winter time, silent time - time for politics

folks, dear readers, 

the blog empowers its political component.

as far as now this blog was used in concerns of triathlon mainly. the substantive in the german language is called „triathletisches“. the word refers to the life of triathletes, to succes in sport, to how to cope with challenges, defeats and injuries, it´s about private life, about friends and gathering at sport events not only. german readers must not be bothered, it is needed to explain terms as of the internationality of this blog and the attention it gets from all countries. from countries of the so-called first, second and third world, a division done by socio-economic-status. maybe the ranking must be turned upside-down, when satisfaction and happiness is the criteria to be meassured? 

up to now this blog gave some insight in a triathlete's life. time came to focus on the term 3athletisches as well. what a kind of term is it? the word is an alphanumeric one. what else to say? to use deduction, 3athletisches can be interpreted as a policitical function. thus, first of all i would like to underline the fact of the germans and germany is a democratic country. minorities are not discriminated anymore and the dignity of every human living here is proteced by law and the state of germany. dignity is defined the most highest virtue and principle and thus so paragraph one of the state‘s consitution. what to say about germany? people became calm and tolerant. germans are open to different opinion and to critizism and do fully accept all different kinds of religious confessions. everyone is allowed to free speech. the germans learned from the past and spend a lot of energy to make the world a peaceful one, and also healthy by switching to regenerative fuels. to make this going, the typical germans' all-to-day-life is still a busy one. germans work a lot. sure, the japanese people or the spanish meanwhile, too, do even work more eg. thus, the germans are said to be efficient, thinkers and scientists, german is said to be the language to be the most precise. efficiency and work are key competences and values to be upholded for triathlon, too. as you might like to compare that, this is reflected on the hawaiian islands this year, where the world three most best triathletes, who won gold, silver and bronze, are all germans.

germany overcame its nazi-past. today it is a country ruled by humanity, upholds human rights and principles of democracy. germany has made a change the last century. nowadays life is multicultural and foreigners are warmly welcomed. after world war two we had three big waves of immigration: from italy, from turkey, and recently from syria. but also people from russia, from the near east live here, or asians, too. by the way: the originial full born germans are in a minority meanwhile. 

ten years ago it has been guaranteed by law that everyone is protected and no one is allowed to be discriminated in any way, no matter of religion, genes, attitudes, sexual-oriantation, gender and age and so forth. everyone who does live here is a liberated person. nowadays, as of this context, one can say to be proud of be to german again. this goes along of what triathletes are supposed to be in general: people, who do respect everyone no matter who you are, where you come from or how much money you have, all equals, who want to go further.

sure, success must come gently, with a great deal of effort but without stress and obsession, valid for triathlon, but not only, of course.

off season 2016

A long and good season is on it´s final meters. Today we have 2nd of October, the day before Germany´s famous holiday, a typically day, the time indian summer ends. There is a little rainfall and temperatures move slightly below 20° Celsius. Excellent conditions for running-competitions!

The week before there had been a rather famous race among locals along the 10.000k distance. In a field of 105 participants, with a time of 39:44 min, I was ranked 27th overall. Tactics went all right, and with k-splits of 3:47, 3:53, 3:50, 3:59, 4:00, 4:01. 4:05, 4:04, 4:03 and 3:57, well, the first half of the race I could save some seconds for to be sub fourty minutes finally. However, this cannot be the how-to at 30th of October in Frankfurt along the 42,195k. "Fleeing" will not work the marathon distance, hunting is said to be better. Anyway, the most important is to be among mates and to have a beer or two, also in Frankfurt, which will be a big race with 15-20000 starters. In Frankfurt, also known as Bankfurt or Mainhatten, some will be dressed like business-men in order to make a fun race out of it and to tease the banksters. 

update two weeks later: Not me! 

Today it is the 16th of October, and having had an accident for the third time in my life two days ago - such a kind of an accident which has to be... - well, when laying on the main-street I just wondered... ...of the why, why again! Secondly I percepted that all the important of the body is not damaged. I was lucky, really, thus the left side, knee, hip, ellow and shoulder had been knocked badly, only, face got also impact my sunglases is in three parts now, only. Not so the left little finger, that is broken. Having "kissed" the asphalt intensively, I managed to cycle home, 15 miles by me I myself, and went to the hospital. 

So that week-end it is decided to quit season and to quit Frankfurt Marathon. And it is okay. A really good season with a lot of peeks is finished and now it is time to regenerate. Sure, if a must, I could do go run marathon. But for what? 

It says: to be satisfied with what you have is true fortune.

Merry Christmas and a happy new year!  CU in 2017!

Challenge Ratisbon 2016 - race report and data

It was a long and great week-end, a good race embedded in holiday-feeling. And also, besides all the great atmosphere, the race itself was joyful and fun.

SWIM

When my group jumped into the water of Lake of Guggenberg, sun wasn´t yet up. I slept well the day and the days before, and ate a lot of carbohydrates, and was really ready to rock, although I did some really hard races from spring to summer already.

The first lap all went well, and after 1,9k athletes had to get out of the water to go run 150m on the shore, for to go enter the second loop in the water 22,5°C , thus wet-suits had been allowed to wear. After some time I got an evil shock, as of my transponder wasn't fixed propperly to my left feet anymore, so I had to make full-stop and refix it under water. I did propperly, however, after another 500-600m, the stripes became loose again, thus 2nd full stop and another diving action. I felt a little panic, as of loosing the transponder I wasn't sure as of if so I would get my first DNF ever. When the end of the swim-split came insight, I felt a little relaxed, kept pacing and overtook an athlete, who did beat at my head by his left fist/hand, thus a full stop 3rd time in order to rearange my aqua-mask (swim-glases). Finally I left the water at 1:06:43 h min sec according to my own clock. I felt ok, however a little disappointed, as I wanted to go swim 1:02 or 1:03 h min. Later, as of gps- data, we found out the swim course was 4.0k. That means minus three min, minus the time I needed to exit the lake and run the 150 meters at the shore in order to enter 2nd loop.

T1

Transition 1 went ok. I wasn`t too fast, nor I wasn't too slow. However, when I wanted to start on my time trial bike, out of a sudden my watch being mounted on the bike did quit service. I tried to repair this, but that did not work but another 30 seconds extra. Thus, with the begin of the bike-split, I had no idea of speed, average-speed, kilometres and time. 

BIKE 

A litte irritated I started biking. The first 13k had been flat, then came the mountains with inclinations of 15% for longer. According to tactics I kept easy pace uphill, and at the peek there came k30-sign besides the road and my watch on my left hand showed 58min. Then downhill I speeded up, bevor the hilly part of the first loop of the bike-course followed. And that went pretty well, a collegue mentioned by this pace we might be at 5:10 h min in transition-zone 2. 

Bypassing lake of Guggenberg the racers of the fun-race had been on the course, and among them I turned right to Ratisbon with them, and not into the 2nd loop! After some time one of that fun racers told me I am wrong direction! And within a glimpse of an eye I recognized he´s right! U-turn, heading the mountains again thus second loop. Had been 1,5 extra kilometers and additional time. The climbs to do for a second time was surprisingly felt easy, however it become hot, so at the aid-station at mountain*s peek, I reloaded a lot: water, isotonic drinks, I took salt, engery gel and energy food, and a banana also. 

The hilly part was still easy to do, but then, at the k150-sign, somehow I lost power, back-pain started as of so many kilometers in aero-position and I wished the run-split might start right now. So the last 30k, especially the last 20k from lake of Guggenberg to Ratisbon had been really hard. When I entered transition-zone 2 my own clock registered 5:34 h min for the bike-split, that was 184km according to my info. Officially it are 182k. So, let`s take the offical version, then plus the 1,5 Kilometers I did extra, ok, this is 183,5 Kilometers for me, right, thus 5k more then the bike-course in Roth (178,6k), and with 1600 meters of elevation not an easy one. 
What to say? When I got off the bike I was okay with bike-split and happy to have left the bike, finally. 

T2

Then, I took my time to change shoes, and get prepared for the run-split. A good idea to take my own packegs of 1g salt each in the back of my race-suit as of salt wasn't served at the run-course. This had been a rather difficult one, a four loops course through the inner city not only. A lot of locals, tourists and fans had been there and altough as of heat it was fun to run. 


RUN

The first 10k I went 49:55 min sec, felt easy for to go the same pace the second loop, and thus at the 21k-mark my own clock showed a time of 1:45 h min. Now I started calculation: so if I could keep that pace, I would really make a good race like 10:15 h min at the end. That meant I could run for the podium in my age-group! However, as of experience, I decided to take out speed a little. And maybe that had been a fatal error! I still felt easy, so for the 3rd lap I decided to be a lillte slower then in round 1 and 2 in order to accelerate in lap 4 again, to save some power for that. To my surprise I became slower and slower! And also bad now, there hadn´t been cola at the aid-stations. On the other hand, if I had kept pacing clocking 5min/k, may be I would have burned out?  This is what is needed to be analysed. 
Anyway, it became hard, heat devastation, a lot of athletes started walking and some quitted the race. The 4th lap was pretty hard and finally, after eternities, the last 200 meters had been ahead, close to the Dome of Saint Peter. A lot of people had been in the little stadium there, and with the music I started to dance to the beat, before onto the last 30meters I spread arms to imitate a landing plane, waving with it´s wings, before I happily crossed the finish-line.

My marathon was 4:04 finally, I planned to be 20 min faster within the marathon. However, as of the heat, it seems ok. Finally the clock stopped at 10:53:01 h min sec, and I became 100th overall.

Race after was great. A lot of nice people gathered, there was a many twaddling and smiles among athletes from 32 nations, on Monday at winner´s ceremony as well.

Last but not least, ty to the organizers for everything, esp. thank you very much to race directors Tom and Sonja Tajsich for having born a perfect triathlon!!! Good luck to you for next year! (*)

-- *when this race is location for the Europian Championships along the 226k. 

splits, click image to enlarge 

!Ratisbon likes me and I like Ratisbon!