This was to be my A-race, I would really train and go for it. Around 4:00 was the goal, I could do it! Well that was the thinking when I signed up for the race ages agon, but as you may have read in my posts this year, I suck!
I just can’t get it together so, although I would be giving my all, I wasn’t expecting the race of my life in Frankfurt. So, I went and signed in on Saturday in Frankfurt city centre with a (for basically no reason) pissed off Katja. I then headed to my hotel in Langen and she went shopping.
The race started at 6:30, which meant I had to leave the hotel in the dark and ride 4km through the forest to the start. Luckily I didn’t crash or get a puncture so all was good. I met Robert and we started pretty close to each other.
The start was rolling, the pros went off at 6:30, I started at 6:39. Luckily the water temperature had fallen a lot in the last week, it was 26.9°C last week but on race day was 23.2°C, so I was in my wetsuit. I felt like I swam pretty well, I overtook lots of people and felt ok. My arms still felt a bit full after 1km, so I tried a few strokes of backstroke, that didn’t help at all!
So after finding some legs, I got out of the 2km swim after 37 mins, not great. I took the transition far too slowly and had a 500m run to my bike. I got going quite quickly and after maybe 2km passed Lisa from work. I was generally overtaking rather than being overtaken, which is something!
The first lap is the longest, but I felt fine and my average was about 36km/h. I actually managed to increase that over the laps to about 37km/h, which was a bit better than expected, even though the route is completely flat and 40km/h should be possible.
Soon enough I was done with the bike and in T2. I felt quite alright, but started thinking negatively pretty early on. I realised that I haven’t run 20km in a single run since Mainz Half Marathon in May, and even that was a nightmare! I quickly decided to implement my run 9m15, walk 45 seconds plan from Roth 2017.
The first lap was fine, the 2nd also ok, but I knew things were getting worse. In the 3rd lap I needed the toilet, but my zip on my trisuit was broken. I couldn’t open it during my walk breaks, so I decided that when I finally reached a toilet, I would just try to wriggle out of it.
Well I tried, but I failed! I then went to a helper and asked if they could open the zip, they couldn’t. So I told them to rip it open. The female helper couldn’t do that, so a guy came and tore it open for me. After the toilet break, it had cost me more than 3 minutes!
The last lap was slow as hell and I wasn’t having fun anymore, but I got around and finished in 4h27.
Robert had had a pretty good day and did a 4:12, which he was happy with. Mark passed my on the run in the 3rd lap and Heiko had started as a pro and stayed ahead of me all day.
After the race I was done, I wanted to drop out of Neuwied in 2 weeks and really reconsider my triathlon hobby. I just suck so bad this year! The season is nearly over anyway, so I can see it out and keep on delivering crappy results, but next year either I’ll be better, or I won’t being doing triathlon!