Sufficient 2014 and a sunny year's end

stats of the week: run 44km, cycled 21km
stats of the week before: run 51km, gym 3h

Facing the end of the year only 23km are missing to cross the 2,000km border for 2014. Unfortunately it's not the time for a very long run on New Year's Eve. However, it is still the best year since a long time, and also 4,450 km cycled make a good balance. So I can close the books of 2014 looking back in satisfaction - not only concerning sports.

Photo: Franschhoek calls itself the gourmets' center of South Africa, not mentioning the numerous wineyards. For me it makes the perfect place for exercising without the danger to lose weight.

Trail week

stats of the week: run 51km, gym 3h

It was quite an active week with two challenging trail runs. I felt I had to test the route through the local quarry before to guide a group of fellow runners around. Last time I was there it was summer and impossible to get through the thorn bushes. But now everything is down and it was a pleasure to run up the trails.

I reckon within these group of runners I was the one with the least life mileage ...

Merry christmas everybody!

Amazing Elderlies

stats of the week: run 29km, gym 4h

The weekly races took their toll now by developing light muscle and knee problems. There was no choice than a recovery week - with another Sunday's race. The 10K ended with a net time of 45:17 and a performance grade of 73.04 what is the highest on a 10K since 2008. This is amazing after my weight is higher than during the whole of the year and I did only a bit of speed work.

Three elderly sportsmen happy, proud and honoured

Year's Best

stats of the week: run 49km, gym 5h

It's sort of a year-end-ralley what I'm doing currently. 4 weeks - 4 races. This time - no. 3 - was a success. Not only that my average pace over 6 miles was 4:31min/K - fastest of the year - I also beat a couple of competitors that I usually only watch from their back. Nice feeling. The only backdrop was that someone asked me if was over 70. And that happened even before the race!

Three winners - 60 years old!

Low temperature, slow pace

stats of the week: run 43km, gym 3h

I finished Sunday's 7.5K-race after 34:54min what stands for an average pace of 4:39min/K. That is even slower than my last 10K-race (4:34).

I suppose there are two reasons for this disappointing performance: 1st is the low temperature, 2nd is my weight that is 2kg higher than during summer. And of course I have to admit that one cannot perform at the same high level all over the year. However, I still hope to get slightly faster for the oncoming two local races.

A race stays a race

stats of the week: run 53km, cycled 31km, gym 3h

It doesn't really look like at the finish of a training race. Well, it was intended to be a training run but a race still is a race. Clocking 1:49:06 for a flat half marathon was neither slow nor fast but still a pace that forces me to recover. However, there was 75-year-old who finished 1:30:06!

Reason for me to do the distance was to prepare for shorter races in December. So 10Km won't appear that long.

The year's first review

stats of the week: run 42km, gym 3h

The graph shows my monthly mileage so far this year. It is 9 years ago that my yearly mileage exceeded 2,000km for the last time. As it looks by now I'll just reach 1,900km once again while the red colour indicates a fairly large share of races done.

On the other hand my cycling mileage adds up to 4,300km what is my second highest ever.

Last task of the year is to recover from the marathon and get rather fit for the final two or three short local races where I should appear in a reasonably good shape.