Setting new goals!

My main race this, aka the one I have started training for in November will have to be canceled.
Not becuase of my fitness level, health or any other circumstances. It is due to the fact that I have been reading a book about vikings trying to find Attillas grave somewhere north of the black sea and pictures I have seen taken in the Kaukasus Region and Kasachstan. Those are some of the places most european people will never discover first hand. And then, two days later my friend called my and told me about his vague plan of cycling from here to Istanbul or even from Kasachstan to Istanbul to attend his friends birthday. I liked the idea of just cycling there... after the phonecall, my mind was fascinated by a trip like this. So 20 minutes later I called him back and told him I just have to cancel 2 Triathlons (and lose some money) but will def join, no matter which route to be taken.
So yesterday we have made our plans more precise, figured out two possible starting points (Astrakahn in Russia or Baku in Azerbaidjan), flight dates, etc.
Today we had done our first short training, cycled to the indoor climbing centre , climbed a few hours and cycled back again. I am so so looking forward to this trip!!!

 

This morning I also introduced my friend Marco into the world of alges with a green smoothie with Chlorella and Spirulina. Of course sweet fruits got in as well: Avacado, field salad, spinach, banana, chia seeds, gojiberries, linen seeds with dates, maca powder, agave syrup, sugar beet syrup.

I also like to add alges to soups or sauces:

I also like eating raw beetroot. Once the beetroot is mellow (after a few days) you can just skin it and cut it into pieces as finger food:

Lately I have also made pesto on my own. It is so quickly to be made and so delicious. Try it yourselves:

Pasta with selfmade pesto (spinach, pineseeds, walnuts, vegan cheese, salt, olive oil, flaxoil, herbs f.i. basil), alfalfa sprouts and yeast flakes.

I also did a raw tomato sauce which is also not hard to come by: Tomatoes (dried and fresh if wanted), salt, herbs in a blender. Blend it, ready!

Whenever I find time I also love to bake bread, being inspired by my favorite blog: bevegt.de
Here'smy quite healthy Ciabatta.

Well... just the dough: Buckwheat and wholegrain wheat flur, cashew nuts, lives, olive oil, seasalt, herbal salt, yeast, warm water

I went to my favorite city Barcelona in January to hang out with friends and see a hardcore festival.
Furthermore I finally went up running in the Collserolla mountains. Eventhough it was raining up there it was still a fantastic run!

 We went to this food place I have never checked out before called "Teresa Carles" and it was wonderful!!!
Check it out, espeically the salads and the small burgers!!!

The 2nd weekend of February had been special to me. On the 15th me and my daughter ran the OTVMeile. I placed another personal beston this course and wn my age group. My daughter also won her age group no 4.1km. Here's a link the the newspaper article.

On the 16th I had organised a slagheap run and a brunch. We were 6 people to run and 3 on bikes. It was a about 16km incl. to times up the slagheap. Everybody brought the food for the brunch before we started running, so it was all ready when we got back to our house:

I love this picture. haha!

I definitely want to organise this a few more times!!!


So next up for me: Bleilochlauf (probably 46km)

Veggie Fest /Off Season

On the 5th of October I went to the Veggiefest in Solingen. My friend Björn Moschinski stayed at ours the evening before. My girlfriend and him cooked a pumpkin cream soup together. He just cannot stay away from the kitchen, eventhough we wanted to cook the soup on our own for them. haha
Anyways... on the veggiefest I got interviewed concerning veganism and endurance sports. I'also gave away some energyballs I have prepared the day before. Then I assisted Björn with his cooking show.
Did I say that 1200 people came out to Solingen for this Veggiefest? Amazing!
At the end of the fest the "Kochen ohne Knochen"-crew also took pics of my veggie-tattoos. One if it will be visible in the next issue of this nice magazine. Thanks to Uschi and Joachim for this nice fest! I will cerntainly come back next year! Here's a little report in german about the veggiefest.

Me assisting Björn (taken from "umsturzvegan")

Did I say it is "Off-Season"?
That means at this time of the year I just do whatever I feel like sportswise.
I even got tattooed and will get some more ink soon, so that alone restricts me.
But I found a way of swimming with a fresh tattoo:
Use fatty cream on the tattoo, foil it, drop in the wetsuit. My wetsuit (Tri11 Redair) is pretty tight so my tattoo did not get wet.

Training Oct. 17th-29th:
17th:  some excercises for power/stability, later some swimming but also teaching somebody to swim better
18th:  Flight to Barcelona--> no Training
19th:  Yoga and Ropeskipping in the morning, later running and excercises on the beach
20th:  Running and excercises on the beach
21st:  45 min swimming in old publicpool in Maragall, later running and climbing on Montserrat
22nd: 17 min swimming in the ocean, later running and excercises on the beach, the new tattoo
23rd:  no training, new tattoo hurts (kneetattoos are painful!)
24th:  75 min cycling on my fitnessbike back home
25th:  18 min yoga in the morning, later 1h swimming with wetsuit, then stretchyoga
26th:  75 min running incl. 4 short uphill sprints
27th:  ca. 75-80km cycling in ca. 3h
28th:  35 min Yoga (breathing and toning excercises)
29th:  2.6km swimming, somce cycling (ca. 15km)

Herstblauf HTT 11/ Barcelona/ Energy balls

On the Day of German Unity I partook in a race in the town where I work. I had signed upfor 40 schoolkids to run there as well on the childrens course. We were happy about having won the cup for the school with most running kids and many of them ranked on one of the first places in the agegroup. Right after noon I myself was on the starting line to run the 10k race. After 4 min I was ahead of the rest of the runners and ran past the fronting mountainbike the rest of the race. I got in as first at 38:23, which is 1 minute faster than my last years result in this race. It was a perfect day!

German speaking people can click on here to find a newspaper report.

Here you can see me on the right side and on the pic in the middle are many of my kids form school.

So I am ought to put a recipe for energy balls online, so here is mine:
What you need:
-a bowl
-a handheld electric mixer

ingredients:
- dates/ figs (optional)/ dried gojiberries
- ground nuts/ almonds
- any plant milk (makes it easier to shred the dates/figs)
- agave syrup/mulberry syrup/whatever needed to make it sweet
- wheat germs/ flour (if the dough is too moist)/ protein powder (if balls are postworkout treat)
- maca powder
- linen seed/ chia seeds
- desiccated coconut

The base of my energy balls are usually the dates. They are quite hard to shred, so I use some milk (oat, soy, whatever).
So dates and some milk in the bowl first, add the figs and shred these first. Once you have some sort of dough you can just add all the other ingredients and use the mixer.
If the dough is too dry add more plant milk or just water (I once used peppermint water).
If the dough is too humid, use some flour (I use spelt wholegrain, because it taste a lot like nuts), soyflour or proteinpowder.

Once the texture seems good to form little balls, do that.
Put desiccated coconut in another bowl and put 1-3 balls inside this bowl with the desiccated coconut and and shake gently until the balls are completely covered.
Ready!

Play around with the ingredients! I have once added sprouted germs, dried bananas, cacao, etc. Feel free to try, see what you like and what does you good, but go ahead and do it! It doesn't only taste good, it also does good to your body and feels great to eat completely handcrafted stuff that would cost so much a health food store.

I also went to my fave city again: Barcelona!
This time I made one another dream of mine come alive! I ran through the mountains near the monastery of Montserrat! For the first 725m we took the Aeri de Montserrat (cable car) together. While my girls took the cog railway to get higher in the mountains on the paths to the ermitages I just followed the little paths upwards. Amazing nature to be seen there.

Workout station on the beach

I love running in the cty as well. The beachside front is amazing to run. The little adults playground is nice to work out. I love running topless in October!!!

 This time I have also seen an amazing spot to run near the Zona Universitaria. It looked as if 500 sporty students went running there on a footpath next to a big avenue.

Reading a nice zine of a friend of mine on top of the one of the mountains

In front of the entrance to the Basilica St. Maria de Montserrat

In the Aeri de Montserrat

With my daughter in front of our new crib on Montserrat

One ermitage in the Montserratmountains

Of course I had to go swiming in the ocean, despite the high number of jellyfish. I didn't swim very long though.

Visiting the ruins of Ullastret (an Iberian settlement from pre-roman times)

First day in Sitges... only nice women around me :-)

Getting a mexican skull tattoed on my knee by my friend Joan Cinder. Contact him if you're in Barcelona and wanna get tattooed.

Above where the sun reflects in the water is Dalis house in Port Lligat, short visit on the last day

Another impression of Port Lligat, where Dali liked to live because it was pure! Sea, wild coast, poor fishermen, almost no stress. Perfect surrounding for a great artist.

No Müsli at home? Here is what I did!

Selfmade Müsli: apple, banana, wheat germs, flaxseeds, ground hazelnuts, gojiberries, macapowder, ginger, cinnamon, chiaseeds, oatflakes, a saladseeds mix (pine, pumpkin, sunlfower seeds), desiccated coco

The end of 2012/ beginning 2013 post

I just got back from Barcelona on sunday night.
I love this city! There are many nicenice people, there are great vegan restaurants, there's a beach, there are tons of interesting museums, there is Montserrat and there are mountains not far away. Also my friend Gabi and his crew put on shows there, so I also went to "Can't keep us down" fest where I have seen Decisions (a new promising SXE band), Absurdo (one of the best HCPunk bands), Appraise (Gabis SXE band), Manliftingbanner (the old communist SXE band that got back together).


This fest took place on friday and saturday. People that know me also know that fests are in the evening, so there's loads of time for other stuff.
My friend Tete told me a couple of days ahead that there is going to be trailrun of 26,6 km (Cinc cim) not far away from BCN on sunday. So I thought this is going to be the perfect weekend 
A futbol match had been planned for saturday noon but naturally after going to Decathlon to get a trailrun backpack and getting to the meeting point with 25 min delay I was still one of the earliest.
We played some nice matches, me and some catalan/spanish HC kids. Eventhough I have warmed up a little I felt my adductores, which is a common thing if you don't play soccer often. After trying to catch a ball I felt I overbend my adductores. This time the right side. I had to quit playing directly, it hurt so much.
In the evening I didn't want to do the trailrun on sunday anymore. Due to miscommunication through broken and uncharged cellphones my friend was there to pick me up early in the morning. So after 4 hours of sleep (The fest and aftershowparty lasted quite long) I found myself in Tetes car, without breakfast, shower or anything but with a prepared new backpack with gels and bananawheat-bars. We went to the race and talked about the pros and cons of me taking part. Through the internet I found out that I got an irritation of the adductores on both sides but really hard on the right side.
The course of cinc cim was very hard, especially since I could not really move. I couldn't stretch my legs as usual so I had to run a lot slower. After 5 min I tought I would have to quite directly, but continued. Tete and me ran together most of the time, but later on we split.  was doing alright I knew  was gonna finish if I don't hurt myself anymore and so I did. The route, the nature was breathtaking. It has been my first trailrun so I was really astonished.

We are on the far right side of the pic. We came a little too late, had no inscription and gave a shit about the finish time.

The run was an amazing experience. Not only because of the beautiness of the mountains, but also because I have reached all my goals of 2012 (Long distance triathlon) so long trail runs are another thing I have always wanted to do. 
On saturday we ate at the Catbar, in sunday we had pizza with like 25 people before we took off towards Girona airport. BCN = love!

My teammates sometimes organize a little run in Oberhausen which is called FunRun and open for everyone.
Get there if you want to join us!
On the last FunRun I did more than just the run: Me and Rene ran to the meeting point, around the slagheap, up and down and back home. I did 29km, the special thing is I only wore barefeet shoes (Fila Skeletoes) and only had slight muscle soreness the other day.

Budget barefoot running shoe by Fila

 At my parttimejob in a gym I had asked my boss to add the point: "vegan diet" to my profile on the blackboard. Since he did one dude training there came up to me and sai he doens't fit it ok for me to be vega, because I seem like a cool guy and shouldn't be vegan, especially since vegans cannot wear cool leather jackets :-)

Anyways... I told him that I only got 3,2% bodyfat while he's got around 20% and wants to lose 5% more, so that was a punch in the face.

My band had played two amazing shows: One in Berlin, one in Coburg.

The whle band went to Berlin a day earlier to check out several places, such as the Veganz, the Kopps for brunch or the Vego and the Seerose as well as the Ramones Museum or the Altes Museum. I was lucky enough to meet very old friends, for dinner or the museum for the show and shopping. I ran alone, I did uphillrunning at the Carl Zeiss Sternwarte and swam in the Stadtbadbad Lankwitz. At the pool they had one lane for "fast" swimmers. Not too fast, but I was able to get my 2.8km done. The show at the Tiefgrund was nice! Bring it on! and Final Effort played as well and for a 1st show BIO were really good! We hung out at the bar before the show and the atmosphere was really good due to many friends of ours that came to the show. Actually two of our friends that used to live in our area set up the show, so it was very welcoming.

After brunching at Kopps, which is the restaurant of my friend Björn, on saturday we head down south towards Coburg, an old medieval city with an impressive castle.

Veste (Castle) Coburg (pic taken from Wikipedia)

We got there early enough to check out the venue and say hello to like 60 people that we knew already. It was something really special, since this was the first time in a long while I hung out in a backstageroom and knew so many people. Friends from east and south germany, even friends from Poland and America were there. The atmosphere was overwhelming and so was the food. A very good evening!

I got myself a blackroll orange and so far it feels good to use it. Will report more on this later, after having done a few xercises with it.

On new years eve I ran a 10k race but before that I've let my pupils run 1.5k. Our school had second most finishers, so we even got paid some pricemoney which I have used for some sportsequipment for the runners and the school.

Me and my schoolteam of runners

This is the stuff I got for Christmas:

If you got goals for the next season, the next year or just the next few months. Check BeVegt. They have presented exercises for your bodys stability especially for running. I do most of these exercises myself.


Training: December 19th - Jan 17th
19th: 2,3km swimming, 50 min running (sprinttraining incl.4  50m sprints and 6 100m sprints), a few exercises on a playground
20th: pumping iron, 25 min PWC Test (Interval test which stops when reaching 150 beats heartrate), 20min running on treadmill incl. 3 sprints
21st: 2,3km swimming
22nd: 30 min easy running
23rd: 32 min running, then 69 min cycling incl. 4* 10sec at max speed
24th: 40 min running incl. 3 sprints
25th: 1h power and stability exercises
26th: 2020 stairs at the Halde Norddeutschland, ca. 70 min incl. warmup and cool down
27th: 2,4km swimming, 17min stretch Yoga
28th: 53 min running, 2,6km swimming
29th: 2,6km swimming, later indoor climbing, then 62 min easy cycling
30th: 7,8km running incl. 5 * 800-1000m intervals
31st: 10km race Silvesterlauf Herne
1st: 19km easy running
2nd: 2,4km swimming
3rd: Restday
4th: 2,8km swimming, 60 min running incl. 5 * 2 min uphill, played a show later on
5th: 35 min easy running uphill to the castle of Coburg, playing a show in Coburg
6th: 2h cycling on fitnessbike, 70 min running incl. 3 sprints
7th: Restday
8th: 40 min Yoga, 2,75k swimming
9th: 55 min easy running
10th: weightlifting, stability, 2,9 km swimming
11th: 75 min stair uphill running at the slagheap in Recklinghausen Hochlarmark
12th: Soccer in Barcelona, Irritated my adductores
13th: 26,6km trailrun in Corbrera de Llobregat
14th: Restday
15th: 60 min easy cycling
16th: 2km swimming
17th: 40 min stability and strength exercises, ropeskipping, rowing, 15 min running

Super swimming goggle on discount tomorrow/ Training Jan 16th - 22nd (Barcelona weekend)

Tomorrow (Jan 31st) you gotta check sportshop-triathlon to getawesome approved by myself swimming goggles for cheap. This is how they look

and I can tell that they are high in quality and long lasting goggles.









Trainings:
Jan 16th:  Did 55min on a treadmill incl. 3 sprints
Jan 17th: 2.5km swimming in the morning (7-8), in the evening running 1.15h
Jan 18th: 30 minutes workout for muscles, 55 min (power) indoor cycling, 15 min running (of which 10 pretty fast), 5 min rowing
Jan 19th: 2.8km swimming at the Hallenbad Oberhausen in the late evening (8-9)
Jan 20th: Arriving in Barcelona. Went to Maoz for a falafel at first. Later on we went to the Catbar, which is another all vegan restaurant. Attending the first day of the festival my band is flying over for. Running back into the city at night (after 12) at 10-2 degrees C. to meet up with the rest of the pack. Awesome 1.20h run (not the shortest way).
Jan 21st: Visiting Montserrat in the mountains near Barcelona. Going there by train, then up to the monastery by cable car. Beautyful and mysterious place. I think everyone should go there once in his lifetime! Awesome for hiking, climbing and even running, special for nature wildlife (my friends have seen wild pigs and eagles the day before). Me and my girlfriend just went hinking a little and on the way back to the cable car station I went a little faster than her to have time to do a few short uphill runs. These 5 short (20-50 seconds) runs made my muscles sore. Before goin to the venue I have introduced Orxata to my girlfriend which is a milk of tigernuts. Got it from the Valenciana or go here:

 You should def. try Orxata (catalan) or Horchata (spanish) con limona ... (something with lemonstuff).
Later this evening we got to the venue where we had to play the show. It was a nice venue with amazing people, awesome crowd reaction, good hangouts, nice other bands (Assac, Col-lapse, Truth through fight, Absurdo, etc.) and an intense aftershow party. Spanish people party hard!
Video to the coversong we played  This guy also has loads of videos of the festival.
Again in bed very late (4 o'clock), but up at 10 to get to the famous labyrinth in Horta with my friends Gabi and Lubia. Found out about a velodrome and swimming pool next to the park. On the agenda for my next visit to BCN in april. After this hitting the city to eat some delicious meal at Gopal and meet the others. Then off to the airport and germany again. It's a pity we missed Gelaaati this time. They offer great vegan choices of icecream (although I haven't found it on their website, but they do have quite a few, for instance ricemilk chocolate).

Labyrinth in Horta

Cable car towards to old monastery on Montserrat

Gopal

The black Madonna (La Moreneta) of Montserrat

Back from BCN!

Saturday morning, 6.30 the plane took off.

Firat, Joan, Me, Nasim, Matze

The whole marriage party on the square in front of the city hall of Cervera

Montserrat

Brought me to Girona, which is a nice city, but most of the times I just take the bus from the airport to Barcelona. I got there around 10ish and met up with Canan and Firat to eat breakfast. Since I have eaten my wolewheat bread at the airport I only ate some dates, bought at the market boqueria, but on the evening, when it was dirtcheap, as Firat told me. Well, we went running towards platja Nova Mar Bella, stopped at muscle beach one, muscle beach two and then went to the place where you can pick up your gear for the Garmin Barcelona Triathlonchttp://www.garminbarcelonatriathlon.com/. I haven't signed up this year but wanted to check out whether I could still get a slot. No es possible! No worries... we just went back to muscle beach, dove in the waves - extraordinary high waves this day - and went back to Firats and Canans apartment in El Born to get to my friend Gabriels place right before the bus left to take us out to Cervera (an old catalan village on a hill, fortified by city walls). We even drove past Montserrat, where I definitely need to go next time!  There Lubia and Gabi said yes and bonded their relationship for life. Many pics have been taken as the ones above.
Then we went back to BCN for the party... and yeah... it was a party! The food was also amazing and brought to us by Gopal, a full on vegi deli https://www.facebook.com/julekeralagopal.bcn . Once you get to BCN, you gotta get there to eat most definitely! They do even have a few special catalan  recipes and transfer them into a vegan version. I couldn't move, because of eating to much. I was a bad guest that evening, but the food was just too good. We left the party shortly after one am.
The other day was the last day of my little trip, so yeah... tried to make the most out of it. After getting up and eating a little, me and firat ran to muscle beach again, swam a little, had a proper meal witht he leftovers from last nights catering and ran back, in time for me to catch the train to the airport.
I left BCN at 23 degrees celsius and landed in Germany at like 10 degrees... Shit!!!
It is always nice to get back home, but not when I get home from BCN.
The weather was nice today, but I have missed the right time to get outside as I was still pretty tired from the weekend, so I gotta get running now! Bye!
ah... we also took a pic after coming back from muscle beach: Yeah!

Packing for BCN

Today I have soaked in the last warm beams of the sun over Germany, probably the last time running here with only a t-shirt on. I didn't even want to out to cycle, so I went to the gym later on and did two hours of Indoor Cycling. Had great food later on, salad with carrots and wheat germs, a potatoe pan with zucchini, onions and pepper plus veggie burgers enhanced with soyflour to give it more protein.

Tomorrow I am gonna run on the seafront of beautiful Barcelona, my favorite city! It might also be the last time of the year to swim in the sea! Firat and me will meet in the city after I will get there early in the morning, have breakfast and then run along the seaside to the muscle beach. Yeah... working out in the sun before the wedding party (the occasion for my visit to BCN). Gotta make some food ready to take with and then get to bed! Need to drive to the airport at three... Goond night!

Beach workout

I love working out on the beach as seen here in St. Christina (Lloret de Mar/ Costa Brava):
I did a 3 sets of a workout with my own body weight only plus some exercises with a Thera Band.
Before the first set and after each set I went swimming into the sea for around 10 minutes.
The whole workout lasted ca. 2 hours. Then I tried to chill a little, we took some photos up on the church above the beach and later I went back to Barcelona on my roadbike and due to the traffic I made it there earlier than my friends with my van. It was 70 km along the coast. My average speed was 34 km/h, because I happened to meet a fellow cyclist after two km and together we went down towards Barcelona. Sucha  great day! Later on we went having dinner with 20 of my friends from BCN, Russia, Norway, England and Germany. We have ordered vegan sushi and rice with veggies at some japanese take away in Gracia! It was amazing! Luckily some other dude couldn't eat his whole portion so I got some more stuff to reload carbohydrates and get some protein.