For German triathletes it’s a magic word! It has the ring of Germany’s first Ironman and since 2002 it’s the home of the Challenge Series of iron distance events. But in addi-tion to the world’s biggest long distance triathlon Roth also hosts Germany’s second larg-est Olympic distance triathlon, Rothsee Triathlon. For 23 years now, usually two weeks prior to the big one, some 2.000 athletes gather at Rothsee for one of Germany’s classic races. You swim right next to Main-Donau-Channel where the swim of Challenge Roth is held and the majority of the bike course also takes place on the Challenge course.
I did my first Ironman in Roth 2001 and since then have been in Roth counts for at least ten times either to again participate in the Ironman/Challenge race (2002, 2004 & 2008) or to watch the big guns play. For just as many years I was looking at doing Rothsee tri-athlon but it was only this year that I finally made it.
Due a public holiday we arrived in the area three days before the race and I was able to put in quite a few miles of bike training out on the Roth course. On Friday I met up with Clemens Coenen, newbie professional triathlete and fastest age grouper at the 2008 Kona race. You might remember him from that years NBC coverage: He was the guy to readily step back to give center stage to Chrissie Wellington even though he arrived at the finish chute first. Riding this course always gives me goose bumps and doing this with such a great guy: just awesome! We chatted about 81 of the 83 kilometers that make up one lap of the Roth course. Clemens then headed out for a faster loop, I met up with another friend to ride my second one. Two days prior to race day riding hard with Clemens might have spoiled my race on Sunday.
Well, Sunday!
The weather forecast was not too good, not too bad. And when we got up it was still rain-ing. Luckily that stopped two hours before the start and we had safe conditions. My race report is a quite short one, actually: I had a decent swim, a great bike and an acceptable run. No, not that short.
Last week’s swim in Edersee was really bad due to the waved caused by 50 miles of wind. This time the water was absolutely calm… until the gun went off. Then it was a little tight on the 1,5k swim course. That hit home to me at the first turn around when the heel of another athlete struck my left eye. I am humming “Blue Eyes” since then. Out of the wa-ter at about four minutes behind 1997 Hawaii champion Thomas Hellriegel aka Helle I was right where I wanted to be. I took my time in transition to put on my socks and road bike shoes I am going to wear in Kona, too.
(Entering T1)
The first five kilometers on the bike I took it a little easy as I did not know how my lungs would take an immediate full throttle effort. When my lungs just did their work and did not close their valves I put the pedal to the metal. I gauged my effort on the noble steed that is my black Quintana Roo CD 0.1 by power: The flats at around 300 watts, the hills at 350. This works out quite well and after the first half of the bike leg I still found myself within five minutes of the lead.
I then overtook a loosely riding group of five athletes and tried really hard to get rid of them. At kilometer 30 I had achieved that and was really enjoying the ride as there was quite a tail wind from then onwards. With Thomas Hellriegel in the race the best bike split of the day was out of reach from the start but I still had my eyes on that second place among this days bike riders.
I reached T2 after 39:09min for 40k. More than 25mls/h on a course that has a total climbing of some 1.200 feet that’s quite alright.
(Entering T2)
Only after the race and from the properties of the pictures my girlfriend took did I learn that I had really posted the third fastest bike split of the day, only 1:18min slower than Helle and a mere 8sec slower than Coenen.
In T2 though my racing as such was just about over. With no more than 200 miles of running under my belt in 2011 I was in survival mode yet again. Six-minute-miles is the maximum I am able to do these days and with the hilly terrain on Sunday I was not able to keep this pace up.
(One more run lap to go)
I had quite a few guys overtake my on the 10k run course but not too many. With my bib number of 33 I ended up in 33th of more than 1.500 participants. The run time was 41:20min and I was very pleased. The only drawback of the day was that it took ages for the results to be released and we still had to check out of our hotel and drive back to Frankfurt that same day. So we headed off without so much as a glance at the swim and bike splits. That then was no great idea because with that I missed the face that I had placed 3rd in my age group and would thus have been entitled to step on that always cherished thing called podium.
Then again that takes away nothing from a rear perfect weekend that shows that pa-tience with my foot slowly pays off and
One thing for you Americans reading this RR: Imagine an Olympic distance race with a carbo loading dinner the day before the race, roads closed for traffic good marshalling, feed stations every kilometer on the run and a giant finish line buffet and free post mas-sage service as well as a sports fabric finisher shirt. And now imagine what such a race would cost? Well divide this number by three and you might get to the ball park we are talking about here. Yes, you get all this for less than $ 50, € 35 to be precise. So when-ever you come over to Germany to do Challenge Roth or Ironman Germany and can spare the time: Do this race!
(Post race chat with Clemens Coenen, 2nd place overall)
Yours
Tim
