Originally written in German. Translated to English by AI — please excuse any awkward phrasing.
The lazing-around phase is well and truly over… it was nice, but after 5 extra kilos and a complete loss of fitness, enough is enough.
I’ve been back in regular training for almost three weeks now — the first 2.5 weeks felt like I’d never moved a muscle in my life. But this week the switch finally flipped for the first time: suddenly I’m running 25 seconds per kilometer faster, swimming 2 seconds per 25m faster, no more bonking after 2 hours on the bike, etc. Happy for that to keep going — the switch still has several positions to go before I’m back to full form.
What’s on the schedule this year? Well, it could end up looking a lot like last year 😉
The first highlight should be Ironman Lanzarote, with Hawaii qualification as the goal. If that works out I’ll obviously go to Hawaii, but then I’ll need to seriously consider whether to start at Challenge Roth. Although by now I have a few friends racing there and couldn’t cancel in good conscience… Well, let’s wait and see. It would at least have significantly more time between races and therefore be easier to handle than last year’s adventure.
Other planned races so far are just the half marathon in Heidelberg and Challenge Kraichgau (or whatever the race ends up being called by then), plus a two-week training camp on Lanzarote in February.
And finally, this:
That’s what a sliced tire looks like when you’re not paying attention and ride over a champagne bottle. The bottle was instantly gone, the tire unfortunately too… Of course this happens on a public holiday, at the furthest point from home — for me, on the Rhine bridge in Germersheim. I had a spare tube with me, but the cut was so big and so far into the tread that the tube kept pushing itself out through the hole. So I rode home at about 0.5 bar with the bike constantly tipping to one side. At least that still worked — otherwise I would have had to be picked up from a ride for the first time in my life.