2013

…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. ...