Finally, right before the next events all my race suits are ready 🙂
Tag Archives: #schlugait
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).
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 .
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.
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!
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!
Further photos will be uploaded soon.
For further results click here!
A visit in Klagenfurt
For preparation for Sunday I went on a trip to Klagenfurt to take a look and ride the 90km course of the Ironman Austria bike course.
Here some impressions of the beautiful Thursday in Carinthia:
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)
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).
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.
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).
Further results please 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.
Today 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.
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.
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.
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:
On Wednesday our plan said that it is time a day off.
Already when I woke up in the morning I noticed that there was a severe storm and heavy rain on the outside. 
Luckily we had our day of rest on this day :).
Unfortunately the circumstances in our hotel room were not much better than outside. The thermometer of my Garmin said 11°C.
I used the time to do some planning for the tours of the following days. Later I did some stabilization exercises follow by stretching.
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.
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.
Via Lluc, where we had a short but very nice break to have some coffee, we went to Soller.
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.
These 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.
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. 
At 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.
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.
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.
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.
We 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.
Then we took the way back home via Manacor to Can Picafort.
During taking some pictures of a goat …
… I dropped my phone and destroyed its display …
After this I additionally did 2,3k swim in a public swimming pool near Can Picafort.
Day 3:
The 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. 
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.
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.
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. 
Back 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.
Before Mallorca 2015
Tomorrow I will take off towards the training camp in Mallorca. Fro 10 days I will improve my bike and swim skills on the Balearic island depending on what happened to my knee.
After the news that my bike bag has to stay at home, I have to try to get my stuff with me somehow.
I will try to put some posts online during the trip. Nevertheless, there will be a large report at the end of the journey after I have arrived at home.
By the way take a quick look at my new pages about my equipment!!!
Frustration handling during the first road bike session in 2015
Yesterday some things did not work out as we would have expected it:
After some weeks of staying in contact with Air Berlin concerning taking our bikes to the camp in Mallorca, they now told us (via our traveling provider WTA) that we could not take our bike with us. The gave us two options instead of traveling without our bikes:
(1) that we cancel our flight from Graz and book another one from Vienna where we have to overtake all the costs of more than 400€.
(2) that we cancel the whole journey and overtake a cancellation penalty of more than 600€ (75%).
I already started to look for some rent bikes because for me those options aren’t real options.
Today we did some frustration handling during my first outdoor road bike session in 2015. In 3 hours we made about 90km – quite ok for the first time this year. The only thing that stands between the camp is the booking of some bikes.
Feel free to contact me via commentary if you have some suggestions, tips or information regarding the bikes in Mallorca.