I finished Duathlon Elite Nationals in 37th place, didn’t have a perfect race, but it was a great experience to race next to Norman Stadler, Hasi & Co. for at least a few miles.
This weekend was supposed to be a confident booster with the 1. Tri Michel Swim & Run over 800m swim and a 5k run. This race was also set to be the State Championship.
All started with a very cold swim in the 50 meter Poseidon Bad just a few miles from home. Temperatures around 3c degrees in the morning, with a max of roughly 10c degrees later made it a hard and slow(er) competition. Water temps at 19c degrees felt much better then air temperature, but still very cold without a wetsuit.
I started the swim with Hendrik and another competitor in lane 7, right next to our current State Champ and some very fast swimmers that were expected to swim sub 10 minutes this morning.
Once the gun went off my goggles fogged up so I had a tough time hitting the turns on the right spot from the get go. However, my swim felt great, especially the first 200m ;-) but all in all I found a good rhythm very quickly and was able to push a good pace through the 800m. I didn’t expect to be in the top 5 after the swim, really just hoped to keep the distance to leaders to less than two minutes.
At the end I finished the swim in 10:52, 6th place and 1:03 minutes behind the leader and less than 1 minute behind last year’s state champion. Everything still seemed possible after the swim and nothing was lost yet.
Just about one hour after the swim, organizers started the 5k run, which was set up as a pursuit, with the fastest swimmer leading the way. This had me starting in 6th position, looking good to finish on the podium, as this was a two loop run where you were able to see your competitors most of the time. Just in time for the run, we had a few rain drops coming down, really making this a cold, very cold race. 5k meant an all out run and therefore I clocked a 3:10 on the first 1000 meters. It felt very hard, but I was able to pick 4 spots on the first loop and cut the lead by half going into the last lap. Great support on the course pushed me even harder and I could see Hauke, last year’s champ, getting slower and slower. Once I hit the last turnaround, with 1,25k to go he had about a 20 second lead.
With less than 400 meters to the finish line I was able to reach Hauke, on top of the bridge and pass him right away on the run down. Once we hit the bottom of the bridge, with two more turns and less than 200 meters to go, he came up right next to me a started a huge sprint. I tried, but couldn’t answer his attack coming around the last corner. Unbelievable quickness and a very smart race by Hauke, being able to run on the inside lane in the last turn.
2nd place and second fastest run time in 16:17 was still a good result, coming of the weak performance at Duathlon Nationals.
http://www.tri-michels.de/joomla_1.5/images/sar/ergebnisse/2010_Standard_Gesamt.pdf
Congratulations two all finishers and the organization crew for a very successful first event. Looking forward to race here again in 2011. All in all, I feel very confident for the upcoming triathlon season in northern Germany, with my win at the Duathlon in Scheeßel and a 2nd place here at the Swim & Run. Looking at two more hard training weeks, with a 4 day bike camp and a run focus until we start of the Regional Liga season on June 6th in Hamburg.
