Rain on Hawaii — a first for me… Good that the bike is already checked in, not so good that the helmet is hanging on the bike completely wrong: Then again, maybe I should just choose the following ride tomorrow — then a wet helmet wouldn’t matter much anyway:
Finally here…. ….not entirely according to plan — 4 hours late and in the middle of the night, but here. The departure from Frankfurt and arrival in San Francisco were still on schedule, but unfortunately the connecting flight to Kona kept getting pushed back further and further, so we didn’t arrive there until around 1:30am local time and weren’t at the hotel until about 3am. At least I could still get 3 hours of sleep in an actual bed — sleeping on airplane seats and airport benches isn’t really restful. ...
… when you realize you have a flat tire and 20 minutes before this happened …. Shit happens … First flat tire of the year with this bike — not a big deal in itself, if only the outer cap of the pump valve hadn’t unscrewed itself 20 minutes earlier (the rest stayed on the bike), fallen onto the road, and gotten run over by a car immediately after…
Questions upon questions — still no clear answers on the remaining races for 2014. A look at the already (or not-so-already) confirmed schedule: Challenge Kraichgau on June 15, 2014 Challenge Roth on July 20, 2014 Heidelbergman as relay cyclist on July 27, 2014 Pacemakers cycling marathon over 342km on August 2, 2014 Another middle distance race in September Ironman Hawaii on October 11, 2014 If I hadn’t qualified for Hawaii everything would be a bit simpler… Well, first world problems, as they say. Since I want to start in better shape there this time, the question now is how to structure the preparation. Without another Ironman that would certainly be easier, but I also don’t want to skip the start in Roth. Everything on the list above stays except Challenge Roth — that’s the only open question. A middle distance race always works — you can manage that reasonably well. Same with the 40km relay in Heidelberg. The 342km is a different beast, but in the end the only damage is a sore backside. For Roth there are essentially 3 options: ...
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. ...
After two weeks of training camp on Lanzarote I’m back in cold Germany. The camp went really well — better than last year — but was also pretty exhausting. For all those who stayed home, I put on my cameraman hat and filmed the best sections of the route. See for yourselves… From the Haria radar station to Teguise: a short high-speed stretch where you can hit 90+ km/h. Unfortunately followed by a 180-degree hairpin… ...
Lanzarote extreme. It’s Sunday, February 16th, 2014. It was to become one of the most memorable riding days of my life… The conditions: better weather than the day before, fewer rain showers, but still more than enough wind. So much wind that I thought multiple times about whether to even get on the bike at all. Four hours on the bike — why do I do this to myself. 60-80 km/h winds as the baseline, gusts happily exceeding that. ...
The lazing-around phase is well and truly over… it was nice, but after 5 extra kilos and a complete loss of fitness, enough is enough. I’ve been back in regular training for almost three weeks now — the first 2.5 weeks felt like I’d never moved a muscle in my life. But this week the switch finally flipped for the first time: suddenly I’m running 25 seconds per kilometer faster, swimming 2 seconds per 25m faster, no more bonking after 2 hours on the bike, etc. Happy for that to keep going — the switch still has several positions to go before I’m back to full form. ...