I did it right!

The 25m pool, one of the hundreds that were build in the former GDR. They reconstructed it a few years back, but the main layout stays the same. And it's perfectly fine for swim training. I don't need a 50m pool to train.

I mean, I swam the amount that gives me a training effect and eventually a swimmers back. I really want a swimmers back!
How do I know that I did it right? Sore arm and shoulder muscles. Not that they hurt or scream at me, they just say we did something yesterday. Which is good.
Since I initially had planned to swim for one hour I wasn't too happy about just swimming 45 minutes. But my left shoulder warned me of an upcoming cramp, so I decided to leave the pool before something happened. That my muscles are sore now shows that it was just the right amount of training for them. Good.

My breakfast. Before going to the pool I drank the tea. And on my way home I munched the apple and the two boiled eggs.

My packed duffle. I just found out, that I need to bring a small old towel for stepping on when toweling off. What do you bring with you to the pool?

Next swim is scheduled for Wednesday morning and I'm confident, that I will get up at the right time. Because I do shut down my Mac at 9 PM now, so I get to sleep at 11 PM latest. Which is a major improvement.

And now I'm off to find my new cheese.

KEEP MOVING FORWARD! And have an amazing new week.

Paleojourney - A Mac Photo Booth Diary - Week 8

Okay, I took this picture right out of bed at 8:28 AM getting ready for my swim training. Initially I already wanted to be in the water at that time, but I overslept. ;)
I got up at 8:17 put the electric kettle on, brushed my teeth and took this picture for you, still in my night shirt.

I swam for 45 minutes today and am really proud on myself to walk to the pool, swim and then eat my breakfast while walking back home. By the way the walk to the pool took 30 minutes, the walk back took 45 minutes, same route. Yep, the swim definitely took it's toll. So I'll go swimmning on Wednesday again.
Oh almost forgot, no eye candy at the pool. :( But candy in the vending machine, however I stayed strong and just enjoyed my paleo breakfast (2 boiled eggs and an apple) on my way home. Yes, I'm such a badass athlete. ;)

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!

Yikes

I'm feeling like crap today, since I threw up this morning around 2 AM. I don't have any idea what triggered it, because when I went to bed 2.5 hours earlier I was feeling fine, except for being quite tired.

On Saturday I did two hourlong walks through the snow (to and fro my parents for lunch, we had trout), though it was more trudging since it was often 40 cm high. When I got home I had to lie down for a nap, I was totally exhausted.

Yesterday we went to grandmas and there I took a short brisk walk with my dad of about forty minutes. We had duck for lunch. Since my grandma has opinion and I don't felt like going into a fight over food on christmas with her, I ate a few christmas cookies. My stomach wasn't to happy about them. Maybe they were the first stepping stone to the 2 AM happening. Whatever...


I don't know about you, but I'm currently planning my training goals for 2011. It's all about building a sound fitness base, leaning out, getting my food and metabolism right (Solving the knee issue. Would you believe it? I have a big bruise on my knee where it was always swollen, but I didn't hit it. Mmh, this isn't good.). I might throw in a short distance race in the summer just for the atmosphere, but nothing is fixed.
Since I haven't finished the Primal Blueprint yet, I can't give you any fixed info on this, but you will read how I do over time soon enough. In any case I'll go swimming this week. The 50m pool has really good opening hours this week, so I'll have a go on Wednesday or Thursday. I wished they had these opening hours all the time. It would make it so much easier.

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!

How to plan a plan or why

after four days of planning to plan my training plan I still have no plan?

Seriously, I had this point of planning my training ("a plan that I will stick to" does something like this even exist in this universe of the multiverse?) on my tasklist for four days now. And while I finally do some strength drills again (yes, I stopped. Again...), I still haven't sat down to write down a training plan that I will stick to (or not).

I mean seriously I have some high goals (Ironman Hawaii, remember?), yet I don't get my b... moving. Instead I ate tons of chocolate, over the day, not in the evening, so the thing my doc did works well. Unfortunately I said nothing about no sweets for the whole day. Whoops.

Maybe I'm just in a phase of high self-sabotage?! Could be true.

So here I'm standing more or less on the same spot I started last year. Well, if that isn't an accomplishment. Yada, yada, yada.

KEEP MOVING FORWARD! (ahhaaa, as if I would!)

8 k and a howling leg

Hey there,

St. Peter seams to have a BAAAD week. Rain and "sunshine" switch positions every few hours, so I had to align my training schedule. I can't believe that it's already Thursday, time is racing.

Anyway yesterday I walked 8 k, not that much considering what my goals are. But my left leg was really unhappy about this walk. Around k 5 it started howling first the back thigh muscle than directly the inner knee than the knee cap, for good measure my front thigh muscle added a bit flavour to the crescendo and back to back thigh muscle. Wonderful.

The real thing that pisses me off, I've been to the physio about an hour before this crescendo. And she had loosened up my thigh and knee muscles, it hurt like hell and obviously my muscles thought: "Oh yes, this was fun, let's do it again while walking." Argh.

Anyway, I stick to my goals. Marathon, Triathlon, Ironman. Here I come. No matter what.


So today is Protein-and-Water-Day. Sounds bad? It isn't. Chocolate Milk(protein)shakes, Magnesium drinks and some yummy meat sticks on fresh salad. YUMMY.

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!

Sometimes I need a reminder

to get back on track.

Over the last few weeks or, let's be frank, months I got distracted from my big goal, Triathlon = Ironman!

Well, there is nothing like a running(biking) into a race to get me back on track and realign my priorities. Yes, you've read right, I biked into a race on my usual Sunday morning ride with Chris. They held a shortie right next to the wild water rafting station on Lake Markkleeberg. And me, Miss-I-want-to-race-Ironman-Distance-in-2013 didn't have a clue about it!!!!! Well, IRONMAN 2013 has gone down the drain anyway, after this year. (I can't even say season since I haven't done one race!%$%'§%$§&/$§$%)

AND YOU KNOW WHAT REALLY TICKS ME OFF??!?!?!?!? That I could have done this race without extra training, because the distances were ridiculous and I know this course in my sleep! Okay, so I would have been the last one in every part, but I would have had my first f*ing Tri. ARRGGGHHH.
And those competitors, ha, except for the leading group they were mostly not that prepared. I just say pot bellies and much worse creaking bikes! What good is it to have a 1500€ roadie and it creaks with every stroke? Seriously, take care of your gear if you do a tri!

While the leading group, sigh; the sound when they drove by... Well, most of you probably know the fantastic sound of perfectly working bike mechanic flying by you. Chris and I just looked at each other in fascination and jelousy. (My gearshift is still misbehaving most of the time, although it worked fine today. I'll have have word with the BDO mechanic this week for sure.)


On the other hand, I still don't have a helmet and my knee is misbehaving to an extent that's bothering me to even sit with bended knees! Good thing my next physio is tomorrow, so I'll howl my frustration in my therapists ear, hopefully she knows a way to get my knee back to function properly so I can get back to running. My hip and lower back are fantastic though, still I don't see why I have to trade in a working knee for a working hip and back.


Due to this run in with a tri I updated my priorities.

# 1 Getting an interesting job and an apartment.
# 2 Getting rid of the excess body fat and getting fit. (I'm on roll here.Thanks to L-Carnitin and the new harvest apples.)
# 3 Becoming a member in a tri club, depends on No 1.
# 4 Learning how to swim properly, depends on No 3.
# 5 Everything else, like getting a tripod and a scanner for my photography.

While we're on the subject of getting rid off things:
I finally got around to sort out some books. In these four bags are about 50 books. I'm reading quite a lot and I still had some school books on my shelves. So all of them go to a thrift store. The slightly frustrating thing? My shelfs look still the same because I had the books stacked in two rows on my shelfs.

Training schedule for the upcoming week. A bike ride every day. Core strength training every day. 1 hour of swimming, not every day. ;-)

Hope everyone had a nice weekend.

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!

NEED.CHOCOLATE.CAKE.NOW!!! (Update)

There are days when I'm in a ROTTEN mood and then I need sugar and fat in form of Starbucks Truffle (Triple or Decadence [same cake everywhere but in Dublin its called 'decadence' which is a fitting name]) Chocolate Cake as seen below.


(http://farm1.static.flickr.com/32/63093545_0a05dc4ec9.jpg)

Today is one of those days. (insert heavy sigh here) Even now, that I'm feeling slightly sick from it, I feel that it was absolutely necessary.


No, the assessment center at the Steinbeis University in Berlin went okay. And I was STELLAR as the minister president of Baden-Wuerttemberg (german federal state in the south west, yes we've got federal states too, I live currently in Saxony). I sucked at the self presentation, 2 minutes and in f***ing English, talking isn't as easy for me as writing, because I write a lot more than I talk, thanks to my blogs.
They made us also answer 3 questions, to test our english writing skills, this is were I excel. My three questions were: 1. What is your career goal? My answer in short and over the top: Global Domination. Yes I literally wrote "global domination". You didn't actually think that I take this kind of test seriously, now did you? 2. question: How do you react to critics? This one I answered seriously. 3. What would you contribute to this master course? I'd contribute style and humour. Yes, I literally wrote that and something more. Mostly because I didn't have a clue what to write. And I wasn't alone with that, we, the attendees, often asked each other, what do you answer to this or that question, everyone had some different questions?

The interview was weird. My interviewer told me that she had full confidence that I'm abled to do the studies, but the problem is my meandering vita and my quirky, creative and outgoing personality. I don't fit the forms or normal picture german bosses and entrepreneurs have from engineers (Too bad that I'm not boring, than I would have a job in no time!) and therefore it might be hard to get me into their partner companies, without them thinking: how crazy is she?

I haven't heard back from them until now, but until Monday evening I will know. There is just the money question left. The minimal payment is way to low if you ask me and definitely too low for living in Stuttgart.


The last night was awful, I slept really crappy. I nearly overslept this morning and wasn't really awake until I ate my monstrous chocolate cake. Even when I rode to school and while I wrote the project management test I wasn't that clearminded (54 out of 56 points as a result, I am absolutely fantastic!!! Even half sleeping and reading job offers during the test didn't stop me. Yes, I'm that good, got a job for me?).

Tonight I will ride another training round and tomorrow I've planned to go swimming!

Congrats to KK she made a great over all 3rd place at her last tri, you find her race report here. Big Daddy finished 3rd too in his last race and won his own pukie award for this race twice. Read his report here.

Have a great weekend and good luck on your races, may you have tail wind all race long! (Headwind for training, we need the adversity in training and perfect conditions in the race than we can beat the pros. Muahahah)

UPDATE: I passed the Assessment!!! Now I have to do a GMAT like onlinetest and rewrite my applications for the different jobs and in a few weeks I could work and study. WOHOO. I'll get some icecream for celebration now, the weather is too weird to go for a ride.

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!!

Mini Celebration

Morning Folks.

There's a lot to celebrate this morning.

My weight is down too 63,2 kg = 139,33 lbs, even though I ate way too much carbs in the last weeks. but ending the meal skipping seems to have done the trick. Even though I ate some chocolate waffles around 3 AM this morning. I don't think I was completely conscious at that time! With my new and well thought out ;-) training plan my weight will go down more and more.

I just realized last evening that this blog is now 1 year old! I wrote my first post on May 31st last year. Unbelievable that I stuck with this blog for so long. I never would've gotten this far without you all reading and commenting on it. THANK YOU!

After I had this little meltdown last Wednesday, I realized that I need to step up my game mentally and this book is just what I need: "The Triathlete's Guide to Mental Training", by Jim Taylor and Terri Schneider. Yesterday I remembered that I already own this wonderful book on mental training. Have you guys read it? I've started with it about 2 years ago and then got side tracked or lost focus (surprising, eh?). First chapter is how far I read back then. Last night I started out again while I soaked in the tub. Nothing better than having a good read in the tub. I've decided to read this book completely this week. Since I need the strategies also for the big interview for Super Job. (Which looks like it's shifted to next week due to the german worldcup game on Friday. Damn it!!! If you ask me, they should stick with the date and whoever doesn't show up is obviously not fit for becoming a manager on the upper level of management. Seriously, putting your future on line just for watching a ball game?!! How stupid is that?!!!) This book is full of wisdom so be prepared for some nice quotes. The current quote at the sidebar is from it. Very inspiring, don't you think?

In yesterdays post I showed you a bike by BMC that isn't exactly cheap. I checked out the company this morning and it's a high-end bike manufacturer from Switzerland. This explains the price. What I also found out is that their womens roadie is called "Sparkle" and looks like this:

Cute isn't it? Love the color. Checking it out at the web I found that it is cheaper than the bike from yesterday (2.300,- €) with "just" 1.700,- € that I would have to pay for it. That's six of one and half a dozen of another. I can't afford it this year anyway. But good to know that they have roadies for my size. (But BMC if you want to sponsor me with a Sparkle or bike clothing just for me. I'm game! I'm 162cm tall. ;-)

After thinking about my training ride of yesterday evening I decided that 25 k in 2 rides with a 4 hour break including a nap is pretty low mileage and could be hardly counted as training. (Hell, Ironman means a ride of 180k as a part of a race.) So today I've decided to ramp up the mileage. Tonight I will ride 25k in one ride. Riding more will improve my cardiosystem and give me cylists legs, which will make me looking hot in my black skirt. Just you wait and see. Hahaha.

Here's a lovely part from "Mental Training" on the ups and downs of life or triathlon. From my map finding I know that I need to put everything in perspective. This part also made me think of Tri Daddy Diesel, who felt a bit down after his last race.
"Successful triathletes know how to stop their decline and regain positive attidute, helpful emotions and quality performance. The first step to reversing your down period is to keep the ups and downs in perspectice by knowing that they're a natural and expected part of the sport. This attitude takes the pressure off the down moments, minmizing frustration and disappointment. It enables you to stay positive and motivated. Most important, never give up. Stay focused on your triathlon goals. Look for the cause of your slump and find a solution." (p.7, "The triathlete's guide to mental training")

Okay, time for me to get back to reading my mental training book.

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!!

The good and the bad

So I've been to my new practitioner because of my left knee and my right foot yesterday. I do like him. He listens well and doesn't give me the feeling that I'm just taking up his precious time. Which is really important as you know.

Now I've got some good news and some baaaaad news.

Okay, lets start out with the baaaaad news and end on a good note.
He took a good look at my knee and listened to my description, which led him to the belief that it might be a Baker's cyst. So he send me to get a MRI and prescribed some homeopathic stuff. Not that bad you might think, but he also banned me from running for the next 3 weeks...

Which means I can forget about the half marathon in April.

If I'm lucky, I can do the 10k, but I wouldn't bet on it at this moment. He told me I could do walking and cycling. I tell you one thing, I WON'T go walking. I'm not a fat woman in her fifties who has no ambitions, but feels oh so sporty when she is out there in her walking gear and strolls along with her friends chatting and making it look like she's doing something sporty. So, I'll get my bike out this evening and get the air back on the tires and will go for rides. And I'll go swimming. And I'll do squats every morning. Still this won't get me to the half marathon in April.

AAAARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH

But hey I always wanted to have a MRI, I think it's fascinating and now I get one. Wohoo. I'll definitely ask for my pictures. And my hurting right foot is just a bit aggravated, so it will be fine in a few days. Good news, right?

The really good news were though, that he is pro supplements and said what I take (zinc, magnesium, Vitamins C, B, K, D; selenium, omega 3, iodine, iron) is good for me and are the right amounts. Hah! My mom and my former practitioners always thought that I'm mad and told me, that I should only eat right and that it doesn't make sense then that I take any supplements. I definitely have found the right practitioner for ME.

Markkleeberger See

So, essentially this means I can bag my training schedule and think of a new one. Just what I needed. pffff. On the bright side, I have more time for applications now. Well, now I just need to sit down and write them. ahem...

I hope your joints behave and that your training goes well.

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!

Running 101

Starting out new. Wha???

Finally most of the snow is gone and the track is runnable all the way around. Since I haven't been running properly for almost two months due to snow and ice I'm back to where I was in November when it comes to my fitness. Which means a marathon on April 25th is out of the question. So I set out for a half marathon, where I will hopefully shave off a few minutes of my PR from my first half marathon in 2008, which was around 2:58 hrs. That means I'll lay out a new training plan for me today and will follow it through. (Well, a girl can dream! ;-)

Chris and I met up at the track at 10 this morning. Chris was as always a few minutes late. When I got to the track it was just starting to rain. All through the training it was raining. ;-) The training really showed how much fitness I had lost over the two passed months. But my knee behaved and except for the odd tweak here and there I felt alright though totally unfit. Funnily enough, I see blue sky now! *grumble*

Todays stats:
t: 1:09 hrs
iz: 46:22 min
HR: 138 bpm

I'm pretty pleased that I stayed for so long in my zone. And the track felt marvelous, Chris and I love to run there.

By the way I was wearing these:


When I prepared my shoe series for my tomboy to woman blog yesterday I took them out of their winter hiding place. Today I thought it would be a good thing to wear them for the track training. And it was such a good idea. In my opinion they are the best running shoes ever. I LOVE them.

Well that's it for today. Enjoy your Sunday, hopefully with sun. I'll write applications, yuk.

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!

PS: If you want to know how a double exposure looks like (pretty cool if I might say so) have a look at my the man-made project blog.

Swim Report

I went for my first swim in about two and a half years today. I didn't swim when I was on Hawaii in December 2008. Crazy, I know.

I got up about 9:40 AM, ate breakfast and put on the several layers of clothing. My dad was really surprised when I said I'd go swimming, he asked where? So I told him I'd go to the Kulki, which is one of Leipzigs many lakes. ;-) He didn't think it was funny. XD It snowed since yesterday evening and the streets are a mess.

It took me about 40 minutes to get my bag ready!!!
Getting the duffle from the top of the wardrobe took 5 minutes,
searching and finding my swimsuits 10 minutes,
finding the right bath towels 5 minutes,
thinking on what else I need another 5 minutes,
putting the rest together 15 minutes.

When I was finally ready to leave for the swimming pool, I realized that I didn't have food for afterwards. Mmmh. I went to 3(!) stores to get the right granola bars, I didn't get them so I settled for Oreos. Yep, you've read right Miss-I-only-eat-healthy-stuff got herself Oreos. I LOVE them even though they are way too sweet.

Anyway, I was at the Sportbad an der Elster at 12:35 AM and got myself a ticket for 3 hours for 5 €. Normally it would have been ONLY 4,50 € (the stuff dripping from your monitor is my sarcasm), but since it's weekend it's plus 50 cents. I wonder why they have a problem with not earning enough money... mmh, might be the prices are to high and the business times are CRAP?!? I mean seriously. On Saturday only from 11 AM to 4 PM. And the really unfair thing is the pricing 1 or 3 hours, because most swimmers would need a 2 hour ticket. I took my time today and yes, I'd be perfectly fine with a 2 hour ticket. But they don't sell them! Aaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrggggggggggghhhhhhhhh!

(That is my duffle. It's okay, but the one I want from Chiemsee is even better.)

(http://www.donaukurier.de/storage/scl/dktestimp/news/ingolstadt/1385979_m1t1w600q75v10884.jpg)

Besides that, the Sportbad is really good and new. It has eight 50 m = 54.68 yards lanes and a small pool for water aerobics. It was "empty" today, on every lane were only 2 or 3 swimmers, which is abnormaly low and probably due to the weather. So I got changed, showered and went to the pool where I stood for 2 or 3 minutes just contemplating which lane I should swim and how to get there without making a fool of me. I didn't trust myself that much to actually dive in from a starting block. Call me chicken. By the way it was mostly men on the lanes (2 or 3 woman max), a few more girls were there but they stayed in the aerobics pool though there were no classes. (If you ask me the company which runs the swimming pools in Leipzig needs help!!!)

When I finally was in the water on 'my' lane No. 5 I started with breast stroke. After 25 m I felt my upper arm muscles or better what's left of them. After 15 minutes of breast stroke I felt fine. I needed more or less 2 1/2 minutes for one lane including a small recovery stop at the end of each lane. After twenty minutes I've decided to try backstroke. Back in school it was the easiest way to swim for me. Well, things have changed since then! (Only 20 years, how could I change so much? ;-) I didn't last for even half a lane, than I had to turn around and do breaststroke again, because I just didn't have the strength in my arms!! So, I've tried only legs on my back and ... oh the agony of sharing this, I didn't last for half a lane again!! At least I could keep it up longer than the full backstroke.

On the bright side: even though this swim showed me, that there is a whole lot of work and swims ahead of me I never questioned my goal of doing the Ironman. Wahoo. Actually I like swimming, I like it more than running!

In the end I swam 40 minutes today, which means I swam 800 m = 875 yds. Not bad for the first time, I'd say. I got out of the pool took a long shower and realised ... I need a 2-in-1-shampoo for the swim training. Gosh, this chlorine is torture to my hair!! I got dressed and my hair dried and munched several Oreos while doing it. ;-) Nothing better than Oreos after a swim. Time spend at the pool 1:30 hr, time spend in the water 40 minutes. I'm really slow when I get out of the water, I feel like I do everything in slow motion then.

On my way to the streetcar station I saw her

on her way to go skiing (IN LEIPZIG!!! We haven't had snow like this in a decade or longer!):

In any case I took the streetcar back home (you'd have to be nuts to drive under this conditions) and was back around 3 PM. I washed my swimsuit and cap straightaway (wow, I'm really impressed with myself on this one), hung them and the towel up to dry and got on my couch for a nap. I was fix and foxy (tired, ?) and still am.

I've decided to incorporate swimming into my weekly training schedule, which makes me finally a triathlete! Up until now, I was only running and cycling, but now... Even though I don't use my bike at the moment. Why?!

Well:

(This isn't my bike, but it gives a good impression of the weather we have at the moment. There are still some people using their bike, but they push it instead of riding it.)


BTW, a triathlete swam in lane 6 (his swimming cap was from a Triathlon and he had the body, Yum) and I found a specialized triathlon and swimming store in Leipzig! And now that I saw the splish swimsuits I'm spoiled for speedo and other swimsuit manufacturers. Seriously, everything else is so boring compared to their suits. I NEED A JOB to buy myself lots of splish swimsuits!!

Tomorrow I'll meet with Chris at 9 AM for our long march. In fact it's the first real training (for running) this week, I skipped Thursday too because I wasn't in the mood for it.

Finally I'd like to say: Thank you all for your lovely comments and support!

Keep on swimming or running!

Yep, track training is it

Okay, first I went on the track and really ran, but not rounds. I didn't have the strength to actually do full rounds. So I ended up running the straights and walking the curve. I also did 3 straights on my balls (feet balls, what the hell were you thinking?! I'm a girl, for crying out loud.) and what can I say, it felt sooooooo RIGHT. I worked mainly on my motions. I was on the track for about 35 min and at the start my Polar had the same behavioural issues like yesterday, but after 10 min it started to work right, so the track stats have to be taken with care. And I don't need to buy a new chest belt and send the old one in. :-D

time: 35 min.
in zone: 17:51 min
HR: 138 bpm

After that I didn't march the big round at the Markkleeberger See, because I didn't feel like it. Since I promised to listen to my body... I have to say, it was a really nice round of about 6 to 7 k. I even got the gift to see a gray heron. I love these birds, they look so elegant.

The stats:
time: 1:08 hr
in zone: 14:05 min
HR: 117 bpm

I also decided to change my training schedule. The runs are a lot shorter and more often, not just 3 times a week. This way I feel, I can do more track work and build my strength in a better way, than with the long and slightly boring runs of the beginners marathon schedule. I really think track work is the best for me at the moment. I'll talk with my coach on January 7th about it.

That's it for today. I hope you're all safely back from your holidays and might have gotten a little session in today.

Keep running

Right on time for christmas the snow is thawing

We've got 7.8° C = 46° Fahrenheit today and that means no white christmas! Bugger!!! The weather change was so "dramatic" that I got headaches yesterday evening, I never had something like this before.

Girls thing. Guys can skip!
Today I feel like crap because of the first day of Red Week, so I won't train. Speedtraining is tomorrow anyway and I can use another day for recovery. Hey, even I'm just human. And I know for certain Mark Allen and Dave Scott never had to deal with this monthly crap. One question to you tri girls out there, do you take your period into planing your races or do you just say on this day is the race and I don't care if I have my period then?! I always wondered about that one.

Next topic, guys approved! ;-D
Since almost everyone out there in blogland has put up his or her 2010 race schedule I think I should make mine too. At this moment there is only one thing sure. The Leipzig Marathon on 25th of April 2010. I think I want to do Athens Marathon in October, too. The question is just can I afford it. (There is still no news from little town or Düsseldorf.) I might even do a tiny little triathlon (0,75-21-5 km) in June on Castle Moritzburg, depending on time and having or not having a car. At the moment I have no race bike or neo and I can't swim proper freestyle. But I've decided to start with a masters course on the next possible date, which is end of March.

My big all time goal is finishing Ironman Hawaii. I don't know at this moment where I'll do my first long distance tri, only when: 2013! And I know, that I want to do Challenge Roth and an Ironman in New Zealand. Great planning, huh?

By the way, do you have a new years resolution? Mine is to learn a proper handstand. Because I could never do one and it has nothing to do with triathlon, so...

Two pics from Sunday for your eye relaxation.

Oh, I had a half Gluehwein at the christmas market on Saturday. I'm not into this Gluehwein stuff, I prefer waffles with vanilla cream. I got my last one for this year today, after I've been to the employment agency and the school center where I will take a project management class from January on.

That's it for today. Hope you have a white christmas and not this undecided weather we've got today!

Keep running!

And I thought I was doing good....

but I had no idea what I'm in for. So today I went to the opening of my runners seminar. There were a lot of people, in total about 300, so the room was packed. Then the organizers talked about ... the organization. The participants of the seminar can decide until March 30th which distance we want to run. Since the races are scheduled for April 25th thats pretty late, but good for us since we can decide when we see how the training develops.

As for me I'm undecided, in my good moments I say I go for the marathon, in my really good moments, I say I for a marathon time of 4:30 hrs and in my bad moments it's 'just' half marathon. :-P And when I saw the training times and distances, my selfesteem dropped through to Australia. But I got myself the marathon plan anyway and my jaw dropped, when I saw the distances. I told you, that I was surprised how short my route is. But guess what. Last week I ran about 7 km, this week it will be about 7 + 15 km of fast walking. Because my next weeks schedule says Tuesday 10 km, Thursday 10 km (training on the blue tartan track) and Sunday its 15 km. Since our coach wants us to get our fat metabolism going, I will walk my Alone-trainings-routes.

The coach said something about diet to, but I'll give you that and my opinion on it tomorrow.

Right now, it's time for todays run. I felt a bit sluggish today which was due to the waffle and that I rode my bike to the city. In the end I was quite a bit slower than on monday. Let's get to the stats:

distance: 3.5 km
time: 31:30 min
PACE: 9 min (yeah, there are a lot of people who walk faster than I run including me)
in zone: 15:22 min (better)
heart: 161 bpm (163 is my threshold)

And now a few pics of the leipzig christmas market and the famous waffle with vanilla creme. Enjoy.

The entrance.



The tree.



The waffle bakery.



The Waffle with THE Vanilla cream.



A nice view.

Keep running.

I'm not alone anymore and doing the math...

Wahooooooo. I finally found some other woman out there blogging who run and/or are triathletes. So, HALLO LADIES!!! (I'll post the links tonight.) Sorry about my loud voice, but I'm so excited. Sharing tricks and stories. I can't wait!

We've got fabulous weather today, so I will ride my bike (pics coming soon) to my appointments. And in the afternoon (if the weather is still this good, no point in doing it in the rain) I will walk my current running route and take some pictures for you.

And there we are. This night I did my math, since I have my first runners seminar tomorrow. The results of the math were devastating to me. I knew I'm a slooow runner, but my 'pace' is ridiculous. I'm not sure if you can even call it a pace! I'm mortified.
Okay, stop rambling, San.

My current running distance is 3,5 km for which I need exactly 30 minutes with a pulse that is over my anaerob threshold (yeah, I did the test). So my current pace is 8:57! (Boston here I come, hahaha.) So, my estimated times for 10k = 1:22 hr, hm = 3:00 hrs (my time last year was actually 2:58 hrs, I was the second last if I remember it right), m = 6 hrs. I know I would get throught a marathon, I've got the will, but I probably wouldn't be able to walk the whole week afterwards. When I did my halfmarathon last year, I had to walk down the stairs backwards for 3 days!!! It hurt like hell.

I've already scheduled my training days for the coming weeks, but I don't have clue what to do about the distances and the pace. It really is about time that I got a coach, there is only so much you can do alone. ;-P

For next week I've planned to run an extra kilometer, but now I'm not so sure anymore. Should I stick with this distance and push my pace? Or should I run a fast round at the weekend, instead of a long run (not that I do that at the moment ;-). What do you think? Ulrich Th. Strunz, the fitness pope of germany, says go for the distance. But I don't want to stay that slow. I always wished I could run with this long, strong strides and not shuffle along like I do! I WANT TO BE A RUNNER!!! (sob and snivel) And I want a training schedule from Peter Greif, but for that I had to run 10 k in 40 min, which is a loooong way to go.

Well, this is it for now. Have to get my bike out. Oh, before I forget, today I get my first waffle with vanilla creme of the season at the christmas market. I'm so excited. I'll take pictures and post them. Promise.

Tell me what you think about the distance/pace problem. Any suggestions?

Keep running!!