Week 24 - all work work work..

Week 24 (11-17th June) was a tough one. Not tough training wise, but work wise. My brother James was away on vacation so i had to cover him in the office for the best part of two weeks. As i have been working from the sanctuary of my home office for the last 6 months (internet car sales), this was a big shock to the system! An ten hour day book ended with an hour commute each way meant there was little time to fit in much training. Working from home meant i could plan my day around training sessions and as i will be leaving the internet sales company in a few weeks to join James in our new venture, i need to find a way to fit in the marathon training around work. Being away from home also meant bad food choices as i was eating on the go, so will need to watch that too. Good thing is that i really enjoyed being out of the home office and had a very good work week!

Monday 11 June - REST
Tuesday 12th - 1000m swim late night after work. Plan was for 2000 but i was knackered.
Wednesday 13th - 5km Run in the forest
Thursday 14th - One hour run around Kaiserslautern.
Friday 15th - X
Saturday 16th - X
Sunday 17th - 2 hour bike ride up the Rhein river trail. Very nice.

Total time - 4 Hours 10 mins
Weigh in - 93
Notes - early mornings will be better for sessions than after work. plan runs in mornings and any evening sessions for swimming. Get up early!

Training update WEEK 23- a record breaking week!

So things went well for week 23, June 4th -10th. I managed to get three PBs! Got my best time ever in 500m swimming time trail, then also best time for a 5km run mid week and then clocked my fastest ever 1km on Saturday morning before work! i think i also clocked my fastest 1km on a bike on Sunday too, but i wont count that...
The week in general was good; managed to cover more than the full 6.5 hours that were in my training plan, but managed to put on approx 1kilo as was eating some crap in the week. (was working away from home office so had to eat on the go all week).
Monday - Rest day
Tuesday - gym session, 1 hr
Wednesday - 5km run, 28 mins, 17 seconds! Fastest ever. My old PB was 29.57 so i smashed it! Very happy with that. :) http://connect.garmin.com/activity/188095325
Thursday - AM 1 hour swim including 500m time trial @ 10.50, PM bike ride, 2 hours. Found a really nice paved trail that goes all the way to Speyer and beyond. will be using this trail for long distance running.
Friday - REST
Saturday - Speed training. fastest 1km was 05.01, 55mins. http://connect.garmin.com/activity/188095360
Sunday - bike ride, 2 hours from Mannheim Altrip to Speyer and back. Found some great restuarants and even a swimming lake that i never knew was there! http://connect.garmin.com/activity/188095394

Total Time  - 7.5 hours
Weigh in - 93.3
Notes:  need to not eat crap when on the road!

Training Update week of May 28th, WEEK 22

Monday - swim was on the plan but i couldnt get it done due to first day back to work and i was swamped. good news is that the local swimming pool is back open after 2 years! will save me some time driving to and from Schwetzingen where i go to now.
Tuesday AM - 50 min Gym session. Evening - 5.6km run in the forest behind the house. was very warm but a nice run with Michelle. Stats: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/183469878 37 mins.
Wednesday AM - 1.30 on the bike. Its tough to figure out where to ride for 1.5 hours just after getting out of bed at 0600. Note to self - plan the route the night before next time. Ended up biking out down the Rhein past the Zollamt, then back past the house and out to Schwetzingen. Was a nice ride, no traffic, sun shining, averaging around 22kmh.
Thursday PM: Finally got down to the new swimming pool in my area! Was very excited about this as i have been travelling 20 mins each way to another pool all year. That makes an hour session into a 2 hour trip which was a pain. Anyway, got to the new pool. All very nice and the two ladies at the front desk were very polite and showed me how the new systems worked for the changing rooms lockers (over complicated).
When i got to the pool it was very nice but it was busy and no dedicated area for "serious" swimmers. You had to fend for yourself amonsgt it all. And it was all going on. there were loads of (dare i say it) youths jumping off the boards going crazy, old couples swimming in tandem at 1mph etc etc. I used to be one of those kids jumping off boards the whole time so i shouldnt really say anything, but it was a bit annoying!
Managed to get in 1500m non stop, then 3min rest, then another 500m and i was done. Had buger and chips for lunch today so i hope the extra 500m burned off those calories. :) Gym session tomorrow AM before i hit the road to work.
Friday AM: Had a nice 50 min before work. kept it "fast" for me and tried to keep to a 05.45per km pace, but it was too tough. not sure i will be running any sub 2 hours half marathons this year!
Friday PM: was a great day at work today! Some very good news so i hit the Champagne after work with some buddies, and well that was the start of a great night out in Mannheim. :)
Saturday AM: Had a run planned but my head was banging so i went to the new pool instead. Had a sauna before and then 1500m to clear out the cobwebs.

Total stats: 6 hours training
Weigh in: 92.5kg
Notes: need to make up more hours next week and leave off the big weekends!

Marathon training - update

Its been a while since i update this blog - lots of things going on. As this is a running diary, i will fill in the training since last entry:

Week starting May 14th (after the half marathon), was feeling ok in general but quads and Achilles were very tight. Has one 50 min gym session on the Tuesday and then went in search of a Sports Massage place to help with the legs. Found a place approx 30 mins from my house and booked an appt for Wednesday evening. I have to say it was fantastic! The masseuse didn't speak a word of English but i explained to her where to problems were and she done her thing very well. If it wasn't so far away i would book one every 2 weeks whilst  marathon training, but i think i have found somewhere more local.
Thursday 17th, first run in a long time without the knee brace! 6km.
Friday 18th an hour in the gym, done. That was it for WEEK 20.

Week starting May 21st (WEEK 21)
This week me and Michelle were in our vacation home in Croatia, a place near Split called Ciovo. Got off to a bit of a dodgy start as i had a few beers on the previous Friday and forgot to bring my passport home from work, which was an hour from home. So, we had to drive to the office in the middle of the night on the way to the airport once i realized i didnt have it with me. (oops).
Once there the weather was crap for the first half of the week but we made the most of it. Hired some bikes and done some good mileage.
Tuesday 1hr30 mins, hilly
Wednesday, no rain! So went running for 1hr40. This was when i realized i didn't have my GPS watch with me, gutted! would have been great to have logged the altitude and route etc. I did have my camera though and took some photos along the way:

Thursday AM - no rain! Went for a pretty extreme ride. Lots of hills up, but an awesome off road trail back into town downhill for 20 mins!

Thursday PM - beer on the beach! OK, more than one. Quite a few but hey, i was on holiday. :) Saw a big storm coming in and caught some cool pics here:

Friday AM - awoke with a little bit of a hangover, but decided to get up and go for a run. So i did, and i ran. for a long time. Clocked up three hours! Thats a lot more than i have ever done but the sun was shining and it was awesome. i didnt have any GPS or music (i normally run with both) but maybe that made it more enjoyable. Was definitely one of my best runs ever and i was very happy with myself for being in one piece at the end..
So seven hours of training whilst on holiday - not bad me thinks.

Home on Sunday and got my training plan for this week from my instructor - 10 hours. TEN! Thats the most ever for me! (Thanks Darryl, if you are reading this :) ) Will give me a chance to run off the calories from the holiday anyway...

Weigh in - Nah, next week.

Weekly recap and Mannheim Half Marathon

Recap -
This week was pretty quiet on the training front, in anticipation of the weekends Half Marathon in Mannheim. Monday was 1 hour light bike ride, Tuesday was 50 min gym session. Noted a pain in my Achilles (old reoccurring injury that comes back to haunt me all the time). Lots of knee/quad stretching as my knee hasn't been 100%. Wednesday was 5km run; knee was ok with this. Not perfect, but was good enough for me to decide to run the Mannheim Half. Thursday was run/walk with stretching and using the new "blackroll" self massage thing. This is sore as hell, but works well!

Mannheim Half Marathon - Saturday 12th May 2012

The Mannheim Half and full Marathon is in the evening, so i worked Saturday morning from home, and then went shopping for a new camelback to use in the race. (i know you shouldn't try something new on race day, but it had to be done). The weather was changing all week from rain, to wind, to 34C so i was happy to see that come Saturday lunch time it was sunny, dry and around 18C. That was perfect for me.
The Mannheim race is organized really well and has around 12,000 runners. The start was a bit congested but i got off ok. Looking back though, i could feel the pull on my Achilles right from the start.

Pre race i was hoping to do this race in 1 hour 59 mins and for the first ten km i was keeping a pace of approx 05.45-05.50. But half way through the achilees was getting sore and i needed a toilet stop. After the toilet stop at 13k the achilees was getting more than just uncomfortable, so i decided to pull back the speed so as to avoid any injury. My pace time dropped down to approx 7mins+.

Final time was 2 hours 20 - ten mins slower than the weinstrasse race 3 weeks ago, but the good news is that i am still in one piece and can continue the training for Dublin!

Post race was a good craic - there was a good gang of us having a few beers. Friends had come from Ireland, England and Switzerland. Will need to find another race to put in the diary now!

NOTES:
Total training time for the week: 7 hours and 7 mins
Weigh in: 92.kg

Training Update

Unfortunately for me, on the Wednesday after the half marathon 2 weeks ago, I injured my left knee. Not out running, but getting in and out of the office at work! The step is higher than normal and I felt it was uncomfortable at the time, and by evening when I got home and sat on the sofa, it was swelling up. GUTTED! How could it be that I ran the race so well and then injured my knee at work??!! (As it turns out, I probably aggravated the knee in the race from a lack of warm up and stretching pre-race, and the injury was a result of that).

Had a few days in the UK to see family and friends from 26^th – went to the Isle of Wight which was awesome and then to a mates party on the Saturday night which was great fun too, and then on to Cambridge to see the family. No training at all that week as the knee was still too sore.

Managed to get a swim in at Parkside Pool on Tuesday May 1^st. Must have been 20 years since I was there last so it was a bit weird but cool at the same time. (2000m good form).

Got another swim in on Saturday back in Germany (1500m) and this morning done a gym session with knee/quads exercises, weights, Cross trainer, and finally some running. J (90 mins total).

Need to keep working on the knee/quads/hamstrings this week to make sure am fit for Saturday’s half marathon in our “home” town of Mannheim. There are some other friends running and my mum is coming from the UK too! Its an evening race starting at 1830 and should be good fun afterwards…

Was aiming for 2 hours so will see how that goes. J

Note: time this week – 4hours 30 mins.

Weekly weigh in  - 92.0KG.

Ordered this item to assist with the knee/quad rehab: http://www.blackroll.com/home/

Weinstrasse Half Marathon 12.4.2012

April 22 2012 was the Weinstrasse Half Marathon and Full Marathon.

I got up early and had my usual scrambled eggs with bacon bits and brown toast with coffee. The start was at 1000 so Michelle and I left home around 0815 then picked up our friends Carsten who was also running, and then Sylvia who always comes and supports us. It turns out that Carsten was out on the beer the night before so wasn’t looking 100% when we met him!

The weather has been terrible for the last few days; rain, wind, hail etc and the forecast for Sunday said there was a 50% chance of rain later in the day, but that between the hours of 1000-1300 it should stay clear, perfect!

Here is a picture of me and Richie and Paul who also were running:

I wasn’t sure what time to expect to come in at as the last time I ran this race I was in good shape and ran it in 2Hrs 20 mins but I was injured for most of 2011 and haven’t ran a half marathon since May last year, so I thought If I came in somewhere around the 2hr 20min it would be ok.

Heres a picture of me setting off, waving to the fans! 

Got off to a good start; the road at the beginning was a little tight for all the runners as it starts off in the village of Bockenheim which is really old so all the streets are narrow. But after a while it thinned out and I could concentrate on keeping my pace up. This was the first race I ran with my Garmin 310XT sports watch and I loved it! It shows you what time you will complete a KM in if you keep to your current pace so I was able to be consistent most of the way through. I knew it was going to get hilly in the middle part of the race so I went out quite quick (for me!) at the start but was also holding some back too. Then when I got to the hilly bit I done that no problem and carried on, still feeling good!

At KM19 there is a monster hill climb for the best part of a kilometer and it’s bloody tough. A lot of people were walking up this but I could see that I was on for a good time if I didn’t slow down, so I kept on pumping and got to the top without walking. Then looking at my clock I could see that if a went like a bat out of hell I might get in around 02.12 so I started running as fast as I could. Luckily the end is either flat or slightly downhill so I managed to pull off the fasted 2 laps of the whole race and landed in at 2 hours 10 mins!! VERY HAPPY with that!

I normally have a beer or two to celebrate after a race but I am off the beer for now so it was an alcohol free hefe weizen and then round to our friends Garret and Maike for a BBQ which was great. I fell asleep there for a bit but all in all I was feeling good, with no injuries or issues to note. All in all, a fanstatic day and looking forward to the Mannheim Half Marathon on May 12^th.That race is much flatter so I will hopefully have a faster time there… 2 hours maybe?

Notes: 21.1 Km, 2 hours, ten mins

Food - eggs and toast, coffee for BF, energy bar in run, orange power drink mix in camelback which worked great.

Cals burned - 2063.

Garmin Stats: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/170718524

Training

On the run up to the half marathon this week, the training has been tapered down. Tuesday was a 5km run at 31mins 48 seconds and this evening i done a 7km run in 45 mins. Tomorrow is a swim day for 40 mins and thats really it till Sunday.
The Weinstrasse half marathon is set in the wine growing area of Germany and is quite hilly so i dont expect to run any PB's. Its also the first race since the Mannheim half marathon last May where i messed up my foot big time. This is the first race since then, and i am excited to be running it. Not really too bothered about the time; i just want to cross the finish line injury free! Its been a slow and steady ramp up to this date..lets get it on!

Training today - 7km, 45 mins, 668 calories
Food muesli, banana, chicken sandwich.
Weigh in 94.2 KG
Garmin Stats - http://connect.garmin.com/activity/169407057

Le Weekend

Saturday - I was traveling due to work on Friday so was unable to do my training session on that day. Luckily enough I was able to work from home on Saturday so had the flexibility to catch up on Saturday morning. Done a bike, swim, bike session. I am really getting into the swimming at the moment; it’s one place where you can completely forget about everything. Even when out running, work and stuff can run through your mind, but when in the pool the only thing you can think about is breathing and swimming! Pretty sad though that whilst most people use You Tube to view talking dogs and the like, I have recently been checking out videos on the perfect front crawl technique. J

Had to do 1000m time trial which was 22mins and 43 seconds. I was hoping for under 21 mins but my arms were tired as soon as I started swimming. Maybe it was something to do with the ride to the pool? Not sure. Anyway, also done a time trial for 500m bi lateral breathing (breathing on alternate sides every 3 or 5 strokes); that was 11.43 which I was happy about as I couldn’t even do it 3 months ago.

Saturday night was round a mates house for birthday drinks and food. Stayed off the alcohol.

Total time 2 hours 10 mins

Food  - BF Muesli, lunch steak salad, evening – BBQ chicken, prawns, chips and dips. 2 alcohol free beers.

Sunday – Big bike ride today. Biked from Mannheim out to Weinheim and then back again. It was a bit cold to start off but then warmed up a bit. The Weinheim area is lovely to bike or run through when the weather is nice (have tried to attach a photo of the old town of Weinheim). Lots of people out there on some very expensive bikes. Was pretty knackered when home but feeling all good with the knee and foot!

Total Time – 2hr 50 mins / 57km

Food  - BF muesli and banana, energy bar, evening steak, spargel and potatoes

Sunday weigh in 93.4 KG

Garmin Stats - http://connect.garmin.com/activity/168310322
Total training time this week - 8Hrs 32 mins

Next weekend is RACE DAY!!! First half marathon of the year and my first since I rightly messed my foot up last May… lets get it on! 

Toilet Troubles..

So I was chatting to my brother Tom today. Tom’s been living in Australia for the last few years and has recently taken up boxing. His first real fight is tomorrow night Aus time (good luck Tom!). He has also lost a load of weight in the last few months, which reinforces my theory that there is a finite amount of weight distributed between me and my three brothers, and when one or two lose weight, the others gain it!

Anyway, Tom said that he now follows this blog but said “am I only going to read about what you had for breakfast etc”, so I when I was out running I was thinking about what topic I could write about. And at around kilometer 5 the topic started brewing…

I don’t think I am the only runner that has issues with going to the toilet; its something we have to deal with. I always try to go before hand but sometimes you just can’t do what you gotta do, and just head out anyway. I always carry a pocket of toilet roll “just in case”. (this trick was learned back in the day in England when we used to go clubbing in England!). Anyhoo, around the 5km mark (half way today) I got a warning that I needed the loo…soon. I knew there was a public toilet up ahead so made my way there. As I got close the desperation was building and building and I was gutted to see that the door was locked when I got there! But there was a man sitting outside there on a chair so I spoke to him in German and asked what the deal was. He replied in what I think was German but didn’t really understand him, saying something about it was closed. He then went on for a minute or two, and then proceeded to take the keys out of his pocket and open the door! He was obviously after some kind of remuneration for this kind gesture ( there is a strange custom in this country where you tip the toilet cleaner for cleaning the toilet!) so I rushed in there, overstayed my welcome and left. He talked to me in mad German for another minute until I gave him a euro, to which he smiled at me and I went on my merry way……..a close call!!

So if you are reading this blog Tom, I hope this was more interesting for you! Good luck for the fight tomorrow.

Running info -10km, total time 1hr.07, 883 calories burned

Food – BF muesli, lunch soup and risotto, evening muesli and banana.

Garmin Stats: 10 Run Thursday night by david4dublin2012 at Garmin Connect - Details

Running Stats for April 11 2012

My stats from my Garmin 310 XT for running session today

Untitled by david4dublin2012 at Garmin Connect - Details

Training

AM  - 7 km run done first thing this morning in the forest behind the house. Knee and foot feeling fine, no issues to note today.

Evening - 50 min swim in the pool. 1200m i think. Lost count of the laps. :)

Breakfast, eggs, toast, coffee. Lunch - pork steak and pasta.

Total time 1 Hr 35 mins

Food diary

No breakfast today
Lunch Ham roll
Dinner chicken soup and brown bread. Muesli and yoghurt after.

Back to work and back training

Back to work today after the Easter break. Also had a rest day yesterday so was back in the gym this morning at 0630, sweating out all the food and chocolate from the Easter break. Done 50 min work out. Had a swim session planned for this evening but couldn't make it as i was on the road this evening. Will have to make it up later in the week as my instructor is wanting 8-9 hours this week!
Finally got the official confirmation of the Dublin Marathon entry this evening. Very happy and excited about that. :)
Been thinking about what charity or cause to raise money for today. Have seen a few things of interest; will keep looking at others too.
Total training time 50 mins.

Sunday Pre Run

Up at 0530 on a Sunday morning and bed last night at 2230 - who is this man!!?? Just had big breakfast and now getting myself together for the long run today. Hope to be able to report back that it was a nice run...