T-19 weeks: "Base 1 Week 4 - Ready for Recovery"

Dear Papa, and dear Reader,

As I just typed "T-19," I felt a rush of adrenaline that it's now a 1 in front of the number! Can that be real?? In 10 weeks, it's single digits in the countdown to the race. Wow... It still feels so far away but it will be here before I know it!

Today concludes the fourth week of my Ironman plan and active Base 1! It should've been a recovery week, but travel schedules didn't align well, so I chose to push through this week to now roll into recovery tomorrow. And I can tell you that I'm ready for it!

Not only has the snow not melted yet, but today we got another few inches of new snow on top of it! It has been so cold throughout the week and the ground so frozen as a result that the little bit of rain that came down yesterday turned into black ice almost immediately. Running is obviously really hard under these conditions. I'm very grateful that I haven't slipped at all so far, despite having had to do some tempo workouts outside. Fingers crossed that it will stay that way. This coming week, the "feels like" temperature will hit a low of 6 degrees Fahrenheit / -14 Celsius - and no, I won't be running outside then. It might just be the treadmill for my running portions next week. And there's hope on the horizon, because on Friday, I will fly out to San Diego to be with friends for the weekend, and I can't wait for temperatures that will actually allow me to go run in a tee and shorts. That will feel so good!

As today concludes the end of Base 1 (not counting recovery next week), I wanted to report back on some of the progress I've been making so far. You can see on these charts how my fitness numbers have been developing, split up into the last 7 / 28 / 90 / 365 days. It's quite fascinating to see the trends here.

First of all, you can see the major impact of all that happened at the same time last year. At this time, I would've just been back from my first visit to Germany after your accident, and I tried to keep training for a few weeks. Then, as we learned the horrible news and flew back to Germany, there were a few weeks of almost no training at all - except for my bike rides in between the hospital and your house every day. Not only had I lost the little fitness I had built for that season, I fell down to levels way below my off-season. I basically started from scratch after you died, both mentally and physically.

But what you can also see is the hustle since then (see 365-day-view) and how I got to a really great point by the end of last season in September, followed by a period of taking it easier during off-season (see 90-day-view), and now the steady climb back over the last four weeks (=28 days) that is building back my readiness.

I love the trajectory in all disciplines, but especially in swimming, where I'm putting more consistent hours in than ever, and in cycling, where I have worked hard and hope to regain some of my FTP next time I test.

That said, I'm ready for a recovery week, both mentally and physically! Recovery weeks are usually a great chance to retest for threshold pace and heart rate, but I actually think my zones are set pretty spot on right now, so I will skip the hassle of that and just "relax" - it will still be almost 10 hours of training this week, so hey, I'll try to take those as easy as I can.

The constant struggle still is to get my strength sessions in! Strength is the new swimming - I've become much more consistent in the pool, especially since Jim started going there with me, which really helps get my butt there in the early mornings. But strength training, ugh... I'm not sure why I dislike it so much, but there's absolutely no fun in it for me. If anyone has any advice to make it better, I will gladly take it. But I'd much rather bike for 3 hours than do a 45 min strength session. Wildly stupid, but true.

Speaking of cycling, I was recently thinking of the time I got my first "big girl" bike with a 24 inch wheel size a few years later. I got it for Christmas, but somehow I found out that you and Mama had ordered it for me and had hidden it in the basement. I remember sneaking into the basement every night when you weren't watching and sitting on it, leaning against the big furnace that it was stored next to, and putting my little hands on the handle bars. I can actually still feel the excitement of that running through my bones, sitting there in the half dark, the basement smell in my nostrils, and imagining riding that bike through Schriesheim, my hair flying in the wind. Wow, what a thrill!

I've had a few bike over the years, but this one was by far my favorite. It was so shiny and new, and I have this very vivid memory of riding it. I also think that no one inherited it after me - it was truly my bike!

Doing family bike rides was always such a big thing, and I remember you and Mama, either on separate bikes or on the tandem, and all of us kids either in a little bike chair on the front or with our own bikes behind you. We must've looked like a duck family, all the little chicks paddling hard in the back to keep up with Mama and Papa. What fond memories. I wish there was more pictures of us, but who would've taken it? Selfies really weren't a thing back then. This one Steffen must've taken, as he's not in the picture, and you look at him like you're about to tell him he's cutting off our feet. :) Either way, thank you so much for installing the love for bikes in all of us so early, and for setting an example of how to include riding into your everyday life!

I miss you, Papa! I hope you have the coolest Heavenly bike up there, riding the clouds with big huge snow tires! If you could, it would be nice if the snow would stop soon. Put in a good word for me. It's time to warm up a bit, I think!

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