longer runs with some tempo, two short intervals, one mixed session). If I can set it up, maybe I’ll do a track session with some pretty short fast sections (400m or so).

Weight goal for end of November: under 87kg.

December

Not totally sure what to in December. I’ll probably do a 10k race on Dec 31st to end the year, but that will be more “fun” than “performance” oriented. Maybe I’ll find another 10k race earlier in the month, but at that time of the year there are not too many attractive, close-by races.

So what I’m thinking about is doing a personal challenge of 31 run sessions in 31 days. As there are some days where I probably won’t be able to run, this would require a couple of “doubles”. But it’ll be interesting to see how my body will hold up.

Any suggestion you can think of to improve my plan?

Weighty Issues

My wife and I just came back from our long, wonderful vacation. After stepping on my scales, I was back in real life.

When I left, I was at 88kg (morning weight). The first time I stepped in my scales, I was at 94 point something. Some it was extra water from the long flight back, and I was hoping to get a bit further down once things got back into balance.

It took about a week .. and I came in at a bit over 91kg – which means I gained 3kg in a four week vacation. A bit too much, but certainly better than the 6kg I had to assume after my first weighing in. Also, pretty typical for the usual gain I experience on vacation when I more or less shut down my training. (All I managed this year was three runs.)

So I’ve got my work cut out for me. I haven’t had much success loosing weight in the last years, but by now I’m more or less convinced that I won’t make much progress unless I significantly reduce my weight. Maybe stating the goals publicly (well, as public as my blog is ;-)) will help me keep honest.

I’ve raced my best IM-distance race in Roth 2007 at roughly 85kg and 15% fat on my scale (specific fat numbers not too exact, but good as a basis for comparison). I want to be way under that for next year’s IM, which means that one important goal for the rest of this year will be “body composition”. I’ve got almost four months left, so it would be great to get down to the same numbers at the end of the year. For the race, I’d like to race at 82kg. I hope that the hard training for IM will help take care of things in 2010.

To sum up:

	weight	fat
today	91kg	21%
end of 2009	85kg	15%
end of June 2010	82kg	<14%

Please help me committed to these goals! I’ll keep you posted on my progress.

Race Report Marathon 2008

Ran my spring marathon today. In an earlier post I described being just a little bit anxious - I wanted to finally break 3:30 after 18 years of trying. I had trained well, and I believed I could finally do it. Mitch gave me the quote "believing is the first step" on my way ...

The day wasn't really good for running. It was raining a lot in the days before and there were some muddy sections on the course. Today, we had some more rain, low hanging clouds, and temperatures in the 40s. Usually, nobody is out on a day like this, but I hardly noticed it.

The course was four rolling loops, mostly paved streets and bicycle paths, but also some muddy trails. The first 5k were a bit easier than the second - except for one "major" uphill, but there wasn't really any flat section on the whole course.

The first loop I tried to go out "easy" and leave myself enough power for the rest of the race:

* 00-05k: 25:39 HR136

* 05-10k: 25:35 HR140

So far so good - I pretty much stayed to my HR guidelines (135, then 140) and I felt okay - maybe a bit wet I was just a bit slower than the 5min/k pace I was hoping for.

The second loop was similar:

* 10-15k: 24:29 HR140

* 15-20k: 24:43 HR142

My HR was okay, but the pace was still a bit slow. When I ran by my wife, she told me to pick it up a bit or else ... I believed I could break 3:30 on this day, so I decided to give me a few extra beats.

Third loop:

* 20-25k: 24:40 HR142 (including a 30 second pit stop, so I was getting a bit faster!)

* 25-30k: 24:54 HR145

Even though I was a bit disappointed with the last 5k, I was still right on the bubble of my 3:30 goal. I passed 30k in 2:30:02, so I basically needed to make up a minute on my 5min/k pace. Two years ago, when running the same race, I was about a minute and a half faster at this point, but I basically knew that my race was over that day. Today, I believed I still had it in me and went on to run

* 30-35k: 24:18 HR147

All right! Just twenty more seconds to make up! I really believed I could do it now. I even took the time to walk a few steps after the last aid station (37k) to make sure I get enough Coke down so I could power the rest ..

* 35-40k: 25:00 HR148

Things were getting really hard now. The rest was mostly downhill, so I believed that although I had absolutely nothing left in me, I could get things done.

* 40-finish: 10:11 HR153

giving me a finish time of 3:29:31! I did it!

Although I was hoping to be able to run a 3:25, I'm totally glad the way the race worked out. I was able to pick up the pace when I needed, and I don't think I could have gone any faster on this day. What else can you ask for!

Race Report Roth 2007

The "Quelle Challenge Roth" was my second IM distance race. It is one of the classic triathlon races and is very well organized. Usually, a lot of excellent athletes show up, and every long distance triathlete not totally focused on IM Hawaii and qualifying for it should take part in Roth at least once!

In my first race, IM Germany in Frankfurt two years earlier, I finished in 12:26 without running into any major issues. I swam a 1:13, rode a 6:21 and ran a 4:42 (plus some change for transitions).

I was hoping to improve quite a bit on that time, as I had a very solid preparation with some more volume than in my first IM. Also, Mitch made sure that I added a lot of running while keeping my bike and swimming at record levels.

Swim

The swim in Roth is in the Main-Donau-Canal - no problems at all with navigation - just go straight with two turns.

The spectators are quite close, I even heard my wife shout out some encouragement and she managed to take a photo of me. Also, there is a wave start, so things are quite civilized.

My swim was quite relaxed, tried not to waste any energy. Had a little cramp in my calf, but when I stopped it went right away. Strange, never had that before.

Ended up swimming 1:11:31 - I had hoped for a 1:10, but no need to worry.

Bike

After a quick transition (no change of clothes this time!) I was riding away. The course in Roth is very beautiful, through small villages and with quite some undulations - never boring. My personal highlight was the "Solarer Berg", one of the big spectator spots. Probably 15 to 20 thousand (!) people line a one kilometer, pretty steep hill. The elite racers had started more than an hour before me, so I - being on my first loop - was passed by Macca and Thomas Hellriegel alredy on their second loop shortly before the Solarer Berg. The crowd was still buzzing and cheering the other racers on. Then it got even louder, and I was barely able to hear the honking of the camera motor cycle filming the third rider Eneko Llanos flying by me. It was pretty close - almost like at the Tour de France where the spectators only open a little space right before the rider almost crashes into them.

My bike time was just a few seconds over 6 hours (maybe I shouldn't have stopped quite so often to pee), which was still a big improvement over my Frankfurt time. I tried to eat as much as possible and to ride as steady as possible, but it was very tricky with all the hills and I had some fade towards the end.

Some Ergomo data: 1st loop 209AP 235NP 31.5 km/h; 2nd loop 198AP 226NP 30.1 km/h (plus a short relaxed ride into T2).

Run

I took some time in T2 to get some sunscreen and for a toilet stop. Saw my wife, my parents and some friends right when I started the run. The plan was to run the first 5 to 8k very relaxed and to get my HR to under 125. I managed to do that quite well (even walked a bit on one of the short, steeper uphills). I had some spikes, but cooled down, was eating and tried to relax as much as possible. Also, my pace was okay - just a bit under 6 minutes per k.

After the 8k mark, I had planned to run with my HR at about 130, with a cap of 135. I eased into the higher HRs, and my pace got considerably faster (under 5:30/k). I was feeling absolutely great and probably overpaced "a bit". By the half marathon mark, when I ran by my fans, I already had some doubts if I could hold that pace. After 25k, I just exploded.

I had to walk most of the next 10k which took me 1h25. I tried a couple of things (1 min run/walk, counting steps, drinking Coke), but nothing really worked. I don't know what it was, but around the 35k mark I tried some more running. I at least wanted to try to improve my Frankfurt time. Everyone who has ever done an IM knows that the advanced math to calculate what pace you have to run to reach your goal time is impossible at this point. All I managed is that walking in would not be enough .. so I continued to run. Strangely, it worked and after a bit I was able to get back to running a 6 minute pace. Again I was not able to figure out where exactly I would end up .. somewhere around 12 hours ... maybe I could still break 12 hours?! I ran on ...

I got the finish line, was very happy to see my wife and my parents and made sure to take some time to wave at them. At that point - if my watch was correct - I would be able to sneak under the 12 hour mark with just a minute to spare .. When I actually got to the finish line and saw the clock at 13:03:something .. I was surprised but managed to do the math .. I had started exactly 1 hour and 5 minutes after the elite .. so my time was 11:58 - YES!!!

My official finish time was 11:58:48 with a marathon of 4:36. So I managed to improve in all three parts - four PRs in one race! But did I race to the best of my abilities? Probably not ...

What’s next (from 2005)

Note: This is an article that was written in 2005 after I completed my first IM. In hindsight, some of the goals look a bit ambitious, but I’m still thinking in the direction of “Let’s try to get better”. Also the goal of getting to closer to qualify for IM Hawaii is still active. It may just take a little while longer …

Where I’m coming from

In 2001, I was an out-of-shape, overweight (104 kg), middle-age (33 years) man getting married. In 2005, I'm four years older, happily married, and finished my first IM in 12:26h, having lost 18kg of weight. So what's next for me?

A lot of things can happen. I may find a new job that truly excites me again, my wife and I might finally manage to have a kid, but these things are not truly within my control. As I've drawn a lot of satisfaction from my athletic development in the last years, I've decided to set myself a lofty goal in this area. I've decided to call it "Sub-10 in '10" – which should also get me close to being able to qualify for Kona.

As noted above, there are a few things that could make this goal less important, I may not be able to get that fast and I don't want to take things literally (a 9:52 in '11 would be great as well ;-)) but as a reference point, I really like the catchy phrase.

First, a short look at my progression over the last years:

Season	Total (h)	Swim (h/km)	Bike (h/km)	Run (h/km)	A Races
01/02	145h	-	-	145h	Marathon in 4:26
02/03	271h	20h 50	64h 1671	173h 1755	Marathon in 3:52, First Oly (2:38)
03/04	387h	80h 187	116h 3023	174h 1763	Marathon in 3:39, First Half IM (5:04)
04/05	435h	85h 202	173h 4501	149h 1535	First IM in 12:26:57

Sub-10 in ‘10

To go sub-10 means something along the lines of 1hr Swim, 5:20 Bike, 3:30 Run, plus 5 Min in each transition. This year my times were Swim 1:13, T1 7:43, Bike 6:20:39, T2 3:21, Run 4:42:12.

So, what does it take to get me closer to Sub-10?

As last year was close to what was tolerated at home and at work, I don't think I can do more than last 2005. Ultimately, that may limit how fast I can get and I may have to rethink that number along the way, but for now I'd like to try not to break anything by increasing my training load.

I feel the biggest improvement for me will have to be on the bike .. that will require increasing the volume and become much more powerful than I am now. What should I be doing here? "JFT" is my main idea. I'm not sure whether I would benefit from "toys" like a power meter. Upwards of 800$ is a pretty hefty investment if there is not that much of a benefit for me.

The run .. obviously, I will have to improve here as well, but I think at least I know what to do to get there. Run often, and get a bit faster while get fitter and leaner.

Which brings me to the next issue – weight (body composition is the political correct term ;-)). At 1.80m (6ft?) I'm still "a bit" overweight with 86kg (192 lbs?) on race day. I've improved over the last years, but progress has been so slow and even not really there this year that I feel there is a lot to do here.

Swim .. probably the easiest. I've managed a very relaxed 1:13 on two times per week. As I have excellent form I regard the volume I can put in as my main limiter here. I think that I will see huge improvements if I manage to swim 3 times or more per week. If getting to Kona requires me to swim twice in the morning before going to work, I think I can do that. For 2006, I may sacrifice winter swimming for some time in the weight room. I've never done any lifting before and feel that I may need a new stimulus – especially considering my bike focus.

Which leaves .. race execution. I think for my first race, Mitch helped me build a race plan for my capabilities and made me feel comfortable with that plan on race day. I deviated a bit from it (the classic rookie mistakes – started a bit hard on the bike, ran the first loop of the run a bit too fast), but all in all it went pretty good. I think I'm "smart enough" to get to Hawaii – what I don't know is if I can get fit enough.

What should I do in 2006?

The overall volume .. I think I'll shoot for about 400 hours, but I would like to be more consistent than last year when a good week was almost always followed by a week with smaller volume. I'd like to enhance my basic week so that I get in about 8 hours per week almost automatically, so when I do the larger sessions for my marathon or ½ IM prep, I'm almost guaranteed to go over ten hours without any undue stress.

As a gesture to my wife I've decided to have my next IM in 2007, so 2006 should be a base year and mainly about having fun. Training and racing in the last years was a blast. I was setting PRs left and right – let's see how long that continues! So I want to PR in most of my running races, 10k (41:45 – would love to go sub-40), half marathon (1:34:31 – would love to get close to 1:30h) and marathon (3:39:31 – should be able to go sub 3:30). These are my goals for the first part of the year up to March (marathon is end of April). During this time, I should have some minimum weekly time for biking (probably 2 hours per week) and as noted above I'm thinking of doing weights instead of swimming.

The rest of the year I want to focus on biking. Starting during the taper for the marathon, I want to get as many bike-hours in as possible. I've already signed up for "Vätternrondan" in mid-June, the world's largest bike "race", a 300km non-stop loop around a lake in Sweden.

Depending on vacation, I would like to end my season with my A-triathlon, possibly a half IM in late August (with a big PR, as well – 10 to 15 minute improvement over my time from 2004). Leading up to that, I would like to do a few more triathlons and maybe some bike races, too.

After my main triathlon, have some more fun running races to finish the year.

Race Report IM Germany 2005

Before the race

As usual, the last few days before leaving for the race were pretty hectic. I managed to get an easy run in on Monday evening. On Tuesday, it was raining hard, so I took my MTB for an easy 60 minute ride and got totally soaked. Wednesday was a little bit better, so I got a nice easy swim in. I guess all the work and other things that needed to be done helped me to avoid doing anything hard. Wednesday evening was spent packing and getting my race plan done so I could send it off to Mitch for review.

My wife and I drove down to Frankfurt on Thursday. There was a lot of traffic and it rained hard, so it wasn't very relaxing to drive. We drove the last part of the bike course I hadn't seen when I did recon in May, and managed to get to the race office half an hour before they closed. I picked up all my stuff, picked up the gels I still needed for the race and were amazed about the stands that were being erected at the finish line on the "Römer", the old part of downtown Frankfurt. Then we drove another 45 mins to our friend Marcus we'd be staying at, had Pizza for dinner and were happy to go to bed.

On Friday I got up early to go out to "Langener Waldsee" where the swim was. They opened up at 8 and I was in the water by 8:10 with a bunch of Canadians. The lake was very nice to swim in. As I didn't want to go through the hassle of cleaning and drying my wetsuit, I swam without my wetsuit, but it was nice and warm. Official water temp on Sunday was 22°C, but it felt even warmer. Got back to our friend and had some nice breakfast with my wife. Then a quick nap, some lunch and the it was off to the race briefing. Nothing new, but I guess you have to be there just in case something interesting comes up. Then back to downtown to meet with most of my "fan group". Both my cousins with their wife and husband had come down, and we talked a bit with them.

Also met the other three people (Sybille, Sven and Stefan) from my club that were doing the race. Lots of good wishes from everyone to everyone. There is a lot of respect between those committed to do the race. After an hour, we drove back out to our friend and had a big pasta meal to carbo load for the race.

On Saturday we slept in until 9am. Afterwards I set up my bike and went out for what was planned to be an easy spin. It turned out to be very hilly were our friend lives so I ended up riding pretty hard for the first 15 minutes to get up the first hill. Then I managed to find a nice loop – another 15 minutes easy, then 15 minutes downhill coasting. The legs felt really good, the bike was okay, only the cable of my computer was cut so the computer didn't work. No problem, I still had enough time to get a replacement before bike check-in. Some leftover pasta for lunch, then finish my bags for the check-in. Throw everything in the car, then drive to the swim start. On the way stop at a bike shop I had seen, get a new computer cable. Borrow some equipment at the race site to properly mount it on my bike, then stand a bit in line for check-in. Saw Stefan, Sven and Sybille when I left and we encouraged each other some more. Just got a bit hot as the sun had come out in full force by now. Then drive back, eat and dink some more stuff, watch Tour de France, answer some phone calls from some other friends coming to watch the race. My father cut his vacation a bit short to be able to come to Frankfurt, and we had two more people from my tri club and Mom & Dad of Sybille. Off to bed at 8:30, probably fell asleep by 8:45.

Race morning

Woke up at 3:10, a bit earlier than I had set my watch – really excited and anxious. Had a big breakfast (three egg omelet, two rolls with Honey, Nutella and cheese, a glass of OJ and some coffee with milk). Got everyone else out of bed, mixed my bottles, put the few remaining things in the car and we were off. Tina and Marcus dropped me at the swim start and went off to drop the car.

I checked my bike, put the bottles on the bike, pumped the tires. Some personal time to focus, again encourage Sven and Sybille (didn't see Stefan), then the volunteers started to urge people towards the swim start. I snuck into a portapotti (only short lines at this point!), then quickly put on my wetsuit and went into the water. Saw my cousin and two friends on the way. They played the national anthem, I edged easily toward the start line and I was pretty nervous …

Swim

The gun went off and everyone started swimming. An IM swim start seems to be proof of a shrinking universe, everyone seems to converge on you. Actually, it wasn't that bad. Some erratic swimmers, but I wanted to take the swim very easy, so I didn't have a problem in letting them pass when they were getting too close too often.

There was a quite a long way before the first turn, but it was still pretty congested and everyone had to breaststroke around the buoy. There is a short walk on land after the first half .. took my split – 34:45 – time okay – maybe the HR a little high. So relax a bit more and just go on. Second lap was just as uneventful, a bit longer, HR a little lower. Just got a bit bored towards the end, but that's okay I guess.

Time for the swim: 1:13:00 (302^nd in my AG)– smack in the middle of my planned range of 1:10 to 1:16. I was quite happy as everything had gone fine and I felt that I hadn't wasted any energy.

T1

After exiting the lake you have to go up a short but pretty steep hill to get to T1. I walked easy, a guy helped me open my wetsuit. Saw Marcus and Tina, took a swig of water, then found my bag.

With the help of a volunteer I took off my swim briefs (yes, I did use the tent!), put on my bike clothes and stuffed everything I didn't need in the bag. An easy walk/jog to the bike, grab my helmet, then off.

Time: 7:43 (373^rd in my AG, total 320^th in my AG)– a bit longer than planned, but what's a minute?

Bike

Tried to take things very easy at first. Put on my arm warmers (it was a bit overcast and still pretty cold). Stefan blew by me at the 10k mark – he had a very good swim! He "can't swim" – just started training half a year ago for the IM. But he is a great cyclist and runner. Originally he said it would take him until the 90k mark to get me. But as my swim time was okay, I wasn't concerned and just happy for him.

My HR went down quite well and I was soon under the 120 mark. After I saw Sybille's parents when I hit downtown Frankfurt at about the 14k mark, I started eating and soon the hills started. I was finding it really hard to keep my HR down and not to go too hard on the hills. Lots of people blowing by me, lots of spectator cheering, and from what I could see not a very good average speed. Up to the 60k mark I was seeing HRs in the mid-125s – my plan was to ride at sub-115 till 50k and then 115-120 with a cap of 125. At about 60k I stopped for to pee and that clear-headed minute allowed me to kick me and tell me to stay in my zones. That was a very good decision, on my way back to Frankfurt I realized that the first part was into the wind and more uphill than downhill, so I could really power on the way back. HR much better, average okay. Just didn't manage to get the hills up at sub-125 – just try to do that with people screaming at you and real Tour de France atmosphere! At the end of the first loop I flew by my fan-group and their cheering cheered me up even more.

The second loop went okay as well. Had to tell myself to properly stay in my zones a few times, but I managed to get my calories in quite well. At one point I ran out of water and things started to get hot. The sun had come out, I had taken off my arm-warmers. Took things a bit easier, took two bottles at the next aid station and didn't run into major issues. At the end of the second loop I got up to Sybille who is a stronger swimmer than me. We chatted a bit, I stopped and kissed Tina when we drove by, then the bike was over.

Time: 27:30 to Frankfurt (414^th/total 336^th), 1^st loop 2:55:17 (416^th, total 385^th), 2^nd loop 2:57:52 (381^st, total 385^th), total bike 6:20:39 (409^th in my AG)

T2

A volunteer took my bike, I got my bag and took some time to redress for the run – new shorts, singlet, socks, shoes plus my fuelbelt.

Time: 3:21 (332^nd in my AG), total time was 7:44:45 (383^rd in my AG)

(My thinking at this time: Great, you just have to run a 6 min/k average to go sub-12!)

Run

First loop (0-14k)

Was a bit faster than Sybille in T2 so I came out before her. Tried to start very easy, but it was quite warm and I found it very hard to get my HR down. After 2k there was a short downhill section in the shade, that was the first time I got my HR to under 135. I wanted to get it down to under 130 but I felt so slow. (I know, Rookie mistake.) At about 5k I stopped for a short pee and Sybille passed me. She slowly ran away and it took some willpower not to try to catch up to her and run with her. My HR was still too high! Passed my fans, and started to take in some gel from my fuelbelt.

Felt quite comfortable, but pretty hot. I had hoped to be able  to run about a 4hr marathon, but my splits hovered at about 6 min/k. At the 10k mark, I decided to try to hold that pace. Still, my HR was hovering around 135 instead of around 130 and still too high for the 130-135 region I had in mind after the first loop. At the 13k turnaround I saw that Sybille had built her lead to about 1:30 mins – one more reason not to slow down now. I was about to pay for it …

Time: 1:25:41 (333^rd)

Second loop (14-28k)

I continued to run my 6 min pace, with my HR at 135+. I got even warmer, at about the 20k I mark I gave Tina my fuelbelt (I had downed most of the gel anyways) and felt briefly better without the weight. That lasted for 2 minutes or so – and on the long section in the sun I had to walk a bit. I decided to push a bit but had to walk again on an uphill section leading to a bridge. This was my "dark moment" and thoughts of having to walk the last 21k were swirling in my mind. I saw Sybille's parents here, but their encouragement didn't reach me. However, I was starting to come around a bit and I thought of Gordo's "It's okay to walk, you just have to make sure the run restarts each time.". So after the bridge I decided to run a bit more, at least up to the next aid station. I had already sipped coke having run through most of the aid station so far, and I decided to try to take in whatever I could from the next aid station. Nearly stopped running before I had gotten there, but just caught myself in time. I walked the next aid station, drank a full cup of coke, nibbled on a cookie, poured tons of water over my head. After I was finished with the coke, I started running again. Well, it was more like a shuffle, but at least I didn't walk. So on to the next aid station … I just tried to think of the next aid station and not further ahead, and it worked. Slowly, I started to feel … well, not better, but at least not worse. At the turnaround I noticed Sybille was just 2:30 mins ahead and I thought I might just be able to catch her.

Time: 1:37:15 (285^th in my AG – when I saw the results after the race, this really surprised me. A lot of people must have been feeling a lot worse than I was!)

Third loop (28k to finish)

Tried to run from aid station to station, walked while trying to get as much coke down as possible, walked the two uphill sections before the bridge – but ran the rest of the last loop … at about a 7 min pace …

Still I caught Sybille at about the 34k mark, and we ran a bit together. She had to walk before the next aid station, so I ran on. The rest of the loop was a blur … tried not to think too far ahead, but when I got my last band (to show I had run three loops) at the 37k mark I thought I'd be able to get to the finish line like this. Saw a lot of my fans at this point and their cheering spurred me on. I was close to tears when I got to the finish line and a bit unhappy I couldn't see my wife right before I crossed the line. (She saw me finish, though.) The finish line itself was great – big stands in the oldest part of Frankfurt, lots of people cheering.

Sven was at the finish line waiting for Sybille and we both gave each other a big hug. Then "my fans" were there as well – my wife, my father, the rest of my family. After the first round of congratulations Sybille came in, too, for the next round of cheering and hugging. Everyone of our club had finished, and finished well.

Time: 1:39:14 (as this loop added the 200m to the finish line, the time is almost equal to my 2^nd loop; 237^th in my AG), total time for the run 4:42:12 (278^th in my AG), total time 12:26.57 (334^th in my AG).