Back on (a) track

I somehow thought that 1h15min running last week and my eating habits in the last three weeks (still have not used a stove, but I have already had almost everything I wanted including muffins, cheesecake and starbursts, and I will go to Olive Garden this weekend and stuff my face with their breadsticks and then I should be ok and can start eating real food) would have a very negative impact on my running fitness therefore my expectations for today's workout were quite low. Not sure why I expected it to be so bad though, you do not loose fitness in one week. Probably also because my last interval workout was when I was still in Germany so I was not really sure what to expect.

But it has turned out that it is not that bad.
Workout was 20min warm up, stretches/drills, 17min sub-tempo at 4:18 pace (6:53 since we are in the US after all), 3min rest, 5x800 @ 5k pace with 90sec jog, 10min c/d.
I realized soon during that sub-tempo (which I did on a trail near the track, which is great!) that I do feel good and there is nothing to worry about. Except that I might die during those 800s. The last time I did this tempo/intervals combo was last year in summer (when I was in a great shape by the way but was not able to capitalize on it in races since my ITB kept flaring up every few weeks).
So sub-tempo was good and my original plan was 4x800s at around 3:05, which is around 19:15 for a 5k.
However turns out that 800s are so short that 3:05 is too easy and 4 is not enough. So I did 5 in 3:05, 3:04, 3:03, 3:01, 2:59.
Sure, I used to do this workout all 800s in 2:5x but that would not be my 5k pace right not. So I followed instructions and kept it at a reasonable pace.
It felt quite easy although the last 150m of the last two was little harder. But that's probalby because I was going faster to negative split the intervals.

Then swim. Another great thing about the pool (one great thing is that I am always the only one swimming there) is that they have hot tub with jets so I used those to "massage" my legs between run and swim. It was great!
Swim was good as well and hit all my paces right on spot. Did 10x100 @ 1:40 again but this time at the end of a workout and went faster than last week. So I am adjusting.

Ok, I am off to bed since I need to get up at around 3:30am to drive for 9 hours to Michigan to pick up my cloths and do that mountain bike race on Saturday. It is either 6h or 8h race. I do not even know. And it does not really matter since I am not ready for neither of them. But I do not care, I can fake it. And I do not have a bike yet. Details, details.

Running scared!

Let's do this with bullet points since there is couple things I would like to write about.

- on Monday I was chased again by those two exact same dogs that chased me on Sunday. (It is no surprise of course since I took the same route). Unfortunately this time they both chased me on both my way out and back. Did I mention that I do not like dogs?!? (Sorry to all you dog lovers, I had a bad experience from my childhood and am just too scared of dogs and thus hate them)

- I ran 50+ minutes on a road on Monday. This was the longest hard surface run since the early 2010! I run on a road only when it is totally unevitable and I always limit it to 40min max. However with the current situation I need to risk it. It was horrible though. I was scared to death and was expecting my ITB to blow up any time. It is good however, even one day after. Hope it stays that way.

- I ran a hill workout on Monday (as part of those 50min). 6x90sec. Yes, I found a hill in Illinois. It is only 4min run from my place. The last time I did a hill workout was in fall 2010 in Yosemite park when I ran to El Capitan to beat bears and sunset. I ran some hills in Hannover but I am not sure whether that could be considered hill workout. I loved every second of that hill workout yesterday. It was the only time that I forgot about my ITB and just ran and enjoyed (in a slightly sadist way).

- I went biking today to the Rend Lake and met one guy who stopped me and asked me whether I want to join him for his ride. He said that he moved here last year in November and that he rode pretty often and I was the first cyclist he had met! So he had to stop me because he was desperate for a biking buddy. This place is weird. The roads about the Rend Lake are smooth newly paved roads with low traffic and there are also bike paths, however there are no joggers, bikers or hikers there. He said that even in summer there is noone out there!

- The ride kicked my butt. Big time! And I do not mean that it was comfortably hard. It was HARD. I was able to stay with him (in drops, glued on his wheel, suffering like a dog) on flats or downhills but on even the slightest incline I got dropped as a bad habbit even though I stoot up and mashed the pedals, quads on fire. It was pathetic. Sure his quads were like my waist but he was an older guy, almost 30 years older than me (why do I always have these older guys for biking buddies? Where are all hot young guys?!?). He told me that he raced off-road motorbikes and that involves standing on pedals for 2-3 hours so therefore his legs are strong. It was pure suffering and there were times I considered asking him to slow down because I was going to blow up and then pedal home at 7 mph. I can blame it on that hill workout, not having bike pedals and shoes but only cages, eating only 2 apples and 1 peach and drinking only one cup of water the whole day, but those would be just stupid excuses. I truly need to stop living on donuts and start doing something with myself.

- I had a great workout in a pool today. I did a workout that I did last October (2x4x200 @ 3:20 desc 1-2) and I nailed it. Sure, I cannot move my arms now but I nailed it so I am happy about it.

Training update

I brought this home yesterday (the Specialized one in case in doubt) and I am pretty excited about it. It is an entry level road bike, basically the cheapest one they had on store but it will do the job.
I went riding with a bike group from work Sat and they told me that one store near St Louis was having a sale that day. So I went, told the guy selling bikes that I was looking for something entry level, I test rode couple bikes and they chose the cheapest one. I cannot justify anything expensive unless I kick some cycling butts first. But on a second though, maybe I cannot kick any butts on this bike...Then it will be a vicious cycle I suppose. But I do not care, I just wanted a road bike to have some fun around.
(My sister called me right after I bought the bike while I was in Target looking at drying racks and after I started complaining to her that $22 for a piece of plastic is little too much she said I was an idiot since I just spent a thousand bucks on a bike but am too thrifty to pay twenty two bucks for a drying rack. My dear, I cannot spend $22 BECAUSE I just spent a thousand on a bike. But I got that drying rack as well because I am not using a drying machine. Drying machines are very bad!)

I took my new ride for a ride today and it was awesome (although it was cold, two pairs of pants, socks, gloves, couple layers of jackets)!!!! I explored some local farm roads and they are ok with an occasional rough patch but nothing too bad and no cars. The problem is dogs. I was chased twice. I do not like dogs one bit. I am scared of dogs.
The ride was great and I am looking forward to getting on a bike often now. My TT bike has a compact cassette and this is standard so I cannot swap the Powertap wheel easily:( Not sure how I am going to go about it. I am thinking about getting a second powertap wheel, the cheapest version will cost me only $500 (well, only...) but that's probably little too snobbish, isn't it?
I wish those powermeter pedals were cheaper. Even Garmin does not want to hire me a test rider (I asked and they said no) so I think that I need to find a man to share my living expenses with and then I will buy those pedals. (Which might take forever because I have very particular standards, you know, German engineer and a holder of US Green card with a marathon PR under 2:36 that is proficient in physical therapy and likes to spend his free time as a bike mechanic.  Those types are very rare and hard to come around.)

Running has been pretty much non-existat in the last 5 days...It is part of my off-season week. But I have found a hill where I can do hill repeats.

Swimming is great. I tried 10x100 @ 1:40 and was able to do it no problem. 100s were in 1:35ish without too much trouble although I had no faster gear and it felt very steady. And then I also did 4x 100 @ 1:50, 200@ 3:40, where 100s were a notch under 1:30 and 200 were easish in 3:10. So not as bad as I feared and I am probably not too off from where I was in fall last year. Of course it means that this year was almost a complete loss but I am saying almost because I know that it was not and there was some improvement. Unfortunately improvement was not as big as it could have been but what can I do, right? I am not going to dwell on it and move on. I still have years to improve.

I spoke with my grandmother and my parents today they both asked me about my eating habits because they are worried that I live on cake. I assured them that although I in fact live on cookies, donuts, tortilla chips, Starbursts, peanut butter M&Ms and milk duds (I cannot believe that I have not eaten a single muffin since I got here!!! Need to change that tomorrow.) it is only temporary. I need to stuff myself with all the food that I did not eat in Germany and once I tried everything I missed (which reminds me. Cheesecake! I have not had a cheesecake yet! Will buy some tomorrow.) then I will go to normal eating. I have been here for 10 days now and I have not tried whether the stove works. Actually I have not unpacked the cooking pots I bought yet.

Another life update

Just in case my 1.5 readers are interested how things are coming along since I have been here for 7 days now!

I pretty much swim every day (still feeling little uncomfortable about depleting our natural resources and polluting the planet for a very selfish reasons but I guess that the guilt feeling will go away eventually). I still have not got into a routine, because I still do not have a routine at work so I go there at all different weird times and so far everytime I go there is very few people there which is great. I am sure that it has something to do with the fact that the pool is in a town with population of 2400.

Swimming in 25 yard pool again is strange. I got used to 50m pool and now my flip turns are awful because the distance between the wall and the end of the line is different (right?) and I flip either too late or too early. And everything seems too long and I am losing count. And my times are awful. My endurance is probably better from all those 15+k weeks but speed is slacking.  

Yesterday after a swim I went running. There are very nice trails through the woods around the Rend Lake near the pool. I will probably try to combine swim/runs together to be able to run on those trails. Next time I go I will take Garmin with me so I can download it to a map and see where I was because I have no idea. However firstly I should probably find out whether it is safe to run there. I do not want to get jumped on.

I still have not found out whether the local HS track is open to public. One person told me it was not, the other person said it was. Seems that I need to go there and see for myself whether I get kicked out or not.

We have a gym at work (which is the weirdest thing ever considering this is a manufacturing facility) and I am committing myself to go there! Need to start working on developing from a fly to a bull.

I will not be able to bike to work very often because I need to take a car to be able to go to pool immediately after or before work. That sucks! I was hoping to get extra biking miles in that way.

I think that I am buying a mountain bike next week. And a road bike.

I have ordered a home trainer. I cannot wait until it gets here! I am sure that my neighbors are looking forward to that too:)

This week is my off season. I really do not need an off-season physically, but mentally I do. Although, I have been in an off-season mood for the last month (living on cookies (literally!), pathetic swims, zero bike, running has been the only thing I kept up) but this week I do not feel guilty about it, and my running is on a back burner this week as well. So far I have been living on yoghurts, potatoe chips and donuts. And PPC recommended I eat some milk duds. I do not know that those are but will found out and eat some.

I have found two physical therapy facilities, one is in my cemetery town and the other one around 30miles out. I am going to check them out in the next couple weeks because I think that I need to be getting regular treatment/adjustments to stay injury free.

On a different note, I went jeans shopping on Monday. Believe it or not but the last time I went shopping for jeans was when I was in high school, so around eight years ago. And yes, I wore those jeans all through HS and college and 1^st year of business school. But do not worry, it was not the only pair I had. I also have another pair that my sister (after she got a car and start driving everywhere including frequent visits to Burger King) gave me. Anyway, jeans shopping is pain. I was able to find a lot of jeans that were 4, 4 long, 6, 6 petite, 6 short, 8, 8 petite, 8 long. But what about people that cannot fit their monster quads in 4 and 8 is like being stuffed in an oversized bag and 6 is ok but looks like a mid-calf capris on me. Where the hell 6 long go? And by the way, being able to fit into 6 was a huge surprise but also a relief because when I looked at 8 I got little scared wondering whether my behind is indeed that big.  

Getting "sunnier"

I went to a pool at the community college this morning and it seems that I can get good workouts in there. There were people but not too many and they were old and swimming slowly so they let me have my own lane:) Unfortunately one problem is the hours they are open but I will somehow figure that out. The other problem is driving 20miles each way everyday is something I do not feel great about. But it is either bagging my triathlon career or polluting the environment. And I am going to be a jerk (of course I am not the only one and one more does not make that huge of a difference but still) and just drive.

I also met aquatics coordinator of the facility who is a swimmer from Florida, trains kids now and does triathlons. She is very nice and told me she can get me in touch with some people and show me some running trails on campus. She also told me to come do a 5k race on Dec 1 that is held on campus. I will do it. 

Running still sucks. I still have not found any soft surface routes where I live. Who said that running was easy because you can run anywhere?!? I have a map of this cemetery town on which I have marked all big green areas from google satellite map and I am going to check all of those out. So far they were all cemeteries. And I have not found out whether a local HS school track can be used by public. I will go there today and see.  It seems that I will have to do my runs on roads after all and sometimes try to coordinate my run and swim together because there are trails by the pool. Way too complicated.

Biking seems ok. There are a lot of farm roads that seem to have good pavement and no traffic. Plus the company I work for has a cycling club (how funny is that). I tried to get in touch with them but have not heard back yet. Plus I asked to have an apartment on a ground floor so I do not bother my neighbors too much and am ordering a trainer so should be all set with that.

Other than that, I think that I am going to do a mountain bike race in MI in two weeks. It is an 8-hour mountain bike race but I will probably do it with some people as a team. Not that I do not think that I can ride a mountain bike for 8 hours. Of course I am not trained for anything like that but that has never stopped me, now has it?:) One team needs a member so I said I would try to help out if I can get one day off here to drive to MI. And then there is something called Fat Tire Fest weekend in three weeks 100 miles south from me and I think I will go there. It might be lonely to go down there alone, but hopefully I can make some friends there to hang out and ride with. Or, my sister wants to visit me so maybe I can trick her into coming that weekend and go down with me. Although I know she would not enjoy it and thus it will be very mean from me. And there is some kind of a different festival going on there at the same time and they have 10mile trail race and a 5k. Of course I would not do a 10 mile race, but maybe a 5k. 

Of course I need to buy a mountain bike first. 

So things are getting better! Finding my routine. Figuring out things. Meeting people.

Last try tri RR (tri #5)

I cannot believe that I have already done five triathlons, that makes me a seasoned triathlete, does not it?

I should name the post "How I got my a$$ kicked". I really need to put my shi* together because you cannot race on a type of training I currently do. And I will indeed start as soon as I unpack the microwave, my suitcase etc.

I have not put much thoughs into the race since I was not even sure whether I can do it or not until yesterday. And my whole preparation cannot be even called haphazardous, it was much worse. I finally put the bike together last night and have not even riden it to see whether it shifts or whether it won't fall apart half way through the race. And I just put the seat based on "feel"- I looked and it seemed about right. Then today morning I did a loop in a parking lot to make sure that it indeed shifts and it somehow did (although it is not perfect. I guess that's what happens when the bike takes 4 flights in the last 7 days and I myself instal a rear derailler), although I forgot to check the front shifter. And I forgot to buy chocolate so I had to eat two Luna bars and one banana with peanut butter for breakfast. I was also considering to wear those goggles I wore in Hannover, you know those that fog after 3 minutes and I do not see anything. But I decided that I need all the help I can get to compensate for my less than spectacular swim/bike/run fitness so I used a brand new pair.

So the race.

Swim: I swam around 24min, which totally means that it was short. I felt good, although I was powering through it and did not feel very smooth and efficient. I think that I had a good swim although when I compare my effort here and in Hannover, Hannover swim felt like I was working much harder, like my head was indeed i it. I did not find any feet although there was one girl swimming next to me and when I tried to get on her feet I always lost her and could not catch her. So we kind of end up swimming next to each other and she walked to the transition so I beat her there.  Why do people walk?

I did not do a flying mount because it was uphill and the path was very narrow and I have not sit on a bike for two weeks so I made a last second decision not to do it if I did not want to take some out and end up in a pile on a side. So I stopped and clipped in. That, I am not proud of. I though I was braver, but apparently I am a sissy.

Bike: It was two 21mile loops and my plan was to hold around 200 watts (if my Joule works because I changed the battery yesterday and did not bother to check whether it syncs with my Powertap), be conservative because I knew that I have no bike fitness and will likely either be a first loop hero or die on a run. Although there is really no reasoning behind those 200W since I "trained" with power whooping 4 times this year. I chose 200 because it is a nice round number. But I needed some goal, otherwise I would be dilly dalling around. I had no idea in which place I was but made a decision if a girl goes by me I will try to stay with here. But no girl went by me and although I passed some people I have no idea whether some of them were girls or not. Then I passed one guy and then he passed me and we were kind of riding together, changing positions. I do not even know what the no-draft zone is supposed to be but I held quite a good distance from him so I am sure it was legal. Maybe I should have even stayed closer but did not want to risk it. Then we picked up one more guy and rode together for 1 loop and a half. Course was great, we went through three bridges accross the Rend lake, so it was very nice.
Maybe around mile 25 I started to realize than my seat is way too low because my hip flexors and knees started to feel very uncomfortable. Also my handle bars were scewed to the left and my left arm was getting numb. Of well, what did I expect, right?
The last 15 miles were pretty much a struggle to keep the watts up, although 200watts was pretty much a lost cause by then. So I was indeed a first loop hero:)
You will not believe this but I ate two gels and drank 3/4 of my Powerade bottle (or Gatorade, I never know which one it is, I always take the one that is closer on the shelf)! Seriously! You see, I am starting to get this whole fueling thing:)
I did the ride in around 1h56min.

Run: It was horrible. First 1.5 miles were ok, but then it was getting worse and worse. Course was rolling hills and since I am weak as a fly I was struggling on uphills and was freaked out on downhills because those are very bad for my ITB. It was out and back and I did not meet any women going out and then saw one 2min back whe we turned and she did not look like she could make 2min in 5k so I shut it down completely. Basically it was a jog all the way and of course I did not meet my sub 43 goal. I went 43:35.

This is a horrible RR. I probably sound very negative, but believe me it was all good and fun. The result reflects circumstances, my attitude and my preparation.  But I am satisfied because as I said my goal was to win and have fun and those were reached:) I know that I probably should not have done the race considering everything going on but I wanted to do it to meet some people in the area. And even that did not work out because I asked at least 30 people (some of them twice:)) and nobody was from the area. Which means that the sport culture is non-existant here and my only hope is the director of the swim facility at a local cummunity college who won a sprint distance the last two years. I need to go talk to her next week.

By the way, that local pro who won the race last year dropped out after bike I think and if she did not she would have given me at least 10min. But she did drop out and I won a blanket. Which is good because I have slept the last 3 nights under a beach towel (you know, the one I won in Hannover) and I was quite cold last night. So now I can sleep under both a blanket and a towel (I need to go to MI to pick up my stuff including comforter).

Next up is to find training facilities, order a home trainer, and I am back to training! Mindful training! This year has been horrible so far but I am to train again with my beloved BSC and I cannot wait!!!! You cannot even imagine how much I am looking forward to it!

I met Elizabeth Waterstraat, she won a sprint distance and her husband was second in the long tri. I read her blog so I decided to say hi. I could not decide whether to approach her or not but then decided to stop by, because that's what a normal adult would do I suppose. 

And I am not going to buy that bike from Walmart yet. I am going to wait and make sure that I do not get fired tomorrow. Since tomorrow is my first work day of my first real full-time adult job!

Racing strategy/goals

I still have not put the bike together so maybe I should not even talked about the race. But I already bought a bike helmet, a floor pump, peanut butter and 2 bottles of Powerade at Walmart a few moments ago, so I am pretty much set. I even went to the race site to ask them whether it is possible to register tomorrow morning before the race and while I was there I swam around 200m.

So yeah, I am all set to race.

Considering my non-existant training for the last 10 days (I have no biked for 2 weeks and swum for a week), move from Germany to Slovakia followed by the move to the USA and my horrible eating in the last week (if I knew that I will be able to race tomorrow I would probably skipped eating 12 donuts in the last 24 hours and would have eaten something better instead) my one and only goal is to win and have fun. Just kidding! Ok, no. I am serious. That's always the goal because that's why we do sports, right?

All the extra fat I acquired in the last week should help me to float, so I am not worried about a 1500m swim. Bike is 42miles, which is weird and long. It will take me close to 2 hours (that's one of the goals, go sub 2h) and I have not done a 2hour bike ride in forever. So that will be interesting. And run....since apparently run in triathlon depends more on bike fitness than on run fitness I am pretty much screwed. I hope I can do it under 43min.
So yes, the race should be fun!

I looked up the results from last year and either everyone in the race is painfully slow or each leg is too long. I think the former but I will let you know tomorrow. Last year winner is a local pro who was significantly faster than the others but still nothing spectacular. I hope I will not eat my words tomorrow:)

 By the way, I am going to buy this bike because I am going to try to bike to work and to pool when possible. I almost bough it today but could not fit it into my car so I will go there tomorrow and ride it home. Hopefully it does not break down immediatelly.

Wish me luck for tomorrow. I will need it.

I want to go home! (Although I do not really have "home", I just want to get out of here)

Seriously.

Let me tell you, the town did not make a great impression on me so far. It is pretty much what I expected it to be and my expectations were very low. Like really very low.

My "low" started yesterday when I bought a car, which was little too expensive. I mean all cars here are more expensive than cars in RI or CT (I do not know why) so I should not be too frustrated about it. However maybe if I did a better job searching maybe I could have saved me a thousand bucks or so. Maybe, I do not know for sure. So I was quite stressed about my purchase. 

My biggest fear coming here was that there will be no place to swim. I went to check out one place and it turns out that it is ok and I will likely be able to swim there. However it is almost 20miles from my town, which is quite a lot. But ok, I can do that. So after I found a place to swim I forgot about my car frustration and was doing pretty well.

But then I went to a local track to check it out. And it is horrible. I do not even know whether they will let me run there. And I am not able to find any places where I can run if I do not want to run on roads, there are no parks or trails. So now I am stressed out again because I have no place to run.

Thankfully I can but a home trainer and bike in my apartment!

OK, I need to calm down. I have been here for only two days so hopefully once I explore it little bit more I will find a good running and biking places. But I seriously doubt it. There is nothing here! And that little what is here is not nice. OK, calm down, calm down.

Can you tell I am freaked out? If it is true that my ITB flares up when I am stressed than I am in for a major flare up on Sunday after the race. Yes, I am doing the race. 

Ok, I am going to run somewhere. Then put my bike together. And then unpack.

Airport musings

Ok my friends, I made it. Not 100% yet, but I am already in Canada and already went through the US customs and immigration so all is good and am allowed to work and stay until August 2015.
I have 2+ hours time to chill at the airport in Toronto so I thought that I would share some interesting happenings from last few days.

I am starting my first real job on Monday. Wow. I guess that it is a big step into adulthood, right? Wish me luck.

With the amount of food I ate in the last 4 days I would put any Kona-bound athlete in shame. And I am not kidding. That happens when you are home for four days and nobody (including me) knows when I will see my fam next. Will be at least a year and a half. So my grandma cooked all my favorite meals and I kept stuffing myself nonstop Sat to Tue. Most of it was good food, but even eating 20 pounds of home grown grapes in three days is not that great for you.

I did a tempo run on Tuesday and it was horrible! It was 2x 10min at 4:10ish pace with 2min rest and I had hard time keeping it. First ten were at 4:08 and the second at 4:11 pace. I know that it was because of all the food I had been eating before. It was just awful how bad I felt. Plus I wonder how much a person can put on in 4 days.

I fell into a small river when crossing it on a motorbike on Saturday. My dad said that he did not trust me taking him over so he waited for me while I explored the other bank. I was ok going out but when I was going back I was in a too high gear and the engine died on me in the middle. When we got home my mom yelled at both of us, of course. She always thinks that I should be kept locked in days prior to going somewhere so I do not break something. However, I do not think that it would be a problem to fly with a broken leg so we always fight about it:) And by the way, I have not broken any bones yet so I do not understand where she gets that idea.

Hungarians are not as easily tricked as Germans and I had to pay for my bike to take it with me on a plane. I paid only 33 000 hungarian forints though, which is around 150USD, so it is still less than I thought they would charge me. Plus I packed that bike bag completely full with clothes so it was worth it.

I still do not know whether I am going to do a race on Sunday. I probably will. You know, no pressure, just win and have fun:)

I might be slightly sleep deprived. I slept for two hours from Fr to Sat, then 8-9h for three nights, 3 hours Tue to Wed and now the Transatlantic flight. I will probably pass out in a car from the airport.

I watched 4 movies on a plane: Brave, Despicable me, Dark shadows and one more but I already totally forgot what it was!!! Three of them were in French and one in German, in case you were wondering.

I have 4,36 Canadian dollars, I might go buy something but you probably cannot buy anything for 4,36 at the overpriced airports.

On my (apparently) poor running form/stride

 I ran a 3k fundraiser „race“ yesterday organized by my employer (700 people employees just from our Hannover location ran, amazing). I ran hard intervals on Wednesday and doing another hard intervals today so that would mean 3 days of running in a row which is not smart but it was only 3k and for a good cause so I did it. And it was not really a race so I could have just plug along (which of course I did not do, I was the first women, but some did 6k and some 9k so). Anyway, organization was superb and they had some kind of physical mechanics/education/something PhD guy (I saw his business card) with treadmill there. So I asked him to look at my running stride.

So I jogged for a minute or two while he was videotaping me.

Then he asked me whether I used to run track. Yes. And proceeded to tell me that I run like a sprinter.  I kick my heels way too high towards my butt and I run on my toes. And I “jump” upward way to much with each step and instead should use that energy to move forward.

In addition, I kick my right heel way higher than my left one. I saw it on a video. Weird, since that’s the leg that’s is giving me problems so he said he would expect that knee to move in shorter range.

I do not overpronate or oversupinate, so that’s no problem.

However, he said that if I want to be a distance runner that I should run like one.

Swimmers learn how to do 4 different styles almost perfectly. And runners should do that too, he said and there are only 2,5 running styles (sprint, mid-d and distance) so runners have it easier. Therefore I should learn distance runners styles, because maybe my heel kicking, raw power, bouncing, front foot striking is a reason why I have these problems.

He said that I should do my runs in “grandma style”, just slug along very slowly, shuffling my legs, landing mid-foot (I have been working on this for the past 7 months but apparently it is not perfect yet!), learn how to run more efficiently, effortlessly, without kicking and bouncing.

Interestingly, or rather not interestingly, it just proves that I am indeed running this way, CH said exactly the same thing to me in January: I use raw power to run, not efficient, waste a lot of energy and land and stay on my toes. He said he did not think I “jump” too high though.

So, I am going to continue working on my running form. I do not know whether it is a reason for my ITB problem, but if my distance running is inefficient overall it does not matter whether it is causing the injury or not, I should still work on it. Too bad I do not have someone to watch me from time to time and give me some feedback.

On a different note, my trans-Atlantic move is pretty much all planned: bike is packed, clothes are packed, apartment secured, rental car reserved, leaving Germany tomorrow morning to visit my fam for four days and then to the US next Wednesday.

I LOVED Hannover (except for pool situation) and Germany is now on a list of countries to consider when settling down if I cannot stay in the US (along with region Alpes Maritimes and Pays basque in France). And even if I do not end up living here in the future, I will be back. For that Erdinger beer glass!!! Plus I am thinking Wiesbaden 70.3 in three or so years.

My highest mileage week in forever

This week was my highest mileage week since February 2011!!!

I finished this week with whooping 25 miles (give or take, I run everything except intervals by time so this is just an estimate)! Gosh, how depressing is that… Still the highest mileage in the last 18 months so I will take that. 

Today was a tempo run. But first I did an easy 80min bike ride (my last bike ride in Germany:( I mean for now, I will be back in a few years for that beer glass). Run was 70min with 20min @ 4:15. 4:15 would be easy on a track, but man was it hard in a park. I am weak as a fly! Need to start running hills and/or going to the gym. I will start in October.

Now I am off for an easy swim now and then I will shower the bike in a shower to prepare it for the move. Poor bike. Then I will not see it for the next two weeks.