Originally written in German. Translated to English by AI — please excuse any awkward phrasing.
In 6 days the first season highlight arrives — Ironman Lanzarote.
Bags are packed, Tuesday we head to the Canary Islands for the second time this year.
What can we expect?
Simple question, complicated answer. I won’t be making any time predictions — the conditions there, especially on the bike, are just too unpredictable for that.
Overall I feel pretty well prepared — training went as planned to 99.8%. Thanks in no small part to the weather, or rather the complete absence of winter — can’t complain about that.
The disciplines one by one:
Swimming
Something has shifted over the winter — how that translates into race performance, we’ll see. I’m genuinely curious myself. Either way it was very educational to watch myself swim again for once…
Cycling
No positive or negative surprises expected here — bike fitness is similar to last year. Not much worse, but not decisively better either. It will definitely be very hard — a lot of patience and self-control required.
Running
The last long sessions went surprisingly well — even fasted in the morning, 2:15h was no problem. Speed has also returned, the last brick sessions suggest solid and stable run fitness. Same with the Heidelberg Half Marathon result and the time improvement over the previous year. Current marathon PB in Ironman sits at 3:02h — at some point the 3-hour barrier has to fall, right?
Summary:
Best possible preparation — now it’s just about executing on race day!