Freitag, 28. September 2012

Next races for me!


Now that the triathlon season is over (and if no wonder occurs that I am gonna be flying to the Gamrin Barcelona City Triathlon) I will finally go running again.

My motivation within the last week wasn't high and I had 3 (!!!) days to rest. No time, no motivation to do sports. My muscles still felt slightly sore beyond reason.
Anyways... In october and November I am gonna partake in these two races:

Oct. 3rd: Herne: Herbstlauf of the Herner Triahtlon Team (a young triathlon team def. worth supporting).
Nov. 4th: Herne: St. Martini-City-Lauf

Both will be 10km races. The first one through woods, the second is a fast course within the city of Herne.
I will also have 15-20 kids from school with me that run the kids races.

Those days could be leisure days, or at least have more leisure hours, but I do believe that kids nowadays need to pushed, need to be pulled away from the shit they consume on tv and other media.
Where will this end if little kids don't know how to play, how to run, how to walk stairs?
I will always do my best to give them an opportunity to make this experiences. One life- one chance!

One of my favorite songs!


Sonntag, 23. September 2012

Veggie Athlete Jasmin/ my band in Turkey/ new vegan Cafe/

My training partner Jasmin ran the last half marathon before the Cologne Marathon in October!
Congrats on the result!!! Yeah!
Since the sports season is more or less over I can rest a little or enjoy finer things in life again.
Yesterday I went to see my friends Deathb4Dishonor play in Cologne and I also put up a merchbooth for the HardcoreHelpFoundation

So my band is about to play 2 Shows in Istanbul due to my friend Emre and his reunited band Radical Noise. I have always dreamed about flying to Istanbul and seeing them pla but now I am honored to even play with them. I cannot wait!!!

Show in Istanbul
Show in Ankara


Together with a few friends I hung out in Wuppertal and got introduced to Falafely. As the name implies it is a falafelplace that has vegan options. Nice and tasty. Check it out while you're in Wuppertal.
I am also very happy about having eaten the catering from Seasons in Gelsenkirchen-Buer. It is an organic, wholefoods cafe/restaurant. I just need to check out the cafe itself, since I have only eaten their food at a festival I have played with my band. Needless to say I am always happy when I find out about vegan spots in my area.

My girlfriend went to a veggie-fare in Düsseldorf where my friend Björn did a cookery show.
She was kind enough to bring me a vegan organic bar. After having tried this I ordered some other bars of that brand and all of them were amazing!!! Found it very easy to eat "active greens" bar while on my bike during my long distance triathlon.
The box of 18 "chocolaty choc chip" was gone after 3 days. So,so delicious!!!
I figured out it would be too expensive to eat too much of these every day so I have tried to make soe chocolate energy balls on my own and the result was tasteful, vitalizing and healthy:
Dried dates, spelt whole flour, wheat germs, mulberry sirup, agave nectar, dried bananas, flax seeds, cacao powder, chia seeds, ground almonds, soymik, peanut butter, maca powder: The energy ball is in the middle!
Finally new "Veggie Athletes" shirts are in the making. Due to several circumstances it had taken very long, but they will soon appear in the "Alles-vegetarisch.de" shop again.
You can also buy the organic foodbars there!

Training Sept. 10th- 23rd
10th: Restday
11th: indoor cycling 53min + power and stability exercises
12th: 36 min yoga
13th: 50 min running
14th: 40 min power and stability, 20 min VO2max (5min warmup, 3x30/30, 2x60/60, 3x30/30, 5 min cooldown) training on fitnessbike
15th: 3h easy running ca. 29km in Cologne
16th: power and stability excersises, rope skipping, yoga, running a few min with my daughter
17th: 40 min running
18th: 1h cycling on fitnessbike
19th: 2x 29,5km cycling to Herne and back later
20th: running ??? no entry... hm.
21st: 1.10h power and stabilty, then sauna
22nd: 3.10h easy cycling (90 km)
23rd: daughter birthday: just safeguarding the kids that climbed, nothing else. stayed awake far too long the day before and needed recovery. But you know what? Season is over, I can do whatever I wanna do! No more too much planning for my training.









Samstag, 8. September 2012

Cologne 226 finished (Ironman-distance)

My first long distance triathlon (aka Ironman) is over! I have finished the 3.8km swimming, 180km cycling and 42km running in 10:22:59 hours.
I am happy about that. What I find strange is that I would love to go running, cycling or swimming just today (started writing this 2 days later). I am feeling very good despite the fact that I had lost 4.5kilos on this day. That is alot considering I had only weighted 68-69kilos.
Anyways... 2 kilos are back on already and I can't stop eating. Surprisingly I don't want to have icecream or any other shittier stuff. I am eating loads of pasta with red sauce (just had a plate of pasta and a pizza) and veggies and fruits all day long.


What also makes me very, very proud is the fact that my ironman race got PETA 520€ and hopefully made people think more positive about vegans, sports and power.
After the transition from bike to run I have taken my "Veggie Athletes"-vest, which also hads a PETA and Alles-Vegetarisch.de- Logo on front. People seemed to be curious.

The race: I got to the Fühlinger See at about 6.20 on sunday morning, went to my bike, checked in my transition2 bag (running equipm.) and tried to get ready (dressing, toilettime). I was happy about crapping 4 times before the race. I was also happy about solid crap again. The 3 days before I felt ill and my crap was not always solid (may sound strange, but liquid crap will make your body lose loads of minerals that are very important for races over 3 hours). Crap is a reliable indicator for health.

After checking in I met my friend Sebastian Ueckert, a fellow hardcore dude, who also wanted to achieve that goal of being an Ironman. My clubmates also came early that morning to see the swimstart and lend me a running watch. Thanks!


Somehow I was not very nervous anymore. We got to the starting line and I still had 3 minutes.
We started 5 minutes after the professionals, so no fireworks for us, but that didn't matter as I just wanted to swim. We had to swim up the whole regatta course then almost fully back. I got off the water after 1:08. I was glad! This was my first time transitioning at a long distance triathlon so I didn't want to be too quickly to forget anything and stayed calm. I got on the bike and after 20something KM I started talking to an elder ironman with much more experience. I needed to talk a little. It was cold (10-11 degrees Celsius) and my hands were freezing. He had gloves but I couldn't even take the gels I was offered at the food stall due to my hands unable to grasp. I also needed to wee so I asked him if I could do that while sitting on the bike. Then the motorbike overtook us and gave him a yellow card for blocking me. I wasn't blocked by him at all, because I didn't want to overtake. The street was big enough for other to overtake us, but anyways...
we had to speak to the referees and in the end it was alright. I don't know if this has to be that strict for hobby triathletes likes us, but whatever...
I did quite a big part of the 180km together with that dude. After a while another dude from Poland also cycled with us and it seemed as if he did not know about drafting, because he always sucked on us or basicly anybody else, so that I even thought I could do that too for a few meters. On some races you are allowed to do that, but generally in germany that is forbidden and you can get a penalty.
Sometimes I have seen my friend Seb and we tried to shout encouragement to the other.
The cycling course went from the very north of Cologne along the Fühlinger See to the city centre of Cologne, near the dome and to Köln-Deutz. In Deutz I placed my bike, took my running gear and started running. I was happy to see my supporters even following me a little and filming and taking pictures. The weather became real nice, around 23 degrees I guess. Ininitally I wanted not to eat much during the run but rather try to drink coke (I don't drink coke at home at all) as many of my experienced clubmates do it this way and even I cannot refrain from the fact that coke while running seems supportive. I also had pretzels, bananas, water melons, water and vegan energy gels from carboo 4 u. The first of the 3 14km laps was good, on the second I started becoming slower and around 20km I did not really want to continue running, my muscles became sore. At around 28-35km I got stitches on my right side so I had to slow down a little. After km 37 I needed to speed up again and so I did. My body felt alright and I overtook quite a few people on the last kms. The marathon took me 3:44h, which is alright and about what I have calculated but slower than I had hoped. 10:22:59 h in total is great for a first Ironman! I went to the chill out zone to relax and eat a bit but I wasn't as hungry as usual. From there I head to the massage and it was a good decision as I was first in line. 20 min of massage is like heaven after a race.
Next up we decided what and how to do next. Had to grab my bike, my bags, etc and that took a long time. Then we also had to find the bus shuttle that brought us near our cars (not too near though and I had waited for them to pick me up after 8 minutes of walking.

I am glad I got friends that supported me on that special day. I know that some people got inspired to do more sports on their own and hopefully many people thought critically about the shit they consume and the bullshit patterns of dietary in their heads.
It was a nice run, a nice day, with even nicer persons and a nice meal at Jade Imbiss in Düsseldorf after the race.

Today is day two after the race and I do feel really good again. Found this interesting article yesterday:

Friends of mine that got into sports before veganism said that it seems true for them. I don't know as I am vegan for 16 years now, which means long before I have started endurance training, but well... if there's only 50% truth to it then everyone should consider a vegan diet even for a better workout efficiency.

There's a new vegan catering company in the Ruhrpott run by real compassionate people.

Training August 20th to September
20th: 59 km cycling to Herne and back
21st: Stability and power Workout + Ropeskipping
22nd: 3.3km swimming
23rd: 25min running, 40min swimming, 26min running incl. 3 sprints
24th: 22km running in 1.41h incl. 73min almost half-marathon pace
25th: 111km cycling in 3.30h
26th: 45min running, 36 min yoga toning and stretch
27th: 1.5h cycling on ergobike
28th: Restday!
29th: 30km to Herne (morning), 42 min running (noon) incl. 2x10min halfmarathon pace, 30km back home
30th: 2.4km swimming
31st: Restday
1st: Srpint Triathlon in Cologne (First day of Cologne Tria Weekend) in 1:26h
2nd: Long Distance Triathlon in Cologne (second day/ PETA Donation run) in 10:22:59h
3rd: Restday
4th: Restday
5th: easy 1.3km swimming
6th: easy 45 min cycling on ergobike, then sauna
7th: ca. 1km lake swimming
8th: 20km cycling incl. 3 sprints, 3km running incl. 3 times fast for 1min
9th: Olympic Triathlon in Xanten in 2:22h