brigitta and her body in peace negotiations

On 7 April I said goodbye to another beautiful running-phase of my life. I destroyed one of my adductor muscles completely, after some days of short intervals no longer than 20min each, and one inline skating day because I already felt a slight pain then. A few days later, also my achilles problem came back from its holiday.

Now, as I'm so highly imaginative, I'm alternating between road bike and mountain bike. I more and more love these sports. Intensive moments during bike tours causing even tears of joy say it all.

For example: During a pre work bike tour over the bözingenberg I felt totally confident that happiness is nothing else than
1. a functional full suspension bike
2. a nice mountainbike path
3. an enormous amount of energy
4. listening to the best music ever.

On the other hand I also know other tears. For example those I cannot hold when I cross the route of the 100km race of Biel and look back upon this unbeatable feeling of freedom I have to skip now for an undetermined period of time. So, I would be very happy about running legs soon. (Although I also became aware of how quick this desire can get secondary: for a few days I didn't wish for anything more than being able to bike without pain again (!).)

The first thing I would do, is to proof I can do it better than before. Namely: realize when I start to fight against my body, and then react immediately to this. Because, when I think back, every injury I had so far was preceded by a certain "fight against my body". In the case of my very first severe injury, I often endured a phase of tiredness of about 2h, before running like a machine for another 4h for example. Two days in a row a program like this finally made my body say STOP.

Well, during the current peace negotiations between my body and me, I find it very enriching to do every day something for the first time of my life. Some of my latest achievements are:
- a road bike training of only one hour
- watch the start of a delta glider (impressive!)
- bike to Allaman (and many other new destinations)
- eat four chocolate bunnies within one day
- call vacuum-cleaning one of my hobbies
- bike up to the Chutzenturm without climbing it at the end (climbing stairs hurt too much)
- mend the tyre of my roadbike with tape
- and so on...

brigitta and her selfies: an unseparable couple:

u

brigitta

It's a magical world - let's go exploring!

"Limits are only in our brains. Take them and break them."

An important self created statement (therefore incorrect English :-)), because I think that's what makes my life so fantastic. Overcoming my fears, always trying out new things, learning and never stop learning. When I was running a lot, the limits I extended were for example the number of kilometers running nonstop. Or the personal best time on a certain distance. But fortunately there doesn't exist only running limits and running goals:


Well, there were many moments in my life when I thought: yes, I AM BORN TO RUN. Very strong moments. Maybe that's still true, but it's better to focus on NOW, and NOW means: always listening to my body that reacts to too much running and jumping with a sharp pain in the Achilles tendon.

To those people who think now: she shouldn't have exaggerated so much:
Now that I find it hard to imagine that these "eternal-running-times" will ever come back (and in connection with my injuries a certain pressure disappeared), I can say: I am very happy and proud, that this time was at least ONE PART of my life, in its full extent, tragedy and uniqueness.

Amen.

From dusk ...

... to dawn.

One year older, adepteder, prettier, sillier, crazier.

Hey! There are two important things you have to know:
1) Summer is not yet finished.
2) Life is beautiful.


Explanations:

1) Summer is actually never finished. Just keep jumping in lakes and rivers and fountains at any given opportunity, keep eating ice cream, keep wearing flipflops, keep sunbathing, and ignore the darkness. If your body-heat balance isn't made for this or whatever: the meteorologic summer will come again. For sure.

2) Life is beautiful. And "beautiful" doesn't mean "always perfect". In my life, the most disturbing thing at the moment is my brain that is thinking too much. Sometimes everything sucks and I ruin all my time by thinking what is the right and what is the wrong thing to do. By the way, I almost posted a text about running addiction, but then I thought: No, this isn't interesting anyone, and anyway too personal probably. I guess writing the text already helped a bit to solve this extremely sophisticated problem.

So, what were my (more or less heroic) exploits since my last post in october 2014?

For example, I got one year older. Big applaus to me. No, what I mean is: newly my body tells me at least sometimes afterwards when something was too much. Thanks.

In december 2014 I won the Trotteuse Tissot in a very delightful 3-lap-race. La-Chaux-de-Fonds, I'm coming again.

At the same time, I was almost killing myself mentally with my running addiction.

(no photo...)

January, February and March were full of beautiful bike-adventures, rather than running-adventures, due to an injury.

..even in our dark and dusty cellar. Hometrainer-intervals.

I anyway finished the Survivalrun in Thun. Jogging with one leg, having a great party on the second lap :-D.

One day I ran again (what a pleasure!) and participated for example in

the Grand Prix von Bern,

the Fisherman's Friend Strongmanrun,

the 100km of Biel (overwhelming happiness, satisfaction, affection and gratefulness after the race, lasting for about one week -> huge addiction potential),

the Tour du Val Terbi,

the Emmenlauf (10.5km) with a new 10km personal best, if the route was well measured (36min16.2sec).

I was part of the chorus project "out of darkness" http://www.derchor.ch/website/2015_-_Out_of_Darkness.html. Thrilling!

And I reached many beautiful (and less beautiful ;-)) places under my own power. Pure freedom.

There were many many other unforgettable experiences, that I forgot (notice the wonderful logic behind this clause), or that are too personal for this blog. Is the following (completely painless) experience at the Toasted Challenge 2015 too personal? No, it's even on youtube. Watch the 30 seconds between 1:23 and 1:53, if you don't want to miss the chance of getting the giggles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nL7MAmXQ1D0&feature=share

Und tschüss!

How to refuse a world cup qualification

You might ask yourself why I refused a qualification for the world cup switzerland. It's a long story, but I can try to describe the recent happenings and my attitude:
The main difference between me and a top athlete could be that the key purpose of my training is not the improvement of the performance, but getting a good feeling and doing something I can be proud of. For example, when I feel like running (and this is quite often the case ;-)), I run, notwithstanding that it would be smarter to rest, with regard to the next competition. It's simply more important for me to have as much fun as possible than to perform as good as possible. Since performing well is also a lot of fun, I run competitions. One very attractive would have been the world cup switzerland.
BUT: In the week before the testrace, I got an e-mail that said, I won't be selected for the world cup, no matter which result I run in the test race. Baam. Of course they only want athletes in the team, that really concentrate on this race and cooperate with the trainers. I'm effectively not that kind of athlete. Anyway I was surprised about this e-mail. And I just decided to show at the testrace, that their decision was wrong. I estimated my chance not too high because my training was indeed not ideal the last weeks. But at the race day I felt quite good and was motivated, furthermore there was a big will to give everything and be concentrated all the race long (Actually, orienteering should be always like this ;-)). The result was a stable race with only one mistake of about 30 seconds and a 6th place, so the condition for the world cup would have been fulfilled.
After having accepted all this, late in the evening I anyway decided to inform the athlete-helper about the situation. This lead to a selection that would have been followed by certain special constraints for me. For example I would have been obliged to work out a training plan together with the trainer, communicate, summarized: show actively, that I focus on the world cup race. Sounds not too difficult. So, GO FOR IT, I first thought.
But was this really what I wanted? I was not sure, so I went running and after about one hour I came to the decision that I want to do without the world cup, namely because of four reasons:

1) Accepting the qualification would have implied sudden changes in my race preparation, of which I think, they don't make me run better on day X: I would have discussed my training with the trainers, I would have spent a lot of time writing everything down, and maybe I even would have had to justify myself why I'm singing in the chorus on wednesday evening instead of atteding the orienteering training, for example. I didn't want all this to be part of my preparation.
2) The chance that I couldn't compete in the sprint on sunday (my childhood dream ;-)) was quite big. Only 9 world cup points so far... (on sunday, only the first 40 of the world cup intermetiate standings can start)
3) After the e-mail I've already deleted the world cup out of my mind, and somehow it's nothing but consequent to say no.
4) With my renouncement I give a world cup starting place to someone else, who wants this maybe 100 times more than me.

See you in Liestal! :-)

GPS of the Testrace 13.9.2014
Results of the testrace 13.9.2014
Qualifications for the world cup switzerland

Wonderful terrain Selamatt

My new Racer ST 5 after exactly 42.195 km under my foot.

bright look-out

It's the journey, not the destination.

Last Sunday, for the first time in my life, I finished an orienteering race with a race time bigger than the maximum race time. I was not yet completely recovered from one day of sickness, so I thought, easy, I just won't run very fast. Not a bit of it! During the race I got more and more tired and told myself: No stress, it doesn't matter. But telling me "no stress" means also killing my smallest intention to move visibly forward! And thus, I walked more than I ran. Together with a lot of lacks in concentration, a long distance (swiss championships 2014, unfortunately) takes time. 3 hours and 5 minutes. I admit, there would have been funnier things to do than lugging myself to the finish. But it was not for nothing: I practised compass-walking and did plenty of find-out-where-I-am exercices! Not least, the terrain was so gorgeous that I wished I carried my phone with me, to take pictures (... but then it would have taken 4 hours, and in consequence I would have missed the last public transport connection home. Luckily I didn't have it with me!)

What happened since my last post here? Far too much to mention all the funny, surprising, beautiful, unforgettable, shocking moments, happenings and heroic actions. But it's time to inform about a slight change in my training style. Because three months ago, a 2-hours-run was still quite long for me. Coming back from a 3h-run (on Lanzarote) felt like coming back from the moon and having bet everything and everyone! But now, 2 hours for example is a quite small duration of a running training. At the moment I run about 3 hours per day on average. Somehow I got addicted to this incredible feeling at the end of a very long training when everything is fine, everyone is good, the energy is endless. During a run, the most frequent question I ask myself is: WHY NOT? And since I can’t find a sufficient reason to stop, I continue. Insufficient reasons to stop are for example:

-          1) the last train of today is leaving

-          2) such long and slow runs might make me slower

-          3) and they might stress my body

But they are simply insufficient:

-          1) there are more trains the next morning - so just run the whole night long

-          2) who cares? who said I have to be fast?

-          3) I don’t think so, because my running style is so heavily economic and joint-friendly (=ugly!!) that my body has nothing against such crazy shit. If the recovery afterwards isn't skipped, notabene.

Logical consequence: run as much as you can! Enjoy the feeling of leaving space behind you under your own power! Some days I finish after 5 hours, instead of the planned 2 hours. And here, as an example, you can read what I’ve trained in the week from july 28 to august 3:

Monday: 4h jogging, 30min strength
Tuesday: 7x1000m on track in 3:50 to 3:36 plus 7x200m in 38s to 36s, running time altogether 2h10
Wednesday: 3h10 jogging, 10min strength
Thursday: 30min jogging, 1h40 in about 4:30min/km, 20min jogging.
Friday: 20min jogging, 20min warm up, 1h04 swiss championships mountain running, 2h30 cool down very slow.
Saturday: 55min jogging, 1h50 jogging always a bit faster.
Sunday: 50min run, 3h15 jogging at the end faster.

That's what I've written down. Total running amount of the week above: 23 hours and 40 minutes. It's comforting, that this was a week in which I worked 41 hours, because this shows that it's possible to exagerrate even with a 100%-job (although not ideal, because in this week I didn't sleep enough).
Maybe this phase of immoderate training runs will be over as quick as it came. For example when the university-sport starts in its full version. But in all probability I will keep it like this. What I certainly won't do again: Bike downhill without a lamp and without company in a steep slope stressed by the sunset. Because it could have ended up MUCH worse! And: train excessively (3x5000m on track with 4h cooldown) and sleep almost nothing within three days. One day of sickness was the clear signal, that this was simply too much.

But now, seven positive things :-):

1) I'm still able to run 10km in 37:40 (Münsiger-Louf, August 9), out of a horrible training amount. Results.

2) I'm able to run 10 hours through the night after a hard race (Münsiger-Louf, August 9) and compete in another race the next day (Ursenbacher-Trophy, August 10). Read the text below to know more about this adventure:

Last Saturday, something really strange happened to me. ..No, ok, it was my own decision. I started for a long cool down after the very hard “Münsige-Louf” (10km running competition, 37min40sec). Somehow I felt very persistent (also due to caffeine), so I decided not to stress to catch the last train to Bern to the buskers festival, no, I decided to try out something new: run the whole night long. I said to myself: It’s a night of a full moon, I’m under caffeine, I have to work only on Tuesday, there’s no race the next weekend (only the next day at 11 a.m. ;-)), so JUST DO IT!
The result: start on Saturday at 18:20 in Münsingen, furthermost point in Interlaken at 23:20, finish in Münsingen on Sunday at 4:30. I would not say, it was easy, but I survived and it could have been more difficult, I think. There were terrible phases of tiredness (Hooray!! My body knows indeed something like a circadian rhythm!!), that made me run not in a straight line, almost weave, and long for the finish. Somehow these phases always disappeared again. All in all I just needed a little bit of patience and all the way enough madness not to turn around or stop.

3) From my home in Büetigen, I theoretically only have to pay 12 swiss francs to get to the sea within two days. This is the amount I've payed for my bike trip to Genova in July, apart from all the (numerous) food expenses and the cost of a new bike in Brig. I took the train until Domodossola (12 CHF for the bike transport), then I cycled from 12 o'clock to 2 o'clock in the next morning, slept 2 hours, carried on cycling, but had to realize that the only chance to stay awake was eating all the time (and this was somehow no option), so I slept another 2 hours and arrived completely exhausted under the hot italian sun at the port in Genova. Beach only 10km further, the tourist information said. No, thank you. Instead: run through the city. And now I can tell you: Genova is the ugliest city I've ever seen! But it's anyway the journey, not the destination.

4) Zermatt (swiss-o-week 2014) was great! Here some epic moments:
- the incredibly cool sheeps (Oberwalliser Schwarznasenschafe)
- the view to the Matterhorn from an unusual direction (picture only in my head)

- the cool rain on my skin
- the incredibly beautiful horses
- the tourists that asked me for the way to Zermatt while we always saw this place down in the valley.
- all these funny and friendly Asians, always smiling and taking pictures.
- the foresight
- the sudden weather changes
- Eric Bucher that lends me a body warmer, so that I don't have to abandon my aim Gornergrat. Thank you!


- the high wind shredding my hiking map
- the energy after a 5h run
- the morning ambiance on the campsite
- the sudden orienteering flow after a phase of unmotivation
- the swim through the Schwarzsee in pouring rain
- the nice people of my club ol.biel.seeland
- the sound of glacial ice falling down
- touching the Matterhorn
- the man on the wheelchair, that was speeding through the village, holding on to one of these electric cars

5) Here are the results of the awesome Strongmanrun 2014 (June 7): Results

6) Almost forgot: World Cup and Jukola in Finland. Awesome, great, fantastic, superb, ... even with terrible results in some races.

7) I've finally found the perfect hot chocolate. In Biel. <3 <3 <3

Warming up for the Münsiger-Louf 2014.

Wasting my last strength for the sake of a good picture at the end of the race.

Heading for Thun, very unsure if I will make it until Interlaken.

Yes, I did it. At about 5 in the morning after the 10 hours run.

Passing the delicious carbonara sauce on my way to Genova.

Genova, apart from its touristic old town, consists of a terribly huge quantity of scooters, motorbikes and cars.

... when you forget to take off your shorts before jumping in the fountain.

Walliser Schwarznasenschafe. Coolest sheeps ever.

Touch the Matterhorn.

Photo shooting also in subprime weather.

My bike for one day.

... when there's just no bigger lake available.

No worries, I'm not always just running. Sometimes I'm also watersliding. Fisherman's Friend Strongmanrun 2014 Engelberg. Can't wait for the next edition!