Challenge Accepted!

This week, I found myself contemplating yet again a question that haunts every endurance athlete in training: How much is enough? How many hours do I need to log, how many vertical meters climbed, and how many times do I need to feel absolutely exhausted, yet strangely satisfied, before I can say, „I’m ready“?

Building a Plan, Brick by Brick

The good news is that I now have a structured training plan, meticulously built together with ChatGPT (yes, AI-assisted training logistics are the future!). It’s tailored around my life, my commute habits, the reality of family life, and the intensity that SWISSMAN demands. This week was the first real test run of the plan—and I stuck to it. I biked, I ran, I swam. For my terms, a lot.

I ramped up to over 12 hours of training. A mix of quality sessions, including a fine end-of-season XC-ski tour, which felt like the perfect send-off to winter. The consistency, the volume, the variety—it all clicked. For the first time in a while, I felt like I was on track.

Endurance Brain Mishap

Until… today.

In a classic case of endurance brain temporal math, I thought: 6 + 4 = 12. That led me to the conclusion that I needed to leave home at 6:00 AM to reach Zurich by 12:00 PM for lunch with the family. Naturally, I started my ride at 5:48 AM, only to spend a good while convinced that my head unit’s ETA calculation was totally off. Turns out, it was spot on — my brain, however, was in full fog mode.

So, I woke up too early, rode with the nagging feeling that my GPS was glitching, and realized far too late that 6 + 4 = 10, not 12. Now, after a solid training week, I feel wiped out.

Will I manage to keep up the momentum into the next volume-building week? Honestly, I’m not sure. It feels daunting, and that doesn’t exactly ease my mind. But I’ll try.

TSS: The Illusion of Numbers?

Last year, I thought TSS 40 per day would be enough. I finished x-traversée, a 76 km ultratrail rated 100K UTMB index, with that level of training load. It gave me confidence that I could finish demanding races with modest weekly effort. But this year, with SWISSMAN looming, I ran that logic by ChatGPT.

„Too little,“ it said.

And after running the numbers—averaging 9.1 hours/week with peaks over 12 hours, totaling 127+ hours until race day—I see its point. These numbers should do it, but it’s going to be challenging, no doubt. That thought lingers, and frankly, doesn’t make the mental load any lighter.

The Verdict

Maybe there’s no such thing as „enough,“ only „enough for now.“ This week, despite temporal miscalculations and looming fatigue, I feel like I moved the needle.

Oh, and carboloading? On point. Pizza and ice cream at Gelateria di Berna — recovery like a pro.

One week at a time, brick by brick, hour by hour.

Onward!