T-11 weeks: "Base 3 Recovery Week - One Year Without You"

Dear Papa,

I'll start with the obvious, the hard, the sad: Yesterday, the Ides of March, marked one year since you passed. It was hard to not be able to be in Germany.

A week ago, I talked to Steffen, Tim, and Michel if we wanted to do something and start a little tradition for that day. Everybody was in favor, and so yesterday, Mama, Steffen, Mathy, Tim, and Isa all went to your tree and dropped 9 white roses - four kids, three life partners, one brother, and one living parent - and a candle.

I'm so grateful for modern technology that allowed them to video me in so I could at least somehow be part of it. It's so wonderful to have that tree there and imagine that your ashes are already feeding it and will help generate all the leaves that will soon be springing out of its branches. Soon we will be able to not only leave flowers there for you but also bring back some leaves you are leaving for us. I hope to carry one of them in my race kit on June 1.

I've been dreaming a lot of you again this week, I'm sure it was because of the anniversary coming up. Yesterday, I dreamed of all of us going through old memories of you - it was so real and very close to what actually happened around and after your passing last year. It is impossible to think that all of this is already 12 months ago. Time is funny that way...

Other than that, this week was wonderful, partly because it was a recovery week, so I "only" did 12:15h: 3 swims and 9,000 yds in 2:45h, 3 rides and 80 miles in 4:30h, 3 runs and 18 miles in 3h, a 1h strength session, and 1 hour of yoga. I also had a massage - I've had one every recovery week so far, and I think it really helps me prevent injury. She always finds significant tension and works it all out of my system before I approach my next training block. What a huge blessing to be able to do that!

Three cool highlights this week, one in each discipline: First, Jim did his first 3km (1.86 mile) swim with me in the pool, and now I just can't stop him anymore. He just goes and goes and goes. Who knew he would turn into a full-blown swimmer in the middle of all of this?

Secondly, the long bike ride this week ended on a 20 minute interval. Jim can't quite go fast yet with his hamstring challenge and had to let me go on an uphill, but there was one rider who overtook me on the downhill on the other side in the middle of the interval. I proceeded to absolutely smoke him for the 10 remaining minutes of the interval, pushing it way beyond my interval goal, but I couldn't let that pass stand! Jim said the guy was getting behind a truck to catch back up to me as "his manhood was on the line," but sadly, he wasn't able to recover it, haha. I probably shouldn't feel so good about this, but there are just too many sure-of-themselves guys out there on their two wheels looking down on female riders, so providing a bit of an ego check for him felt glorious that day.

And last but not least, Jim's daughter Elisabeth visited this week, and she joined in on my track training with the Speed Development Program. I matched her up with the fastest pace group they had. Initially, the guys I approached for her seemed hesitant. I could feel them thinking that this cute young blonde girl probably mistyped her pace. Well, as they found out she runs college track and just a week ago got second in her whole conference on the indoor mile. Needless to say, she absolutely SMOKED them! My friend Janet texted me after: "OMG! I enjoyed watching her kick some butt tonight!! Those guys were no match for her! None of them could keep up with her! Every time she passed me I was in awe!" So proud of her killing it like that and making us all look like total beginners.

My last run this week was a 90-minute run with a 20-minute tempo portion towards the beginning of it. This is much shorter than my long runs, almost by an hour, but I have to say that the tempo session really took it out of me, and I was pretty glad when it ended. Tomorrow, I will start into the "build" portion of the plan, which will call on more race specific workouts and less singular base work. I'm a bit nervous but also really look forward to it. I can't believe it's only 11 more weeks until the race!! After every workout, I can feel myself getting stronger, and yet, spending 13+ hours mastering 140.6 miles still seems way beyond the limits of my imagination. My training plan actually tells me to start visualizing the race, so I will have to get used to leaning into the seemingly impossible now, at least mentally. I know I can do it. But wow, it will be something else.

I'm attaching my plan progress, so you can see the progress. Grey is the planned duration, colored is the actually completed duration. You can see that I'm slightly short on some weeks (mostly skipping strength sessions) and a bit long on others (mostly added some running back from gym, or recorded those walks that were long enough that they added to fatigue). I think overall, I'm in pretty good shape. You can also see how the plan will now be building more and more significantly. Build phase 2 will absolutely take it out of me, so late April and early May will be pretty nuts. But slowly, slowly, we're getting there! And yes, it's time to get my mind in the right space for race day!

I love you, Papa! I think you would be proud of what I'm achieving - and what we're achieving! Steffen, Tim, Michel, and I talked this week about how much we were able to get done this year in this whirlwind of bureaucracy that we entered after your passing. I think you would've loved to watch us go. Likely, you were actually in the middle of it all...

Have a blast up there, wherever you are! And see if you want to join me again on my workouts this coming week! My track session and long bike session will likely be in beautiful spring weather, so you won't regret paying me a visit!

Much love,

Kathrin

P.S. Dear Reader, if you have comments, questions, memories, or thoughts to share, please leave a comment (and leave your name in the comment so I know who it's from). I would love to hear from you!

Go to the full list of blog posts or read more about the project Ironman for Papa