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.  

Back

Well, long time no see. 

Thing is, I had other stuff on my mind and in the last few years much has changed. I moved to another part of Germany for  a new job and I haven't done much training since then. Even though I have perfect conditions, now that I live in Karlsruhe. 

Since I gained a few pounds and am missing the training and blogging, I've decided to get back into the thing and after all I haven't even achieved the goals along the way to the big goal. Read: no finished marathon so far. 

So, my goals for 2014:

1. Get rid of 4.5 kg to fit into my running clothes again. 
2. Start with running again.
3. Finish at least one 10 k race this year, if possible under 70 minutes. 
4. Get a road racing bike. 

Not much, but enough to get back into it.  

In any case having this big goal again helps me tremendously. Last year I had no big goal and it gave me nothing but boredom and even weirder I didn't eat right. Just to fit into my clothes isn't enough of a goal for me. Who would've thought?!

Anyway, what have you guys been up to since I left the circus?

Have a great new year everyone. 

KEEP MOVING FORWARD.

Good news

Where to start?

Okay here it goes:

1. I finally cracked the magical number of 130 lbs or 59 kg on my scale today, 129.4 lbs or 58.7 kg. Wohoooo. Losing this stuff on the scale is getting on slowly for me. However I can really see the changes in my body composition, now almost all of my clothes fit beautifully. Which is fantastic since it means that I don't have to buy new clothes in the next few months.

2. I finally stick to the primal/paleo lifestyle 99% of the time and if I slide I get back on track with the next step. I slided at Monday, after a hard and long day at work I needed comfort food. Or so I thought and had New York style cheese cake at my local starbucks. Yuk. As much as I love Starbucks, the cheese cake was awful and I ate only half of it. Yeah, I should have stopped after the first bite, but I was starving...

3. I will go on a holiday with my parents to Austria (note: little country in the south of Germany.) Believe me I'm more than in need of a little holiday and air change now.

4. I'm free again. Yep, I'm back on the market for an awesome new job and I'm confident that I will find it soon. I've learned a lot during the last two months and I'm glad about it. This way I know what I have to watch out for in my next job.

5. I love my yoga class and will definitely keep it up. My body certainly enjoys it.

6. I just did 10 push-ups.

7. I discovered Macadamia nuts for me. I love them. When it comes to food I don't stock up(because then I have to throw away half of it, quite often), the macadamia nuts are the exception to the rule.

8. Did I mention that I look and feel fantastic right now?

9. My very own trademark was registered yesterday. Talk about a coincidence, since it was the day I was set free. Hahahah. XD

On the other end of the spectrum, I haven't started with swimtraining. :( Somehow there seems to be a roadblock before that. I don't know why.

That's it from me, I wish all of you a wonderful weekend and fantastic races and training sessions.

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!!

PS: I'll start with reading "Going Long" by Joe Friel today.

Finally back in training

and therefore back to this blog.

I've got tons of news for you. Yes, I've still got my new job and I plan on keeping it. At the moment it is a bit taxing, but in about 3 weeks everything will be steady.

Okay, back to the reason for this blog: triathlon training.

On Tuesday I started with Iyengar yoga in Leipzig's Yogaraum and surprisingly I liked it. I've attended a Hatha Yoga class years ago and I really disliked it. So, I was a bit nervous when I went to my first class this week. However, it couldn't have come at a better time, my muscles were all tight when I went to class.
Iyengar yoga is the sporty variaton of yoga and uses things like plankets and pillows to help the beginners to get into the correct positions without hurting oneself. It builds up the needed strength slowly. It's simply perfect for me. When I left after the class, my muscles were relaxed and I felt fine for the first time in months. Needless to say I will keep Iyengar yoga up. I also like my teacher, she's really nice.

Today I'll also send out my membership form for Leipzigs sport club, the swimmers division. I'll start with swim training in September, as I have already told you. And I'm horribly excited about it. ;-)

I will also try out wakeboarding in the next few weeks. Wohoo.

Even more fun, two of my new "colleagues"* are triathletes too, so I finally have some people around me to chat about triathlon in person, which is really exciting for me.

Foodwise I ran into a bit of trouble during the last weeks, due to my new job. But I'm getting back on track now and will use some new strategies.

My bike gives me a lot of trouble these days. Culprit is the gear shift, again. So at the moment I'm pondering the question to which bike shop I should bring it for repair, since the BDO didn't get it under control the last three times, in fact it got worse. As a matter of fact the chain got of the gearwheel several times, which it didn't until this year. To say I'm annoyed doesn't cut it. A new bike is planned for April 2012, but not earlier. So another bike shop for repair it is.

Well, that's it. I wish all of you a wonderful new week, full of fantastic training sessions and good luck for your races this week.

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!!

*technically they belong to another company.

Short update

1. I've got a new job! As an engineer! And it is fantastic. I've been working since July 4th.

2. I'll start with yoga next month.

3. I'll start with swimming in September.

Have a great summer everyone and

keep moving forward!

59.2 = 22.6 = Wahoo!

Making headway, but there is still a quite a bit of way before me.

However, I'm now constantly under 60 kg and this feels soooooo good. For celebration I pulled some special shoes out of their box (they hadn't seen the light of day, since I bought them back in 2008) and wear them and I'm planning keepin' on wearing them. And treat number two is applying for an ultracool job.

I'm also back with the Push-Up-Challenge, I started in on 20 on Friday and my body feels fine with it, though the heel of my right hand is still a bit tender.

Have a great new week!

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!

Swim-club it is...

Okay, so I've decided to join the swim-club instead, but will do so in September earliest. Two reasons for this: funding and summer break. The funding and my inability to swim freestyle was also the reason for switching to the swim-club instead. 


Weather is very nice at the moment and my hand is healing fine, so I'm confident that I will be back in the saddle by next week. 

Park in San Francisco in December 2008

Core training continues and I love to imagine how my stomach is getting flatter every morning. Sadly it's just this: my imagination. Oh well, at least my back feels better with.

I've also found out, that more veggies in my diet are favourable, so I'm working on getting in more of the green and colourfull stuff. Surprisingly this makes my diet cheaper. Love it!

Enjoy your weekend everyone and best of luck for those who race or train.

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!!

On day 14 incorporate core strength

I'm pretty proud on myself today. Because today I didn't procrastinate my push-ups, I did all 15 in one go right after getting up. Yesterday I started with core strength training again, since my lower back is relatively mad at me.

Also, yesterday was the Leipzig Marathon. Shame on me, but I had totally forgotten about it. Well, it doesn't come through street that I look upon anymore, so that's the reason. My parents live right on the track, so would I have been there, I wouldn't have been abled to escape it and probably would've had a day in mourning the fact that my knee is still misbehaving. But it is getting better, so I will eventually start with running again. And yes, I mean running. Not jogging! :)

Foodwise I'm still on Paleo with the occassional cheating, though I'm really strict when it comes to grains. Yes, I did eat chocolate (provided it is grain free) once or twice and on Friday evening, when I went out with friends, I had potatoe wedges with sour cream and a Cosmopolitan. From this outing I even got sore muscles! Because I wore "high" heels, the front muscles of my feet were quite unhappy on Saturday morning. ;)

And on Thursday I received my first postcrossing postcard. From the US. And it's a really nice card too. :D 

I wish all of you a great week, good training and if you have a race this week, best of luck for that, too.

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!

Start of bike season = OUUUUUUCCCCCCCHHHHH

Yep, I finally succeeded in getting my bike out. And now my behind hurts since yesterday evening. 

Chris is returning for a few days to Leipzig, so there might be more ouch to come. 

And on the weekend I take a short trip to the Baltic Sea. Lot's of fresh air and hopefully nice enough weather for a lot of cycling. Wohoo.

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!!

Swim training scheduled for tomorrow morning

It has been quite some time since I went swimming. But tomorrow morning at 8 o'clock, I'll be on the way to my pool and then swim for an hour or so. At the moment it's just to get back in the swing of things, no special training technics or distances to cover or any fancy toys. I don't even have goggles. (Might change this over the Easter holidays.)

My duffle bag is packed already. Finding the swimsuit was the hard part, took me at least ten minutes. (It was right where it should be, but in a plastic bag that I didn't open when I first searched that drawer.) Then I nearly forgot to get the towel. That would have been a disaster, can you imagine that? I have even put together the breakfast already for after the swim (1 apple, 2 hard boiled eggs), I'll only drink some hot tea before leaving for the pool.
And you know what is also really good? I will walk to the pool. A brisk half hour walk on Sunday morning, then some nice swimming followed by another brisk walk. What a cool way to start off Sunday. I'm excited about it, but might not be so tomorrow morning at 7:30. ;)

After that I'll do some research and then head over to my parents for lunch and a nice afternoon nap. Followed by some more research. Ahh, sounds like the perfect Sunday to me. (Provided that there is some eye candy at the pool. )

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!

2 days in and already feeling much better

Yep, Paleo can work this way. And I'm really glad about it. My stomach is almost flat again and feels just fine. My skin is recovering slowly and I'm feeling better overall. Oh yes, my sleep is better and my anxiety has gone away too. It's really AMAZING what impact your food choices have on your whole well being. Just think about how much better so many people would feel, just because they start to eat real food. Think of the millions saved in health care. Oh wait, that's the reason why the pharma industry doesn't like Paleo and real foods. Whoops. Too bad for them.

I just found out that there is one food option at Starbucks that is "paleo-approved", their fruit salad. So should I be hungry, I now know what I can eat here. Yes, I write this post at my Starbucks. I just love to be here and ponder and plan things. Do some research and enjoying life in general. Did you ever recogize that their Vanilla Rooibos Tea has a really strong apple flavour?! I like it simply because of that.

Trainingwise I'm just walking and taking the stairs, since my knee is acting up again. But I'll check out the swimming pool schedule this weekend and will probably start swimming again next week. So this should get interesting since I found out, that one swimming pool is practically just around the corner and since it is one with cheap fees, I might just declare 2011 as the swimming year. Plus Tango, because I've decided to learn Tango. Now I just need to find a dance partner, since I don't live in Argentina, this might be a problem.

Why Tango you ask? Well, take a look at this:

Have a magical weekend everyone.

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!

Finally: the YES

After another "No" I finally got the "YES"! You know what that means. I'll move again and won't bore you any longer with finding-a-job-talk. Wohoo. I'll move back to the "Ländle", meaning Baden-Württemberg, but luckily to a big city this time.

It's the job with the major hook and but I've decided that the rest outweighs the hook by far. After all it's an engineers dream job and it has everything that I'm good in and it gives me the opportunity to further develop my skillset and I "clicked" with my colleagues and boss, so there..

In any case it should get interesting, since it is a big company and they have some sport program, so as soon as I'll set my foot in there I'll find out about the training possibilities and then I'll restart my training. Until then it is leaning out and getting the food right and getting an appointment with a special doc for sorting out the knee issue.

And keeping Elliott at bay. This little monster of mine has gone into overdrive since yesterday, buy this, buy that. But I won't buy anything new yet, for several reasons. I need nothing new right this moment is a major one. I'm saving up for my Rimowa Topas Cabin Trolley and my iPod touch are two others. I'm getting rid of body fat so my body changes is the next. And then the shopping possibilities in the Southwest are better also. So there...


Okay, got to do my hair and then use the beautiful weather to get some things done, like shoes to the cobbler, public library, buying groceries, etc.

Hope all of you are well and enjoy your weekends.

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!!

Success

I've got good news. Primal eating works really well (for me). I reached last weeks goal, even though I ate horribly on Wednesday and Thursday.

Last weeks goal was reaching the 135,? lbs on my scale and I did it!!! I could hardly believe it when I read it yesterday morning. (I started out with 138 lbs last Sunday.)
So it is certainly true, skip grains and starchy/sugary foods and you'll get rid of this darned bodyfat. This means I'm sticking with the Primal lifestyle mainly, but I'll include triathlon training (which in Primal Blueprint terms is called chronic cardio and isn't considered a good thing), because I still have my Ironman goal. Though I will do it on fat metabolism and not carbs.

After these three days I'm pretty confident, that I will be abled to finally run another halfmarathon next year and maybe even a marathon. (Less fat, less "dead" bodyweight to lug a around;-) Seeing how training goes. I certainly won't make the same mistakes again. I'll build mileage up slowly and do a lot more strength and crosstraining (swimming and bike).

For the rest of December, I'll focus on the right food (sources, recipes and amount) and staying upright on Leipzigs streets (which is currently a feat in itself). In January, I'll start with "proper" swim training and hopefully my new job.

Okay, I've got some research to do for my next interview. See you in a bit.

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!

Some training news

Oh my, you probably thought by now, I had totally given up, now did you?

Okay, so this and last week training was walking, walking, walking in the snow!!! Plus some stairs and squats. And dare I say it? My knee seems fine. Now that I said it, tomorrow will it probably misbehave. I always was this way. In any case, I can't go running with all this snow anyway, so there you have it, I'm stuck with walking and stairs for the time being.

This pic is from Sunday since then we've got about 20 cm of fresh snow.

When it comes to food I did misbehave this week, after all it's christmas market and I needed my fix with vanilla cream waffles. And I think, I've had it. We'll see how I think about it next week.;-)

Jobwise, I'm sending out application after application, thankfully Germany's recovering, so more and more interesting and fitting jobs are on offer, even though I just got another NO. Looks like I really can forget about engineering stuff, because the last two Nos were in engineering and really quick. Well, it's the loss of the german engineering in long term. China will take over in a few years, considering that their universities spit out hundred thousands of engineers every year and Germany is having trouble recruiting young people for engineering. And currently german engineering companies are still not ready to accept female engineers (what they don't say in press interviews). Well then, marketing and technology transfer here I come.

Have a great weekend everyone!

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!

weird training

Okay, so I've brought over some stuff to my new flat, mostly boxes and shoes that I could simply grab, put in the car and drive over. No real packing involved.

Well, the training consisted of taking the stairs down. 5 times and my flat is on the ninth floor. Since I was fairly fast I was getting kind of lightheaded when I went down the third time. And I was feeling fatique starting in the fourth and during the fifth time. Actually my hands were shaking when I walked to the car to drive home.

I can only imagine how this would've felt when I had taken the stairs upwards. Anyway, I did have some lifting and stairs today and ate reasonably well (I ate a few bites of Lebkuchen for dessert.) I say it was a good training day, especially since I started packing some things when I got back home.

I always wondered where my money has gone, well it's mostly in my books and my music. Just takes a move to show you how much you actually own.

Have a great weekend everyone. Cheers.

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!

A change of heart?

I've decided to rename my blog since I'm simply not inclined to struggle. Yes, I want to finish an Ironman and yes I definitely want to finish Ironman Hawaii. But I want to enjoy this whole journey. I want to have fun in training and at races. So here it goes, new blog name new approach.

You might know Crossfit, which is something I'm heavily drawn too, since the training changes daily. As you all know, I'm getting easily bored and distracted and so I think crossfit would be a perfect fit for me. Unfortunately, Crossfit has not reached Germany yet. So for the time being I'll use something else.

Today I crawled, made front and side planks (my arms were shaking like a jelly after a few seconds, no strength this girl ;-) and did some burpees. I enjoyed it. Well, I'll see what I'll do tomorrow.

Foodwise: I'm back with the paleo lifestyle and I feel better with it, hooray. I still suffer from my low ferritin. I hope it gets better with time, I just need patience, which is something as we all know I don't have.

Lastly, I stopped reading "Born to Run" altogether, since I just can't bring myself to read on. Therefore I say this book is crap, at least in my opinion.

I wish you all a good start in the new week.

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!!

Furniture Design and good moving on the right path

with a little stumble last night, but that's alright.

95% of the time my new mindset works out just fine, so I dare say I'm on the right way. I'm optimistic that I'm currently making a slow but steady U-turn for the right direction. It takes some time and a lot of work and discipline, but eventually I'll succeed. (Even if Elliott gets me to eat waffles at three in the morning and sits in the corner pouting all through the day. He has a hard time, poor little teenage dragon. Time to grow up Elliott.)

So lets get to the sport. Today I have my last physio after that I'm on my own. But I started out with "Yoga" yesterday evening and this morning and it does help. As soon as I have my new job, I'll go to a yoga class, because working with a book isn't the best way for me. Until then it's "Yoga" on my own. I've also done 3 burpees on Saturday and 4 yesterday. And I've done the high plank for the last two days too.

Food wise, except for the waffles and some leftover potatoes at 3 this night, I stuck to my "new" food lifestyle pretty well and feel good. I've had a lot of trail mix, protein, fresh veggies and fruit. I'll stick to it. And as soon as I move out, I won't have the waffle trouble anymore, since I won't buy any bad food (the waffles are always bought by my mom).

Apropos moving out, I'll have a look at two studios this week and if all goes well I'll move into my own flat by the end of October, which would be fantastic, since I really really really need to get out of here.

Which brings me to the furniture design. A couple posts back I told you that I had designed my bed since I can't afford a prebuild one that I like. (4000,-€ is just too much.) On Friday my Dad and I went to the home improvement store and looked for wood and asked what they can do at the store. I showed them my bed design, which looks like this:


Unfortunately I had totally forgotten, that I need space under the bed for my storage boxes for the sheets, spare blankets and so on. Additionally they couldn't do the cutting out, my Dad doesn't have the necessary electric tools and I won't do it with hammer and chisel or give it to a carpenter.

So on Saturday I sat down and designed a new bed. This new one makes use of the wood the home improvement store sells, the service of cutting it to the right lengths and some stuff I can do in my parents basement without special tools. All I need are a drilling machine, screw driver, sand paper, brush and glaze. Well, and the time to build it. Here it is:


All in all, the whole designing took about 8 hours straight, since I also did several special drawings (with the overall measurements and the special drilling measurements) and building instructions. There are now 10 sheets filled with drawings, plans and bills of materials.


Because, if I wouldn't have it planned all out, I probably won't have a bed but modern art. What do I mean with that? Well, my dad and I build my jewellery holder without proper drawings and planning and now I have this:


Well, it does it's job and is one of kind. But I don't want it to happen to my bed!

I also designed my nightstand, though I didn't do the building plan and measurement drawings yet.



Okay, this is it for today. Weather is great around here, though pretty cold. Anyway.

Have a wonderful new week everyone.

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!

Can you stray from a path for 2 years and

then get back on it? Well, I'm currently trying it out. But with a different mindset then when I tried to get back on it before. And so far it seems to work out fine. I can't tell you what this means for this blog (in positive terms) but I have some assumptions.

As for todays post I have this on sport and food to tell you:

Chris and I are already back from a 2 1/2 hour ride. It contained some short picture stops, so we were riding approx 2 hours of the time. We even saw several hawks, awesome birds, totally elegant in flight.

I have also made 2 "burpees" today. Don't know what the hell a "burpee" is? It's one of the workouts/exercises of CrossFit. And it's pretty awesome and I love the name of it, "burpee". Here is a vid on how to do them:


(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MGljX4bbps)

Mampf Diary:
BF: 1 chocolate protein shake, 1 mug of black tea and 1 mug of green tea
Lunch: (Now its getting weird but healthy) A few slices of hungarian salami, 1 cup of trail mix, 2 "christmas" apples (I call them christmas apples because when I was a child they were only sold on christmas. The real name is red delicious or red chief.) and one boiled egg.
Dinner: Haha, not tellin' ya. (Mainly because I don't have a clue what it will be. ;-)

As for that, have a great weekend.

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!

4 + 20 + Mg = Improvement

As you can tell from the title I succeeded yesterday in walking more then 4 k, cycling 20 k and drinking my Magnesium! Wohoo. I also had a piece of my second favourite cake the "Donauwelle". My favourite cake is Starbucks Chocolate Truffle Cake.

My mood has improved too, since I had a nice evening with my friends, my birthday dinner (we had selfmade cold spring rolls and some cheese'n'baguette).

Really funny was that I got the book "Eat Pray Love" from Elizabeth Gilbert in English from my friend K. Which is by mere chance the book, which I had put back on its stack in the bookstore on Tuesday evening, because I thought that the german translation is probably awful and that I should buy it sometime in English. What are the odds for something like this to happen? It's a fluke. (K was literally shocked by how many books I own and to think that I already have sorted out tons of them! *snicker*)


I also got two developed films back with really cool pictures. I just love photography. And my friends praised me for my organization of my photographs. Yeah. Since I've always been the dishevelled (or is "messy" the correct word?) one in our circle of friends, this praise does mean a lot to me. I'm on a good way.

I'm not so happy about finding out what will help me with my tendons. It's YOGA. I don't like yoga, I took a class once which was pure boredom.
I have two books on it though. A really beautiful one by Christy Turlington and an ugly one for runners by Jean Couch (what a name). In case you are wondering I mean the books layout in terms of ugliness and beauty. Seems like I don't get around it, since I want to run again with smooth tendons and muscles I have to do yoga. *grumble* As soon as I move to my new city I'll look for a yoga class and a triathlon club, until then I'll have to use the books.

Have a great day!

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!

3 days in a row

Magnesium that is.

I also walked about 4 k and did a bit of cycling yesterday. Mood isn't that much better though.

Physio went well and it seems that the "knee" problem is actually a problem with my tendons, which tend to get hard and stay that way, this way resulting in the pain I have. I will look into this and find a solution. Remember: Nutrition is key.

Today I went to my doc for a blood check, should be interesting to get the results next week. Hopefully we find out, why I have this weird tiredness-problem. It's annoying.


Nevertheless I managed to design my new bed yesterday, since all the beds I really like are way out of my priceclass. Can you say 3500€ just for the frame? No, well me neither. Since I don't want to invest this amount at the moment and I don't see any reason to invest in a frame that I don't like, I've decided to design and "build" my bed on my own.

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!