In my new series of competition reports from buddies & training partners, makes
Moritz and Markus started today. Here is a report from the last preparatory race in Hof!
Hof-Triathlon 2008-07-27 (Markus Bachmeier, Moritz Hartmann- will be a little longer)
Where is the yard?
Markus and I set out early on Sunday morning to take part in the triathlon in Hof. We had included the Olympic distance in our program as the last tough training session before Erlangen.
But as it turned out in the morning, neither I nor Markus knew where Hof actually is. When one relies on the other.
No stress, we drive to the gas station and look at a map. Markus had arranged Hof more in the direction of Nuremberg and Roth, while I considered Bayreuth as a fixed point.
With the help of the tank attendant we managed to fix Hof.
In the car and on the highway. At Bayreuth we passed a Passat with a bike in the car. Loosely, a triathlete, we're going after him now. This supposed triathlete then turned out to be a wheelchair at a rest stop, who was on the way to a competition in Rostock. Well, Hof is not a cosmopolitan city! And the next car with bicycles in Hof stopped ripping us away. (I have rarely laughed so much before a triathlon)
After checking in, we joked a little further. I loaned my second helmet to someone, who might have been happy before the starting gun was fired at 11:15 a.m.
After the usual hustle and bustle for the first 400 meters with some breast pads, I slowly began to swim down my boot. In about 23 minutes I got out of the beautiful lake. Markus followed me 2 minutes later.
After I got into Tom's cycling shoes and grabbed his bike (mine broke the seat post on Saturday), I started on the very undulating route.
But after 1:09 I should be able to park my bike again. Markus didn’t give up and needed 1:10.
The running distance also turned out to be very irregular and had a brutal increase after 3.5 and 8.5 km. Markus briefly practiced running backwards, while I thought to myself: "Someone wants a really tough training session before Erlangen"!
But the great spectators compensated, according to the organizers 2000, for the agony on the running track. For this purpose, the organizers had set up 3 refreshment stations, with plenty of sponges and everything a runner could want. A shower on the bike course and running course was also organized by the fire brigade.
I finally finished the 10 km in 42 minutes, while Markus would rather not have run backwards for that long and took 47 minutes. When looking at the winning times of Jan Siebersen and Stefan Richter, we found that they also took almost 40 minutes and thus our ego climbed three steps higher again. The rest of Manni from Ifa ran the best running time in 37 nochwas.
Overall, the 19th place in 2:15:10 was reserved for me and Markus reached the finish in 59th place in 2:23:26.
But you have to note here that a police officer misled a few people while cycling and thus cannot determine the real placement.
The buffet afterwards makes every triathlete's heart jump and the disappointed ones were also happy about cakes, rolls etc.
Overall, this competition leaves nothing to be desired. You can feel 26 years of experience in organizing triathlons all along the line. The co-starters were also in a particularly good mood that day and so you could always have a little chat on the bike and running track.
Unfortunately, neither Markus and I won the raffle and we can shine with a new bike, but we are considering to appeal, as the winner came from the Hof triathlon team and we were a little skeptical whether it was all right;)
With this in mind, Markus and Moritz wish you “fun in the triathlon”