My New Home - Klagenfurt

In the last week of August I moved to Klagenfurt with one difficulty, I had 3 days to move in my new flat and get ready for the Wörthersee Triathlon 2008. Yes, I got hooked and had to sign up. From morning to night I worked to get my new home ready. It was a hell of a job and no time for swimming, running or bike riding. I really missed it. The day before the triathlon I got out to get my documents for the race and took at the bike course.

Since I needed a new club I also spoke to the HSV guys if I could join them. They were very nice and they good organised, I could not wait to attend there training.

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.

Klagenfurt

Actually, I already new that I was going to move to Klagenfurt. But now everything became real. A few weeks after I started to work for the LSE my boss told me he would be going to Klagenfurt and I could along, if I wished. This was an opportunity I was longing for and I took the chance.
In July I got myself a nice flat and was ready leave Erlangen in August.

Post Marathon

The next day I was in a great mood. No muscle aches, no injuries, nothing. Nevertheless, despite my optimism I took it easy the next week and had to fight the urge signing up for the next opportunity to line up at the next starting line. Well there was only one thing that was itching me, the triathlon in Erlangen. After a week or so, I just had to sign up.

My first Marathon

6 o'clock in the morning, I got up and ate my usual breakfast plus an energy bar and drank a lot of water. Then I walked to the train station, got on the train and after a 15 minute ride I was in Fürth. Now one tip is to run a little before the start. Since I was so nervous I thought my body is already fully pumped up and every 10min I had to go for pi.. so I left out the warming up. Well we got on the starting line and I checked my pules: 230... OK, I was nervous but I was not dead... yet. Then I realised I was not the only one having a pulse watch on which interfered with mine and so I took my pulse the old fashion way.
I got in line were it said 3:30h, since I had my injury and I still was wearing a bandage - I was kind of scared that in the middle of the Marathon my injury will be back.
Bang, it started and I was feeling great. Having hundreds of people around you just pushes you. Still wanting to get the best performance out of me, I aimed for a 4:45min run, but there was no marking to be found which would give the distance. So I guessed and thought I was in the 4:45min range and still feeling great - I really wanted to go faster but having in mind that this is just the easy part I took it easy.
The big crowd got very small after passing one runner after the other. Quite late after 45min I saw the first marking: 10km. What? I had a pace of 4:30min and it was still going great, so I kept it up, but I still had to pull myself together not to got any faster.
After 24km I took up some speed, since everything was going great. Now at 30km the chap with the hammer was knocking at the door, but as you can see in the picture taken at that point all was going well. Well It soon got worse, I was not in a crowd of runners anymore and the audience got sparse - well they can not cover 42,195 km. At 35km it got hard, my muscle were aching, my legs just would not move so easily anymore. Now this is the part I knew from my test runs but I was now running much faster than at those runs, about 1min faster and I had to keep it up. I lost little my pace but kept moving and after running in the country side we got back into the city were the crowds were. This gave me another reason to keep it up. There was no other runner in sight just the crowd and me - I kept going. It went on for ages. One bend after the other, like going in circles no straight line. The distance marking were no were to be found. The finish line had to be here somewhere. Then I heard the crowd and went for it. There was the goal and I made it... what a great day. This is why I did all the training and it was the right thing to do, what a feeling, what a run... what pain, what hunger. Yeah, the pain did not leave and I needed something to eat. I went to by bag and gorge down an energy bar and drank water. Nothing could get that smile of my face, so bloody happy.

Well to keep it short: I took the train back and went home from the train station. This 20min walk was great, the pain in my muscle suddenly disappeared.

Oh yeah, I got in as 47th in a 3:12:02 (netto: 3:11:32) time.

THANKS

Before starting off with the Marathon a big "thank you" is in order. My flat mate G.Z. who pushed me to sign up for the Marathon and made some great pictures during my finish.

Not to forget Ina and Christian (aka: Pilz) who made it my birthday present to support me during the run. I think after getting up at 8 a.m. on a Sunday they soon regretted their idea. But they were true to their word and did a great job. Thanks to those two I was 10min faster, minimum. A good crowd gives you great energy. Here are the two wackos, being rather optimistic with my Marathon time.

2nd Quarter 2008:

So there was only 10 Weeks left to gain speed and much more important to even get to the finish line. I heard from some long Marathon runners, sometime after 30km the body kind of breaks down. Others refer to it as: The man with the hammer comes by to say hello. This is actually a very good image, because it really expresses the pain you are in.
April started and with that my first sport injury. During a fast run I pulled a muscle. Now this happened exactly in the middle of a 17km run, so to get back I still needed to make approximately 8km. Funny thing was that I still could run and it was easier than walking. So I got back home and went straight to the doctor. He looked at it and said: "YEAH, strained muscle, you will be back on you feet tomorrow". Which I did not believe, since I limped and had trouble getting up stairs. A big lump was in my thigh. I went to my usual general practitioner and asked for his opinion, due to good experience I had with him. He gave me a number of a masseur, telling me that a physical therapist is not such a good idea since they only give you exercises and are to lazy for anything else. This was a great advice. I had a great masseur, twice a week and every time the lump got smaller and the pain actually was gone after the first two sessions.
I took the advice from Galloway to give your injuries a lot of time to heal and I knew this would take at least 3 weeks. So my training was on ice, but somehow I knew everything will work out fine. So to at least stay fit I intensified my swimming, which was no problem at all. I even joined the TV 1848 Erlangen which has a great swimming team. Of course I started as a floating tree trunk. They had a "water adaption" training once a week. I never heard of that, since I only did my laps. A friend of mine recommended to take part and I was astonished on how great my swimming improved due to this course. It gives you a great feal for water. Also they did some nice exercises for your crawling technique. But what was really hard was the backward crawl, backward butterfly swimming and all kinds of underwater swimming over a length of about 15m, this really gives you stamina.
So I start swimming 3 time with the club and at weekends alone in the public swimming pool. It was not enough for me and I started to notice that bicycle riding, which I did to get to work, also was no problem for my injury. So I gave it a try with my mountain bike and it was fun. I went to the shops and bought myself a racing bike, got out onto the country roads of Erlangen.
My Triathlon enthusiasm started.
Now and then I tried, very easy, if I could run but after 3 weeks there was no hope, even though my limping stopped. During running the whole pain came back and I knew if I would not stop I could start from the scratch. After 4 weeks I gave it another try, slowly and with a bandage and it worked.
I WAS BACK.
I build up my muscles with slow runs over 2 weeks and got back to my original shape quite rapidly and even better. I continued the training. Now since the Fürther Marathon can get quite hot, I exercised a lot during the midday sun which was complete murder. I even did some long distance (38km) runs during this time, which was actually the cause of getting up so late on Sunday and no training intention. These runs were a horror, I got to meet the man with the hammer and he really killed me. I did had some water supplies with me but it was not enough. At 30km I just felt pain and wanted to get home, which was still 8km away. Nothing helped, I just had to get through it. Getting home after such a run ended always the same, showering, eating 300g of pasta, drinking a lot of water and staying on the couch watching some DVDs.
The last week, as recommended, I just took it easy.

Well than came the Marathon... (to be continued)