This is it! Not a parody on Michael Jackson, but the finish of my triathlon season 2010. Of course, all was set up to finish this year’s season in Clearwater, but it wasn’t meant to be, so it had to be Hannover Triathlon. Just like last year, I participated at the triathlon in the capital of Lower Saxony. My home territory and therefore hoped for a strong finish. Once again, just like last year the swim course was a tap longer, as hardly anybody was able to manage a swim time under 20 minutes. I personally left the water in 6th place, feeling very good with the performance as I managed to swim next to Enno the entire time.
Once on the bike I had to crush the first two of five laps to make my way up towards the leaders. This took lots of energy, especially seeing the guys up front drafting more “than usual”. This was quite frustrating, but almost normal in these huge city races. Once starting the last lap it was Hendrik Becker and me taking the guys apart and really cranking a big gear. We clocked a bike time of 1:04:13 and 1:04:14 the fastest times of the day on the 42.5km course.
Second transition, my favorite of the year, was perfect once again and moved me into second place starting the run. However, motivation and strength was gone coming down the long stretch next to Lake Maschsee. It has been a long season, with hardly any good training weeks during the last month. Shouldn’t be an excuse but it was tough to keep a good pace and at the end I didn’t manage more than a 37:31 on the 10k run. Still had me finish in second place, as Christoph Busche 3rd place, ran out of distance with his 34:27 run split.
All in all, a happy ending with a solid second place finish at my home race. Season has been a total success with the Team Championship Title, State Championship Title and several Top 3 finishes. Looking forward to pick up my run mileage over the next few weeks and finish the year with a good Marathon in Frankfurt at the end of October.
