Results

Who would have thought I’d ever get to start a race report with a headline like that?!?!??! I earned my World Championship qualification in May at Ironman Lanzarote. Four weeks later I raced Challenge Kraichgau (1.9km – 90km – 21km), and four weeks after that I stood on the start line at Challenge Roth (3.8km – 180km – 42km). After that came a longer break and a significantly longer and better preparation for the Ironman World Championship in Hawaii. ...

First it comes differently, and second differently than you’d think… That’s more or less how my 12th long-distance race can be summed up in a nutshell. On Friday before the race I traveled to Roth, and the moment I arrived the special atmosphere was already palpable. By far the best that the triathlon world has to offer. Picking up race registration went smoothly, then back to the hotel to be there in time for the pasta party. Among other things, there was this to eat: ...

Last Sunday I raced Challenge Kraichgau over 1.9km swim, 90km bike and 21.1km run. My 9th start at this event — more than at any other race. In previous years I’ve always used this race as a training tune-up for the main season goal, racing it straight out of a training block. This year the dynamics were different — my season highlight was already 4 weeks ago. To still have some meaningful comparison with previous years I trained fully through the two weeks prior, as preparation for the next race (Challenge Roth). Those two weeks were among the harder ones — not because the training was so different or longer, but simply because I was hitting a wall after about 30-45 minutes in every single session. In short: nothing was working. ...

Before the actual race report I want to briefly explain how I ended up at Ironman Lanzarote — since I got asked about it a lot and the answer usually drew raised eyebrows. As if Ironman races weren’t already hard enough… The decision came almost two years ago, after I’d again missed Hawaii qualification in Frankfurt by just a few seconds. The following year (2013) was supposed to have no Ironman on the schedule — a new qualification attempt was planned for the new age group in 2014. Instead, I only wanted to do Roth in 2013, and for 2014 I was looking for an Ironman with tough conditions and a hard course — figuring I’d have better chances there. With those criteria I went searching — Nice, Wales and Lanzarote were in the final shortlist. Nice was ruled out due to the too-easy run course; Wales would have been the perfect choice but since I’d already raced there, it ended up being Lanzarote. ...

See you in Kona, Hawaii, October 2014: A full race report will follow in the next few days.

…it would have been a new personal best over the half marathon distance, but only just — 3 seconds short. Still, I’m very happy with it. The reasons why: The time came straight out of training — by Saturday I already had 15 training hours in my legs, including a 5-hour brick session the day before I ran the downhill sections noticeably more cautiously than last year and took no risks I almost got lost once, and only a spectator shouting after me and pointing me right saved it (cost about 5 seconds) The “old” PB came from 2010 in Mannheim — famously a completely flat course I improved my old Heidelberg PB from the previous year by 2 minutes and 31 seconds I improved my overall finish position to 16th place The bare numbers: ...

…or what’s been a long time coming finally works out… Ever since I switched from pure cyclist to triathlete about 8 years ago, I’ve had this dream of the legendary Hawaii — the mecca of all triathletes and venue of the annual Ironman Triathlon World Championship. My goal was to get there within five years, but I hadn’t counted on so much bad luck and such fierce competition: My first long-distance start in 2007 at Challenge Roth went according to plan — sub-10 was the goal and I hit it almost exactly with a total time of 9:59:39h The second long-distance year was marked by lots of running injuries and correspondingly little run training, which made the time of 10:12:58h at Challenge Roth all the more remarkable 2009 was similarly injury-plagued as the year before, again with plenty of running injuries. A DNF at Challenge Kraichgau and a failed first serious Hawaii qualification attempt at Ironman Austria were the results After recovering from those injuries, 2010 was my best year yet — at Ironman Frankfurt I improved my personal best to 9:36:19h. And that’s when the strong competition thing kicked in… I missed qualification for Hawaii by about 90 seconds. I spent the rest of the year running my very first solo marathon in 2:56:15h 2011 was actually a perfect year — no injuries, new personal bests, everything just clicked. New PBs at the Heidelberg Half Marathon, Challenge Kraichgau and Ironman Frankfurt. I improved my previous year’s time by another 18 minutes to 9:18:55h, but still didn’t qualify — missing by a ridiculous 13 seconds. Another qualification attempt at Ironman Wales failed thanks to three flat tires on the bike 2012 was plagued by running injuries and lots of missed training again. I just barely got my act together for Ironman Frankfurt and was in reasonably decent shape at the start, but then rode myself into the ground on the bike and had to pay for it on the run. Despite everything, I still improved my PB by another three minutes to 9:15:39h. And as you can probably guess — again about 30 seconds too slow for Hawaii. After all of that, I had actually decided not to make another qualification attempt this year and to focus fully on Challenge Roth. Back to the roots, back home to what I consider the best triathlon event in the world. I boldly checked the “Sub-9” box when registering — the goal was clear. Preparation went really well, aside from a small weakness in swimming. That was factored in and not unexpected given the training load. ...

Last weekend I raced at Ironman Frankfurt — my 7th race over the full distance of 3.8km swimming, 180km cycling, and 42.2km running. It turned out to be my best race in terms of time, but one of my worst in terms of execution. How did it come to that? In early October 2011 I started the direct build for the race, with the focus on running and cycling. For running, my primary goal was to run every single day. I kept that up for nearly 40 days — at least 15 minutes every day, with one longer session per week. After that I scaled back to 3–5 times a week. On the bike I worked fairly intensively in the early phase to push my threshold power up. That was relatively successful and I’d already made good progress in both running and cycling. ...

… those are the cold hard numbers from yesterday’s race, the last test before Ironman Frankfurt. Or in other words: my very first age group win at a triathlon, and my second-best overall placing ever!!! Much more rested than two weeks ago at the Challenge Kraichgau, I stood on the start line this time to run one last test of the pacing and my form. With the first start wave I went into the water — the cold and murky Neckar. From the beginning things went pretty well for my standards; I managed to stay out of the brawl and quickly found a good draft. I held that for the full 2 kilometers, coming out of the water relatively relaxed in 29:40. ...

… or slow start, strong finish?!?!? Both pretty much characterize the key points of my race, but more on that later. After the workload of the previous days I was anything but rested at the start line — quite the opposite of last year when the race came at the end of a rest week and I was fresh. My priorities were therefore mostly on nutrition and equipment, with a faster time than last year being a bonus. ...