It’s been a while, Pirmasens was cancelled for some reason and Remagen has been cancelled too. I have been ticking over in training, but I don’t have any pressing goals, so it is a bit more relaxed than normal at the moment.
Vereinsmeisterschaft
The Vereinsmeisterschaft (club championship) is a super sprint with 300m swim, 17km bike and a 4km hard run. The run is a right bastard, but we’ll get to that later!
I got to the start in good time, everyone was in good spirits but the potential winners were looking a bit more serious. Our wave started at 09:50, which means that the pool is full of competent swimmers, which is good for avoiding collisions.
Surprise start
The race started and we were off. I was the fastest in my lane and most of the race was to my right hand side, with only one guy behind near me on my left. 300m is basically a long interval, but you can’t start too fast, or you will blow up after 150m. I paced it ok and got out after just under 5 mins had passed.
My change was quite quick and I overtook Marcus in transition. I got going on the rolling bike course and saw that Sebi was stopped with a technical problem at the side of the road. Up the hill I was passing the fast swimmers who can’t bike so well. On the flat a little later I was doing fine, but I wasn’t feeling confident on my TT bike.
Cautious Riding
After going wide on a round about, Marcus and Sebi passed me. Sebi was getting a nice draft off Marcus for a long time, before passing in him on the next hill. I was losing time on the downhills, gaining on the uphold and staying about the same on the flats.
Te last few km were a bit twisty and downhill, I haemorraged time on this part. After just about getting in clipper on the downhill to T2, I had a good change and was off on the run.
Running Tough
The hills are tough on the run. There is a steep bump, then a bigger bump, then a long slight downhill, a switch around and everything in reverse. I caught Marcus on the big bump, but everyone else was way ahead of me, and I couldn’t see anyone behind me. At the turn, I could see that Max was in range, I got him just at the end of the long drag uphill. I knew that I was in 5th but way off 3rd and in a different time zone to Lukas and Konrad who were side by side in 1st and 2nd.
Meh, but better than last year
I jogged it in for 5th in a time that was 3 mins faster than last year. My swim and run were decent, my bike felt like crap! I was just so careful and felt like I was losing time on every corner or bend.
It turned out that Sebi had crashed at the start, he didn’t have a mechanical. He did well to get going again so I forgive him his recovery draft! Christoph came third, he has got so much better through the season, he’ll be tough to beat next season.
So another Vereinsmeisterschaft is over, and with it my Triathlon season 2017. It was my best season by a mile, it’s just a shame that 2 races were cancelled. I’ll be back next season though, targeting the shorter stuff and hoping to help us get promoted again!
P.s. Lukas beat Konrad by 17 seconds on the run.