I can definitely say that it is without doubt the strangest place we have ever stayed in. The apartment is situated on the 5th floor of a 498year old building, which has been converted into a museum for one of the famous artists from this area, the Cranach House, which is right in the centre of the city down the road from the university where Martin Luther was a professor and wrote his 95 Theses which he later nailed to the door of the church across the street. Whatever the history lesson, living in a museum, and being the only people in the building after dark, is scary as hell.
We were greeted by rainy and cold weather for the first few days, so needless to say, coming from fairly warm weather in Port Elizabeth, everybody picked up the sniffles. Unfortunately for me, with my respiratory condition, even the slightest runny nose usually turns into a bronchial infection. And this time was no different. I managed to get some decent training in from Wednesday onwards when the sun came out, and with some decent riding and running under the belt, I felt a little better. But with my first race on the Saturday, I knew I would be far from peek racing condition.
The ITT Ferropolis Triathlon is a half ironman distance race near to Wittenburg. The race is in it’s second year, and defending champion Konstantin Bachor (who raced in Buffalo City 70.3 in 2008 and 2009 and finished 4th and 3rd respectively) was back to defend the title he won last year, as well as last years 2nd place finisher Christian Ritter (who was runner up to me at Wisconsin IM 2009). It was a relatively small field, with only 10 professional athletes, but it would serve as a nice test after Ironman SA without any stress or pressure.
With the 11am start, I was already feeling lethargic and definitely not in the mood. I was coughing a lot and felt like a bed was a better idea than a half ironman. When the sound of the Vuvuzela finally set us off I tried to get into race mode, but soon ended up on my own in the swim with 4 guys up front. After all the swimming I had done in the last few weeks, it didn’t surprise me that my arms were in no mood to go sprinting off, so I settled into my own pace and set about getting to the finish at my own pace. I exited in the swim in 5th, 90sec down on the leaders, but by now had started warming to the occasion a bit more.
The 90km bike route is a 3 lap affair, and on the first lap I put my head down and smashed my legs as hard as I could to catch the leaders. I managed to pull back the first 3 guys, but Bachor had flown the coup. I had averaged 45km/h for the first 30km, so didn’t want to waste any more energy chasing someone I probably wasn’t going to catch anyway, so I was happy to back off and ride behind Ritter, even though we were losing quite a bit of time. By the time we reached the second transition, the gap to Bachor was slightly less than 7minutes.
By this stage I had resigned myself to the fact that I was racing Ritter for second, which I would have been satisfied with at this stage. I started the run about 30sec behind Ritter and slowly built into a solid 3:34/km pace. Like clock work, my GPS fed me 3:34km’s, and although I didn’t seem to be closing on Ritter very quickly, the gap to Bachor was coming down steadily. Each lap consisted of 5.25km, and eventually at about 7km I went past Ritter. At the end of lap 2, the gap to the leader was down to 4min, and I started wondering; “3mins in 2 laps, Bachor has a habit of slowing dramatically on the second half, what if…”. At the start of the 3rd lap I picked the pace up to 3:30/km, but to a bit of disappointment I found Bachor sitting on the side of the road 2km later. I thought I’d get a chance to see if I could really push deep, but I think in the long-term, it was more a relief that I didn’t have to do it today. Once in the lead I was able to back of f over the next 7km and just manage the gap I had to Ritter for the win.
So the tour started on a high note, a win, but there is certainly a long way to go in preparation for ITU long distance worlds on August 1st, and obviously the big fish, Hawaii. My next event is supposed to be Challenge France this coming weekend, but I’m not sure my chest will allow me another race so close together. I’ll see how I come along the first few days of recovery and decide by Wednesday. I don’t want to do the same thing as last year, and end up not only having a poor race, but also having to take a few weeks to recover. Time will tell. Check in again next week to find out if anything interesting happens in the life of a professional triathlete on the road to Kona.
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