Now I'll go faster with my new helmet!

The old




The new

Thanks to my lovely mum, I now have a cycling helmet that looks a little more speedy than my ancient bucket. (My daughter took the pics, not bad for a 5 year old!!)

Who the heck is that???

Is this really what I look like when I am running?? Good lord! Not quite the lean, mean, running machine image that I have in my head! In my defense, it was a very hot and very hilly race on Saturday, and this picture was taken at around 9 km, after the world's longest hill. 12.3 km and 1 hour 12 minutes - further and longer than I've ever run before. Cooooooool!!!

More to follow....

Lunchtime lunacy

Running from the office at lunchtime has its pros and cons.

Pros:
It's the only time I actually have company when I work out, and I run with some really cool people
It gets me out into the forest at lunchtime instead of sitting on my butt indoors all day;
I'm known as a "runner" in my department, I love being one of the "fit" people
It gets one workout over for the day and leaves the evening free for another, or for family stuff
I get ridiculously competitive and work harder than I would if I was alone

Cons:
Changing in the toilet
Walking around the office in your running clothes. Sometimes people decide that's the moment to talk to you about work - I always feel self conscious and pretty much naked
When I come back from a run, I am a delightful shade of magenta - I think I look fit and hardcore until I see myself in the mirror and discover that I just look like a sweaty tomato
Certain people in the department feel entitled to comment on my fitness/weight at great length (MY fitness, MY weight, MY business)
We run for an hour, but add in waiting for people at the start, waiting for people at the end, showering, eating and regaining senses, it's more like a 2-hour thing
I get ridiculously competitive and work harder than I should

Yesterday's workouts:
Lunchtime run. Where I got ridiculously competitive with a colleague and worked crazy hard, and had a fabulous run.

A failed evening swim. After a beautiful sunny day, as I sat on the tram to the pool the heavens opened. No problem, I like swimming in the rain. As I sat on the bus, it began to thunder. Less good. I arrived at the pool with a few minutes to spare before last entry. It was raining cats and dogs and there was thunder all around me. As I walked up to the woman to pay, the sky was split open above my head with a big fork of lightening. Enough, I turned around and went home.

Evening strength workout. Annoyed by not having swum, I worked my arms and core as hard as I could for 45 minutes. I hurt today.

Tonight:
Another attempt at making it to the pool.

Coming up this weekend:
My mum is visiting over the weekend, and so I'm taking Friday off (YES!!) to spend with her. And ok, I might take advantage of the time before she gets up to go for a swim. And on Saturday afternoon I'm dragging the poor woman out to a village in the middle of Baselland to watch me run 12.3 km. I've never run further than 10 km before. Cool!

And in other news:

UP THE WOLVES!!

Kickin' it

Confession: last night I blew off a party (and I don't get invited to many parties these days) because I wanted to get up early this morning and go swimming. I actually can't believe I'm writing that! The way I looked at it was that I have been to many, many parties in my life, but I have never got up early on a cool, April Sunday morning to go and train in an outdoor pool. I'm not the kind of person who can go to a party and not get wasted, and when I drink, I know I won't train the next day. And I really, really wanted to train. It was the right decision even though I'm sure this makes me offically middle-aged. But look at this picture, who could resist jumping into that water?



The St Jakob sport pool (that's the one at the bottom in the picture) opened for the season yesterday. It's a 50 m pool and wow, swimming in a 50 m pool is way more tiring than a 25 m pool. After 600 m I could hardly swim anymore, and I gave in after 800 because my form (such that I have) had completely gone. The water is heated, but the air was cold. Whichever arm was out of the water got a blast of cold air. But the sunlight sparkling on the floor of the pool more than made up for that. I timed myself over 500 m, which is the distance I have to swim in my race, and I am sloooooooooow. I need to swim as much as possible over the next 12 weeks, and with the outdoor pools opening, it's going to be fun.

Then I went out for a slow, easy bike ride this evening. Just to get some miles in my legs. I wore non-cycling clothes to go cycling, because when I wear the whole shorts-cycling top outfit, I feel kind of pressured to look like I know what I'm doing. Spent several kilometres trying to work out which part of my bike was rubbing to make this swoosh, swoosh noise. Finally figured out it was my baggy shorts rubbing my little frame-bag thingy with every turn of the pedals.

Now my daughter is asking for her bedtime story and I'm pretty much ready for bed myself. Goodnight!

Bricking it

Things have not been that great chez Shazza recently, and as a result I've been feeling stressed and grumpy. And for whatever reason, when I'm feeling down, I rebel against doing the things that would make me feel better. So instead of doing the things I know will help (hard training, not drinking, eating well), I've been busily doing the opposite (avoiding training, drinking lots and eating as much chocolate as I can fit into my body).

This weekend, I decided that some serious butt-kicking (my own) was needed. I don't like being in a funk and I wanted to get motivated again. I wanted to do a serious workout, something that would be a challenge and make me remember who I am and why I do it. My first choice was a mountain race up the Wasserfallen, which is just 7.8 k, but with 490 m height difference (click on this link to see the worst ever route map). However, for various reasons, I decided that this wasn't such a great plan.

Then, I had a better idea. I would do my first ever brick workout.

I've never quite understood why it's called a brick. Is it because you build one workout on top of another? Or because it makes you shit bricks (UK slang for being really scared)? Or is because your legs feel like bricks when you start trying to run? And no, I couldn't resist a picture of a brick.

I cycled 11 km (35 mins) and then ran about 3.6 km (22 mins). With a transition time of 3 mins (including locking my bike and taking my stuff indoors) that made the whole thing exactly 1 hour, which is kind of cool itself.

The bike leg was pretty easy, apart from the hill that I call the Predigerhof hill. I hardly felt like I'd worked out at all. I've learned now to stay in a lower gear that I think I should and keep a higher cadence (oooh, the new words I am learning), to keep from getting tired so quickly. Starting the run was hilarious! Of course I've read a million times about the bike/run transition, but I'd never actually experienced it for myself. I was happily laughing to myself "so this is what they all mean!" I can't even imagine what it must be like after 56 or 112 miles of cycling, although I intend to find out someday. I was surprised that it wasn't the hamstrings or quads that felt tired, it was the lower muscles in my calves, ankles and around my knees that were really complaining. It took almost the whole run before I felt like I wasn't running like a duck.

It wasn't quite the suicide workout I was looking for, almost too easy. But I have to confess that I felt kind of hardcore and triathlete-y . "Oh yeah, I'm doing a brick workout, training for a triathlon actually." I am a such a geek! I know that most of the people on my blogroll would eat me for breakfast. My hardcore weekend workout wouldn't even cause them to break into a sweat! On the other hand, in January I could only run 1o minutes without stopping, so I've come a long way baby. It's all relative and one day, I'll be where they are. (OK, I'll probably never be where Bree Wee is, but watch out the rest of you...)

The 50 m outdoor pool opened for the season yesterday, so I'm planning a swim session tomorrow. Swimming outdoors in April is pretty hardcore too. Yep, total geek!

Very belated RACE REPORT

Two weeks ago I ran my first 10 km in 10 years. Yay!! It was a local race called the Birslauf, which goes up one bank of a river called the Birs, over a bridge and back down the other side. In other words, it's an almost completely flat course.

My husband and daughter came down to the race with me, which was great. I was so nervous, I would probably have chickened out if I'd had to go alone. We arrived very early and watched as hundreds of lean, fit people stretched and "warmed up". My husband asked if I wanted to warm up, and I laughed at the idea of running further. I was having serious doubts that I could even run 10 km.

I fixed my chip onto my laces, which was exciting for me, having never run a chip-timed race before (I don't think they'd been invented the last time I ran a race!). Then I had a small panic because I'd forgotten to bring any safety pins. Hello, this is Switzerland! Not only was there a box full of safety pins at the numbers desk, but they'd been sorted into little pin-families of 4!!

I amused myself for a while by checking out the crowd of lean, fit people in expensive running gear and trying to spot the ones who looked like I might be able to beat them. There were not many and mostly they were over 70. Then everyone began ambling to the startline and I kissed the family goodbye and followed. I decided to hang out way at the back, as I still wasn't sure what my pace would be, or if I could even run the whole way. There was a woman sitting on a rock in the middle of all these runners, smoking a cigarette. I didn't see anyone I knew so I just waited until something happened. Being Switzerland, there was no fuss. At exactly 6 o'clock a gun went and off we ran.

Can you spot me in this picture?

It had been a long time since I ran in a crowd and it was really strange at first. It was also the first race I've ever run alone, without my friend Emma at my side to keep me company. We ran round the park, past the giant dinosaur and out onto the river bank. Although this was only a small local race, there were a few people dotted along the course cheering us on and some kids ringing big Swiss cowbells which made me laugh. In fact, I could hardly stop smiling once we'd set off and the nerves had settled. I was running. I was racing. I was one of the fit people again. I'd forgotten why I loved to run in races. Nerves and endorphins and collective energy make me feel somehow connected to all these people and I want to hug everybody! It's like going clubbing but with no need for drugs.

We ran up the river for a while, and I was fully occupied with passing people on the narrow river path. Apparently starting at the back had been a mistake. I began to see people flaking out after only a couple of kilometers, and the lead runners passed us going back along the other bank after just 20 minutes and we all cheered. The first half hour went quickly and I couldn't believe it when we crossed the bridge for the turnaround. I still felt fresh so I speeded up and began passing even more people. The 5 km marker was shortly after the bridge as we headed back toward the park.

At around 6 km I began to feel that I'd been running for a while. I'd been passing people for the whole race and only been passed myself a few times. At around 7 km I began to slow down. It was hot, I was thirsty and there were no water stations in this race. I thought maybe I could take it slowly for the last few km, and still maybe break my goal time of an hour. My training runs in Allschwil forest are around 8 km and my body began to tell me that it was nearly finished. I wasn’t smiling anymore, I just wanted to finish and find something to drink.

Then these two girls passed me. I'd noticed them when I passed them on the way out, because one of them was head-turningly gorgeous. She was running with a friend and looked as cool as if she ran 10 km every day before breakfast. Exactly the pacer I needed! I was not going to let her get away. I speeded up and decided to keep their pace for the next km, even though it felt really hard. Now, I was racing. In fact, I never lost sight of them again until the end, when I overtook them in my finishing adrenaline-sprint. Sorry about that, lovely-looking pacer-girl. I have you to thank for my PB, I'd never have been motivated to run that fast without following you.

By the time the 8 km marker appeared, I was smiling again because I knew I was going to finish, and finish running. As we ran back into the park, some little girls had their hands out for high-fives, which I gave enthusiastically because I've never done that in a race before either. Much to my own amazement, I was holding the faster pace. I couldn't remember whether my only previous 10 km time had been 58 minutes or 56 minutes, so I knew that anything under 56 would be a PB. I could see the clock over the finish reading 55-something so I sprinted in, overtaking everyone so that my husband completely missed my finish.

He found me when the friendly Datasport woman was cutting my chip off my shoe and I jabbered at him about my PB while he took a photo. My daughter cried because she'd been playing and didn't see me finish. I told it was because mummy was SO FAST!

So there you go. Giant dinosaurs, cowbells and a PB. It doesn't get much better than that. Luckily there's a spring Birslauf (April) and a fall Birslauf (September) so I can do it all again in a few month's time.

Official time 55:17
Rank 105 (out of 255 women)
Average split 5.31

So, anyway, isn't this a triathlon training blog?

I'm discovering that writing a blog is harder than it seems. First of all, it's way more time-consuming. I have so many posts in my head, but they never make it to the screen. And what to write about raises other problems. If I just write about my day-to-day training (or lack of) then my loyal reader(s) (Hey Missy!!) will be bored to tears.

Maybe I need to share some of the crazy backstory. But collecting my thoughts in some kind of coherent order and putting them out there for the world (and my mum) to see? That's tougher than any training session can be. How much do you really want to know about me anyway?

I love to read bloggers who get more introspective and tell me about what's going on inside their heads. It makes me feel connected to someone, like I'm not the only crazy, anxiety-ridden loon who thinks way too much. So it seems only fair to share some of my craziness in return. When I can find a way to write about it that doesn't make me sound like Marvin the paranoid android, you'll be the first to know.

So, anyway, isn't this a triathlon training blog?

Training has been not-happening for the past 10 days or so. Just not happening. So I'm not going to talk about it. I cajoled myself out for a run today by promising myself that I could walk as much as I wanted. In the end, I didn't walk much, but I really felt like it had been a looooooong time since I last ran. It took 45 minutes before my legs seemed to get it. "Ah, running, now we remember...."

Marvellous Monday meanderings

It's a marvellous and magical day outside and the weekend was so good! I do NOT feel like being at work this morning! Spring has finally arrived, it's warm, the sky is blue and the trees are bursting enthusiastically into life. I want to be outside, hiking up a mountain, eating lunch on a rock with a view that seems to take in the whole world.

Instead I am inside, drinking coffee, with too much work to do. Oh well.

Here is a picture from the finish of the 10 km race on Saturday.

As you can see, I was very happy! I was so nervous at the start, but as soon as the gun went off I had the biggest smile on my face and I think it stayed there the whole way. I loved it! I'm running again! And I beat my PB (which was either 56 or 58 minutes, I can't remember...). My official time was 55:17. Not bad for an almost-middle aged mum who a few months ago couldn't run for 10 minutes! I'll write a full race report soon, because it was such a funny evening.

I also managed to fix my mountain bike and go out for a "recovery" ride yesterday. After all my whinging, of course, it took about 15 minutes to fix it. My quads were burning going up the hill and I felt like hell afterwards. I don't fully trust my bike though, I feel very insecure riding. I don't quite trust the brakes and I don't trust the gears, so I feel very tentative. No new bike yet , still working on that one.

My daughter has gone away for four days, and it's school holidays, so I'm planning deliciously quiet, guilt-free swims tonight and Wednesday. I'm pretty much terrified by how good things look right now. Am I feeling this fabulous because I'm getting fitter, because I'm doing something I love, because I'm not drinking? Who knows? If I could bottle this feeling I'd be a gazillionaire, but perhaps it's dangerous to question it too much. Bring it on!