I did not expect too much of this weekends race as neither my swimming nor my running are on par with last years form. With running it's the nagging plantar fasciitis that kept me from running up until mid May. With swimming... well to be honest it's a lack of motivation due to not being able to run.
Saturday was my first in Germany's 3rd tier league and man was it tough. Winds with gusts reaching 40 miles made for a quite choppy swim and an adventurous bike leg. Nonetheless: The tougher the conditions on the bike, the better for me. The swim left me in the back of the pack at about 30th place. Due to the asthma problems that let me DNF the first reace of the season I started the bike conservatively trying not to put too much stress on my lungs. At the first hill of the day I figured out that a heart rate of 165, about ten beats lower than my usual race heart rate was save and carried on.
Then after about 10 kilometers the real fun started: I was going downhill and if not for the low 13°C it felt like Kona. Cross winds of 40 miles really let me hang on tough to the aerobars as I had put on the deep dish 808 front wheel. I still kept on overtaking and soon found myself in second place of our team. Only our Uberbiker Alex who had passed me in T1 was nowhere in sight. As the kilometers went by I continued to pass guys and after 44km and some 2100 feet of vertical climbing I reached T2 right up there in 9th place overall. My bike split on the brave CD 0.1 was the second fastest of the day. Good job, noble steed and no bad result if you figure that I was operating 10 beats under normal race intensity. This meant an average power output of some 301 watts at a weight of 75kg. With time my lungs will hopefully permit full throttle biking again and then: "It’s on like Donkey Kong!"
On Saturday though I was not at the peak of my abilities and the worst was still to come. My running is far from good these days, see above. My run training this year amounts up to the ultra high number of 200k. So it was just about damage control from kilometer one. In training I had not run one of the 200 kilometers in under 4:30min so I was a bit nervous as to how my foot would take the target speed of 4:00min/km. In the end it worked out all right and I was able to complete the run leg in just over 41 minutes. In the end I places 23rd out of some 50 league competitors which was fine. Alex placed 8th , right in front of Flo in 9th. Joern came in 25th and in the end we just missed the team podium and finished in 4th place.
My next stop will be one of Germany’s classic races, Rothsee Triathlon near Nuremberg next weekend. I am thrilled to find out how my CD 0.1 is going to fare against the likes of 1997 Kona Champ Thomas Hellriegel.
Will keep you posted!
Tim
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