Merry christmas and a happy new year

It has been a while since I wrote last, so here is what I have been up to. I had no internet for about a week, which made me realize how addicted we are to internet!!! What to do if you want to check your emails...how am I supposed to let JR and my friends in the US know what I am doing? Can't order things online...Skype is only working with internet...but fortunately it is back up now:-)
Tonight is New Years eve. I won't be doing much except for watching a huge explosion: my town is blowing up 350 kilograms of fireworks tonight!!! CRAZY!!!

Training has been OK, I have been riding and swimming a lot. I had to put on many many layers when I went riding...base layer, skiing sweatshirt, fleece jacket, and something on top...2 pairs of gloves...headmask and a hat and a helmet, toewarmers and shoe-neopren-covers!!! And my bottle turned from hot tea into frozen slush in a half an hour!!! But it is fun...and you never know what weather conditions you will have during a race...so bring it on, I am prepared for the cold temperatures:-)

Swimming is going well too. I am swimming in a 26 degree Celcius warm (or very cold if you don't swim) 50 meter pool-Ian Thorpe used to train here during his training camp-and I get to watch sports that are going on next to me, because there is a diving pool and more room in the pool where I swim in, so I get to see...waterpolo, which is really interesting and they have those cute hats on...and snorchlers practicing for their snorchling vacation...but the best part is the under water rugby team!!! They have cute hats on and funny looking suits, they have 2 under water goals, about 7 meters deep (or so: whatever depth diving pools have), and they have a really heavy ball that they move around deep under the water while holding their breath!!! Crazy people, but I heard that our team is known internationally!!!
So there is lots to see in your break or under water during the warm up.

I just got accepted for the 70.3 Austria race in May 2009 which will be my first Triathlon in Austria ever:-) The fun part is that you swim in 2 lakes. You swim in one, run to the next one and keep on swimming there.

OK, hope everyone will have a great New Years eve!!! GUTEN RUTSCH INS NEUE JAHR!!!

Angi

No white Christmas??? WHAAATTTT?

Great, we got snowed in for the last week and we had sooo much snow...now yesterday the weather changed and it started to rain. And ALL the snow melted or turned into slush...and on top of that the weather man said it will be getting colder again on Tuesday, but there is not going to be any snow coming down.

I have 1 1/2 days of work left (today I only have to work for 4 hours) until I am DONE!!! I am so excited to focuse on training and recovering only. On Tuesday evening I will be moving away from the Alps and Bavaria...back to civilization:-)

My company had their Christmas celebration yesterday and we went up to Spitzingsee, which is a really pretty area for skiing...mhhh, unfortunatelly it was raining soooo hard and it was dark... it was fun to get to know everyone a little better outside of work. We had dinner for about 4 hours and then we went to a club in the mountains for another 2 hours. The plan was actually that we could get a ride home if we wanted to, but guess what: I got home around 2am and that was the FIRST chance to get a ride home...I was planing on running in a local race today, where I would have had to get up at 6 am...good preparation...but I think the race got cancelled because of the weather issues anyway.

I will try to compete in a race next weekend then, when I am back in Stuttgart-hopefully it won't get rained out...

Tuesday is another cookie baking day and I am really excited!!! I think we are going to make 3 more types of cookies...mhhhh...yummie!!!

Gotta go wrap christmas presents.

6 more days of work...

Have you ever heard of Flexi Bar? It is this swinging stick, which is supposed to make even the deepest muscles in your upper body contract. It is used in rehabilitation and guess what...I am teaching one of the classes for it:-)
So here I am on Monday at the 5 star plus hotel where I work once a week and I am trying new exercises. Oh, and I have to dress all in white which makes me feel like a doctor:-)


The great thing about the hotel is that I have a 4 hour break- enough time to train, eat and take a nap - I love naps!!!

Yesterday I went to Munich to get Christmas presents, and yes, I was successful. The weather in Munich was really foggy, and in Tegernsee it was beautiful-weird how the weather in the mountains and around can change so fast...so here is a picture of a church and part of the Christmas market downtown Munich.


Shopping gets exhausting and after 4 hours, I needed a coffee, so I went to Starbucks. It is funny, just a few years ago there were no coffee shops in Germany and now there are 3 Starbucks really close to each other downtown Munich and many other coffee shops. I was sooo happy to get coffee. The funny thing is that I went into another coffee shop right after I got my coffee at Starbucks, to get a Christmas present and then I got a free coffee with it- so I had to drink 2 Lattes on the train on my way home:-) (I really love coffee, so 2 is better than 1-and I drank them completely). That evening I had to teach one Flexi Bar class and 2 hours of spinning, it went by in no time...mhhh...due to the large amount of coffee??? Nooooooooooooooo...can't be.


Back to work today...6 more days befor I am done working. But today Anastasia (our Nutritionist - and the person who makes work exciting with new stories:-) and I performed a Lactate Test on her neighbor...no, it is not painful when I poke!!! He is just a great actor:-)


We filled about 8 tubes with the blood we squeezed out of his ear!!! I had to poke 3 holes because his blood dries so fast!!! Crazy.

We did it, he was exhausted and we got what we wanted...
So now I am on my break and I am going to the track to do a workout - thank good for my Ipod which always has a ton of good music for me...because I will be running all by myself...anyone want to join me?

Treadmill or Trail?

I still have to add some pictures from last weekend when my brothers visited me. We went for a great hike in the snow. We started hiking and had no idea how tall the mountain is going to be...so we hiked and hiked and hiked...it was great, there was only one other person in front of us, so we were able to follow the trail due to his foot steps. This is a picture of Sven and me having fun in the snow:

After some hours of hiking we decided it is time for a food-break. Mhhh, what do we have to eat: 3 clementines, 3 bananas, and 750 grams of Toblerone (in case you have never experienced the taste of that tasty chocolate-go and get one...it is honey, nuts and chocolate formed to a tasty triangle). The chocolate tasted soooooooooo good-look at how big the Toblerone is compared to me:

The entire package has 3937.5 kcal...that should be enough for a long day of hiking or training :-)

It was a great weekend with my brothers and we had a lot of fun.

Back to training:

Yesterday I had a Temporun. I was thinking about running on the treadmill like I did for the other workout, but I think it is smarter to do as much as you can outside because on the treadmill you jump more then you run. I could feel that it is different the day after my last workout, which was on the treadmill...my butt was sore...that doesn't happen when I run outside. So I decided to go run along a river for a warm up, do my temporun on a street and the cooldown along the river again. There was no other runner out there, but many people driving to a ski area.

This is the road I ran on for my temporun. It was nice and flat. Except for the cold weather it was a great run, because the sun was shining and the most important thing: I felt fast!!! Yippie!!!
These things are the best- the good thing about a treadmill is that you can see the pace that you are running, but look at this, you just have to find a road, where they put up these things and then you can see how fast you are running as well (and no, 52 km/h is off course not my pace:-)

This is where I warmed up and cooled down. I love the snow as long as it is not icy.

Today I have a long run and then I will go to the pool to go swimming.

I am also working on an exact schedule for my races for next year-there are sooooo many races that I would like to do...it is so hard to make a decision...

Til next time,

Angi

Time to train

I am so happy to say that my first week of real triathlon training was great. You never know what to expect when you get back into "real" training. Off season is fun as well, but you loose complete track of how fast you are going because everything is supposed to be easy.

I had my first Tempo run on Saturday and I ran 30 min at 10 km pace...and I was happy to see that I was close to my 10 km PR during my first training run. Then yesterday I taught 2 spinning classes in a row and it was another great but really really hard workout. 1 hour of long climbing and 1 hour of speedy sprints. I have to admit that I was tired this morning:-)

Today was Tempo runs on the track, but it has been snowing here in the Alps, so I had to run on a treadmill since the track was covered in snow. Luckily I could run on a Lab treadmill...they have those cool programs where you can type in what speed it should increase to, when, how much break, and you don't have to do anything during the workout!!! So I did my workout and it was great. I felt really good running. Yippie!!!

It is crazy how much sleep and recovery the body needs when you train more...a 1-2 hour nap is the best thing for me in the afternoon. Unfortunately I have to get up at 5:30 am tomorrow to go swimming...I say unfortunately because I love to sleep...but the pool is only open from 6-8 am...

In conclusion: I had a good start preparing for the 2009 season and that is always a GREAT sign - makes me sooooo happy!!!

Greetings from the Alps