2nd Test-Race done, Ratisbon can come

To be straight, right, its time to switch writing-gear from "wit and charme", from "posing, porn and triathlon" to a more clear and reasonable mode now. Its time to stop provocation - for sure there might be a lot of tales to be told on ice now.

To switch mode sligthly I do go start with facts. 

At Rothsee-Triathlon 1000+ people went to the start-, and 970 crossed the finish-line. So for a small or short-distance triathlon it`s a rather big one, 4th the size of Kallmünz round about. The triathlon has event-character, that goes along of what Challenge-Management does - to organize an event. So there are competitons the whole week-end, kids and juveniles go for on Saturday eg. Search the web for rothsee-triathlon to get fetch impressions. 

In my view, and as a local, the Rothsee is a nice place, an artificial lake and water-reservoir for the Rhein-Main-Donau-Channel-System, also lovely, however a more plain area in comparison to Kallmünz and Franconian Switzerland my home. A yacht-club creates the impression of a matter-of-fact holiday-area including sandy beaches as well.

According to the data of the German triathlon union (dtu) water temperature was 24,3 °Celsius, too warm for a neo-suit to be allowed. The neo-suit is shelter from cold water. However, if water is too warm it might become dangerous to wear such a suit as of the heat the body has to release when in action. Like for the most, such a neo makes faster, too. So without it the swim-split was a rather slow one. For me, with 27:49 min sec out of the water, I received +4 min and thus to go for 2:15 h min became unrealistic. The bike course is a rather unrhythmical and hilly one, even slower. After the swim-split and ranked 121st overall, a time on bike of 1:08:05 h min sec was badly needed to reach plan B `s goal, thus to be sub 2:20. I did my best to be fast on bike, however then I had to take the risk to run sub40 the final 10k and succeded to do so. With 39:56 min sec the run-split was a powerful and great affair. Finally the clock stopped at 2:19:33 h min sec. 

Times changed and in Germany leizure-time and hobbies become to be professionalized, organized in quantity mainly, it is needed to have an optimized structure. Cricital voices, philosophers and psychologists eg, call Germans crazy as of all that improvement of performance reduces life-quality. Today someone, who does finish 2:50 h min is considered to be a very good sportsman by the common people or social norms, and as of such a result even advertisement for benchmarking or posing in the web is not unusal. The virtues needed for triathlon, especially discipline, effort and endurance can be transported and transfered to be useful for both companies and clients in private life. As one might conclude now, in order to be even faster than that very good ones, well, triathlon really needs to become passion or  "freaky".  

So what is it about? What about a triathlete´s life-sytle? In a time of accelleration and a societies having to be fast and efficient, too, even within the families, well, also for the common people may be it´s a good thing to talk to a triathlete for piece of advice? In order to be fast? 

click image to enlarge

The screenshot from the officical-page/results does show transition-zone also, the area after swim-exit, where an athlete has to pick-up stuff for to change clothes in tents you can identify in the background. The table views Top10 my age-group M40-44, 121 finishers that group altogether, with an internationl top-professional ranked 1st, ranked 2nd overall as one can see the left column (transitions-times, swim => bike and bike => run, are added to the bike-split).

Like for others competitiors of Challenge in Ratisbon, now, the last training-block follows till round about to the end of July, so then in August tapering starts. However, the ongoing week, a good one I really wish to all and everybody, is suitable for recovery, for sure there`s opportunity to meet friends for training, but not only. Paperwork has to be done now, hooked to modul 9 at University of Hagen B.Sc. Psychology, State of Germany, mainly. Like mentioned above a lot of stories are stored and on ice, may be time will come to open up that files.  

For me the most important is to say thank you very much to my friends, team-mates and acquaintances for acompany, moreover for motivation and for congrats. 

Race in Kallmünz

Kallmünz was great and with the blessing of the locals I am facutally allowed to type into the web that that Kallmünz is town of the most best triahtlon in the world! In deed, factually and 100% for sure it is. Beautitute, atmosphere, support, organisation, race-courses, people - a lot of componentes which are all nice not top, however seen as a whole the competition is... ...simply the best. 

In general the small towm is secret aim for tourists. Not as of triathlon but as of its castle and its artists-quater. More over theres a rather famous cute church, that tower is like the tower of Pisa. Lovely and beautiful surroundings, meadows and trees, especially the cafes and restaurants along the river within the town are superb to be visited. Simply go there, for silence, kindness, well-being, friendly people and for to reload batteries. 

Like hinted before, test-races short-distance (1,5 - 40 - 10) are needed to bring body`s performance to it`s peek, for me in Ratisbon (3,8 - 180,2 - 42,2). After we got stuck in traffic-jam the highway we had been rather late. To my surprise I got start-number 187, which is the code in case of a murderer in the United States of America within the police`s communication. A start-number any athlete is responsible for to put on bike, helmet and on body also, so that referees can identify the competitors. Jokes had been plenty! That I will die in the river of Naab, downhill on bike - where it`s very curvy and athletes speed up to 80km/h in aero-position. Or a rather unspectacular death simply induced as of mere exhaustion crashing down on the aspahlt while on the run-split. Anyway, like always, I did not sleep much the days before, was rather done and empty.

Back to the organisation some few words might be added. The organizers of the triathlon in Kallmünz are all club-mates. There is no label, no musts they have to follow, it´s all organized as of it is fun, spirit and community to organize such an event. No one is payed police or firefighters, who need to make safe the streets for the racers on bike, cake and coffee bar is there, bbq, tents, a small stage, sound-system, or transition-zone has to be constructed and so forth - all done by the club members, nice people there, who do live next district in the Oberpfalz with it`s capital Ratisbon. Knowing the masterminds and organizers of Challenge Regensburg personally, I am rather sure it ll be the most best race, too. 
Further and to use contrast, well, many traditional triathlons are short-distance, which swim-, bike- and run-splits depend on relief, infra-structure and landscape had been transformed by the olympic norm. Why? Races und results should become comparable. That means of courses needed to be exactly 1,5 - 40 - 10. Pure nonsence, e.g. in Kallmünz there are two hard and long climbs within the bike split, not so at the short-distance at lake of Rothsee, that is hilly only. Last week we needed to swim in a river `s draft, next week we will swim in a lake with no draft at all. For the orga-team, of course there is possibility to change the races character, esp. to flash the two loops bike-course into a new one of 40k exaxctly. In Kallmünz the bike-split is kept 42, thus there is provided everything a good race needs. No need for comparision. For what? Exactly. This is another core belief in a good triathlete`s mind. Challenge Ratisbon will be like that, an uncomparable good and in it´s character unique race. 

The effect of the river`s draft is obvious. Huge speed at the start and after 19 min at 750 mtrs there`s  U-turn, thus then only 11 min the same distance back  but with draft (diagram made by GARMIN)

When a huge gun was fired onto the bridge across the river full of spectators shores as well, the 1,5k - swim-spilt was executed in the river Naab. A hard job! After U-Turn swimming becomes easy and pretty fast. One might slow down at the end of the swim-split, as you can see in the graphic as well, as swim-exit is hard and the athlete has to run with neo-suit throughout the artist-section of the town cheered up by people, has to run to transition-zone to become a biker as fast as possible. Like always to get rid of that second-skin, shelter from the river`s coldness, which temperature had been 20,7°C, lasts too long in the subjective perspective of many athletes. Surprisingly my own clock did quit service, so I had no idea of pace. When I entered transition-zone I saw a lot of bikes still standing there, so I assumed of not being too slow, really fed up with the hardship of the swim-split.

Bike-split was a bomb! Finally the bike´s clock showed off speed of 36,3 km/h average on that heavy course. Dog fights, fighting suckers, full concentration downhill, pure pain up the mountains, and a good tactis made me rather fast. Clock stop early and I jumped of the bike into my running-shoes barefoot.
Motivated to run fast I exited transition-zone and to my surprise a very well-known female international top-professional among Top3 Kalua-Kona, Hawaii, set my ass on fire and shouted at me! This was like a blow and rather late I recognized a run-courses turn, right and 90 degree.... It had been centimetres only! Somehow I managed to avoid crashing into a metall barrier, braking bones or even worse, that block spectators from race-cource.  Now I had to change tactics from hard to very hard, I needed to run fast. Finally I was on the podium did win the silver medal in my age-group (M40-45), 2nd among 28 in that group, 34 seconds to gold missing. 

To close that tale of power one should look back to Kallmünz and say thank you. Thank you for having been there. Thank you to be a part of, thank you to close friends, friends and acquaintances.

Looking forward to see you again at the lake of Rothsee for sure it´ll be fun again. 

Race hard!!