T-20 weeks: "Base 1 Week 3 - And the First Anniversary of Your Accident"

Dear Papa, and dear Reader,

Third week in! It was a tougher one on the training planning side: We had a winter storm come through on Sunday night that dropped 5 inches / 12cm of snow on us within only a few hours! Given that we hadn't seen a single snow flake since we moved to DC 3 years ago, this was an entirely new situation for us.

Our deck on Monday morning

Secondly, we had a huge week at work! Our business partner flew in from California for strategy meetings and spent three intense days with us, planning out the year and setting us up for a huge business push in 2025. There's so much I want to tell you about all that and about her, but for now, I need to keep it under wraps. You will know soon enough. But needless to say, between icy roads and a strategy retreat schedule, the first half of the week was pure fitness maintenance. That meant that most of the key workouts this week needed to be fit into Thursday evening to Sunday afternoon - one of the weeks that I wasn't able to keep the Sunday free, but so happy to report that I managed to get all of my scheduled workouts in except for just one strength session that I pushed to next week in the interest of recovery. Despite being pretty good about following my plan meticulously, that felt like an easy decision to make.

My frozen face braving a smile

In terms of running workouts, I did one short 30-min run outside and the other two on the treadmill. That meant a one hour tempo interval session and a 10 miler (16km) indoors to the soul-deafening sounds of the gym - there's few things I dislike more than treadmills, so I'm ready for the snow to pass. On the other hand, I made good progress on an audiobook I'm currently listening to, which made the time pass a bit more quickly than it otherwise would have. Running total for all four runs: 19 miles / 30km in 3:15h.

For the other two disciplines: I had another great swim week with 3 sessions and a total of 7,800yds / 7,1km in 2:30h, and I managed to hit my personal PR for the 500 yds and the 1,000 yds distance in one of the speed sessions - yay! And it was a HUGE bike week: Four indoor sessions, all with Jim, and a total of 130 miles / 210km in 7:00h - my longest distance week in almost 1 1/2 years! I'd be more excited about this if it weren't for the fact that I'll probably putting in new PRs constantly now with the increased training load. My legs are feeling it now, and I'll be taking the biking easy for a few days. And I managed to get one hour of strength training in as well. All in all, I put in 13:45h, which is one hour more than last week - and next week will be 14:45h.

Base 1 Week 3 - done!

All in all, I'm pretty happy with where I'm at! I'm more tired and need more sleep than usual, but my body is adjusting extremely well - we're off and rolling!

Next week should've been a recovery week - every four weeks, I get to step back for a week, bringing down mileage and intensity to let the body catch up. But I had to make an adjustment as I will be traveling to see my two dear friends Kara and Christina the following week with probably much less time to train. So I will do 4 weeks for this block before going into recovery the week after next, and the next block will only be two weeks before my next recovery block. It sounded like the best thing to do, and my body can easily push another week before taking a little break. So, here we go: Base 1 Week 4 next week!

One other exciting piece of news: I am starting the Speed Development Program with the Montgomery County Road Runners next Tuesday (we had our kickoff session yesterday), and in my little subgroup of 9 people in a total group of around 300, I am with TWO other athletes from my triathlon team: Maryam and Allyson! I'm super jazzed about that - it will pull me out of my comfort zone AND give me some social time with friends, which is something that will be hard to get during these long training weeks until June.

I came across this picture of us the other day, Papa! I had to smile at the way I was just lounging on your arm. It looks like Mama caught us by surprise with the camera, and we almost look like someone took us out of an important business conversation, haha. It's impossible to think that this was 40 years ago, isn't it? So much of our history was still ahead of us, but even then, we were already buds. You were always a safe haven for me.

This week wasn't an easy week. It was the anniversary of your accident on Tuesday evening. I had lit a candle throughout the day, and it kept burning as we were locked down in our strategy retreat. I was afraid of the exact hour of your accident the entire day, and then, we ended up being so focused on our work that the moment passed without me noticing. It was about an hour later that I realized that by this time last year, you were likely already at the ICU. Tears came, and a bit of relief as well that the moment had passed and I was okay. But the following night, I dreamed of you the entire night, and the tears were flowing freely again thinking of you and how early you were called home. It is still so close and so incredibly sad... I still remember it as if it was only yesterday, and at the same time, it feels like the entire world has shifted since then.

It is hard to think that in a way, you died twice: Once on that day of your accident, and then another time, when your body too gave up. I wonder if this is your new birthday up in Heaven: Do you celebrate being born into your angel self? Are you playing yourself a Happy Birthday on the harp up there? I sure hope you are at peace and experiencing endless joy. That is my wish for you, Papa!

As every week, I'm sending you all my 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