A hot day at the Vulkanlandtriathlon

Last Sunday my calendar told me to do the Vulkanlandtriathlon. The fact that this was the last race in June made my motivation increase even more.

The temperature has been about 30°C for the last days so it was crystal clear that wet suits won’t be allowed for most (or even all) of the triathlon competitions in Austria on this weekend. Therefore, I went to Wildon to by myself a new tri suit at the local Cocoon store (unfortunately without my sponsor logos on it – therefore, there is a picture before the start with the tri top).

Picture with the tri top - for my sponsors :)
Picture with the tri top – for my sponsors 🙂

After a tough Saturday afternoon and night and insufficient sleep I was very relaxed and did not expect too much – let’s see what will happen at this day with these circumstances.

At the swim start I went to the front two rows of the field so that I can make my best from the start on. Luckily, there were no fights where I was involved in and hence I could swim my tempo almost from the beginning – except my twist to the left side that I got under control but is still with me .

At the swim exit © Tribild.at
At the swim exit © Tribild.at

My split time for the swim was about 13 minutes and after a very quick stop in the transition zone (< 1 min!), I started my bike split.

My tempo on the bike was very good from the begin to the end although I did not feel that easy for me. I tried to keep some energy buffer because I knew that there was a climb at the end of the course.

At the climb @ Tribild.at
At the climb @ Tribild.at

After little bit more than 40 minutes I was in the transition area back again.

After another fast split in the transition zone I tried to do my best on the running course. The climb up into the town city of Riegersburg was very hard but I tried to run all of it. Thank’s very much to the crew at the refreshing areas at the running course – you really did your best to make it mor comfortable for us athletes!

Almost at the finishline © Tribild.at
Almost at the finishline © Tribild.at

After 1:20:37,5 I finished the 5th Vulkanlandtriathlon as 9th of my age group and 24 overall. I am very happy because I gained 5 minutes against the time of 2014 here on this course although wet suits were not allowed!

First start on an sprint triathlon and already without wet suit.
First start on a sprint triathlon and already without wet suit.

Further photos will be uploaded soon.

For further results click here!

Run for Leukämiehilfe 2015 – new 5km personal record

On thursday the great news for this small running event. Although, the performances of all the athletes have been great for all the years but this year one could expect an improvement because the former Hawaii champion Faris Al-Sultan is going to participate in this years’ run.

My goals for the race were:
1. Get a photo with Faris Al-Sultan and
2. Set a new personal record on the 5km track (estimated under 4:00 min/km)

Before the start of 13th run for styrian Leukämiehilfe with Faris Al-Sultan from Pewag Racing Team.
Before the start of 13th run for Styrian Leukämiehilfe with Faris Al-Sultan from Pewag Racing Team.

After I have gotten my photograph about half an hour before start, I could concentrate on my own performance. Right after that I started my 10 minutes warm-up program around the course.
After the start I tried to stay in the top group as long as possible but the speed was enormous (3:15 min/km or less).

Pass of the starting area to begin the second lap around the park of Castle Eggenberg.
Pass of the starting area to begin the second lap around the park of Castle Eggenberg.

Therefore, I had to let them go after the first of five kilometers but still my speed was very good. At the end of the first lap I still felt very good and confident to finish with an overall speed of below 4:00 min/km. The fourth kilometer my feeling turned from good to not-so-good and I really had to fight to hold up the speed.

Feeling exhausted after a short but hard run.
Feeling exhausted after a short but hard run.

At the end I finished with a time of 17:54,65 on 12th position in overall ranking and on 2nd place of my age group (M20).

Satisfied with both my time and my 2nd place.
Satisfied with both my time and my 2nd place.

Further results please click here!

Sprinttriathlon in Stubenberg am See on a rainy Saturday morning

Like the title already tells was the weather not very good when I woke up on Saturday but as I am not allergic to rain I though what else will I do than participating at this triathlon.

At first when I arrived the weather was surprisingly nice and I could see the sun for a few minutes. After some time the weather forecast became true and it started to rain and a slight wind came up.

I did some kilometers on my bike before doing my bike into the transition zone and after a few kilometers running I went to the race briefing.

Exactly at 9:30 the sprint distance started – contrary to last year the start was performed from the ground not from the water. Although I had problems during the swim to keep on a streight direction on the course I could finish the swim after 13:07.

After a short transition from swim to bike I had to go 20km in very tough conditions. Additionally I had some problems with my visor of my helmet – it somehow “broke” so that I could not move it upwards and it did also not click into the place back again. I just hoped that it does not break further and tried to focus on the biking because it was very slippery on the road and I did not want to risk a crash. I arrived in the transition zone back after 36 minutes almost frozen to death but very happy to arrive without an accident.
At the exit of the transition area I was already (too) focused on the running split so that I slipped due to the slither lawn. I tried to keep my pace constant at about 4:00 min/km or below, which was a good decision because I could keep the pace up and finish this rainy race with a time of 1:11:01 on the 13th place of the overall ranking and on the 6th place of my class MK-M25-M.

Further results Click here!

Transition training on holiday

Yesterday I finally did a (from my point of view, as far as I can say) very good performance test on the ergometer (every four minutes increase of 40W) – I made the whole step with 360W.

After this I got a massage to get rid of my very annoing should problems on the right hand side.

20150514_124857Today I had some transition training on my schedule: 6 times 15 minutes on the bike and another 5 minutes run each at different intensity levels.

Competition season opener 2015

Some time has passed since my last post here. The reason for this is simple: I have tried to focus on the training and the preparation for the upcoming competitions. After the camp in Mallorca I went to another doctor to clarify for myself how to proceed with my knee injury. Same as the second, also the third doctor told me not to do a surgery and try to do some running and see how the knee behaves.

Already at the first running attempts I recognised that there is neither pain in the knee nor is there any swelling after the training.

On this saturday afternoon the first competition of this season in Großsteinbach took place – if somebody had told me that 2 months ago I would never have thought of this.

© triaguide.com. I can still laugh so i must be before the start.
© triaguide.com. I can still laugh so i must be before the start.

Twelve minutes after the start of wave number two I got into the transition area for the first time even tough I had some troubles at begin.

© triaguide.com. On the bike after the transition.
© triaguide.com. On the bike after the transition.

The bike course had some very tough parts however, after 40 minutes on the bike I could come to change my equipment for the second.

After finally finding my running shoes I could start the 5k track and see whether my knee endures.

© triaguide.com. Right before the finish line.
© triaguide.com. Right before the finish line.

I finished the run in 21 minutes with a pace of 4:14/km. All in all I finished on the 67th place and in my age group 12th in 1:14:50.

Thank’s a lot to Hans and Triaguide.com for the great pictures. Another will hopefully follow soon.

For results take a look at the PDF file.

Mallorca 2015 – second half

Day 6:

P1100447On Wednesday our plan said that it is time a day off.

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Already when I woke up in the morning I noticed that there was a severe storm and heavy rain on the outside.  P1100450

Luckily we had our day of rest on this day :).P1100444

Unfortunately the circumstances in our hotel room were not much better than outside. The thermometer of my Garmin said 11°C.P1100445

I used the time to do some planning for the tours of the following days. Later I did some stabilization exercises follow by stretching.P1100446

Day 7:

The weather got a little better but it was still cold after it rained one whole day. Today we went once again to Porto Cristo via Arta, from where we went to San Salvador.

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Day 8:

Good news already in the morning – there was the sun! The weather got better and better and also the temperature increased. Therefore, we planned to do our first longer tour in the mountains in the west of the island.

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Via Lluc, where we had a short but very nice break to have some coffee, we went to Soller.

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In Soller we spontaneously decided do increase the tour to Deia and Valldemossa, which ment that we have some more kilometres and also some more difference in altitude but that’s still the reason why we were in Mallorca.

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CAMERAThese two small towns, especially Deia, were worth the trouble although the way back home was very tough. We happily found a group of bikers from Easytour who went directly back to Can Picafort. Without them we wouldn’t have made it home that fast – huge thank’s once again by the way!

At the end of the day the tour had 158km and 2000alt on my Garmin.

Day 9:

The time was right for our second tour in the mountains. This time to Sa Calobra, where we had a coffee break.

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With new energy we took the way back uphill via several serpentine. Back on the top the way back home was via Lluc and Pollenca back to the hotel. IMG_20150328_130142IMG_20150328_130243At the end of the penultimate day we had: 940km and 9600alt.

Day 10:

Our goal for today was to reach 1000km and 10000alt.  Therefore we decided to go once again towards Cap Formentor. Exactly at 30km we turned our bikes and went back towards the hotel. The first stop we made was in Formentor.CAMERACAMERACAMERA

In Port Pollenca we made our second and larger break to have a coffee, beer respectively. Sun was shining while we rode the bikes for a last time back to the hotel where we had to prepare some things for our flight back home.CAMERACAMERA

All in all it was a very nice and successful trainings-camp with lots of kilometres. The weather was not very nice during the first half of the trip but further the circumstances were great. Mallorca is worth a trip by bike aside from Ballermann and drinking holidays.

Mallorca 2015 – first half

Day 1:

Before take-off one can already see the different size of our luggage.P1100432 P1100434

After arriving at the airport of Palma de Mallorca and receiving all our bags we started our journey to the hotel by bus with a little delay. Unluckily we were the last who were dropped off at our hotel; hence it was almost 5 o’clock when we entered the hotel’s front door. After we got our key at the reception we entered our room. We immediately noticed a very cold and humid climate in our room. We were in a hurry the get our bikes from a local store so we did not have time to think a lot about it.
The two Canyon Roadlite AL, one in size XS (with SRAM shifting) and the other in size L (with Shimano 105 shifting), were quite nice, even though the service at Active Mallorca was not very good. If we had not said anything the guy there would have let us go with only 2 bars in our tires. Moreover, we had to do all adjustments on our bikes for ourselves.
At dinner we got to know a guy from Mark Hartmannsdorf and received some important tips for the time while we are here. He told us that there are wet conditions in the hotel rooms according to missing radiators in the whole hotel.

Day 2:

After our first breakfast we left the hotel with the Styrian guy at 10 o’clock to go on our first tour.CAMERAWe left Can Picafort towards Arta, to come to the monastery of Betlem. After we refilled our bottles from a special fountain near the monastery, we took the small road back to Arta and then to Capdepera and Son Servera towards Porto Cristo.

CAMERAThen we took the way back home via Manacor to Can Picafort.CAMERA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IMG_20150321_113104During taking some pictures of a goat …

… I dropped my phone and destroyed its display …

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After this I additionally did 2,3k swim in a public swimming pool near Can Picafort.

 

 

Day 3:

CAMERAThe weather was getting a little better. Our plan was to do a tour with less altitude so that we would have enough energy left for the whole week. After the breakfast we rode our (rent) bikes to Petra, Santa Maria and Sa Pobla. At the end of the day we had 120km and 627m difference in altitude on our bike computer.   CAMERACAMERA

 

 

 

 

 

 

After this I once again went to the swimming pool and did a 3k swim.

Day 4:

It was a cloudy but still warm Monday morning and today we wanted to do a larger tour. I found tour shaped like an eight from Can Picafort  via Esporles to Palma de Mallorca and via Orient and Alcudia back. A tour that has 171km and some altitude meters as well.

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Day 5:

The weather got worse and the previous trainings session made us feel tired on this morning nevertheless, we did a short tour this morning to Cap Formentor.

CAMERACAMERA At first there was just wind and low temperatures but no rain. The closer we came towards the northwest cape the heavier it rained.  The wind got stronger and it was not very comfortable out there. We took some pictures and returned our tour back home to the hotel.  CAMERABack in the hotel we got another 101km. We were very happy with the amount of training we have done until the half of the trainings-camp.

 

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