Winter Blues , oh no

last Week was rather scary , I think I was hit with a very bad Case of Winter Blues , Winter Blues is also called Seasonal affective Disorder is something I have diagnosed on myself 2-3 Years ago.
In my Case when this happens I just don't have any energy to do anything and I'm in a rather grumpy mood. A couple of years back when I realized that this seems to happen  more and more in the Winter month, I started to google it and looking at the Check list for Winter Blues I can tick every single box. So I bought a Light Box and Vitamin D and Last Winter I came through the Winter much better then in the previous Years.
So for this Winter Season I had already bought again my Vitamin D and planned start to take it from the beginning of October, I didn't even really think about it too much, but oh Boy the last 10 Days were bad and I mean really bad.
At work I was just extremely irritable, I tried to keep to myself as much as possible and put on the professional face , I made sure I didn't cross anyone path. There was no Reason to be so grumpy to anyones, but I just was.
In the Evening I  was so tired that I did go very early into my Bed and didn't want to wake up even after over 9 hrs of Sleep.
So I started to take my Vitamins early last Week and I have set my Light box again on a Timer , so in the morning I wake up when the Light Box makes my Room bright as Day.
This is not a miracle cure but Yesterday was the First Day where I felt finally like a Human being again.
If you suffer from Winter Blues , exercise is recommended , there was no Way that I was able to to any real kind of exercise last Week so I forced myself to at least cycle to work .
I have been cycling the whole Summer, but cycling over the last couple of Days felt like I had to start all over again.
I was barely able to climb small Hills but thankfully Yesterday that again felt much better.
So now I finally look forward again, a really good feeling after 2 Weeks of Hell . Now I hope I can get my Winter Training together, because I really want to be ready for next Seasons upcoming Triathlons.
The Plan is to work hard enough, to be able to do a Half Ironmman next Year.
That will be huge step from my Sprint Triathlons this Year, I'm not really afraid anymore of the Swimming ,I have seen the improvement of it, this Year and I know I'm not even remotely at my limit. Cycling is not a problem either , I just love cycling, running is the big Problem.
This is the one discipline I actually slowed down this Year and running more then 5 Km at the moment is a struggle, but being aware of it should be a good start to fix it.
Time to hit the Road, which will help to get to my Goal and fight this very annoying Winter Blues

The Magic of a Light Box, it really Works for me !

some late updates

did go on Holiday directly after my last Triathlon , so didn't get a chance to write a nice Race Report , so now with nearly 3 Weeks delay here it comes.

I started my Triathlon adventure last year with exactly this Triathlon , so I was very curious to see if and how far I had come in the3 last Year.

First of all , since I know now what to the expect when I not so nervous about a race anymore and I also know now what to eat at which state . Last year I had totally forgotten to eat a Breakfast and was starving about the time my Race Wave started . This was not an error I have repeated, I had my Breakfast and I had my snacks and waited more or less patiently until my Race started. This was again not a Race to win anything or finish at the top 10 in my Age Group , this Race was about me and only me.

So the Swim started, a short 600 m River swim, I still was one of the slowest swimmers in my Wave group but this Year no one from the next Wave group passed me and i was nearly 6 minutes faster then last Year , that felt great. Still felt rather wobbly when I came out of the Water but managed to get out of the Wet suit and onto the Bike in under 4 minutes , good time for me. so now a 16km Cycle Ride started and in hindsight I have to say that I took it too easy on the Bike but at the time of the Race I had the feeling that my legs and lungs were bursting , quite a few Racer past me on the Ride again I improved my cycling time over last years time , only by 4-5 minutes but anyway no too bad.

Last Stretch would be the toughest one for me , the Run , I knew it would be a muddy Trail run so I had early on decided to wear Trail runners, that was a pretty good decision . The Run was only 4 km Long but for me it felt more like 10 km , I was really tired by the Time I reached the finish line. I had managed to improve my time from last year by 13 minutes and i enjoyed every minute of that Race.

Yes I'm fully and utterly Triathlon hooked and I actually will try now to do a really good winter Training and can't wait to see which effects this will have on next Years Triathlon Season .

A colleague of mine was wondering the other Day how I had managed to loose so much weight and I started to tell about my Triathlons and how much I enjoy doing this , his simple reply was : I see how much you enjoy this you are  beaming all over your Face while talking about this and that puts it to the point . as soon as I start to think about Triathlons , I get exited.

To the point of Weight loss , this is still a slow Process but today the Scale showed for the first time my weight to be under 70kg ( 11 Stones ) . 

For the Winter Season I'm planning to do a lot of weight Training also hopefully again some Yoga  and of course more swimming cycling and running ....