No races to report on for the next six weeks, so I’ll have to bore you with the daily goings-on in the life of a professional triathlete on the road.
We decided to spend two days in Niederbronn after Challenge France as it was quite nice to be in familiar surroundings. We spent two months here last year before the two Half Challenge races, France and Kraichgau, and then Challenge Roth. I was familiar with training routes in the area, so Monday was a decent days training which included a 3km open water swim at the race venue, a short one hour ride on the flat section of the bike course, and then my favourite part of training in this area, a 10km run through the forest along the river. The scenery in the area is stunning, and Tuesday morning I did a 13km run to the top of the nearby hill/mountain and back. Then it was the long trip back to Wittenburg, Germany.
Wednesday was still a recovery day, so training remained easy with a 3km swim, 30km ride, and easy 10km run. While we had been away though, the swimming pool’s temperature had dropped to 19deg, which is just too cold for me to handle. You see, the pool here is made of steel, and outdoors, so it warms up pretty quickly if it’s hot, but slightly milder temperatures sees it plummet again.
On Thursday training started getting back to normal, a cold 3km swim, a 60km ride, and a 12km track session with 400m repeats. Friday was a similar day except for the run being a long slow 30km. Saturday was a rest day, and after a sleep in we headed off to nearby Leipzig. Only a hour away by car, we spent most of the day walking the city centre which was a hive of activity, and Natalie was in her element with all the shopping malls. After a bit to eat at Subway (one of our favourite take-aways from our US trip), and a chocolate Mocha from Starbucks, we did our last bit of shopping where I managed to get a cheap 2mm wetsuit that I could use in the pool for training as I didn’t want to mess up my Orca 3.8 with the chlorine. Chuffed with our clothing purchases we headed home, and later I headed off to the gym for a weight session.
Today I started with a 120km ride, then headed off to the pool to try my new wetsuit. Although it fills with water every time I push off the wall, it still did the job and managed to keep me warm for the entire 5km session. This evening was an 18km run which included 12km of tempo work at around 4:15 per km.
The next two weeks are going to be quite long in terms of training, and now that the seven day course of antibiotics is done, hopefully I’ll start feeling a little stronger. The cough is a lot better, although not completely gone. I think the area we are in is playing havoc on my allergies, so the cough won’t go away. But we’re only here for another 2 weeks before heading off to the Immenstadt area for the race on August 1st.
The ITU World Champs race is in a very mountainous part of the country, with steep climbs and descents. Wittenberg is just too flat to prepare adequately for this kind of race, so we’ll be spending 3 ½ weeks in the area training on the route.
Thanks again to Velocity Sports Lab and all my other sponsors for making this possible.
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