Kinzigman 2015

Timex Team Camp 2015

Drafting WTC 2015

iBike

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! ;)

Team Timex Camp 2014 – Only once would I like to get there without a jetlag

The whole Team Timex 2014

Florida, not New Jersey, fun in the sun instead of freezing in the snow.

 

That was kind of the theme for this year’s team camp. And “Män, sät was some four days for Se Tscherman!” Ann and I flew out Wednesday and camp only started Thursday at 5pm so we had just about one day to explore the surroundings of the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida.

 

Bradenton, FL

What we did? Go to the beach, naturally! And fun the three of us had even if only two of us were brave enough for the “chilly” 18°C waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

 

Per and Mr. Waschbärbauch

Camp then hit off on Thursday at 5pm with a tour of the IMG Academy that used to be the Bollitieri Tennis Academy way back when I was an aspiring young tennis player in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I always wanted to go there and more than 20 years later I finally get there as a “NON-SPORT GUEST”.

  

It's official I am a "NON-SPORT GUEST"

Things change I suppose. Under the IMG management the former world class tennis academy has evolved into an academy for a wide range of sports from tennis through soccer, golf, basketball all the way through lacrosse. And we were free to explore and use all of the facilities despite of our “NON-SPORTS GUEST”-status.

The tour was followed by a team dinner where each of us introduced him- or herself with some tiny fact aside from sports. There was quite a few laughs and before we knew we were drinking Yuengling Lager, luckily a beer with a great German heritage.

At 6am the next morning there followed the first workout of camp, a swim oat a local 50m pool. After the long day of travelling and the climate change… damn did those 50m feel looooong.

The early bird swim Friday morning

What followed then was what was called the “Timex Day” with quite a few clinics concerning Timex products, promotion opportunities and an exciting outlook onto what is in the product pipeline at Timex for this year. And indeed there is quite some interesting stuff coming out this fall. Regrettably I am not allowed to talk about that just yet.

Our bread & butter!

Almost more exciting though was the traditional 5k “run” we had Friday afternoon. This time the motto was Florida tourists and quite a few of us really looked the part: Again the run was won by the Swedish express Per Ericsson who beat everybody out wearing not running shoes but sandals!

Florida tourists!

 Friday night then it was time for out awards dinner and there were some outstanding performances to be honored. Male athlete of the year was well earned by Chris Thomas, who among a few other great results won the Ironman 70.3 Worlds in his age group as well finished 8^th overall at Ironman 70.3 Racine. Perhaps a little bit more impressive were the results of his female counterpart Susanne Davis who not only won the US age group Nationals over the Olympic distance but also won her age group at the Ironman World Championships in Kona last year.

Saturday then was “Sponsors Day” where our other supporters showcased their products. Especially anticipated was the presentation of our new bike for the season the Trek Speed Concept 2014. Really sleek and fast looking this rocket of a bicycle promises to carry quite a few of us to new personal bests on the bike this year.

Our ride for 2014 and beyond.

In addition to this friggin’ fast machine we’ll be riding bikes spec’ed with Shimano components and wheels as well as have access to the Blueseventy Helix wetsuit as well as their PZTX swimskin that lead me to a 3min PB at the swim in Kona last year.

And then it was time to party Saturday night. I held on for dear life until 12pm but then the jetlag prevailed and I had to call it a day. Bad for me because a lot of us turned night into day and partied until the break of dawn I have heard. The badass partying though showed on a few faced Sunday morning when we had out big photo shoot. That’s why I’ll only post one group pic here. ;)

Bruce - The Photobomb - Gennari, Luis and the girls!

And you can see we had a load of fun until the very last minute. The last minute for me was a great lunch en route to the airport at a great bar place in St. Petersburg with Mike Wien, DaveO, Melanie Sherman, Cindy Bannink, Juli Fiocca Craig Lanza and Ryan Vanderloop.

Ok and now it’s time to attack my “Waschbärbauch” in order to have a chance to make it on this great team for another season!

Ah, not to forget the guys who make it all happen, Tristan Brown and Tom Shuler: