Following the productive month of May, I continued my steady progress in building fitness and performance. During June I mostly focused on building core strength, besides running and cycling sessions. I also returned to the pool regularly for the first swimming sessions since March 2020! Let’s take a more detailed look into my sports recap June 2020.

Less cycling more core strength

After doing a lot of cycling in May I reduced my efforts on the bike quite a bit. Overall I limited cycling sessions to low intensity workouts, to further improve my base fitness. The plan is to reduce my heart rate doing longer steady rides. I did most of my bike sessions indoors on Zwift and joined rather slow, but steady group rides.

I did not want to spend all the time indoors, as I was also working from home all this while. I did, however, one long easy outdoor ride close to the end of the month. Of course I ended up riding outdoors on the one cloudy and rainy day of June. It did not bother me too much.

As I got up and out early, the roads were super quiet and empty. Very few cars and almost no other cyclists were around me. Must have been the not so fancy weather that gave me a very relaxed Sunday morning ride as a gift.

While spending less time on the bike I increased my time doing stretching, core exercise and strength training quite a lot. EMS training sessions with coaches are allowed again, taking care of high intensity muscular workouts, each twenty minutes a week. In addition to that I discovered many new stretching, core and run specific workouts in the Runtastic Training app. Lots of free, high quality and very good guided workouts to explore. I will most certainly try a lot of them in the near future.

More focus on running

Due to less cycling I could steadily increase time and focus on my run workouts instead. My training structure is very simplistic right now. In these times without any running competitions or personal records opportunities in sight, most of my runs are low intensity workouts in the woods. My intermediate and long term goals right now are:

• Improving my base fitness further
• Reduce my heart rate on longer distances
• Increase my overall efficiency

Simple yet effective improvement in the long term. All in all very similar to my current cycling workouts.

To spice things up I add at least one interval session per week, to also work a little bit on running technique and speed. My favorite session for these speed workouts is taking place at my local triathlon club (Post SV Nürnberg) every Wednesday. Besides intervals our coaches always focus a lot on running technique and try to correct our sloppy arms and knees. It is not only fun and the only real form of sportive socializing we can do right now. It also complements my training schedule and is a great addition to the more grindy solo sessions in the woods.

Sports Recap June 2020: Back in the pool!

At long last the swimming pool in Nuremberg are open again! Since the beginning of June you can enter the public swimming pools again. You can do so by booking a ticket online for a certain time slot in advance. All to reduce the risk of infections among us water dwellers. So far the booking system and all safety measurements, taken place in and around the pool, are working like a well oiled machine. It is much fun to finally go for a refreshing swim again.

My favorite pool happens to be just around the corner for me, 15 minutes of walk through calm green trees. This makes it even easier to motivate yourself going for a swim. Ramping up swim practice after such a long time off is not easy. It helps a lot that swimming in the pool using a wetsuit is not an issue at all right now. With the wetsuit as a perfect swimming aid I could quickly increase my swimming distance again, up to four kilometers during a long and easy session.

Sometimes it is almost mandatory to wear it, because the water is not heated. That means when the outside temperature is low the water temperature will sink accordingly. Cold water days can lead to the curious situation that the pool is all yours after a while! With now all three of my favorite activities available again, I am looking forward for some more steady progress in July.