Erlanger Triathlon

The next challenge was up ahead, the Triathlon in Erlangen. It was my first one and I had no idea about the transition zones, well actually I had no idea at all. When I got all documents for the competition, chip, numbers etc. I sat done with my colleagues from the club and they gave me the answers I needed. Of course they made fun of me, being a mere newbie but they helped me a lot and giving them something to laugh about just made it easier and made me take it a little less serious.

The day arrived, I had to get up quite early and get all my gear together. I checked in the transition zone and waited for the start of the race. I felt like it took ages. Then we all got into the water and bang, my first triathlon started. It was wild, arms flinging everywhere. I just had to get out here, so I swam. And quite soon we were a small group following the first and best group and everything got calmer. When I got out of the water I had a cramp but luckily there was a guy helping the swimmers out which help me to relieve the leg and it took away the cramp. In the first picture I am just getting out of the water. I was astonished when I saw how big the gap to the rest of the swimmers was. But in all fairness the last swimming group was already some of the swimmers doing the half distance Triathlon (swimming 2km) and what one does not see is the swimmers in front, the first group, which were long gone.
Well I got into to the transition zone. In the picture I am getting my cap off as I trained hard the last days :). Got off the suit and got on the bike. Well this is not quite my best discipline as you can see in the next picture. Hands on the brake and not in the aerodynamic position, it seems like I never got over 20km/h. I got overtaken by quite a lot of people, which was quite frustrating and scary. Because what I heard was a kind of wushing sound, which kept getting nearer and nearer. I never heard it and did not know were it came from. Then I saw the wheels of the guy overtaking me. They were carbon fiber discs, which cost about the same as my whole bike.
I was so relaxed from the bike ride I tried to overtake those who passed me on the bike and so I did. My first triathlon and me on the finish line.

All in all I got in 33rd place in 02:23:18h (00:25:29 / 01:12:46 / 00:45:03). It should have been 1.5km/40km/1okm but it was all longer due to some technical difficulties, since the half distance also had to be included into the same route.