1/26/2004

After a spectacular 2003, what could change in 2004? Well, a lot. I am still in Vienna on educational leave. And I signed up for so many classes that I barely ever had time to do sport in the fall and winter. The foot injury from my last long race had to heal too. So I took it very easy and it didn't look too good for this new Tri season. After all I had signed up for more than 30 weekly hours of course work. No time for training there!

In early January I did a lactate test and the results were really good and that got me thinking. Obviously I had lost less fitness in the winter than I had feared. So, after some deliberation, I decided to go back to my old 'secret' goal for 2004: try to do an Ironman distance triathlon. It's really a totally crazy idea with the amount of course work I have to do, but it's worth a shot. I'll just start training and see how well I progress. In april or so I'll do a reality check and reassess the situation. If I'm doing well in my training, I'll try to go for it. If not, well, then I'll just look for a nice half-ironman somewhere (I should be able to train for that) and have fun. And be a spectator at the IM Austria on July 4th.

So far things are progressing. And I noticed just how much I missed doing regular exercise. My entire outlook on life changed and I'm a happier person. And that's also worth something, right?

4/13/2004

My my, no update for such a long time... I wonder if Andreas just slacked off, became fat and lazy and turned couch potatoe...?

Fortunately, none of these happened. But I did work a lot and yes, I didn't train all that much. But I kept running a bit every now and then, went swimming occasionally, even visited the weight room a few times. Just like an ordinary guy who likes to stay somewhat in shape. It's definitely not enough, but better than nothing.

Lately I started running more regularly again. I'm trying to run once or twice a week, swim at least once and do yoga once. It doesn't work out every week, though. And now that the weather slowly gets warmer I even was out on my bike once already, and a few times I used the indoor trainer.

It's very pretty to run in the Vienna woods (Lainzer Tiergarten, for instance), or in the Prater or out in the countryside at this time of year. We had easter holiday last week and I actually went running 4 times! And finally I decided to sign up for a 'race' again. I put that under quotes because I certainly won't run it as a race, but as a fun run. It's the Fernwärmelauf in Vienna on May 16. That's about 6 weeks out. Plenty of time to prepare for a 15k run when you have the basic endurance, I think. After that I'll start looking for a marathon some time in Summer. And I'm half-seriously considering signing up for the Honolulu Marathon in December. Then I'll be back in the States already and Hawaii won't be THAT far away... but let's see what my manager things about that idea :) In any case the Honolulu Marathon is supposed to be one of the nicest and most scenic marathons in the world! I'd love to run that one. We'll see, we'll see...

5/4/2004

Gee, again no update for almost a month. What's this world coming to...?

Well, it's the same thing as last time: I focus on art (really check out my art section some time. I think I'm really making some progress). But the weather is getting nicer and since I live closer to school I walk there instead of taking the public transportation. And I ride my bike again occasionally and I do try to run at least twice a week. To motivate myself for training I signed up for a medium distance race in a few weeks, the Vienna Fernwärmelauf (15k). I'm looking forward to that.

Other than that... no news. (check out that art section. There is news there :) )

5/16/2004 - Fernwärmelauf - 15.2k - Vienna

I'm actually writing this about a week later. I finally did a race this year, the Fernwärmelauf in Vienna, which is held in conjunction with the Vienna City Marathon. I did manage to run some before the race, but not as much as I should have and so the race was pretty strenuous for me and I was glad it was not more than the 15k distance. (Maybe I should have run a bit slower, that could have helped, but I felt pretty darn slow already as it was). The weather was definitely "variable" with sunshin, rain, cold wind and everything in between. It was too cold for my taste and definitely too wet, although we were lucky and the real rain didn't start till after I was done. The race definitely showed me that I have a lot of work to do before tackling a full marathon.

My time wasn't actually that bad considering how little I had run this year - the speed was comparable to my first half-marathon of 1.5 years ago, but I was much slower than at my best races in 2003. No wonder: I had done no track or speed work since August last year.

Distance: 15.2 km
Time: 1:17:43
Rank 636 (of 3000 or so)
Rank M-35: 133 (of ?)

10/12/2004 - an update

loooong pause...

over the summer I slowly started running more again. I also got on my bike again some time, imagine that. But it was a hard re-start. I learnt that it's a very big mistake to completely stop exercising when you are highly trained. I sort of knew it in theory, but well, I guess I just had to experience it.

Essentially, with the hassles of moving back to the US and stuff (end of August) it took me several months to fully get up to speed again. Since then I've made a lot of progress, most of it in the last few weeks. I joined my old exercise club again so now I got for short swims several times a week. I attend 1-2 spinning classes a week and I occasionally ride my bike a bit too. Soon I hope to also start with some yoga again. Then I'll be up and running again (literally). But I plan to keep the intensity of my training lower than it used to be because I need to make time for creating art too. And as I won't win any of these races anyway...

Here is my plan for the rest of the year: I'm actually planning to finally run my first marathon before the end of the year. I set my sights on the Honolulu Marathon on December 12th. It's a really great race I hear and I love Hawaii. I'll just attach a few days and call it my xmas vacation.

Before that I hope to also run a half-marathon at the silicon valley marathon at the end of october and maybe do the Salmon Duathlon in early november. That should be plenty till the end of the year.

My current training for the marathon is going well. I ran 1:50 last Sunday. As I'm running a bit slower now than I used to this should be a bit under a half-marathon. But I have to watch my technique a bit because my left foot really hurts today.

Stay tuned...