Because it’s cheaper to sign up before 2012. Now I should probably start some swim training!

I recently watched the tricast of the Auckland ITU WC race (rather late, I admit). Apart from all the great Movember facial hair, I noticed two things: Ryan Fisher (AUS) gives his water bottle to Tony Dodds (NZL) after he took a sip (Dodds didn’t get a bottle); Kris Gemmell (NZL) high fives Bevan Docherty (NZL) on his way to victory.

Go sportsmanship!

The Uster triathlon race pics are online! They also sent me the print of one of the bike pics, that’s why only that one is in high resolution. I think I need a height adjustable stem, because the spacers on the steerer tube are all gone and the saddle height is limited by the length of my legs. Or get a proper tri bike directly :)

To round off my 2011 triathlon season, I started at the Tägi Tri sprint triathlon about ten days ago. The 2010 edition of this race was my first triathlon ever (including getting lost on the bike), so I was curious to see how I would have improved in the meantime.

My start was at 10:30, so without getting up at an ungodly time I managed to get to Wettingen around 08:15. My trusty (upgraded) bike got its own compartment in the train:

Tägi Tri is a sprint triathlon, where the “long” race is 1 km outdoor pool swim, a 36.8 km bike and a 7.6 km run. I did the “short” race (half of all that) because my company sponsors a special category where all their employees can start for free, but only on the short distance. Fine with me.

After checking in, getting marked and setting up my transition, I went to watch a few of the waves starting before me. Every thirty minutes, about 30 competitors started at the same time, four or five of them sharing a lane for the swim. Quite a lot of ASVZ tri camp people were competing: Karin, Henrik, Marcus and Yonca (all doing the long one), and I watched them all swim. Some swimmers were incredibly fast, like Marcus who clocked 17:07 including the very long transition to cycling!

I had still some time to drink coffee and get really nervous. With my starting time approaching, I went to the swim start to get my lane and listen to the briefing, then warm up a little and swim one lap before things got serious.

We were just four in our lane and sorted out roughly who would be how fast so there wouldn’t be too much passing in the beginning. After the start, two of the guys were gone quite soon, and I was on the feet of the third (who was breast stroking, but at a decent pace). My goal was to swim freestyle for all of the distance. As usual, the first few laps were no problem, breathing every third stroke and all, but around half the distance things became a little more laborious. After 200 metres I sprinkled in about four breast strokes but then changed back, determined to not “fall back” again.

I switched to breathing every second stroke and my form was probably terrible, but hei, I managed. Unlike the year before where I had the pool all to myself in the end, there were still some people swimming when I left (“left” as in “rolled myself over the pool edge”). The transition zone was super slippery and I had to take tiny steps, but without too much hassle I could leave, jump on the bike and was on my way.

My swim time (including T1) was almost two minutes faster than last year’s and faster than one third of the other contestants. For me, that’s quite an accomplishment, but for the moment I was mainly happy with swimming (almost) everything freestyle.

Now the actual fun part began. Because I was far behind the really fast people, nobody passed me during the whole bike and at times my cycling felt pretty powerful. The course was a bit longer than last year, and the extra bit was all flat and straight, perfect for me. Thanks to intense study of the course and realising that it was almost the same as last year, I did not miss the right turn at the end of the first lap and went by the transition zone to start my second lap.

I really tried to go all in, considering the run would be very short, yet still the bike speed was not much faster than what I had for example at the triathlon in Zug, where the bike was more than twice as long. But good enough to progress a bit in the ranking.

T2 was no problem, still the same super slippery ground, but managable.

The idea was to go really fast in the run, 3.8 km being really short. I managed to have a quick first kilometre (3:45), and also the second was okay (3:54). I passed a few people, but now they were few and far between. The slight slope on the third kilometre took its toll in the shape of a 4:22 split; the last bit was faster again (3:45 pace).

The finish stretch was all straight and you could see until the very end; one guy in front of me was looking back for a long time before taking the last turn and I tried to hunt him down, but no chance. Good for a fast finish though.

My run split ended up being the 4th fastest of the 38 in my division (the “sponsored short course”), and overall I finished 13th. I was really happy with that since usually I struggle to even place in the better half, and that was already scratching “fastest third”. Plus I was content with the swimming.

We stayed for the awards (Marcus came in second on the long course), pasta and cake, and soon after I left. Good way to finish my first full triathlon year! Off to Autumn running, Winter swimming and 2012 plans.

On Sunday, I did my second ever olympic distance triathlon. This time around, it was the one in Uster; it doubled as the Swiss Championships.

In the days leading to the race, a heat wave hit Switzerland and I was watching the lake temperature very closely, hoping it would be less than 22 °C on race day so we could wear wetsuits. Well.

On Sunday morning, I took a reasonably early train to Uster and arrived a good 75 minutes before my start at the scene. Unfortunately I didn’t bring enough cash to pay for the one day competition licence, and everybody I met hadn’t enough spare either, so I had to ride back to town and withdraw some cash.

With that, my time cushion was gone and I started to become nervous. When I finally got my number, cap and all, I proceeded to the transition zone and set up my stuff. I had an awesome spot, at the very end of a rack.

It was too warm for wetsuits (by 0.1 °C, thank you very much) so I saved some time by not having to get into mine and headed to the swim start with about 15 minutes to go.

The water didn’t feel very warm at all, but after a few strokes of warming up (and that’s all I could do for warming up) the temperature was okay. We lined up behind the pros, I saw some friends and made “thumbs down” signs for the non-wetsuit swim, and off we were.

The swim was a simple out-and-back around two buoys, the bike was an extended lap around the lake and the run was two laps more or less along the lake.

After a perceived duration of ten seconds, the waters around me became pretty calm. Calm as in “because there was on one swimming next to me”. I employed my signature freestyle breast mixed stroke (freestyle until close to dying, then breast stroke to recover) and lived up to the title of my blog. Very much so. Okay, there was one guy swimming in the vicinity, but that was about it.

With about 75% of the swim done, I saw a super fast group of swimmers with orange caps blast past me about 80 metres to my right. I thought “Hu? Are they having the women’s sprint at the same time? Or why are there people at the same time on a different course?”

When a bit later a much larger group of blue capped girls zoomed by, I realised that my 15 minutes head start on the women’s olympic race was not enough to be out of the water before them, and that I had been swimming very curvy towards the swim exit (hence the 80 metres). Of course, because I didn’t have time to check the swim exit beforehand.

When I finally got out of the water, it was exactly with that blue capped group, that is, the fastest amateur women. So my transition was together with the very (very) slowest men and the very fastest women. (Déjà-vu?)

Thanks to not having to get out of a wetsuit and my awesome transition spot, T1 was quick and I was underway with the bike. My parents were there to watch and dad took this shot:

Notice the new clip-on aerobars, new saddle post and new race wheels. And how shiny my bike was because I cleaned it the evening before.

Hopping on the bike and getting into the shoes went without further problems, and I was underway on the bike course, which I’d ridden a few times before in training. It’s got a rather mean elevation profile: 

Lots of not-so-steep but steady uphill, a fast descent and then flat around the rest of the lake. Thanks to my aforementioned positioning in the field(s) I could pass quite some guys and got chicked just about three times. (They were drafting of each other, I should mention. Just because.)

The tri-spoke wheels weren’t quite as noisy as I hoped they would, but I still believe that apart from actual, measurable advantages (reduced drag) there is also a considerable psychological impact of having those things on your bike.

Things were rather uneventful (except that one time I almost lost my bottle while putting it back into the cage), I enjoyed lying on my aerobars and felt pretty fast. The long ascent was okay, I’m not a strong climber, but I was content with how I got up there. Before the in-between descent there was the “Tempo Sport Motivational Mile” with funny posters every few metres (“Running is your strength? Have fun with the next few kilometres!”) and an actual cheering crowd just before the top. Good idea. I’ll go shop with you guys again.

The end of the ramp came sooner than expected, and the flat bit before the descent was very welcome. I caught up with one of the girls who had previously passed me and stayed ahead of her, until just before the descent where she was more gutsy in a sharp corner.

Then the descent. Ever since I’ve had my little crash, I’m about as daring as a 100 year old when descending so that’s not where I make up for a lot of time. And, as a free bonus, I lost a lens (again) just before the end of the downhill part. High time to get that laser surgery appointment. It’s just not that much fun to ride half blind.

Since I’m already totally used to riding with just one lens, it didn’t bother me much, but the fast last 10 km would have been more enjoyable with full sight, I guess. A bit of extra excitement was added by a construction site, which forced us to ride around it on small paths including about 100 metres of gravel. My poor wheels!

Just before the transition zone, the bike course and the run course were next to each other and I saw some of the triathlon camp people on the run. Transition went smooth, and I started my run.

Running is by far my favourite part of any triathlon. As the overall strong people are far ahead, it’s usually collecting lots and lots of runners, very motivating. First and foremost, the girls who chicked me, of course. (Thoughts on “chicking” on Chucky V’s blog, check it out!)

After an asphalt bit, the course changed to gravel and crossed a little forest. Here I’m coming out of that forest on the first of the two laps:

I tried to keep my pace under 4 min/km, but it snuck over the four minutes all the time. I didn’t feel like I could go any faster, so that was that.

The best part of the running course was its end, just before finishing (or starting the second lap), where lots of people were lining the path and quite I few I knew were cheering.

The second lap was a bit harder, but more and more people were populating the course. I ran some time with a guy who first passed me, but at about seven kilometres I shook him off. The photographer after the forest was still there:

The last two kilometres were my fastest but I forgot to take splits every kilometre so I don’t know exactly. I just know I was happy to finish, here I’m just about to:

And I was done. As in other triathlons before, I didn’t feel extremely exhausted in the end, but during the run I could not have gone any faster, or so I thought. Leave more on the bike next time?

Compared to average times, I’ve lost about ten minutes in the swim alone – it took longer than my run! The bike was average, but also there I have a lot to improve. I’m not super happy overall, especially with the more than crappy swim, but I did like the event as such. I’ll be back.

I’ll do one more triathlon this year, Tägi Tri sprint (the first tri I ever did, last year) in one week, and then it’s all about preparing for NYC marathon. Plus a few short races (the last of the ZüriLaufCup series) and Greifenseelauf half marathon where I want to go sub 4 min/km. Next race: Rütilauf, the day after tomorrow!

In the pro race, Nicola Spirig topped the women’s field by something like six minutes to claim her fourth consecutive title; Ruedi Wild took advantage of Sven Riederer’s absence (he wants to focus on the last WCS race in Beijing) and took his first title.

(Or, to be really correct: “Zurich Triathlon - A 5150 Series Event. powered by ewz”. Now say this ten times in a row.)

My first olympic distance triathlon! I was a bit scared of the swim, I had never done such a distance without a break before, but somehow I would manage.

The week before the triathon wasn’t full of good surprises, though. During my last bike ride before the weekend, I got my first flat ever. I changed the inner tube, inflated it with the mini pump I had with me and just about made it to my training buddy’s place, where I could use a real pump.

On race morning, I was supposed to meet Adrian, a friend from almost forgotten army times, at a place near the transition zone; he would participate as well. But after carrying my bike down the stairs I noticed that the rear tyre was flat again. Great practice to use one of my CO₂ cartridges, I thought, and inflated the tyre.

Unfortunately, after five minutes of riding towards the meeting point (already being late), the tyre was out of air; obviously, the inner tube hadn’t survived the two days. Awesome.

I started walking, met Adrian (whose nervousness I was supposed to calm, but guess who was nervous now), and together we walked to the transition zone. We arrived 15 minutes later than what we were supposed to, but luckily that was no problem at all, as there were still amost two hours to go until our start.

I brought my bike to the bike doctor to get a new inner tube. After the mechanic showed me something like a nail sticking in the tyre and the tyre being generally near the end of its lifetime, I decided to also get a new tyre. Bad for the colour coordination of the bike, but good for finishing without another flat.

Waiting at the bike doctor had its benefits as well: Nicola Spirig, ITU Vice World Champion 2010, ITU European Champion of 2009 and 2010, Team Sprint World Champion of 2010 (and so on… you get it) had trouble with her chain and brought her bike as well. We chatted a little, and she was super friendly. Zurich Triathlon would be her first complete competition after a stress fracture suffered a few months ago; it wasn’t quite clear if she would be able to run or not. So we wished each other luck, on appropriate levels: “Hope your leg holds so you can win!” - “Don’t drown, good thing it’s a wetsuit swim, eh?”

I got my bike back with a shiny new tyre on it, so all was ready now! I entered transition and got set up. Here’s Adrian and me all sceptic in the transition zone:

Probably we were watching Macca setting up his transition zone, because he was there as well, getting some short distance practice one week prior to the ITU WCS series race in Hamburg. Too bad I wasn’t paparazzo enough to get pics of or even with him. Next time!

After a short warm up run, we donned our wetsuits and walked to the swim start. We were a tad late, so not much swimming for me before the start, but I hopped in and got wet to get the minimal preparation done.

We positioned ourselves at the outer back part of the field, and seconds later the race started. Here is a pic of that moment:

Now this is not just any pic. I could caption it “Me racing the Ironman World Champion”. But that’s more theoretical. Zooming to the upper part of the field reveals this:

I’m the grinning guy, and Adrian is to the right of me with the dark tinted goggles. Then, looking at the pros getting in the water:

Macca! (The one with the “3.8” on sleeve and leg.) See?

I didn’t see Macca for long though. I actually didn’t see a lot of people during the swim in general, as I employed a very conservative strategy. Like, start at the end and stay there. Once I had a look around, and the leading pack was about twice as far as I was. But at least I didn’t get kicked in the face and stuff.

Even though I did swim freestyle almost all of the time (with a few breaks here and there, just because), my swim split was terrible. I mean “become 10 minutes faster just to be average” terrible.

Anyway, less hassle in the transition zone for me!

I did exactly what I always joked about would be ridiculous funny: be one of the last out of the water, and then use super fast pro transition techniques with shoes already on the bike and what not. Got to save the seconds where you can! (And maybe spend more time training the actual disciplines next time.) Anyway, getting into the shoes:

Notice the mix-and-match tyres, courtesy of my last-second (not quite voluntary) equipment upgrade.

I had a hard time getting into the biking. When pushing down, the glutes felt somewhat empty, maybe due to the two days of mountain running at Gigathlon the week before. The course was three laps on a flat road along the lake plus “Heartbreak Hill” every lap. After a while during the first lap, a motorbike passed me, followed by a super fast Nicola Spirig who was leading the race with a large gap by then. I didn’t see the top men ever, but Macca was around third by then.

Heartbreak Hill was really quite heartbreaking every time, but after the climb there was an aid station with drinks and gel as a little reward. A lot of people were watching the climb, probably because that’s where the participants suffer the most…

This was taken at the end of the climb (notice the pretty lake in the background):

The only time I ever felt strong was after the descent back on the lake road, but after a while on the flat bit I was back to my not so powerful self.

My parents came to watch and dad snapped a few pictures, like this one from a pass past the transition zone:

And this one of me gloriously passing another athlete:

I was rather happy about the end of the bike leg approaching. Here I am pushing the bike back to its rack:

And here I noticed my parents for the first time, about 200 metres into the run:

The run felt okay, I tried to keep a sub 4 min/km pace and almost succeeded. The course was first a bit along the lake:

And then, after a few loops, onto an out-and-back course where we had to do two laps. Like this:

Because I was somewhere in the back of the pack where people are usually not super strong runners, I could pass a lot of people – fun! Towards the end of the first lap, I caught up with Michael, a colleague from work. We chatted a little, somebody said we weren’t running hard enough if we could still chat (probably true), and then I let him go because he was done with the race already. Here I am at the end of the first loop, with Michael in front:

The second loop was less exciting, but a few friends were cheering at a water station midway, which helped a lot. I thought I’d be able to clock a sub 40 minutes run split, so I gave all I had for the finish. About 100 metres to go:

About 20 metres to go:

Aaaaaand done.

See the not-so-stellar overall time. Hmmmm. Guess I should start swimming for real. And there’s lots of time to be saved on the bike. The running and the transitions were okay though. (Running was 40:07, almost my goal!)

Everybody I knew who was racing as well had been faster than me, from 2:08 (super fast guy from the tri camp) to just a few minutes faster. Well. Next olympic triathlon: Uster, end of August!

In the pro race, Nicola was able to do the complete race and won by a six minutes margin; the men’s race was won by Ritchie Nicholls from Scotland. Macca came in third (would have placed second without a penalty he got for being on his aerobars where it was not allowed), the best Swiss was Ruedi Wild on fourth place. Fraser Cartmell, whose mom had been kind enough to comment on my post before the race, finished 10th.

Edit: I forgot because it happens all the time. When I first climbed Heartbreak Hill, I lost one my of contact lenses… on the climb! That makes two out of four triathlons where I have to finish with half blurry sight. Not a limiter, but hey, I’d like to see what I do! In focus!

On to the second triathlon of 2011 (and third ever)! After the sprint in Wallisellen with individual start and indoor swim, I did the Zytturm Tri in Zug. There was an olympic distance category as well, but I opted for the sprint: 0.5 km open water swim in Lake Zug, 40 km bike around Lake Zug, 5 km run. Just the day after Wylandlauf, but with both events being rather short that shouldn’t be much of a problem.

There was a little bit more to pack this time:

Note: wetsuit, Vaseline to rub on neck, PowerBar gels because that would be a little longer than usual, arm warmers in case the weather would be nasty.

I took a very early train to Zug and spotted the first aero wheel aero helmet people pushing around their super expensive bikes at the station already and made sure to be far from them during the ride. Intimidation and stuff. I had enough going on thinking about that open water swim.

Zug is just about 25 minutes from Zurich by train. Once there, I walked to the transition zone at the lake, checked in and set up my bike. There was still more than an hour to go, enough time to chat with various people I knew from the triathlon camp and other places. My warm-up consisted of walking to the swim start so I knew where to go afterwards and jogging back to the transition zone. I put on my wetsuit and joined all the others going to the swim start.

Our wave was the first of the day, five minutes before the women doing the sprint and fifteen minutes before the first wave doing the olympic distance. The swim course looked like this:

I had to do the one marked “SDS 500m”. All there was to do was swim around one buoy  and get out. That’s always easy when looking at a map, but once in the water, things are usually more complicated.

The lake was surprisingly warm, and after I had done a few strokes we were told to stop warming up and get ready to start. I wanted to be sure about the course and asked the guy next to me if we had to pass the first buoy on the left or the right. Here he is explaining to me (I’m behind the pointing finger):

He said “swim on the left side of the first buoy”, which was wrong, but I kind of knew that and just wanted to be calmed down a little. Thanks for nothing, giver of wrong advice! (Just kidding. He was friendly and nobody was harmed.)

After this, I was just treading water for a while, rather easy to do when wearing a wetsuit:

I’m on the top left.

A few moments later, this was happening:

Lovely! I kept myself out of anything that looked remotely like too many people in one place and trailed the main group for all of the swim.

Very much so, actually. The lake was pretty rough and every now and then I took a little break from swimming freestyle. That’s not really healthy for your swim split. For the last 100 metres or so I faked some more freestyle, and after x minutes (x = 1.5 times a good time), the swim was over. My split was so slow that directly behind me the first women left the water. Remember, they started five minutes after us and we’re talking about 500 metres here. So much about my not-so-strong leg.

I got out of my wetsuit without any problems, did the whole hop-on-the-bike-with-shoes-already-clipped-in thing and started the second leg.

The course around the lake was mostly flat and rather fast. During the first few minutes my left calf started cramping a few times, but once I got warm that was not an issue any more.

So I was at the end of the sprint men and just within the top sprint women. The race was of course non-drafting, but some people did not really care and after a few kilometres I was passed by a group of about twenty people all drafting off Tine Holst (who for once did not race an Ironman).

The problem with these groups is that you can’t just pass the first guy again once he has overtaken you, because all the drafters follow directly, so you have to wait until the whole group has passed you. I tried to pass and get away from the group, but a few minutes later they caught up with me, and this time they passed me for good.

The rest of the lap was rather lonely, I didn’t feel bad or extra strong, just okay. At one point I was not 100% sure where to go, but a few seconds later I saw another cyclist in front of me, so I was probably right.

A few kilometres from the end, yet another “drafting train” caught up with me. I was so annoyed, at the drafters, at myself for not being able to just shake them off, at the referees for not being around… Same game again: I had to let them all past me, tried to pass the whole group again and got caught again. Luckily, the group had fallen apart and just the first two overtook me again before the end of the running leg.

I thought “I’ll just run away from you all”, to pay back of sorts. First was the second transition, which I’m just about to enter here:

The run, advertised as a 5K, started rough because my feet were all numb from the cold. I could feel them after maybe one or two kilometres. And as always, the start of the run felt terrible (and terribly slow). The course was a simple out-and-back with a little loop at the turning point (“lollipop”?). I was barely able to keep a pace faster than 4 min/km, but having started the run in the slower part of the pack, I could still pass a lot of people. Like this guy here:

Closer…

I had him after the next turn, promise.

The run was over before I was able to settle in a comfortable pace (or feel good or anything like that), here I am just before the end of the race:

I was happy to be done with the race. My overall placing was rather lousy, with the swim being absolutely terrible and the bike also having lots of potential for improvement. The run was okay, I should maybe start working more on the other two disciplines, eh?

Zug goes into the books as my first tri with an open water swim portion, short as it may have been. It was also good preparation for the 5150 series triathlon in Zurich where I would do my first olympic distance tri a few weeks later; more about this one soon!

I’m hopelessly behind with my race reports. There’s the Wylandlauf footrace and the sprint triathlon in Zug from a few weeks ago (double race weekend!), on last weekend I raced Gigathlon in a Team of Five (two mountain running stages on two days) and tomorrow I’ll do my first Olympic distance triathlon, 5150 Zurich.

Let’s just say that I’m a tiny little bit concerned about swimming 1500 metres in open water.

Another video shot from a bike during an ITU WCS race: this time on Lisa Nordén’s bike with a rear-facing camera in the Madrid race from two weeks ago.

Check out how the girl seen at 0:38 mounts the bike: instead of putting the bare feet on top of the shoes, gaining some speed, then putting the feet in the shoes and tighten them, shoes goes into the shoes directly when mounting, then gains speed and then closes the shoes. Fast!