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!!