Weekly News Number 16

A special end to the week

This week ended with something historic. What was simply the end of the week for me here in Australia turned into a special moment in London. I’m talking about the runner Sebastian Sawe from Kenya. At the London Marathon, he became the first person to break the 2-hour barrier over 42.195 km in a regular race. He ran 1:59:30, which is about a 2:49 per kilometer pace—over 21 km/h for nearly two hours.

That is completely unreal to me. Honestly, a 2:50 pace per kilometer feels impossible for me right now. If I tried that, I’d probably be done after one kilometer. For comparison: in triathlon, the top Ironman athletes run around 3:30 per kilometer. That really shows how extreme this performance is.

Moving away from that world-class level and back to my week, which, besides a few highlights, included more recovery than I originally planned. It’s a phase where I really notice how important it is to listen to your body. Especially when you see what others are doing, it’s easy to feel like you should always be doing more.

Emma and I talked about this a lot during the week—whether things are starting to get a bit out of control. You see athletes doing an Ironman and then racing a 5k just a few days later. I could list many more examples. But in the end, the body compensates—and at some point, it will take the recovery it needs. The only question is when.

Allowing recovery

That’s exactly what I felt myself this week. Since Saturday, I consciously stepped back a bit. After 30 minutes of training, I realized it just wasn’t my day. I was tired and had no energy, so I went home, slept again, and ate.

On Sunday, I already felt much better, but it took some time to get back into a rhythm. I think that’s completely normal when you finally give your body proper rest after a longer period of consistent training.

I told Kurt about it today, and for me, that’s the hardest part—slowing down when things are actually going well. I’ve experienced this before in my work with Urs. That’s where I really understood it for the first time. Before that, I wasn’t aware of it.

By Tuesday, things were back on track, and even though I was still a bit tired, I managed to get in a really strong session. What has changed for me over the years is that I’m much more relaxed about taking a step back. In 99% of cases, that’s better than pushing through and ending up sick—especially now, heading into race week.

Training and outlook

Even though I’ve focused more on recovery, looking back I can see that it was still a solid week of training. On the run, I did a session with 15 minutes easy tempo, 10 minutes tempo, and 5 minutes at race pace. For me, that went down to about 3:40 per kilometer—still quite far from a sub-2-hour marathon.

On the bike, I did 4x5 minutes at 300 watts on Wednesday. After weeks of doing a lot of tempo work, those intervals actually felt quite comfortable. The positive thing is that I’ve really enjoyed training over the past weeks and always looked forward to going out. Maybe that was also a small mistake, because for a few days I didn’t really notice when enough was enough.

Cycling through a serene, enjoying the outdoor adventure.

Now my mindset is clearly shifting towards race day, and I’m really looking forward to Sunday.

Another highlight was a great coffee after swim training with JR, his wife Jennie, Lotte Willms and her partner. JR has an incredible number of stories from his time as a swim coach for Australia. One of them was about how he used to go straight to the bike shop of Lance Armstrong in Texas after training and spend hours talking with him. People eventually knew—if they were looking for JR, he’d be sitting in that shop.

Hearing those stories firsthand—and also getting Jennie’s perspective, having experienced many of those moments herself—was incredibly interesting. And I know that’s just a small part of everything he’s experienced.

With that, I wrap up this week and start preparing for the race on Sunday. Race week always brings its own stories, and I’m sure I’ll have plenty to share next time.

So, we’ll talk soon.

Cyrill