First training session in 3 or more years

Stats:

Time: 1 h 9 min
Pace: brisk walking
Route: Park + Cross training trail
Weather: 17° C, light drizzling rain

Thoughts:

I've decided yesterday to restart my triathlon training. I've been pondering my lack of training and my shape for a few days prior to this due to a weird episode of having a good look at myself in the mirror. 

Have you ever experienced this? You see yourself in the mirror and suddenly it hits you that the person looking back at you is in fact YOU. But you haven't seen yourself as this kind of person in your mind, ever? Well, I've had this run-in with myself and reality this week. I wasn't happy about it. At all. 

So, yesterday I've decided to finally use the perfect training conditions that the universe so graciously gave to me. I bought new running tights, since my old ones (size M) were to small. I needed to buy XL*sigh*.   

Today I rummaged around for my Polar running watch which still works after 10 years (yes, batteries have been replaced). I put on my trusted  trail running shoes, which have been with me to Ireland in 2009 and went out for my first training walk in years. 

The whole time I thought about this blog and what I would write. So, I'm back to my old behavior, since this is what I did back then. ;-) And it feels quite good. 

There aren't any races planned so far. For now I just want to get back into a training routine and get rid of some (read "a lot") body fat. In any case on vacation I saw that there is also a triathlon at Rügen every year. So maybe in a few years I'll compete there. We'll see. 

Keep moving forward.  

Friday Celebration (including Hawaii pic just for you!)

1. Celebrating 4 weeks of freedom from nasal spray. Wohoo.

2. Celebrating my first adversity training ride today (with water!!!). Since the FSI Rollski-Worldcup is held this weekend at the Markkleeberger See I couldn't take my usual route. (first adversity) I decided to drive in the city and then along the river. I've had headwind all the way in. (second adversity) As soon as I left the Sportforum behind me Elliott started nagging: "Are you sure what you are doing? You've never drove this way" Yadayadayada. (third adversity) When I finally got to the Auen lake I was really excited since it is literally at the other end of the city and it takes ages to get there with public transport. I got there in only 45 minutes and I drove slow. My mom was impressed when I told her where I had been and concerned that I stress my knee too much.
Anyway, here are todays stats:
Distance overall: approx. 30 k
Distance training ride: approx. 20 k
time (tr): 1:28:58 hrs.
in zone (tr): 53:57 min.
HR: 125 bpm

3. Celebrating my first ever bike training week. Since last Saturday I drove overall, tadaaaa:

125 k = 77,67 m

Next weeks goal is to beat this!

Sunset on Mauna Kea Summit, December 2008! Best vacation ever!

4. Celebrating my new tri-budget and account and bikeparts. Yesterday I finally got around to buy the bottleholder and to actually install it right away.

5. Celebrating to have found some strength drills for solving my knee issue. Good thing there is youtube and Dave Scott (yes, our Dave Scott, the 6 time Ironman champion). Now all I have to do is do them and get this thing (thera band? rope?)

6. Celebrating to have found some core strength drills that I will do now every day. Thanks to youtube.

7. Celebrating to have found some new and exciting tri-blogs and a hilarious tri-book.

8. Celebrating you, my lovely readers, thank you for all of your support. By the way I know I shouldn't compare myself to others but old habits die hard. And Elliott wailing with me to get faster is a first step in the right direction, since this means he starts to support my sport and training.

I've also decided to ask BMC for "sponsoring", as far as I can see they have no age groupers so far. In any case, since they want a application answering a lot of questions (what races this year? ahem, no races this season.) it will take a bit of preparation. Worst case is a "no", so nothing to worry about.

I wish all of you a wonderful weekend and successful races and training. Cheers.

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!

Riding 25k again, but still without water ;-)

Since I got home pretty late due to my hairstyling appointment, I didn't have the motivation to race against the clock to get to the BDO just to buy a bottle holder. So instead I ate Dinner (Mom had made apple-milk-rice) and took a short nap (1/2 hour). At 7:30 PM I got Aurora out, tested the air pressure at the rear tire and hit the road (metaphorically, I didn't crash! ;-). Before I got out there came a "wonderful" mom remark: "Don't you think you drive a bit too often?" Me: "huh?" Her:"Well, with your knee, not that you stress it too much." Me: rolling my eyes. I bet you, that her next remark will be that I'm fat and should lose some weight!

"Ouch, ouch, ouch" were my thoughts over the first few minutes since I still had saddle soreness from Mondays ride. After that everything went pretty well, even the climbs seemed a little easier than on Monday (at least with hindsight, not when I was pedaling!). There were more cyclists and inline skaters out than on Monday, mostly they drove in the other direction so I couldn't really compare. But one cyclist drove in my direction, read "drove by really fast". He was way faster than me. I wailed in my mind: "I want to be that fast tooooooo" and Elliott wailed right with me. LoL.
In any case I had the impression that I was a little faster than Monday but I'm not sure, since I don't have the exact distance and there are traffic lights along the way.
So here are yesterdays stats:
Distance: approx. 25k
time: 1:30:33 hrs.
in zone: 1:11:21 hrs. (definitely better than Monday)
HR: 144 bpm (also better than Monday)
I think this is a combination of a slight training effect and the recovery.

Today I took my bike to class for two reasons:
1) I'm moving and therefore burning the bad carbs
2) I can drive to the BDO right after class and don't need to get home first.

Tonight I might be riding again, but I will decide upon it depending on how I feel about it.

Okay, okay, so KK is "just" training for an Ironman, but when I read that she started out with Triathlon training 9 years ago, I started thinking about my longtime tri-plan. Initially I had planned to do Challenge Roth (Ironman distance) in 2013 and Ironman Hawaii in 2017, at least that was my plan before the knee issue and I knew that I won't buy a roadie in 2010. At the moment I haven't changed the Hawaii plan (yet), but Challenge Roth is bound to be shifted to 2014. I think I will make those decisions next year, when I know how my knee behaves and I have done my first triathlons.

For the moment I just want to gain general fitness and get a job, ah, make that a job and general fitness.

And you know what?! KK's training rides have nothing on this girl: Dirt Diva aka Catra. She runs 100's. No, not metres or kilometres, she runs 100 mile races!! And I only finished a half marathon which led me to walk down the stairs backwards for 3 days in 2008. I felt so badass back then and that's only 13 miles! *Ouhhh, hang my head in shame.*

To close this post a nice quote from "The triathlete's guide to mental training":
"I guess you can get muscle biopsies and that crap, but desire will always be the most important thing" Jimmy Riccitello, former pro triathlete (p. 28)

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!

Let me introduce you to "Elliott", he is

my Dragon. He was a lazy, untamed and slightly fearful dragon all my life, trained by my parents. He guards the door to my subconsciousness, unfortunately he does this sometimes too well and doesn't really like to change the believes I hold in me and my abilities, that he had put into this dark and deep cave. At the moment he is slightly disturbed, because I'm nudging him to change those believes that had been holding me back. As you can see in the picture he's quite afraid of those changes:

(yes, it's photoshoped)

Today Elliott and I had another quarrel. While we both agree that an afternoon nap is pure bliss, I wanted to train afterwards, but not Elliott. "Ah, no, we did ride 25 k yesterday and you still have sore chest muscles. And your metabolism is down and won't there be dogs! You really don't have to do it every day, let's just call it recovery day!" "No Elliott, I said I would drive 25 k today and I will do so. I thought we had discussed this. We both want me to look lean and chic. And you, me and the body want to be healthy and fit. Therefore we do this. We had our nap, now we take Aurora and go for a ride!"

Well, I succeeded in getting Aurora out and go for the ride. But Elliott didn't stop nagging! First my behind hurt from yesterdays ride, so Elliott complained about that, as this didn't make me give up he complained that the rear tire doesn't have enough air, I drove on, next was my right quad, then he told me that I felt a lot better yesterday and if we shouldn't just do one round, I said no, we do two, then he complained about the climbs and so on. I succeeded in the end, we drove two rounds I made the full 25k, even though I had to really push me and Elliott and my body to get through it. When I got home I was finished. I had no strength left. Elliott sits now in his corner and pouts. When I told him that he gets a nice chocolate proteinshake he just turned around and stared out of the window. Such a kid.

So here are todays stats, worse than yesterday but still it surprised me that it only took me half an hour longer for 9 k:
distance: 25 k = 15.53 m (it looks so short in miles)
time: 1:31:42 hrs
in zone: 1:07:25 hrs (could be better, but those climbs were hard today)
HR: 133 bpm

Before I get on my next ride tomorrow (a short one. Elliott just gave me a mean shoulder glance, LoL), I will get more air into my rear tire.

And just for the giggles, Elliott sees RED:


This happened when I forgot to turn the flash off. No photoshopping, whatsoever.

Have a good nights sleep and a great new day. ROCK IT!!!

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!!

Stats + Bike Pictures

Good Evening.

I'm proud to anounce that I rode approx. 25k today, in two rides (10k, 15k). For the second ride, my training ride alone since Chris was sick, which I did around the good ol' Markkleeberger See, I took my Polar with me. So here are my stats:
Time: 1:03 hrs. (seems like Chris and I are really slow when we ride together)
In Zone: 48:32 minutes (awesome)
Average Heartrate: 140 bpm (wohoo)

I've also decided to organize my sport background new. Meaning I'll open a new account tomorrow (with nearly no money in it, ahem) that is only for trirelated stuff such as bike parts and repair, my future roadie, other training gear, starting fees, tests, training and so on. And I will appoint a certain amount of my income to it. This way I have a budget and this helps to keep me motivated too. Until now it was much more random. I didn't really plan ahead. This changes now. Next expenditures in this order: gear shift repair and chain switch, a bike computer (nothing fancy just the distance), helmet.

My plan for this year is quite easy: getting rid of my fat, getting as much kilometers into my legs as possible and go swimming at least once a month. This all shouldn't be too hard.

Yesterday evening I did incorporate push ups into my strength drills. Funnily my weakest muscles weren't in my upper arms but in my lower arms. Totally weird. I have sore chest muscles now, but my lower arms seem to be alright. Meaning there are no muscles to hurt?!

So, my training plan for the next week is, strength drills every day and as much cycling as possible. (Whoa, what a scientific plan, I should become a coach. LoL)

Okay, the promised Bike Porn:


My future helmet from Specialized. I think it was called Echelon. And it's the only one that fits my weird headshape.


A good reminder where I want to go and relatively inexpensive with only 800€. Sadly they are too big for me. Frame size 53 cm, I need 48 cm.


And now a bike that fits my needs, at least when I look at the size and not the price.


The price is OUCH.


Well, after I set my budget today, I will have to wait and save up at least another year until I can afford even a cheap roadie. Anyhow, it's good to know where I'm heading and how long it's going to take.

I hope all of you had an equally inspiring weekend. Can't wait to read your reports.

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!!

Taste Bud Adventures - Week 3 - Mini Tomato & Mozzi Salad

Good evening.

Welcome to our weekly Taste Bud Adventures. Todays recipe "Mini Tomato and Mozzi Salad".


But before we begin: the obligatory Sunday bike ride review.

Chris and I met at 10:15 at her place and oh wonder: she was already out and ready! So we decided to drive around the Cospudener Lake again. This time we had our cameras with us and we stopped every now and the then to take pictures. I will post mine throughout the week. The weather was lovely, sunshine but cool enough to not overheat. Summing it up, I was happy to be out there with her. It's always hard to get up in the first place, but as soon as I hit the road I'm glad that I left my bed.
Here are todays stats:
distance: approx 20 k
time: 2:05 hrs (including several photo stops)
in zone: 1:07 hrs
HR: 123 bpm

One thing I'll do differently next Sunday is: I'll make my bed before I leave the house! It's a huge difference if you come home to an uncluttered room or not. Today I came back to a cluttered room and it drained me off all the good energy. Not a feeling I want to experience again.

TASTE BUD ADVENTURES - MINI TOMATO AND MOZZI SALAD

Ingredients:
Cherry Tomatoes
Mini Mozzarella Balls
Olive oil (extra virgin)
Fresh herb for example chive
Spices

Kitchen stuff:
Cutting board
knife to cut the tomatoes
oven-safe portion bowl
oven-mitts
Spoon
Oven

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven if you want to eat warm with molten mozzarella. (180° C = 356° F)
2. Wash the tomatoes (take however many you think you need, hungry you are and depending on the size of your bowl)
3. Give a little bit of the oil into the bowl (max. 1 tablespoon) and swirl it around so that the inside of the bowl is oiled.
4. Cut the tomatoes into small quarters or smaller, depending on the tomato size, cut the mozzarella too.
5. Now "layer" the ingredients. First some tomato quarters, then some mozzarella, then add spices (freshly grinded pepper, salt, spice mix, chives). Repeat until bowl is full or you run out of tomatoes / mozzarella.
6. Put the bowl into the preheated oven for 10 to 20 minutes (depending on your oven and how molten you want the mozzarella). Be careful and use the oven mitts!
7. Take it out, using your oven mitts, when the cheese is molten and put it on a heatsafe surface.

Bon Apetit!
(Careful it's hot!)

You can also eat this as a cold salad.

I hope all of your races were successes and your training went well too(Marits did!). If you have time have a look at Tri Diesels wonderful Mothers Day post. I used this weekend to clean and get rid of old stuff. And I thought about how to write my application letter for my super job. I'll be writing and sending it out before Wednesday.

Have a good start in the new week. In Germany it is fortunately a short one. Thursday is public holiday.

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!!

Taste Bud Adventures - Week 2 - Buckwheat Salad

Good evening my lovely readers.

Time for the weekly recipe. In this edition I want you to give you an easy, healthy and fast dish for taking with you to work or class, a buckwheat salad.

But before that come the stats of my wonderful Sunday Morning Training ride, which took us this time to the Cospudener Lake. The weather was perfect for this training ride, cool and cloudy but without rain. Though it seemed like it would start a few times. And it is raining now. In any case we had a fantastic time, I stayed in my zone directly under the red line for a very long stretches, high training effect if you ask me.
Okay the stats:
distance: ca. 15 to 20 k
time: 1:34 hrs
in zone: 1:04 hrs
HR: 129 bpm

Back to this weeks recipe.

Buckwheat Salad

Ingredients:
buckwheat
water
cherry tomatoes
fresh herbs
spices
some Aceto balsamico cremoso or pumpkin seed oil

Needed kitchen stuff:
knife, cutting board, a bowl, a colander, a watertight container to take the salad to work with

Time:
with the soaking two hours or over night
without the soaking 10 to 15 minutes depending on your knife and kitchen skills

(My) Preparations:
In the evening I washed the buckwheat in the colander to get rid of the really fine particles. Then I put it into the bowl and added so much lukewarm water that the buckwheat was covered but didn't float. Test out how much water you need with your bowls and your taste. Due to osmosis a lot of the important minerals wander out into the water, these minerals is what our body needs. You have to keep the water and the minerals! So try to get the right amount of crunchiness of the buckwheat for your taste, without giving your buckwheat swimming lessons.
Now close the bowl off (a plate of the right size does the job) and put it in the fridge until the morning.

In the morning take the bowl out of the fridge on the way to the bathroom, so it can warm up a little bit.

Time for the cutting. Cut the tomatoes in really small cubes, add them to the buckwheat and stir.


Now get the fresh herbs, clean them and chop them.



Add them to the buckwheat and tomatoes, stir again. Season to taste and put it into your container for work. Done.


One word of advice. The fresh herbs really, really, really add taste to the salad over time. So don't season too much, because the taste will develop over the next few hours. And remember to bring your spoon. ;-)

Bon Apetit!

Have a good new week and I hope your weekend was as enlightening as mine.

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!

Instead of running with them...

my first marathon, second half-marathon or at least my third 10k, I went for a ride with Chris. (I still felt like crying my eyes out when I took my bike out.)

We started out on our usual route but got sidetracked from this. Which led to a photography session of about half an hour. We took hundreds of pics.




Aurora enjoying her time offroad. (But I really need to get the gearshift fixed this week.)

Could there be Dinosaurs?


Only those made of steel.








Chris and I decided to make these our wintergardens.


Some art lying along the way.

Todays stats (including photostops):
time: 2:22 hrs
in zone: 1:02 hrs
HR: 121 bpm

The first post of my food series will be up this evening. Before that Chris and I will go to the botanic garden for another photo session. Spring is fabulous and the weather like a perfect summer day. 23°C and a light breeze. Couldn't be better.

Enjoy your Sunday and races.

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!

Sleep deprivation due to general stupidity

*Yawn* Morning folks!

I don't know about you, but my focus of interest shifts often (every few weeks, if I'm good, every few hours, when I'm bad). And at the moment I'm torn between watching korean dramas on youtube, photography and job search. Two weeks ago it was jobsearch and training and sleeping and changing my clothing style. According to this I tend to alternate between my blogs. This explains the lack of posts at this blog. And I don't want to bore you with only non - training related stuff.

The spring has finally arrived in Leipzig and the sun is shining since Friday (yeah, it still goes down at night). Since my knee is still not in its best condition, there is no thought of running. Which is so mean since the Leipzig Marathon uses my street and therefore I see the street signs already, they put them out 1 1/2 weeks ago!). I tell you next Sunday will be hell for me. To see all the athletes skating and running by for about 6 hours and to not being participating, again. AAAAAAAAAARGH. For a moment I considered getting race skates and starting next week with the Inline skaters. Seeing the amount on my bank account I put that thought to rest pretty fast. (sniff) [Not that I can skate well anyway, but who wants to be reasonable?]

Saturday I walked about 3 to 4 k and held a sunlight photography session in my room. Since I haven't got around to test all light conditions (using flash, candles and other artifical light sources) my room still resembles a photo studio and will do so throughout the week.

Sunday, the current training day of my week. (Embarrassing, eh?) Since I only layed down around 5 AM in the morning (Korean drama night, "Coffee Prince" is hilarious), I had a hard time getting up. I even thought of skipping training all together. But since the weather was so nice and I needed to get out at least once in the week...

Chris and I met at 10 AM and started for our usual round.

Stats:
distance: ca. 15 k
time: 1:21 hrs
in zone: 55 min
HR: 129 bpm

We've had the perfect weather, sunshine with blue sky, no wind, perfect temperatures to ride without gloves but not too hot.


We've met a lot of cyclists and there was even a small race for youngsters held at the Markkleeberger See. Naturally the kids had Pro equipment, road race bikes, clothes including bike shoes and helmets. Yes, I was and am jealous. I've wanted a road race bike since I was a little kid. grumble.

Afterwards I had my usual magnesium drink and took a nap until lunch. Chicken and mushrooms for me. And then I watched the last two episodes of "Coffee Prince" and enjoyed the Sunday. In the evening I found another Korean drama "Goong Princess Hours", which is totally addicting too, don't start watching it if you don't have time. (I wanted to stop after the first episode...but I put my Laptop and me after the second episode to sleep, which was around 2 AM. 4 1/2 hours of sleep. Well done, San. )

Well, I've planned to start with a bit more training this week. More biking and maybe even swimming and definitely some strength drills. Hey, I did squats while brushing my teeth this morning, I'm on my way back to the way to the Ironman Hawaii! Hahahah. Big Daddy Diesel provided me with another push in the right direction. Cool Blogger of the Week! Swoon..................................

Okay, I'm back. Sorry for passing out. (*snicker*)

By the way, Jenna from "Will train for wine and chocolate" did her first triathlon. You find her race report at her blog. She is way ahead of me. Well done, girl. (Look at my blog it's green with envy. Hahaha.)

Do you have any media you are addicted to? A book that you couldn't put down? A TV show which you couldn't stop watching? A movie you've watched over and over again? A blog?

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!

Pictures, Training and Hair dying (long post)

Good evening. I'm pretty late with this post, I know. To console you:

Me, right now bleaching the rest of my hair, because we ran out of the necessary product Saturday morning while bleaching. So for 56 hours I've had dalmatian hair. (Funnily, I actually quite like this picture of me.)

So Saturday started off with some stress due to the incomplete hair dying, right afterwards I hurried into the city to get the necessary chemicals to complete the hair job and some other stuff. (Yesterday I decided to give my skin one day more for recovery.) Especially I needed the ingredients for my salad for my friends birthday party. And dare I say it. My salad was the most healthy dish on the whole buffet. Okay, there were some raw tomatoes there too, but the rest was artery clogging stuff. We've had fun nonetheless and got lucky with the weather, with rain gone right when we wanted to start the BBQ. I got home at 10 PM, since it was a mixed birthday, both my friends (she 31 and he 30) and their son (3) were celebrating. So lots of kids and the whole family, naturally with all the little kids it ended early and I stayed on to help clear up. Yep, I'm that kind of friend who stays long enough after the party to clean up. :-D

Yesterday was training. It's embarrassing to confess but at the moment I only "train" once a week. Yesterday was cycling with Chris. At 10 AM I was supposed to pick her up, I got up at 9:45 AM, brushed my teeth, drank my proteine shake, got into my gear (luckily I had found my bike gloves last week, it was freezing yesterday) and left the house 10:02 AM. I got my bike out and headed over to Chris and woke her up. Yep, she had fallen back asleep. Like I said, yesterdays weather wasn't exactly nice. When I left my parents it was dry, when I got to Chris (6min later) it started to drizzle and when she finally got her bike out 15 min later it rained in earnest. We've decided to train anyway (yep, we are that hard athletes!), but went for a small round. Luckily 10 minutes later the raining stopped and we continued on to the Markkleeberger See.

We both were lacking strength yesterday. I think mine was due to insufficient hydration, since I only had my proteine shake and no water or tea before heading out. In any case the fierce headwind didn't make matters better. When we got to the wild water rafting station they had training and we could go in and watch. For 10 or 15 minutes we watched and I took some pretty amazing pics (you'll find them at the end of this post).

While I love the pics, I hate what this standing there did to my muscles, they got so hard that I had to walk my bike up the hill, there was just no way to get up on my bike. We had decided to get back over Güldengossa and the southern battlefield. For those of you who didn't know, Leipzig had a major showdown with Napoleon. We've even got a huge monument to prove it.

(okay got out the hair bleach)
So after I got back on the bike we drove through Güldengossa, Wachau and back through Markkleeberg to Leipzig. Which was supposed to be a short trip, ended up quite long. ;-) Though I can't tell you the distance (maybe 15k), here are my other stats:
time: 1:52 hrs (including photo stops)
in zone: 1:07 hrs (told you the day was a bit off, my HR skyrocketet several times)
HR: 129 bpm

When I got home it was noon and since lunch wasn't ready, I just drank my magnesium drink and took a two hour nap. Somehow yesterday was nap day, because right after lunch I was so tired again, that I just took another one.

On the late afternoon I started with what turned out to be a korean movie marathon on youtube, I forgot to eat Dinner and got to bed at 3 in the morning. I had to get up 6:30 again. Now you know why I'm this late.

My knee didn't take the walking on Saturday and yesterdays training too well, it hurt yesterday evening again. >:-(


Okay here are the promised pictures.











For me the BEST picture!









No, she didn't try to stay in my focus. LoL.

Hope you like them.

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!