Misc

Part 1 of the journey is successfully behind us. From home with a fully loaded car to Frankfurt Hahn airport, then Ryanair to London Stansted. From there by rental car to Reading, west of London — our first stop. Other things I learned along the way: Airplane landings can sometimes be pretty rough An Opel Astra isn’t what it used to be — not much space in the trunk at all. The bike case barely fit with the back seats folded down The clutch starts to smell pretty bad when you floor it in reverse Driving on the left really isn’t that bad when you’re just the passenger ;) On Friday we continue to Wales.

Since Frankfurt I’ve mostly been eating a lot, sleeping, and being lazy. The last 10 days included 4 complete rest days, topped off with plenty of chocolate, ice cream, fried food, brownies, steaks, cake, and even more chocolate… That was a nice change of pace for once, but since Thursday real life has started up again and I’ve been back to training diligently. I actually wanted to get going again Wednesday, but stupidly an e-bike got dangerously close during an easy Tuesday ride — so I had to give everything I had just to stay safe. Luckily it barely worked out, but one day the e-bike gods will have their revenge and I’ll have to admit defeat on a climb… ...

On short notice I’ve decided to race the Ironman in Wales on September 11th. To be upfront: this will be an experiment — I have no idea how it’ll go. Arguments for doing it: Good current form — maybe I can hold onto it until then The knowledge and experience you gain from it Ending the year on a positive note Another shot at the Hawaii qualification for 2012 — hopefully none of the strong competition will be there Beautiful scenery for the race Arguments against: ...

… and Groundhog Day strikes again … Last year I missed the World Championship qualification by a laughable 96 seconds. This year it would be an even more mind-boggling 13 seconds … simply unbelievable. Especially if you were there for the slot allocation — it was completely detached from reality. In every other age group, roughly 30% of athletes declined their slot — in some age groups it was even over 50%. And then my age group comes up and the unthinkable happens. Every single person placed ahead of me takes the slot. Every. Single. One. I’ve never seen that before, and many of the others there said the same thing… ...

Today the schedule called for a 30-minute bike session and a 15-minute run, each with 2 very short intervals. After that the bags were packed and it was off to check-in. That’s always interesting — 90% of the people there have top-end gear and look like they’re about to win the race tomorrow.

Yesterday at noon we finally headed off to the race — together with my training buddy Tobi I made my way to Frankfurt. The drive went smoothly and traffic-free, so we arrived right on time for the race briefing. During the drive, each of us had a very interesting top-tier piece of information to contribute: My mouth holds just under 60ml, meaning I need to take two big sips per minute from my aero bottle to hit my nutrition targets 30g of extra weight in a running shoe, at a cadence of 168 and a run time of 3:30h, amounts to an additional 1,058kg you have to lift (kindly measured and calculated by Tobi) The race briefing had some interesting news. Right after that we went to pick up our race packets, which went pretty quickly and smoothly, so we made it to the hotel just before 6pm — and headed right back out again a short time later for the pasta party. ...

Probably the best news after a very hard training week: I get to start in Wave 1 at Ironman Frankfurt!!!! That’s really, really, really great news — only about 500 people are swimming at the same time in Wave 1, compared to 2,000 in Wave 2. That’s the best possible setup for a good race. Let the games begin…

The race marshals at the Challenge Kraichgau bike check-in were very thorough — and they found something. My TT helmet is defective and I’m not allowed to race with it tomorrow. The reason: two approximately 5mm-long “cracks in the outer shell” (direct quote from the marshal), which can no longer guarantee safety… The initial shock was significant, especially because I don’t quite see it the way the marshal does. In principle he’s right — there’s a crack, and that’s against the rules. BUT: the underlying material is completely undamaged and just as solid as before the crack. It really is just a crack in that 1mm-thick outer shell… ...