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. ...

… 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: ...

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.

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. ...

…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: ...

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. ...