Originally written in German. Translated to English by AI — please excuse any awkward phrasing.
So, tomorrow is the big day — the tension is slowly building. The last training session was swept away by the wind, garnished with rain showers and lots of wet, dirty roads.
Right afterward it was time to clean the bike.
In the afternoon it was time for bike check-in, which is right on the coast at a pretty high and completely exposed location. I briefly held my bike up with one hand in the transition zone and couldn’t put it back down — it basically hovered horizontally in the wind… that’s a first for me.
The swim will be relocated to North Beach as hinted yesterday — the waves at the other beach were too high and therefore too dangerous. This makes the run from T1 to transition over a kilometer longer, since you now have to run all the way across town. That requires a separate pair of running shoes — which you can’t run the marathon in. Luckily I have a second pair with me. The marathon will be shortened by the distance to T1, bringing it to 41km.
I’m very curious about the race — the only prediction I can make is: this will probably be the hardest race of my career, even harder than this year’s IM Germany.