Zell Sprint Duathlon

I hadn’t planned on doing Zell, as it is a team sprint and as I may have mentioned before, my swimming isn’t that good.  It turned out though that the 2nd team didn’t have enough people to make a team without me, and due to high water levels in the Mosel, it was changed into being a Duathlon, absolutely perfect for me.

I had done a little online stalking of my team mates, I know Stephan already, he is a great runner and biker, Volker seems like he must be very good, he was in Hawaii and still runs fast, then there was Marco, who ran a 4h+ marathon in Mainz, it seemed like he might be out limiting factor.  We met up in Mombach at 8am and headed to Zell, which is about an hours drive away.  Heiko was with us and was racing in the 1st team, that race started much earlier, hence the early start.  We were there at 9am and it was pretty clear why we wouldn’t be swimming, the current was crazy!  I reckon you could float 750m in about 12 minutes in that stream!

We had a little chat about our tactics when we were all there, I suggested that we run our first 2.6km at 10km race pace, then ride like crazy and run the 2nd 5,2km run as fast as we can, whilst staying together.  Marco said that he thought 4:30/km would be ok for him, so that was out plan.  We watched the Regionalliga and saw that Konrad was doing great and the others were giving their all too, our race started at 11:55 with a mass start.  We started at a good pace, but not over doing it, we were just over 4:00/km and Marco seemed ok, so we held about 4:05/km for the 2,6km.  We weren’t first place, but we were far from last too, so it was ok.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Continue reading “Zell Sprint Duathlon”

Wallertheim 10km 2016 – 2nd Place

On Thursday when I went for a run, my knee started hurting a few km from the end.  It was pretty painful, but went away after a few minutes.  On Friday I ran to work, and it happened again, and again when I ran home, not ideal and I considered having a few days off running to let it heal.  Wallertheim 10k isn’t the most important race of the year for me, so I could run it or not, no problem.  I did worry that if I didn’t run, the fast guys wouldn’t turn up and I would miss my chance to win the race.  Then on Friday evening Jochen said that he would run too, so it was decided, I would run.

On Saturday morning Jochen wrote again, he wouldn’t run, he drank too much on Friday night, so I thought I would just cycle, I got ready to ride, then saw another message, Jochen would run after all, but he would drive to the start, so I put my running stuff in my bag, and cycled to Wallertheim. Continue reading “Wallertheim 10km 2016 – 2nd Place”

Regionalliga – Woogsprint Triathlon

This is what I have been dreading for a long time, my first Regionalliga race, a higher league that the ones I did last year, and what is worse is that it is a ITU style race, i.e. it is draft legal and it is a dry start, with us diving into the water.  The draft legal bit is bad for me, as it means that I, as a bad swimmer, will be behind the main groups riding alone, whereas they can ride easily and quickly in a group.  The diving in start was also a bit worrying, my goggle never seem to stay in place when I dive in!  It isn’t the biggest problem in the world, but a worry nonetheless.

I was hoping that wetsuits would be allowed, apparently it would be borderline, but on the morning of the race I heard that they would be allowed, phew. Continue reading “Regionalliga – Woogsprint Triathlon”