Originally written in German. Translated to English by AI — please excuse any awkward phrasing.
Sunday is one of my favorite races: Challenge Kraichgau. The distance is 1.9km swimming in the Hardtsee lake in Ubstadt-Weiher, 90km cycling on challenging and scenic routes through the Kraichgau, and 21.1km running on a 7km loop in Bad Schönborn.
I was only a spectator at the first edition of the Kraichgau Triathlon, but I’ve raced every edition since — across different distances and with mixed results. Everything from new PRs to DNFs has been in there.
What am I expecting this year? It should be the first real form test of the season, and of course I want to beat my time from last year. The motto: faster, higher, further. I’ll be pretty well rested at the start — the race falls at the end of a recovery week. That’s promising signs for a strong performance.
The individual disciplines in detail:
My swim fitness should be about the same as last year, though I’ve only been open-water swimming once. I have some catching up to do there, but a time just under 30 minutes should be doable.
On the bike I’m expecting another step forward. Training sessions have gone very well and I’ve been able to increase my output compared to last year. And then there’s the improved equipment, which should also contribute to a faster bike split. Sub-2:30h is the ambitious target.
On the run I expect the biggest improvement. Part of that is because I had a pretty poor run performance last year and really faded in the final kilometers. But my run fitness has also genuinely improved since then — thanks to Greif and his marathon training plan. A sub-1:30h is definitely realistic; a 1:25h if things go absolutely perfectly.
The bike is already set up — this is the configuration I’ll be racing with on Sunday.