The Times They Are a Changing.

I love my bike, I like to run and I have somehow come to like swimming - if it's the right location. So in the end I love the tri! And I've been reasonably successful at it in years past. Yet I love to try as well - try new things once in a while. One such opportunity arose this spring when a new  job opportunity presented itself to me. I've worked in financial market supervision for quite some time now and the EU is right now setting up a pan european banking supervision under the roof of the European Central Bank. They were looking for people from the national supervising authorities to help them in that process. So since May 1st I am one of those and life has changed quite a bit. The office hours have become a bit longer, the training hours a bit shorter. Nonetheless as our Director General put it: "For most of you this is going to be the project of your working life!" - and I think he's right. So I still get in one or two training sessions during the week and have Saturday and Sunday for some longer stuff. Nonetheless the long distance race I signed up for this season will be attacked a little less ambitious than planned.

Last weekend then it was time for my season kick-off: The first of four league races that I have committed to for my local club, the olympic distance in Mußbach. With two Ironman champins Andreas Böcherer and Nils Frommhold at the starting line it promised to be a good place to find out the shape I am in right now. The bummer though: I felt a sour throat the day before the race and woke on race morning with it having gotten even worse. Pre race anxiety though took the better of me and I still headed off to the race. Not knowing just how my body would react to a hard effort I took the 1.500m pool swim really easy behind my teammate Jürgen. This lead to a deficit of more then 5min on the swim leaders but at least I still felt ok(ish). The bike though was another story: I could fake a decent shape for the first flat section of about 12k but then the hard work started. The climb to Kalmit Hill is some 6k long and has an average grade of around six percent. Right there and then I felt that something was wrong and had to ease back a bit. For quite some time I wondered just why the smallest gear (23t) felt so hard. Halfway up the climb only did I notice that I had swapped the 39 SCR for a 42SCR just days before the race. No wonder 42/23 were a bit harder to push than 39/23. I still managed to overtake a few competitors and entered T2 just inside the top10. Still I lost about 5min to the top cyclists over the 42km long bike course. I was neither in 100% shape nor 100% healthy. Bummer!

Then the usual game as well as a bit of coughing started: Do not lose too many spots drung the run. That game did not work out too well on Sunday as I was overtaken by almost 20 guys to finish 27th on the day. At least there were not many fast old guys present so I was able to grab at least an AG podium as 2nd in the 40-44 AG. Old guys rule! ;)