Swimming like flying - watched by batman

Training again: 45 min swim 1km. The lower-back-pain is fading away, so that I could do some legs swimming. After the forced break swimming felt like flying through the water. All the power released. Interestingly a bat would watch me crawling in the house-pool.

Besides the swimming I integrated all training-plans I got -from a professional triathlete, from the "triathlon-magazine" & from http://www.beginnertriathlete.com. I put everything in one excelsheet. Hopefully it will do some good.

New next race in Wellington (New Zealand)

In 1 month is the next race - Sat 31st Mar 2007 - Standard Distance National Champs. I was registered for an Olympic Distance Race in Wellington- New Zealand. :-> I need to get rid of this back pain.

Jakarta - the traffic city or "rushin' roulette"

Here is the summary of the last week:

Feb-21/22: Zürich-Frankfurt-Singapore-Jakarta

Feb-23: Got used to the heat & started the training (1hr leg-forward-movement on bike & on X-trainer)

Feb-24: After a bad gym-move with leight-weights I suddenly suffered low-back pains

Feb-25: The low-back pain still hurt, got a massage with sauna, which was great

Feb-26/27: Recovering. Hardly moving. Swimming. More to come...

Biking will be a challenge in this city. :-> I read an article in the "Jakarta Kini" - the ex-pat newspaper: in Jakarta there are 80 deaths a day on the streets due to accidents. In comparison: there were 29 deaths per day in Germany back in 2000, Source: http://www.unece.org/stats/trends/ch6/6.9.xls. Considering the number of people living in Jakarta the risk might be even higher in Germany.

Swim Training / Free Radicals Zürich - 2k/1 hr.

Swim-training in the swarm of free radical sharks. I need to train swimming in a group. The trainer was really good, he said, I have to kick more with the legs, to improve my swim position (legs are to deep in the water). When I kick at least once a stroke I maintain a flat position and minimize water resistance.

The bike is in the air...

I have been at the airport to have a look at the boxes they provide for bike transport. Hopefully my box won't loook like this one to the left. I found some more hints about bike-travelling (in German): http://www.cramers-web.de/verpackung.htm
Some things I will prepare:
* bring a thick black eddding to indicate up/down
* bring some tape & stabilization /fill material
* prepare some signs: "fragile - be careful - hati hati"
* come 1 hr. earlier as planned


Afterwards I went to starbucks. Everyone was in a very good mood there. It is very motivating to see some companies/ employees/ people strive and reaching out. So let's get something done today.

Saturday: bike and swim

Today I went downtown by racing-bike in order to buy a nice Erox-Speedsuit (sleevelesslong). It is made out of super-fast drying material and has thicker material at the bottom for biking. Well, it is a pretty good triathlon shop, since the boss always tries the material himself on ironman competitions: http://www.santamonica.ch/index.asp?fun=ent&dest=home&cat111=1 (in German). So he told me also not to forget to drink enough in Indonesia - despite the climate and high humidity. Good hint.

In the evening I went swimming (1 hr./ 1km), although I wasn't motivated at all. However, the swimming-pool turned out to be empty, so that I enjoyed swimming.

Lap Track

Für alle, die des Lap-Zählens überdrüssig sind:

http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/shop/shop/item.asp?itemid=3933

Resting is recharging - Eat, sleep, triathlete

"When hungry , eat your rice; when tired, close your eyes. Fools may laugh at me, but wise men will know what I mean." Lin-Chi =>

Stretching & Loosing Weight

http://70.3ironman.ch/

Today I got my order from amazon: "The 12-Week Triathlete" written by Tom Holland. Seems to be a nice balanced book, since there are a lot of exercises and a "Triathlon Resistance Training Program" included. I will have something to read on my way to Indonesia next wednesday. However, I set my training periods so far:

• 4 weeks "base training" (March)
• 3 weeks "build phase" (April)
• 3 weeks "peak" (April/May) and
• 2 weeks "taper" (May)

I am willing to sacrifice to get ready. Two Lessons learned for today:
1. Weight: Too much is too much to endure the half-ironman. I definitely need to loose on that extra-kg. Carrying some "extra" might be my highest risk not to finish.
2. Stretching is sooooo important. Through my itensified training my sinews got shortened and I had pain in the calves. :- ( It got much better with stretching. :- )

First entry... 12 Weeks and a some days to go...

Welcome to the triathlon blogg. This is my first post. I will use this blogg to gather, enhance, summarize, work on and share information or experience about triathlon. Maybe there is something interesting for the rest of the world.

-> only 12 weeks to my next race - a 1/2-Ironman … I better gotta go and train something … http://www.70.3ironman.ch/