2. Bundesliga Gütersloh - lesson learned!

Never thought I will have a dreadful race, because of an awful first transition, but… there is difference between draft and non-draft legal triathlon racing. Our second stop in the 2. Bundesliga race season was once a gain a great team effort, rewarded with a good 9th place.

All kicked off with a 1,000m pool swim in the beautiful Nordbad in Gütersloh. All athletes, 75 in total, were divided in eight lanes ready to rumble and rock the pool. I was a little anxious of this situation at first, but a good opening 300m (1:15-1:17 pace) had me in third position, feeling quite comfortable in my lane.

As expected by myself, I wasn’t able to hold this pace, got passed but still hang in there and easily cruised to the finish, with four other guys out of my lane. Jumping out of the pool, on my way to the first transition, I saw a huge line of athletes, knowing I would make this massive bike group and be right in the hunt.

But, all came different and reminded me of Chris McCormack a few years ago in Kona. Standing at the bike and fighting with the helmet. In addition to those essential seconds I wasn’t able to get into my shoes, after jumping on the bike, further loosing significant soil. Once I had everything back under control, the entire group was gone and I had to start the first bike loop by myself.

Loop after loop, my group grew bigger, but also loosing roughly 30 seconds per loop to the 40 to 50 man strong lead group. The 40k high-speed bike course wasn’t tricky enough to go for an attack, or hard enough for more athletes to drop out of the front group. So, at the end it was a massive pack that arrived roughly two minutes ahead in T2.

Even though I felt very strong and relaxed starting the run, it was almost impossible to make up further ground to the front. At the end, I clocked a fantastic 33:41 run split for myself, making up a few spots, but only finishing in 48th place. The upset of the missed bike group after T1 prevailed my mind and I was super disappointed not being able to help the team further with a Top 30 finish.

Luckily the team managed a much better transition and overall race, with another Top 10 finish in our second Bundesliga race of the season. Thanks to Michi, Julian and Blei! http://www.dtu-info.de/ergebnisse.125.html

Now, I have six weeks to work on my transitions and swim speed until our third team race on July 3rd in Düsseldorf.

Let’s get to work!

2. Bundesliga Gladbeck

It’s been 8 months since our final Regionalliga race in 2010, but the new formed TRIONIK Tri Michels Hamburg Team was more than ready for the opening team sprint in the 2. Bundesliga Nord this last Sunday. It was the first Bundesliga start for all of our athletes and you could feel the tension during bike check in. Some forgot their bike numbers in the hotel, some had to adjust their helmets before entering the transition zone.

Once we, Bruno, Christian, Blei and Julian arranged our box, we had a few minutes to check the competition before leaving for a good warm up run. It was a total of 15 teams, 5 starters each that qualified for this year’s 2. Bundesliga Nord season. Top 3 teams advance, last 3 at the end of the 5 race season will once again drop to the Regionalliga. So, it is our and our sponsors main goal to stay in the league and establish our team in the Bundesliga.

Kick off to this team sprint was at 11am with a 750m pool swim, non wetsuit. Being the newbie team we had to start at 15th spot, 14 minutes behind the super fast team from Potsdam. This gave us the opportunity to watch the top teams, as they started of their team swim. Very, very impressive as they clocked a 1:04 for the first 100 meters with their 5th swimmer.

Finally, it was 11:14 am when TRIONIK Tri Michels jumped into their season opener. Led by Blei, it was our aspiration to average 1:20’s per 100 meters, so all 5 swimmers were able to follow. This target was almost reached as we clocked a time of just over 10:30 minutes.

Followed by the swim was a super long transition through the swim stadium into the arena and back out of the arena, a total of approximately 600 meters.

Once arrived on the bike, we were able to and had to draft within the team, but keep the standard non draft box with all other teams. The bike course consisted of a 4 loop 5.5k city course with a few bad road patches and rough turns. It took a while to find a good rhythm and finally settle into good pace within the team. However, the first two loops were very fast with lots of accelerations through the turns that had some team members struggle to stay together. Coming to the end we felt very confident about our performance and throughout the entire bike ride it was an amazing team spirit within the complete team. Everybody gave everything for the squad, pushing a hard gear upfront and cheering when settled in the back.

What a fantastic experience!

Once finishing the 4 loops it was again a long transition back into the arena. It was Blei and myself that managed the transition the best, which gave us roughly 15 seconds ahead of the others before starting the two loop 5k run course. Our run specialist Christian, took probably the longest during the transition and we weren’t quite sure how good he had recovered from the bike. Yet, it took only a few second until Christian ignited and started to take the initiative. Just like on the bike, every team member was effected by the absolute stunning vibe that was in-between us.

At the end, we gave it all we had as the time of the fourth guy over line was the only number that counted. We clocked a 16:30 for the 5k run, felt very good about this performance and hoped it was enough for a decent placement. It was tough to tell though as we didn’t pass, neither saw any other team (only when they were in their second loops) during the entire race.

It was roughly 30 minutes after crossing the line when we saw the official results. 9th place, a Top 10 spot in our Bundesliga debut, it couldn’t have been any better. What an amazing experience for every team member and fantastic team effort. We try to take this vibe over to this weekend’s Bundesliga race in Gütersloh and once again want to prove that we belong to the strongest teams in Germany.
http://www.schwimmverein-gladbeck-13.de/images/stories/pdf/ergebnisse_triathlon/2011/li_all_2bl.pdf 

As a team we want to thank the guys and Leana from TRIONIK and all our sponsors for the support that allowed such a great start into the season 2011 – Thank you!!!