Originally written in German. Translated to English by AI — please excuse any awkward phrasing.
Today was the first triathlon of the season: 1km swim, 32km bike, and 7.5km run.
Not my favorite distance, but a good way to kick off the season. The main goal was to identify where the weaknesses still are. After a fairly demanding training week — including a brutal brick session on Wednesday, a 30km run on Friday, and a 5km swim plus 15km run on Saturday — I raced this one straight out of training with no taper. So it was clear beforehand that I couldn’t pull out my full potential, especially since I’d also spent 2 hours on the bike that Sunday morning before the race.
The swim went fine — not much of a brawl at the start. I could swim at a decent pace without too much interference and came out of the water after 16:30 in 20th place. The first transition was a complete disaster: first I couldn’t get the wetsuit off (the timing chip was in the way), then I struggled to mount the bike. There’s definitely work to do there.
The bike leg didn’t have much to do with fair racing. A group of about 8 riders formed pretty quickly and stayed together until the end. I tried to break away twice but failed both times — someone always sat on my wheel. So I decided toward the end of the first lap to just cruise along with the group and drop them on the run. After 49:11 I was back in transition, averaging 39.1 km/h — a whopping 240 watts. For reference: last year at Ironman Frankfurt I averaged 220 watts over 5 hours.
The bike-to-run transition was also a mess — I couldn’t get my shoe buckle open, so I ran through T2 in my cycling shoes. On the run I quickly gained 6 places in the first two kilometers, but then had to accept that there was nothing more ahead of me. I backed off the pace a bit since there was no pressure from behind either. Final run time: 27:12.
I finished in a total time of 1:36:16, 9th overall and 2nd in my age group.
Summary:
- Mixed bag overall
- Transitions were terrible
- Swim and run were fine
- Bike was… let’s not talk about that
Thanks to everyone who cheered out there!