Updates: Florida 70.3 & Austria 70.3

I still owe you guys some feedback after the last two races, I have been pretty busy lately, but now everything seems to be back to normal (well as normal as it will ever be).

Florida 70.3:

I tried to defend my title in Disney, but Tim O’Donnel (USA) and Andrej Z. (UKR) were faster that day. After a good swim, I tried to take it out hard on the bike, but Richie Cunningham (AUS) and Tim made it tough to get away.  We didn’t respond to TJ when we passed.  In T1, I ran out 7 minutes behind TJ and that felt pretty demoralizing to me, but we made up ground very quick and soon passed him. After the first of 3 loops I had to let Tim do his thing and focused on stabilizing my second position, but on the last mile, Andrej came by and there was nothing left to respond to his attack. He ran a smoking 1:13 on that course, about 1:30 min faster than Craig Alexander’s run record on this course…wow! So with just 15 seconds short, I came in 3rd and had to be happy and satisfied with it. The title is gone but I am happy with my performance, maybe if my feet hadn’t hurt that bad I could have… but that’s all hypothetical.

The day after the race, we drove back to our winter base in St Augustine and started packing for the big move back to Luxembourg.  That was a hell of a job, but a day later we arrived somewhat alive in Frankfurt and drove back to Luxembourg.  Guess what: It was raining…but everything is sooooo green and fresh looking.  I experienced quite a positive shock after being away for some time.

We bridged a few days with my good friends John and Maureen in Belgium, before we headed down to St. Pölten in Austria (70.3) for the last race of the first half of the year. It was very beautiful down there and the organization took good care of me and we enjoyed a few easy days before the race.

St Pölten 70.3, Austria:

It was the toughest field I every experienced in a 70.3 race and I knew that it will be a tough day for me as I realized the first signs of fatigue.  Nevertheless, I was motivated to bring home another podium to my collection.  During the swim I was able to close a gap to Czaba Kuttor (HUN) and exited shortly behind him in 2nd, some 50 seconds ahead of the big pack.  Unfortunately my new PC7 from SRM was not yet installed and my heart rate monitor didn’t function properly.  So it was all back to the old days of and racing by feeling.  Actually it was a great experience and a good test for any emergency.  So I started out very well and put some good time on the other guys, the first of the 3 hills was easy but shortly after I saw a pack of four (Macca, Ospaly, Marino and Djurback) closing on me.  Once we were all united, the pace dropped for quite some time, till Marino put the hammer down and attacked on the top of the long hill.  Macca was trying to close the gap and I was happy not to do any more work as I put in a lot of energy at the beginning.

Marion in the lead, and Macca, Ospaly and myself in the chase, that’s how we rolled into T2.  The three guys ran out so hard that I decided to do my own pace and fell back a bit. After a few km the legs seemed better and I ran a solid pace for the rest of the race and only got passed by a flying Raelert about half way.  I finished 5th with 4 minutes back and was not too happy about it. I gave a 100% but somehow that seemed like it wasn’t enough on that day.  Anyways, I know I had a week off after that and so I was somehow happy to relax.  We sat down at the “Seedose” and enjoyed the green hills and the lake view for the rest of the day.

I have to say that this was one of the nicest races I did in a long time. Great organization, great people, great location and nice treats for the athletes, chapeau! & Thanks again!

My off time was actually pretty busy, as we were looking for a place to stay in Luxembourg. After several days we found something and are quite happy with our decision.  Luxembourg is just so beautiful during the summer and hopefully the training works out here as well and I will find some partners to share the pain with.

The next 2 months are planned to be a solid base training block and some hill work before racing in Antwerp 70.3 end of July for my good friend Marc Herremans from Belgium.

Then I will finish the last 2 months in the heat and humidity of Florida to be in the best possible shape for Kona, Hawaii on October 9th!  This is what it’s all about this year.

Thanks again to my great sponsors this year who made the trip so much nicer and easier with the great support!