Running Hochbrückenlauf and Talking to a Doctor about my Knee

Last Sunday, I ran the Hochbrückenlauf in Kiel. It is one of my favorite races – it’s a great course, it’s a hard race that you can’t fake, and it’s usually right on the border between winter and spring.

This year did not disappoint. The weather turned nice the week before the race – at least during the day. It was still freezing during the night, so I still didn’t manage to run in my shorts during the week. But Sunday morning turned out nice and sunny, so I was finally able to ditch the long tights for the race.

As usual, I really enjoyed myself during the race. I was running a pretty solid, hard pace across the whole distance. As usual, I was worried if I could hold the pace all the way, but I managed to eat and drink in small portions without my stomach getting upset, so that was really encouraging. When  I hit the big hill at the bridge, I slowed down a bit on the uphills, but I recovered quickly and was able to run in strong. My average pace was around 4.45/k the whole way. I ended up with a 2.17 – which was a bit disappointing at first, as the last few k-markers seemed to indicate that I would be around 2.15. But they probably were a bit off (the Garmin pace kept steady), so all is well. If I was able to run that pace in my marathon, it would mean a 3.22 – a 7 minute PR, but I would like to be able to be another 3 minutes quicker and post at least a 3.19. I’ve got eight more weeks of training to get there!

My Knee acting up again

One of the things that may stop me in my training is my knee. I’ve felt another “twinge” Saturday morning, but it wasn’t any problem in my Sunday race. Afterwards however, it didn’t feel to good – some tightness, probably due to the swelling. Sitting at a desk on Monday didn’t help, so I quickly dashed in to the doctor. He was able to calm me down a lot. Here’s what he told me:

• My knee has some instability due to the torn PCL from a few years ago.
• Muscularly I’m fine, that’s why running is not a problem.
• As long as my “episodes” are so far apart (and I can still complete an Ironman), I shouldn’t worry about it.
• If it gets more frequent or I stop doing things because it hurts my knee, then we should think about some therapy and/or surgery.
• In the meantime, when I feel a “twinge”, I should aggressively take some ibuprofen – not for the pain, but in order to keep the swelling to a minimum.

In other words – nothing to worry about for now. Again, he was able to make me feel a lot better …

Ready for my next race: Hochbrückenlauf 2011

Tomorrow, I’m going to run my next race: Hochbrückenlauf 2011, a 29.2k race through some beautiful countryside, and also a pretty hard test race.

Recovery after Husum Marathon

It is almost three weeks since I raced the Husum Marathon. I’m not really sure if I am properly recovered from this race, just this last Tuesday I didn’t feel like running at all (so I took the evening off). That may have had as much to do with stress at work, so I tried to take things a bit easier at work (or rather more focused on the important things and not be fazed by the little stuff). It helped, and I was able to do some decent training in the last few days and feel okay for tomorrow.

But you never know until you race, so I may be in for a rude surprise …

Goals for the Race

My best times in this race are a 2:19 and a 2:20, around a 4:45/k pace. Usually, this race is the last test race before my spring Marathon, and I try to run it at Marathon goal pace or a little bit quicker. My goal time for this year (a 3.20h) would be a 4:42/k, so my goal should be a decent PR for Hochbrückenlauf, possibly around 2.15.

However, this year (with my Marathon being at the end of May instead of April) I’m more toward the start of my focused Marathon prep than the end of it. So I’m not sure if that goal is reasonable, but I’m willing to give it a try to run a PR.

So I’m going to start at about a 4:45/k pace and see how that feels. If I manage to eat and drink at that pace, I’ll try to increase the pace a little bit after about 8k (when the course is going to flatten out). I’ll try to relax and eat until around 20k, as the 23k mark is under this bridge:

while 24k is on the bridge and there is a little hill in between ..

I hope I can keep things together in the seemingly never ending 5k after the bridge. As long as I’m not completely falling apart, I think I’ll be happy, and I should be able to post a decent time.

Also, this will probably be the first run for this year that I’ll be running in shorts .. this is what the weather report looks like:

Cold in the morning, but sunny and warmer during the day.

I just hope to make it to the start in time, this night we’re going to switch to daylight saving, and last time the iPhone alarms weren’t working for a few days. I guess I’ll need a backup alarm clock for tonight!

Husum Marathon – A great “long run”

The Husum “Winter Marathon” had a serious problem this year. Usually, you have to live with the harshest conditions you can get in Northern Germany: A lot of wind, cold temperatures, rain or snow, sometimes a lot of it. (In past years, participants had to run on uncleared bike paths through 10 inches of snow.) This year, conditions were very favorable: A cold, clear night with freezing temperatures had given way to a sunny day with blue skies and nice temperatures (at least for early March – about 5°C or about 40°F). Except for a stiff wind on the way out, you couldn’t have asked for nicer weather.

Pre Race Goals

I had signed up for this race in order to motivate me for some longer runs in the winter months. I had managed to get some solid training in, but not quite the volume I had in mind. I managed a few longer runs of up to 25k at a decent pace, but I was quite skeptic about my endurance. So my goals were clear: Run a decent paced long run, make sure I eat and drink enough not to run into too many problems in the second half, and arrive at 30k in shape to be able to run under 3:50 if possible. I was in for a big surprise!

First Half

After the start we got a pretty stiff headwind, so I made sure to run at the end of a larger group that was going at a decent pace. We were running along at about a 5:25/k pace which felt totally effortless. I had to remind myself to hold back and run steady until the 30k mark. I managed to eat and drink something every 15 to 20 minutes without any problems, and the run went along without anything happening except for maybe a short bio break after which I easily ran back to the group.

Faster than anticipated we reached the half way mark – 1:53:23, a 5.22/k at an average heart rate of 133 – probably the easiest half marathon I had ever run. I was really surprised how well I was holding up, and in a great position to run around a 3:45. My goals started changing a bit …

Second Half

Slowly, I was giving myself a few extra beats of HR to increase my pace – to 5:15, to 5:10. The kilometers were flying by and when I hit the 30k mark, I was at 2:41 and I was still feeling really good. I could just continue, or I could try to speed up and see what was possible. It would require a clearly sub 5-minute-pace to get under 3:40 – clearly a stretch at this point of the season. Nonetheless, I wanted to give it a try but without detonating. It felt good to increase the pace some more, but whenever there was a slight hill, I struggled and it was clear that I was running close to the pace that was possible for me. That pace was hovering around 5:00/k – some k’s were a little bit faster, some were a bit slower. At the last aid station, I made sure to drink a few sips of Coke and hoped that would give me some extra boost – but all that was possible was just holding the pace The last k hurt (as usual in a marathon), and I ended up coming in at 3:42:00 on my watch and an official 3:42:53 (which includes some pit stops that the GPS watch took out). I’m really happy with that result, it was my third or fourth fastest marathon ever.

Looking forward

The Husum marathon is a really good sign for my A-race this season, the Hamburg Marathon at the end of May. My goal is to PR (currently 3:29), possibly dip under the Boston qualifier time of 3:20.

That is still quite a bit faster than Husum. I could have run a bit quicker, but probably not more than a few minutes – so I still have to improve by 15 to 20 minutes – about 20 to 30 seconds per k quicker than in Husum.

There will have to be some serious training to achieve this:

• long runs – my endurance already seems to be pretty good, but obviously endurance is the main thing for a marathon
• marathon pace tempo runs – the pace I ran in Husum felt comfortable, but running a 4:45/k to 4:30/k pace is a different story. I’ll have to do some more runs at that pace to be able to run this pace in a relaxed fashion
• weight – loosing a few more kgs will make things easier for the big race and I have to get back to working at it some more

I hope I can get a lot done in the next few months. But first, recovery is the most important thing, so for the next two weeks I’m going to take things easier. I’ll probably do a few more easy runs with our little dog, he enjoys it a lot and the pace is quite relaxed with him. Once I’m recovered, I’ve got a few more tune-up races lined up ….

Kiel Halbmarathon: First 2011 Race

This Saturday, I ran my first 2011 race, the half marathon in Kiel.

The race

It was a nice sunny day, but it was still pretty cold and there was some westerly wind that made running into it a bit uncomfortable.

The first few k (with the wind) felt really easy. I briefly debated weather I should try to go a bit faster, but quickly managed to hold back a bit. For the first loop of 10.5k, I was running at the faster end of my goal pace of 4:30/k. If I managed to hold that pace, I’d be able to come in at under 1:35h.

However, during the second loop I was running into some issues and holding the pace was getting harder and harder. At the 15k mark, I decided to walk a few steps and get some Coke down for some extra energy. But that didn’t last too long, into the wind my pace dropped to around 4:45/k and I came in at just under 1:37 – a bit disappointed, still a pretty good result considering I was not willing to dig really deep for finish just a few seconds faster.

Looking forward

After all, my next race is just a scant week later, and it’s a full marathon! So this week is mainly easy sessions of 30 minute runs in order to recover and hopefully arrive at the start line rested and ready for a nice long run. My planned pace is about a full minute slower than for my half marathon, and I hope that this will enable me to run the full distance (save for a few steps at the aid stations). A 3:55 full marathon will be more than okay at this time of the year – if I manage that I’ll be getting more and more optimistic for my May marathon in Hamburg. For now, I’m feeling okay and hope that I manage to get some extra hours of sleep in during this week. It’ll be interesting to see how I’ll feel by Friday.

Upcoming Races: Kiel Halbmarathon and Husum Marathon

After almost two months of 2011, it is almost time for some more races.

The races I have lined up are:

• Half Marathon in Kiel on February 26th
  The plan for this race is to have a good long tempo run, if possible a bit faster than the time I want to run my spring marathon. The dream goal for that would be a 3:15, which would require a 4:36/k average. A more reasonable but still ambitious goal is a 3:20 – a 4:44/k average. So I’ll see where I end up running, with a goal time of under 1:40, preferably under 1:37.
• Marathon in Husum on March 5th
  This will be mainly a long run, around my new long run pace of 5:30, which would translate to a sub 4h marathon.

The tricky thing will be the recovery between the two races .. hopefully my half marathon effort will not be so high as to impede my ability to run a full marathon a week later. That is one reason why I’m not going to run Kiel all out – that would definitely take too much out of me.

Training in January and February

I’m quite happy with the way my training has turned out since X-mas. I’ve put in some decent volume at a good clip, and I’ve managed a few solid long runs. Having said that, I’m still short of any record levels and my longest run has been 25k – obviously too short for a really solid marathon race. But the marathon is just planned as a long run, and I should be in good shape if I manage to start easily and eat and drink decently. Still, it’ll be interesting to see how the race is going to turn out – there are quite a few things that might go wrong.

One thing that should be okay is the weather. Husum is quite famous for adverse weather conditions. Last year they’ve had quite a lot of fresh snow:

In some previous years they’ve had a big storm come through, but the predictions for this year look quite okay – cold, but not any snow. I’ll know better where I stand after the next two weeks! Hopefully I’ve got a good base to build on before starting my build-up for Hamburg at the end of May.

More on Triathlon Ratings

Just a quick note .. I've published the first results on my idea of a Triathlon Rating. In order to keep this separate from my training blog, I've set up a new blog at trirating.smartersoftware.de. Please have a look there to find out who's the top rated athlete at the moment and which IMHawaii race was the slowest in the last years ...

Ending 2010 and Planning 2011

For me, a year ends well with a race .. so I had signed up for the 10.2k
“Silvesterlauf” (New Years Eve Run) in Mölln. I had run there a few years ago (I think it was 2007), and it was a great way to end a year and start the new one.

This year was no different, even if the weather was quite tricky. It had snowed a lot over Christmas (about 10 to 15 inches or 20 to 30 cm), so it was going to be a winter run. But it was getting a bit warmer towards race day, so the snow was getting soft and mushy – not exactly great running conditions. Nonetheless, the sun was out and I decided to make the best of it. Based on the conditions, it was clear that I couldn’t expect a great time, but I wanted to run a hard race and see what was possible.

It turned out that not a lot was possible for me that day. As usually, I started a bit back and was overtaking some people after the start and in the first few k. When there was enough space to run, I tried to pick up the pace a bit, but with the bad footing I couldn’t get much faster without feeling really slippery. Towards the middle, I tried again to distance some people that I had overtaken earlier, but that backfired and I was even moving backwards in the field, not being able to hold the pace I was going. Also, the deep snow and slush was really getting to me. I finished in just under 49 minutes, probably the fastest that was possible for me on that day.

Plans for 2011

I was going quite a bit back and forth to come up with a decent plan for 2011. An Ironman race is not in the cards right now. I was looking for a longer running race, but all potential races such as Rennsteig just didn’t work (Tina will only have a few open weekends, and we’ll leave on an early vacation this year). So I finally settled on the following:

• run Hamburg Marathon (end of May)
  From a logistics viewpoint, this is the simplest race for me to do: Pick up my race number after work on Thursday before the race, then take the train to Hamburg on Sunday morning. No need for a trip or a hotel.
  My goal for this year is to break my PR of 3:29 – possibly try to get a Boston qualifier time of sub 3:20 (which will be a stretch). I will have to do some decent training for this, but hopefully not quite as time consuming as training for an IM.
• run a fast half marathon in the training leading up to Hamburg
  I’ve been thinking for a while about a sub 1:30 half marathon, and if my training for Hamburg goes well, I should be able to get close to this barrier. Not sure which race fits best, I’m looking at a race in early April in Neumünster which may be a good fit.
• run another marathon earlier in the year (probably Kiel or Husum early March)
  In order to collect some more marathons and to make sure I’m focusing on longer training in the winter months, another marathon sounds like a good idea to me. Not even close to PR, just complete it under 4 hours and treat it as a really long training run. I should be able to recover relatively fast from it before the focused marathon training for Hamburg starts.
• loose weight and race light in Hamburg
  In the last years, I’ve always tried to get my weight down for my main race and haven’t had much success. My best was in 2007, when I raced at 85kg. The last years I was more around 88 to 89kg, which is where I am currently at. It would be good to get down to 85kg again, and I’m sure that this would make PR’ing a little easier. Also something to focus on until my first marathon for this season.

Enough to do in the next few months .. hopefully I’ll manage to reach some goals – I’ll keep you posted!

Triathlon Rating

Usually this blog is about my own training and races … this entry is a little bit different but still very much focused on trathlon. I’d be happy to receive feedback on my thoughts, please leave a comment!

Macca’s IMTalk Interview

I’m a few weeks back in listening to my podcasts, so it wasn’t until Friday that I listened to IMTalk’s podcast interview with IM Hawaii winner Chris McCormack. A great, long interview – if you haven’t listened to it yet, you can find it here.

One of the things Macca mentioned started me thinking. I don’t have the exact words, but his point was that US races were easy to win but all the press was focusing on. Races in Europe (even the high profile ones) were much harder and also had a much bigger depth than the US races. One of his examples was Marino Vanhoenacker’s 7:52 in Austria – all this got in the US was a “Austria is a fast course” but not much more, so he wasn’t really on most people’s list for delivering a good performance in Hawaii. My idea at this point: There should be a way to rank the relative performances of athletes in different races.

Rating in Chess

When I was younger, I was quite a serious chess player. Chess has a great scoring system to compare the strengths of the different players, see this wikipedia article on the Elo Rating System (named after Prof. Arpard Elo, who developed the mathematical foundation). The score in chess in an artificial number, but it still was quite meaningful in comparing different players.

Known Scoring Systems in Triathlon

In triathlon, the only scoring systems I know are points based. In each race, there is a certain numbers of points to win, usually based on placing. Races are usually in a tiered system, i.e. better tiers dish out more points.

The “official” systems I’m aware of is the Pro qualifying points race for IM Hawaii by WTC and the points system for determining the ITU olympic distance world champion. I’ve also found the site triathlonranking.com that does a scoring of long distance racers. I’m not aware of any official status of this site, it seems to be a portfolio site by Wim De Doncker, a relatively well known Belgian triathlete who’s now also working as a freelance web designer. It’s also not completely up to date.

Problems with Points based systems

A points based system is pretty easy to set up, but I see a number of drawbacks:

• Frequent racers have an advantage over athletes that start less often.
  A good example is Craig Alexander – his only IM race is Hawaii which does not give him a lot of chances to earn points.
• It is very hard for a point based system to "fairly” reflect the strength of the field.
  The points you get depend a lot on who also shows up on race day.
• A points system does not offer a way to compare different courses.
  An example for such a system would be golf’s course rating. Almost all golf courses have a “par” score of 72. A course rating of 71 shows that this course is two shots easier than a course with a rating of 73 (for more, see another wikipedia article).
  
• A point system is not predictive.
  Just because you have x points, it does not mean you should be able to race in y time.
  

Ideas for a Triathlon Rating System

Compared to chess, triathlon has a natural way of scoring: your finishing time! Therefore, a better ranking system would have to incorporate these main ideas:

• an athlete’s rating should be his finishing time – this would naturally lead to different ratings based on race distance (Olympic, Half IM, IM-distance) – also makes a rating automatically predictive
• courses should be rated as well – for example by comparing finishing times for the same athlete on different courses you could say that course x is by 15 minutes harder than course y
• comparing expected and actual results by the athlete’s in a specific race would also allow you to determine if it was a hard year (e.g. in Hawaii a year with heat and strong winds) or an easier one and therefore allow you to compare different year’s results on the same course

Obviously, there are quite some tricky issues to resolve before this can be workable, but I think that the result can be quite interesting. I know that there is some previous work by Neil Hammond, but his main focus was on picking the race that would give you the best chance for qualification (ending in 2007 it’s also not quite up to date).

I think this is something interesting to look into. Does anyone know of anything similar to this? Any other comments or ideas? Also, if anyone knows of a database with decent quality race results, please give me a shout! Thanks.

Last under two hours .. or first over?

My winter race in Ratzeburg went really well. Depending on how you look at it, I just achieved my goal or missed it by just so much. But let’s start at the start …

.. or the days before the race. I didn’t do much training in the week before the race. I was a bit worried that I’d be too rested, so I made sure to get in a little run on Saturday. I got all the little aches and niggles that are typical for a taper – a little cramping while swimming on Thursday, some weird aches in my knee, but nothing out of order. My wife and I took some time looking around for a new kitchen, so I didn’t have too much of a chance to chill out on Saturday.

It had gotten really cold in the days, and there was a bit of snow on the ground. As there was not enough time for the ground to really freeze solid, there was a good chance for good racing conditions. In fact, the sun came out right before the 11am start, there was hardly any wind – perfect conditions for a winter race.

I took my time to warm up and had to hurry a bit to make it to start in time. Towards the start line it was getting quite crowded, so I was a bit back and started my watch when I crossed the line. This difference would prove to be important later. As I wanted to run a fast race, I moved forward quickly and tried to get a decent position in the first wider section before the course enters the forest. There were still some slower people to overtake, but all in all I had open enough space to run the pace I wanted.

I wanted to run around a 4:35 pace, and managed to hit that pretty well even in the hillier sections in the first 5k. However, I was running pretty hard, and my HR was a bit higher than what I thought would be possible for a 26k race. But I wanted to give it a try in order to have a shot at running under 2 hours. Once the first hills were over, I managed to run an even pace right where I wanted to run at. I even managed to get a few calories down, and it seemed to have a good effect on me. I was really worried that I would not be able to hold that pace until the end, but wanted to hold on as long as possible. Looking back, this is pretty much how you want to run a half marathon – run just another 1k at goal pace until you reach the finish line.

My split at 13k was just a bit over 59 minutes, so if I managed to hold my pace 2 hours should be possible. But that was a big “if”. Around the 18k mark, I was running into problems. Some more calories helped for a bit, but the effect wore off pretty soon and I was moving backwards in the field. I had made some good time and hoped that I had a big enough buffer for the final hills. I fell a bit apart when I hit the hills and walked on the steeper sections to preserve my last energy.

It was going to be really close. I knew the last k would be downhill and probably a good place to make up some more time, but I was running on fumes. Lots of grunting on the downhills (legs hurting!) and going as fast as possible – by my watch I would just make it under two hours. When I entered the finish chute and saw the official race clock, I knew I was right on the edge. The last seconds ticked down, and I still wasn’t home. When I finally made it, the official clock was at 2:00:03, but my own watch (remember I started it a bit later when crossing the start line?) said it was 1:59:55.

So, depending on how you want to see things, I was either the last one under 2 hours – or the first one over it. Regardless, this is a very big PR for the course – around 10 minutes faster than my previous best. True, I put a much bigger focus on this race than in previous years when I was just getting back into training after my fall break in October. But the time was still much better than what I thought I might be able to do and I’m really pumped about it. I thought that running really fast requires more than I was ready to give at this point (weight, volume, focus etc.). Now that Ratzeburg has gone well, I’m starting to think that I may have a fast marathon in me in 2011. Time to get my plan together …

One week to go before my Winter Race in Ratzeburg

By now it is less than week before my big winter race, a 26k trail run around the lake at Ratzeburg (Infos at http://rsv-triathlon.de/Adventslauf/index.htm).

Training

My training has been going okay. I managed to do a few longer runs (20k, 29k) and a nice long tempo run (14k of marathon pace within a 20k run), but my overall training volume has not been that high, most of the weeks were around 35 to 40k. Overall, I think I made a lot of progress (and I haven’t been sick), but still not quite the training I wanted to do.

Weight

The big thing that has changed was my weight. After my wife’s birthday, we went on a pretty strict diet. I tried to cut back on carbs and eat as much fruit and veggies as possible. This worked really well, I lost a lot of weight – went down from almost 92kg to under 88kg within four weeks!. So now I am at the lowest I’ve probably been since late 2007 and I hope to get down even more within the next few weeks (tricky around Christmas) and months. I felt okay on my runs, and was really surprised with my first swim since more than a month which went really good even in the faster parts.

Expectations

I’m not really sure of what is possible in Ratzeburg – basically, that is what makes racing fun. I was hoping to be able to go under 2 hours (which would be a 4:35/k average pace), but I’m not sure that that is a pace I’m able to run on the tough Ratzeburg course. I’m pretty sure that I can PR the course (2:09 something, just under 5 min/k pace), and I think I should be able to get at least under 2:05 (4:47 pace). I’m really looking forward to how fast I can go.

I just hope that the weather will not turn out to be a deciding factor. We’ve had pretty miserable weather with lots of rain and wind in the last days – in my nearby forest most trails are impassable. After my half marathon in Alstertal I’m looking forward to another muddy trail run (especially in the ups and downs in Ratzeburg). It’s supposed to get colder in the next days and usually this means it’ll get a bit dryer. I hope that this will help to have good racing conditions – but as this is one thing I don’t have any influence in, it’s not worthwhile to spend too much energy thinking about it. I just have to have the gloves available if it turns really cold.

Fall Races

I haven’t updated my blog for a while,so this will be an update on my training and races since Mid-September.

Alstertal Half-Marathon (September 26th)

I managed to get some regular training in, but did not do any long runs (longest run was about 1h 15min). So obviously, I could not expect that much from this race. I was hoping to get close to my best time on that pretty hilly course which was just under 1h40.

The day of the race the weather was pretty horrible. It was raining hard and the course which is run on walking trails along the river Alster, was a muddy mess. It wasn’t too cold (so running in shorts was still okay), but you were drenched as soon as you went outside and your legs were muddy at the 1k mark.

The race itself went okay. I was running around the pace required to run under 1h40, but in the second half of the race I just couldn’t find the extra 1% of pace that I would have needed. Still, I was happy with my 1:40:44. I made sure to get on warm clothes afterwards and got home quickly.

Lübeck Citylauf (11.3k – October 10th)

I was pretty spent after the race. I managed to do some easy training, but within a week I had a bit of a flu, felt horrible and spent some days in bed to recover. By Friday before the Citylauf I felt okay enough to go on a very easy 5k run which didn’t feel all too good. I also hurt my knee again – very lightly this time, but I still could feel it when walking. But as my cousin Kai was to run this race as a prep for his upcoming first half-marathon race, I wanted to go to the race and warm up with him. I felt okay then, so I decided to run the race but start easy and then see how the race progressed.

I made sure to start at the back of the field and then make my way forward. I still felt my knee a little bit, but I wasn’t that bad and got better after a while. I managed to pick up my pace and was running really good considering that I spent a few days in bed not too long ago. Towards the end I was running 4:30 pace and was overtaking people all the time. I ran a whole lot slower than last year (about 4 minutes), but considering I was in bed just a few days ago, I was really happy with a solid run.

Lübeck Half-Marathon (October 24th)

After the Citylauf, it was two more weeks to the Half-Marathon. I wanted to do one longer tempo session with my cousin Kai to get him ready for his first Half. In order to allow him some recovery time before then, we had decided on Wednesday for the run. First, we did some easy 8k with his wife to warm up and get some k’s into the legs. Then, we did another 10k that also included 4k at his Half-Marathon pace, a little recovery and then another 1k at Half-Marathon and 500m at a little faster pace. I felt really good the whole time and Kai was happy that he was able to complete this session without too much trouble. I also did another 1h30 trail run, but that was an easier run just to be on my feet for a longer time and not trash myself before the race.

The day of the race, we had some bad weather again. But as the race would be run on streets, it at least wouldn’t be muddy. We watched the start of the Marathon (30 minutes before us) in pouring rain. We then went on to take off our warm-up clothes, had a short discussion weather to run in short or not and dropped off our bags when the rain stopped. It started again right after we had finished our races, but during the race it was dry and great to run.

The story of my race is pretty much the same as for Alstertal. I had an ambitious goal of running a similar time as last year, I was doing quite well for the first half, but when I would have had to step it up, I just couldn’t. I wanted to run close to 1:35, and ended up running a 1:37:58. Not off by a lot, not a catastrophic race – but still not what I was looking for.

Goals for my next race

My next race will be the 26k race around the lake in Ratzeburg. I’m pretty confident I can PR this race (currently just under 2h10 which is a 5min/k pace) if my prep goes well. But at this point I have to really improve within the next few weeks in order to get close to the goal I had set initially (sub 2 hours). What’s missing for now?

• longer runs – I’ve got to get a few longer runs (around 2 hours or longer)
• get my weight down – I’ll save this for another blog post, but I really have to improve here
• tempo runs – at this point I’m not “fit” enough to hold my goal pace for the duration of the race. I’ll need to run a 4:35 on a pretty hilly course, for Lübeck all I managed was a 4:38.
• overall volume – I’ve had a lot of stuff going on at work, and it resulted in only 3 runs per week. I’ve got to bump this up to 4 or better 5 runs per week.

Lots of work to do, not that much time for it. It’ll be an interesting few weeks …

Getting back up to speed

Last Wednesday, I did my first interval session since a long time – must have been more than half a year or so.

 Photo of a Roadrunner by Nick Chill from flickr

It was not an all out session as I did the run with my cousin Kai who decided to try to run his first half marathon at the end of October and asked me for some advice.

He had run the Stadtlauf in Bad Oldesloe a few weeks ago, so I had a recent 10k time to work with. He had run about 48 minutes for a pretty accurate course, so I looked up the corresponding half marathon (about 1:50) and marathon times (about 4 hours). Of course, these times would require a good, proper training for the events to be realistic. As this would be his first half marathon, it may be a bit aggressive, but he already indicated that he would be happy with a time of under 2 hours which should be totally realistic if he does some solid training the next few weeks.

As his biggest problem is pace control (he ran a bit too fast for the first loop in Bad Oldesloe), I’ve put together a session for him to teach some pace control.

We did a 13k run that included 3 time 3k (with some easy running in between). Each of these 3k blocks would consist of 1k at marathon pace (about 5:40/k), 1k at half marathon pace (5:10 to 5:15/k) and 1k at 10k pace (about 4:50 or a bit faster). In addition to be fairly long, if the paces are too quick, you will notice in the last repeat. Of course, this session is almost impossible to do without a GPS, but my Garmin 405 made it easy to hit the proper paces.

For my own goals, these paces are about one step too low (i.e. the marathon pace would be my long run pace, his halfmarathon pace would be my marathon pace and the 10k pace would be my half marathon pace). Still, this would be the longest run for me since my IM, and also (apart from the 10k race) the first quicker session for ages.

Everything went really well. It was a bit rainy during the day but when we ran we even had a bit of sunshine. It was warm enough to run in shorts, but a stiff wind required a long sleeve. When we started, we still managed to talk a bit, but only exchanged some grunts during the intervals. With some adjustments by the Garmin, we hit the paces almost perfectly. The second 10k section was quite hard, but that was mainly due to it being uphill and into a strong headwind. We even managed to run the last 10k in 4:38 without going all out.

We were both really happy with the session. Kai has a much better understanding of what his half marathon pace feels like, and I didn’t have a problem hitting the paces and still having enough air to offer him some encouragement. I guess we’ll do this session again, and maybe also share a longer run before the half marathon.

I’ve also lined up some races for the rest of the year. While my main goal remains to loose some weight, I’m registered for the Alstertal half marathon, Lübeck Citylauf and the Lübeck Half marathon – all races I managed to do last year (and also write some short blog posts about it). If all goes well, I’ll try to run a fast Adventslauf in Ratzeburg – a race I couldn’t do last year because I hurt my knee. Hopefully, my preparation will work better this year!

Easing back into Racing

Now that I’m back from vacation and starting back into some more serious running, I’m also starting to get back into some C-races. My “comeback” race was the 10k Stadtlauf (city run) in Bad Oldesloe, the town I was born at and that I still live close-by.

Last year, I was running another race just a short drive away at about the same time after my vacation as this year [insert link]. But then I didn’t have a good idea of where I stood, so I ran into severe problems in the second half after running the first part a bit too hard.

As the race in Bad Oldesloe was a three-loop course, I was hoping to avoid overpacing. But as there would be some family and friends there, it would also be difficult to properly hold back. (Last year’s race was run pretty much in anonymity as the people I knew there would be way in front of me and no friends cheering on.) I was trying to get everyone’s expectations down so there would be no confusion. In fact, I was saying that running under 50 minutes would be okay – each loop at around 16:30 (but was thinking that I should be able to run under 48 minutes – each loop at around 16 minutes). My cousin was also going to run in the race, and he would be running in the same general time range. So there might be someone to help push in the last loop …

The weather on the day was quite good for running. It was overcast and windy, but the rain that we had the days before had stopped. Not too hot, not too cold – pretty ideal for a 10k race. As the race was on Saturday afternoon, I was able to sleep in and avoid the usual race morning breakfast and hurrying to get ready in time. I took my time to warm up a bit, say hello to friends and family and lined up at the very back of the pack.

After the start, I slowly started to overtake a few people and tried to find a comfortable rhythm. It’s a bit tricky to judge the pace as there is a bit of up and down on the course, but I settled into a sub 5 minutes per k pace which didn’t feel too bad. I completed the first loop in about 15:30 and thought that I could hold that pace for the rest of the race. I was still overtaking people, and in the middle of the second loop I was reeling in my cousin (who went out too fast – a common mistake for him). I completed the second lop in another rough 15:30 and still feeling quite okay.

In the third loop I was working quite hard, but all I managed was to hold my pace for another 15:30ish loop and a 10k time of 46:36. I tried to get my speed up in the last k and was overtaking some more people, but didn’t have enough power to increase my pace. I had run a pretty even race and managed to be almost two minutes quicker than my cousin – and basically within just a little more than one loop.

I am quite happy with my race. I ran an okay time with a pretty even race and didn’t hit any particularly rough spots. For a first race, it was all you can ask for. Now I have a few weeks to train before my next race, a half marathon. Time to do some longer sessions …

Back from vacation

My wife and I have just returned from our glorious summer vacation, having spent four weeks in California and Nevada: goofing around near Lake Tahoe

We really enjoyed our time, but now it’s back to work!

For me, this is also the start of a new “season”. I’ll probably build up for the 26k Ratzeburg Adventslauf at the end of November. I tried that last year, but hurting my knee and thigh stopped that. Maybe this year I manage to get all the way through.

But six weeks after IM Germany and almost no training during that time, my goals are a bit more modest at the start:

• get my weight under control again
  My weight was much too high for the last two to three years to achieve my goals, and a nice, relaxed vacation didn’t help either. I’m up to 92kg by now, and I’ve put up a goal of loosing 10% of my body weight until next summer (i.e. go down to 83kg). My wife and have already started our diet.
  
• get back to regular training
  After six weeks of “off-season” (even if it was the middle of summer), I just want to get back to regularly working out again. Sport/intensity is not important right now, but I’m aiming to get to at least 5 times per week of at least 30 minutes of sports. Once I’m there (and lost some weight), I can then figure out some more performance oriented goals for the rest of the year.
  
• figure out if my knee is okay
  My knee has continued to act up once in a while. There is a sharp pain, then some swelling which takes a couple of days to subside. Not much of a hindrance really, but if it happens again and again I will have to see a doctor to figure out what I can do about it. I’m pretty sure it’s not a muscle issue, probably more a little meniscus problem, so for now I’m confident I’m not putting myself at risk to just go on with my training.

For the rest of the year and also for next year, I’m not sure what A-race I’m going to pick. Initially, we thought we would have an exchange student for a year, but she bailed on us and picked another family to stay at. We may get someone else around October, but for now we don’t know. I’m pretty sure I’ll be doing Vätternrundan again (300k bike “race” in Sweden), but other than that there is nothing fixed on my schedule. But it’s probably already too late for an IM-distance race (Frankfurt and Roth have sold out in a few days), so maybe I’ll pick a running race (e.g. Hamburg marathon with a performance goal?) or just have an easier year and then figure something out for 2012. Still too early to make these decision, I’ll better get started with the second half of 2010!

Race Report IM Germany

On July 4th, 2010, I raced my fourth IM-distance race. Even if things did not quite go as hoped for, it was still a great experience.

Race week

For my last race, the week before the race was hectic and stressful, and I entered the race quite frazzled. Physically, I might have been a bit rested, but mentally I was exhausted.

This time, I tried to take as much rest as possible. I had to finish some things for work, and I made sure to have enough time for that to finish on Wednesday. This allowed me to take Thursday and Friday off, sleep in, relax and pack my things. It would be getting really hot for the weekend, but I was able to put in a last long wetsuit swim on Thursday.

As my wife had to teach on Friday, we wouldn’t be able to drive down to Frankfurt before Friday and I would miss the race briefing. I knew a friend of mine would also be racing, so I phoned him with some questions I still had about the race. We talked them over and I was able to firm up my plans.

Also, on Friday morning I had a chance to make another phone-call with Mitch from Counterpart Coaching on how to race in the heat. I was anxious, but looking forward to the race.

The five hour drive down to Frankfurt went well, even with all the weekend traffic. We were staying with some relatives of mine, and they went out of their way to help me get ready for the race.

Day before the race

We slept in until 8am, had some breakfast with the family and then went into the town to collect the race package.

It was blazing hot, and just walking a bit around town and the exhibition was exhausting, so we made sure to have some extra water. We went back to the family and I packed my bags before lunch. The family had prepared a nice pasta lunch so my carbo-loading went really great. After that, I finished packing and we drove out to the bike check-in at the swim venue at Langener Waldsee, about a 30 minute drive.

Again, the sun was out in full force and the temperature was in the mid-90s – very hot for a German summer. We had a 15 minute walk from the car to registration in the sun, and I had to wait another 15 minute in line at check-in.

Tina got back to the car as soon as she could, but I had to endure for a bit longer. Check-in was uneventful – after all it was my fourth long-distance race and I had made sure to read all provided information. The swim would be a non-wetsuit swim (official water temperature on race day was 25.7 °C, about 80°F). We also had to drop off the run bag – I was a bit worried as I had some water in my FuelBelt in there and hoped it would not get too hot by the time I picked it up in T2 on the next day.

After that, I hurried back to the car but still missed the start of the Soccer World Cup match Germany vs. Argentina and the first German goal. I was drinking water all the time, but I still felt the heat. We then went for a quick visit with an old friend, watched the second half of the World Cup match and a chance to drink a lot more water. However, by the time we went back home, I had a bit of a headache and had some Coke to fix it. A quick dinner, and I was in bed by 9:30pm.

Race morning

Tina and I slept quite well, some clouds had moved in and it had cooled down a bit. I got up at 3:30am. My relative Doris helped me prepare my big race breakfast (two rolls with nutella and almond butter, three egg omelette, coffee, orange juice and a lot more water). I mixed my bottles and was ready to leave by 5:20. My wife drove me out to the swim start and dropped me off. Logistically it is quite tricky to get back from Langener Waldsee to Frankfurt, so Tina decided to skip the swim, have a breakfast with our family and then head into Frankfurt.

After another walk to T1, I was in transition by 6:10 to ceck on my bike. No flats during the night, so all I had to do was put my bottles on the bike and find a porta-potti. I looked over to the Pros (who started 15 minutes before the agegroupers), but only Cameron Brown was still there. After some good wishes for him, I got my stuff ready, listened to the national anthem played for the pro start and then slowly ambled over to the start area. I was in the water a few minutes before the start and tried to find a less congested area.

Swim

The swim ended up being pretty uneventful. It was somewhat crowded, but whenever it got too bad I just backed off and tried to swim away from the aggressive people. The swim is a two different loops with a short walk on the beach in between. The first loop is about 2.1k – 900 meters out, 400 across and another 800 back. The out section went pretty quick, but I was a bit surprised by the length of the across part. You couldn’t really see how far it would be, but there always seemed to be just one more buoy. I was back at the beach after 43 minutes, so I knew I would end up around my planned 1h20.

I didn’t do any really long swims, but I didn’t have any problems in the second loop. I was looking forward to being out of the water, it was getting a little bit cold without the wetsuit. I managed to pee a bit during the swim – that’s just how relaxed I managed to swim. When I hit the beach again, I had swum a bit under 1h21, so I had slowed town just a bit on the second, but that was expected and I was okay with the time.

I then walked up the steep sandy section on the beach, had a quick drink and grabbed my bag. I put on bike bibs and a short sleeve bike shirt – it would be a long ride and I didn’t care about the extra two minutes it would take to put the clothes on. Before grabbing my bike, I had another quick pee in a porta potti and then I was on my way …

Bike

The bike course in Frankfurt starts with a 12k section from the lake to downtown Frankfurt on a wide, closed four-lane street. I immediately felt really good and relaxed, and even though a lot of people were overtaking me, my speed was really good. My best plan was to race at a 29 km/h average, but my average was over 31 km/h (it was a bit downhill), and even towards the end of the first loop it stayed over 30 km/h.

Everything was going great. HR was in check, speed was great, I was eating and drinking as planned, and I made hourly stops to pee so I knew I was hydrating well. I had a little bad patch shortly after the second loop started, but I took things a bit easier, made sure to eat and drink some more. After that my stomach felt a bit strange, so I just drank some more water, had a bit of Coke and everything settled down. On the 2nd half of the 2nd loop I felt really strong, and overtook a lot of people without trying too hard. I relaxed on the last downhill section into Frankfurt, and was hoping for a good run.

Also, my great bike time meant that I beat Macca and the race winner Andreas Raehlert .. I finished my bike before they finished their full race – something I had not thought possible before the race.

Here are the raw numbers from my Ergomo:

Hour	AP	NP	HR	Speed
1	110	139	121	31,5
2	118	139	117	29
3	101	123	99	30,9
4	109	131	120	28,7
5	104	115	118	29
6	102	120	116	29,3
10 Min	74	93	109	32,4	easy finish
Total	106	128	115	29,7	6:08:28 182,5 km

These numbers have to be taken with a bit of caution. The numbers are way too low to be realistic. My guess is that I would need about 200 watts to be able to come up with a 30k/h average. So the numbers are about 95watts to low. This would give me AP of 201w and NP of 223w. The way NP is calculated, NP would be even closer to AP, but this is just a rough estimate. So even if the raw numbers give me a VI of 1.2 (way too high!), it is realistically around 1.08. This means that I was riding relatively even. All in all, a pretty good ride, probably the best I have ever done in an IM.

Run

In T2, I again took my time. I completely redressed, had a volunteer put some more sunscreen on me, and took another quick stop at a porta potti. All this resulted in a slow T2, but also meant that when I started to run my HR was pretty much where I wanted it to be (goal was under 130, if possible closer to 125). The pace was okay (around 6 min/k) and I just hoped things would stay that way.

Towards the end of the first loop, the woman’s winner Sandra Wallenhorst ran by me, so I got some TV time with her:

(I’m on the left, Sandra is on the right.)

However, towards the middle of the second loop the walk breaks at the aid stations were not quite enough, and I had to walk a bit more. I was taking a short stop in a porta potti and hoped that would help me reset things. However, I had run out of steam. The run breaks got more and more frequent and pretty soon I was more walking than running – with the average pace dropping accordingly.

At the middle of the third loop, I had a quick talk with my wife and told her it would be a slow second half – but that I had no doubts I’d be able to finish. I asked her to try and get me some cold Cola by the next time I would run by her. I just goes to show how far off I was in my head. It just took me a few minutes to improve on this plan. When I reached the next aid station, I got a big cup of ice and stopped at the people handing out the cola. I sat down on their bench (they were quite concerned and checked a couple of times that I was okay) and downed a big cold Cola and nibbled on some Pretzels. After that, I walked a bit more to start digesting the Cola and started to run again a bit more often.

The Cola effect wore off pretty soon, but I was working as hard as I could. Things were not much better, but as I knew I was on my last loop I started setting some goals to keep me motivated. At the start of the last loop I was still hoping to be able to run sub-5h, but that quickly turned out to be unrealistic. So I again took a Cola-bench-stop – shorter this time, but I got even more encouragement from the volunteers. My new goal became to come in at sub-13h. And I struggled a bit to find some “open” space to enjoy the finish chute. I took some extra time to find my wife in the crowd and smiled my thanks at her. Total race time was 12:54:52:

Here is a quick look at the numbers for the run from my Garmin:

	Duration	Pace	HR
0-10	1:01:30	6:09	126
10-20	1:10:10	6:56	121
20-30	1:23:39	8:18	109
30-40	1:17:47	7:45	113
40-Finish	0:15:47	7:24	115
Total	5:08:53	7:18	117

Summary and Outlook

I think I did the best I could do for the race. I did not race the bike too hard, but think I just didn’t have the required fitness to produce a better marathon. As this was to be expected, I’m quite happy with the way I kept working to come up with as good a marathon as possible. Of course, there are always a few minutes I could have been faster, but I didn’t make any major mistakes. Compared to my PR from Roth 2007 (when I ran way too fast from 5k to 20k in the marathon), my race execution was much better this year.

Here is where I think improvements can come from:

• I have to increase the overall training volume, but especially on the run. In the 2010 season (which started in October 2009), I just ran 1100k in preparation before the race, an average of 125k per month. In preparation for my PR in 2007 I ran an average of 170k per month. Some of it was due to an injury, but I still didn’t find enough time for better run training.
• At about 89kg, my weight was unacceptably high for the race which made racing in the heat even harder. I’m disappointed in myself that I didn’t manage to get my weight down.
• My bike was really good for the low volume I had done (2150k in 2010, 240k average per month). I mainly attribute that to the bike camp in March which gave me a really good base.
• My non-wetsuit swim time of 1:21 was the slowest IM swim I did, but again it was a good time for the low volume I did (barely 50k in 2010). In 2007, I swam a 1:12 on more than 200k.

All of this means that I have a pretty good understanding of what needs to be done when I’m going to race my next Ironman:

• get my weight down (85kg or lower)
• some more swimming (maybe 100k or 50 hours)
• another bike camp and some more overall cycling volume (about 4.000 km, about 150 hours)
• increased run volume (at least 1500k, about 145 hours)

Summing this up, it gives me a total volume of about 350 hours from October to June (9 months), an average of almost 40 hours per month. Not impossible, but certainly no chicken shit. It requires some more time than I currently have available, so I’m not going to race an IM next year. Maybe 2012? Right now I’m happy to take things a bit easier, and I’m really looking forward to my vacation starting a week from now …

Race Plan Frankfurt

A few days before the race, it is time to put my race plan into writing. Even though I have a pretty clear plan in my head, writing it down always helps.

Photo taken from the finish line webcam at http://www.ironman.de/live/webcam.htm

General

I know that I do not have the fitness I would like to have. Therefore, any dreams of dramatic improvements can be put to rest (unless I want a spectacular detonation during the run). I will have to execute really well if I want to have a decent run. However, if I manage to do that, I believe that I can end up close to my current PR of 11h58.

There are a number of things that lead to me to be a bit skeptic. I haven’t done enough long sessions, and my weight is about 6 pounds over were I want to be. Also, it’s probably going to be quite hot for the race which will make the race even harder for me.

Swim

I haven’t done much swimming, so I have no idea what my swim time is going to end up. As long as I focus on technique and swimming relaxed, I should end up okay even if my longest swim session was just about 2.5k. The wetsuit swim in Hannover felt pretty good, and I hope it’s not going to be too hot to swim in a wetsuit. [Update: It’s currently very hot and the water temperature is just short of not allowing wetsuits. By race day, we’ll probably be over it – so it looks like a non-wetsuit swim.] I’m guessing that I’ll swim around 1h15, and I’m fine as long as I swim under 1h20. But whatever, a few extra minutes on the swim won’t hurt me much.

I’ll take transition pretty easy, too – just put on my helmet and then grab the bike with shoes and all the rest of my stuff (glasses, gloves and arm warmers if it is cold in the morning). I should be on the bike somewhere between 1h20 and 1h30.

Bike

The key for the bike will be to set up a good run – this requires an “easy” bike. It will be quite hard to keep this thought in mind for the 6h30 or so that the bike will take, especially with my flashy new bike and race wheels.

This year, the bike course will be a bit longer than usual – some construction will add an extra 5k to the bike, about 10 minutes at my speed. At my current fitness, I think that I can manage an average speed between 28.5 and 29 km/h.- this would give a bike split of 6h30 to 6h22. When I told my friends about this goal time, they thought I was low-balling, but I think anything faster would be bad for my run split. The numbers to arrive at this time are HR under 120, and wattage about 125w. (I know that number is probably low, but my Ergomo is off – which doesn’t really matter, I want to ride as even as possible, and absolute numbers are not important for that.)

I hope to be off the bike at under 8 hours – probably around the time that the first pros will have finished. As they start 15 minutes before the age groupers, it might be a goal of finishing the bike before the first pro finishes the race, but that would require a 7h45 and that’s probably a bit fast for me.

As important as not spending too much energy on the bike is making sure I eat and drink enough. For eating, I’m aiming for 250 to 300 cal on the bike, which is about one bar per hour, the occasional banana and then some calories from the Powerbar electrolyte drink they’re handing out on the course.

As it’s going to be really hot, it will be important to drink enough and cool myself down with water over the head. I hope I’ll be able to manage things better than at Hannover when I was overheated when I came off the bike and had a pretty bad run.

Run

Once I get off the bike, change and start the run, it’ll be interesting to see if I manage to keep my HR down. It’ll be in the middle of the day (around 3pm or so), so it’s going to be pretty hot and it will be important to start the run as easy as possible (HR under 130, if possible around 125). This will require some walk breaks, especially on the short steep sections onto the bridges and at the aid stations to make sure that I get some more drinks, water and ice. I’ll also have to try to eat as long as possible in order to be able to have a solid run. I’m going to prepare my FuelBelt and have PowerBlocks and Gu Shot Blocks available. In the past, I got to a point where I didn’t care too much any more, stopped eating and ran out of steam soon after that. So it’ll be mentally hard to keep in the race and make the best of my chances. I don’t think that I’ll be able to run any faster than a 6 minute per k pace, and I hope to be able to keep that up as long as possible. This would result in 4h15 marathon, and a total race time of just a bit over 12 hours.

I’ll count anything under 12:08 as a PR (my current PR is a 11:58 from Roth 2007), and I’ll be very proud if I manage to run in that general area.

Building confidence with some better training sessions

After my not-so-good race in Hannover, I’ve tried to do some confidence building sessions. So far, it has worked fine.

(Picture found on Deadra’s blog.)

The best session I have done in a long time was last weekend’s long brick session. As per Mitch’s suggestion, I did some pretty long sessions around my half-IM in Hannover – the week before I did a 3 hour run, and for the week after he suggested a long brick. As I am a bit time constrained, the instruction was to run for about 90 minutes after a bike ride – as long as my time allows.

I was still a bit tired and spent after the Hannover race and I knew that my work week was going to be a bit hectic as well. So I capped my bike ride at 2 hours. I went a bit easier than IM intensity, but I still had some very solid sections in there. The weather was a bit cold so I had arm and leg warmers on and made sure I was eating and drinking enough. It’s funny how a 2 hour ride seems to be quite solid at the start of the season, but goes over in a flash when you’re almost ready for a race. Also, my mind was already on the run. I was hoping for a much better run than in my half-IM where every step was hard work.

After a quick change of clothes, the first steps of the run felt strange as usual, but I quickly loosened up, had a good “bio-break” and really felt okay. I wasn’t hot at all (in fact, I had even put on a long shirt), I was able to eat and drink as planned and just felt great. My HR quickly got down to where I wanted it (under 125 beats per minute), and it even took some effort not to slow down and have the HR drop further. Time flew by, and I was feeling great the whole way. I didn’t manage to run for 90 minutes – my pace was so quick that I had run the planned course after 1h26m. In Hannover, I wasn’t able to run any quicker than a 6 min/k pace even when working hard, now I was running around 5:20/k without any effort at all.

How is that possible? Well, here are some ideas:

• The bike before the run was quite easy compared to Hannover.
• I wasn’t overheated, so everything just clicked: HR, eating, drinking, being relaxed, pace.
• I was better rested than before the race – I had made sure to get some extra sleep during the week to recover from the race.

For my IM in Frankfurt, this means that I have to make sure that I start the race well rested and have to manage to complete the bike race within myself – not too hard, and certainly avoid getting hot. This includes bike intensity, but also measures such as making sure to put on sun screen so I don’t get another sunburn, drink a little more than in Hannover (so I start peeing before the half-way mark) and relax a bit on the last bike section before T2.

I also hope that it’s not going to be too hot in Frankfurt – but as I don’t have any influence on that it’s better to come up with a good plan if it ends up being hot. But at least I know now that I can have a decent run in Frankfurt if I manage to execute smartly. At least I can influence that …

Hannover “Mitteldistanz” 1/2 IM Race

This Sunday, I was racing my first triathlon in a long time, the 1/2 Ironman distance race in Hannover (called Mitteldistanz or middle distance in Germany). I’m not quite sure what to make of my performance, but first let’s have a look at the race.

Before the race

Friday and Saturday I made sure that my bike was in working order. As I had taken the plunge and splurged on new race wheels (a pair of used but as good as new Zipp 404s), there was some scrambling around to make sure I had the right tubes with long enough valves. The week had been pretty stressful, and I was glad I had the chance for a little nap at noon on Saturday. Still, I was probably not very rested, even if my training volume was pretty low in the week leading up to the race.

On Sunday, we drove for two hours to Hannover. It was pretty close to the end of the bike drop off, but I preferred to get some more sleep and a big breakfast in. Once I get settled in the big transition area, I had enough time to put on my race clothes and warm up a bit for the swim. It was going to be the first really hot day of the year, so I made sure I had enough water to drink.

Swim

Up to a week before the race, it was pretty cold and there were some worries that the swim would have to be canceled. The week of the race it was quite warm, though, and with a wetsuit it wasn’t cold at all.

I got into the water maybe 10 minutes before the start of my wave, so I still had some time to hitch the wetsuit up after the initial contact with the water. I was ready and hoped for a good day!

The swim itself was pretty uneventful. It was in a canal which meant that it would be 1k up the canal, turn around a buoy and then 1k back. The initial mayhem cleared up pretty fast, and I was swimming pretty much by myself. At the turnaround I had a quick look at my watch and was very happy to see a time of just over 17 minutes. I managed to stay focused on my stroke and and felt pretty good the whole time. The whole swim was over after 35 minutes. With about 5 minutes under my estimated time the swim must have been short. :-)

An easy run up to the transition, put on the help and grab my bike.

Bike

Once on the bike, I had problems to get my HR down. I wanted to get under 120, but a combination of heat, mental lapse and people overtaking me prevented that. My wattage was in the goal range of 140, but the HR stayed just under 130. After a while, I just figured that the excitement of the race had increased my HR, and I decided to stick with the wattage. At the end of the first loop, I was quite happy – AP at 138w, NP at 147 (so I was riding quite even), but a speed of 31,3 and HR at 130.

As had happened the last time I did this race two years ago, wattage and the other data didn’t quite match. I figure that the Ergomo has some problems with the heat we were having and giving me low numbers. But so far, I hadn’t really dug myself a hole, but it was clear that I shouldn’t really increase my effort in the second and third loop.

By this time, I was pretty much riding with the same people – usually getting dropped on the uphills, and then catching people again on the downhills (even riding by wattage does that). On the second and third lap, I kept things pretty much the same. I still dropped wattage a bit towards the end (133AP/143NP for the whole ride), and it was getting really hot. I’m not sure if I was drinking enough, I didn’t pee at all this time during the ride. But I had eaten quite well and was hoping for a good run.

Total ride time: 2 h 48 min 12 secs

Run

After dropping off my bike, I changed into run clothes and went off. After the first k or so, I stopped for a quick pee. I pretty soon noticed that I was really hot and tried to cool down with water. But – as had happened on the bike – I didn’t really get my HR down to where I wanted it to be. I wanted to run at about 125 with a cap of 130, but I hardly managed to get it down to 130. I even put in a few walk breaks to get the HR down, but all to no avail. I tried what I could – water, coke, a cookie, but couldn’t manage to get anything solid down. At the same time, my pace was over 6 min per k, so I was relatively slow as well.

I was feeling pretty crappy, too, and I was getting a quite disappointed. I struggled through the first loop, happy to see my wife (and the dog) for the first time since the start, and was almost ready to throw in the towel – there was no way I was able to lift the pace. But I didn’t want to have the bad experience before my IM race and pushed on. I took my time at the aid stations and made sure I was drinking as much as I could and hoped the Coke would help, too. Between the aid stations I was using my FuelBelt to further cool down. By the middle of the second loop I was feeling a bit better. At least I managed to run a half-way decent pace – even with the breaks at the aid stations I was running faster than 6 min/k and started to overtake a few people. That didn’t last too long, and towards the end my pace slowed again. I knew I would be at over 2h10 for the run, so I just relaxed a bit and took it easy for the last few k. I was really relieved to reach the finish line and was pretty wrecked after that.

Total run time: 2 h 11 min 33 secs

Evaluation

As stated above, I’m disappointed with my performance last Sunday. As you can see from my expectations before the race, I was hoping to be able to go a bit faster, especially during the run.

Then again, I think I did the best I could during the second part of the run. I did not break down completely and just walk it in (which I did two years ago), even if the pace was slower than I was hoping for. The feeling will probably be what it will be like in the second half of the marathon in Frankfurt – and I will be happy if I manage to run in the 4h20min region.

So here are my takeaways from this race:

• No need to worry about the swim – some more longer sessions and I shouldn’t have a problem with the IM swim if I don’t expect much under 1h20min.
• it is important to get my HR down after the swim – otherwise I’ll be just overpacing.
• I have to re-calibrate my Ergomo numbers again. For IM, stay within the HR targets even if wattage seems low. On Sunday, 140watts were a bit much.
• When it’s getting hot, make sure to drink enough! Pee before the half way point …
• Still, I feel confident to be able to ride a 29 km/h average, which would translate to a 6h22m time for the 185k bike (Frankfurt will be a bit long this year).
• As with the bike, make sure to get HR into acceptable range after transition. That will probably mean walk breaks, so I should just start walking the aid stations right from the start to take enough fluids.
• With the HR lower, I should be able to get some calories down during the start of the run. (Something that I just couldn’t do in Hannover.)
• Make sure to lower the overall stress in the week leading up to race. Hopefully I can take a few days really easy – sleeping in, staying at home etc.

I will try to simulate the run pacing on another training brick I have planned for this weekend – maybe a two hour ride and then a 16k transition run. I just hope that Frankfurt will not be as hot as Hannover. But you’ll never know and I just have to take things as they come and make the best of it.

Packed for my first tri this season

Just a quick post after packing my stuff for tomorrow and being almost ready for bed …

Tomorrow, I’ll race my first tri this season. (In fact it is my first triathlon after the Ostseeman in 2008.) It is a half Ironman distance race in Hannover (http://www.wasserstadt-triathlon.de/index.html). I’ve done this race a few times before, but they’ve changed things around a bit (different layout for the swim, new shorter bike loop, new longer run loop), so I don’t really know what to expect. Also, with my past training I know I won’t be able to rip the course like I did in 2007 when I went really fast and almost everything clicked. (If I remember correctly, I was a bit disappointed because I did not manage to run under 1h40. Not a chance tomorrow!)

I’ve tried to come up with some time plan for my wife, but I know it’s pretty much a shot in the dark. My main goal is to be able to have a decent run the last 10k. (I’ve struggled with my run the last time I did the race in 2008 and had to walk the second half of the run leg.) As it’s going to be a hot day tomorrow (the first summer days have just arrived) with temperatures in the 80s and the start of the race around noon, I know I have to be really careful on the bike. This has led to the following plan, mixing IM and faster speeds:

• 2k Swim: 40 Minutes (no idea where I’ll end up ;-)
• 90k Bike: 3 laps of 30k each (2h53, goal: sub 2h55, if everything goes great sub 2h50)
• Lap 1: ~ IM (140W, <120HR, 29km/h): 1h02
• Lap 2: a little faster (150W, <130HR, 31 km/h) 58 Minutes
• Lap 3: ~ 1/2 IM (160W, < 140HR, 34 km/h) 53 Minutes
• 21.1 Run: 2 laps of 10,6k each (1h53, goal: sub 1h55, if everything goes great sub 1h50)
• Lap 1 to 5k: ~IM (<130HR, a little faster than 6 min/k) 30 minutes
• Lap 1 rest: a little faster (<135HR, 5:30 min/k) 31 minutes
  (goal: first loop in under 1:00h)
• Lap2 if feeling okay: ~ 1/2 IM (HR whatever ~ 5 min/k) 53 minutes

Adding the transitions in (5 minutes for T1 and T2?) gives a total of about 5h35, so I’ll try to get under 5h30. Even if I have a great race I don’t see me going any faster than a 5h20.

But whatever happens tomorrow, I have to keep my goal of a decent second half of the run in my mind. If I manage to pick up the pace then, this race will have been a success. Slowly starting to get nervous, hope I’ll be able to sleep …

Long Run around Ratzeburger See

One of the standard races in the winter in the 26k run around the Ratzeburger See (a large lake adjacent to the town of Ratzeburg), usually held on the first Sunday in December. I’ve posted about this race in the past [include link]. This winter, I was training to do the race, but then got an injury and had to pull out of the race. One thing that has been on my list since then was to do the run as a long training run. I finally got around to do it!

After loading my FuelBelt with drink, food and my iPhone (for music and a camera), I did the short 25 min drive from my home to a parking lot at the North tip of the lake. (The race starts in Ratzeburg at the South tip, but it was easier to do the run from the North.) Here’s a Google Earth screenshot:

After a short jog through the forest, I reached the lake near a little marina:

On the Eastern side, the dirt trail runs pretty close to the lake, usually in a nice shade from some bushes. Even though it had rained a bit in the last days, the trail was not too muddy and great to run on.

After about 9k the trail moves a bit away from the lake and into some hillier  terrain:

For the race, this is the last harder section – you had better saved some power for this! But on my run, I had just warmed up and was able to cruise them quite comfortably.

After 13k, you come to the old town of Ratzeburg that is sitting on a little dam between two lakes. After the short section through the town, there are some beautiful views on the lake and the dome:

The eastern side of the lake was almost completely part of East Germany. Before 1989, it was impossible to run around the lake (in fact the race was started as a celebration of the border opening up). By now, you have to know where the border was to spot the location of the fences – pretty scary stuff back then. It never fails to be thankful for the peaceful events that took place in 1989 that allowed Germany to re-unify. Even if it’s tricky to pick the exact location of the borderline, you can still tell that you are in East Germany – the whole are is much more rural, and the villages just have a different feel to it, even though a lot of old houses have been beautifully rebuilt.

Also, the eastern side of the lake is much hillier. Probably because of that the trail moves at times away from the lake but you are always running in almost no traffic except for the occasional biker or walker.

I was going through my water and my ShotBlocks (have I mentioned that I hate gels?), and was making good progress. I was taking an occasional walk break on some steeper hills, but my legs felt okay.

After 27k and almost exactly 2h30 of running, I was back at the parking place where I left my car:

I was very happy with this run. It was very beautiful (the pictures can’t really capture it), and my legs felt good all the way. Now if only the race feels that good …