Race Report Hennefer Triathlon Sprint 29.June, 2014 This Triathlon was held in the small village of Hennef just Northeast of Bonn, Germany. To say that we had some rain would be an understatement. By far my wettest triathlon todate. The 750 meter swim was held in a small lake with a beach start (actually from the rocky banks). This is a small venue, in a small town, in a small lake, but with 250 people running into the water together, it felt immense. I dared to start in the middle and up towards the front of the pack this time. No guts, no glory. This resulted in getting kicked and bumped a lot, and I lost about a minute trying to calm down from the panic of white caps, bubbles, arms and legs surrounding me and inches from my face. Once I caught my composure and moved to the left side of the “swarm”, I found my rhythm and finished the swim feeling good. The Transition area was in a very wet field from the pounding of rain the previous day and early morning. Fortunately I have been practicing putting shoes on while standing next to my bed in the morning, which resulted in dry socks as I slipped on my bike shoes. My transition space was very minimal this time, and it helped me to do a quick transition and onto the bike course. The first 2 km of the 20km bike course was on a winding road going up a mountain, which once again made me wonder if a mountain bike would have been a better investment instead of the Time Machine. But once I reached the top, the course offered some straight and flat stretches. Midway thru the course, during the ascend off the mountain and back into the valley, it got wet. Very wet. In fact, painfully wet. The downpour was a 15 minute long monsoon kind of rainstorm, which impaired my vision and felt like needles stabbing into my bare skin. I slowed down to a crawl, along with my fellow triathletes, and concentrated on moving forward safely. It finally stopped raining as I approached the transition area, and I exited the bike course much wetter than I did coming off the swim course. The 5k run was one of my best to date. For reasons I cannot explain, I was feeling great, and averaged a pace 10-20% faster than my standard training pace. I finished the triathlon coming across the finish line feeling good and confident. The day was completed with a regenerating trip to Neptunbad’s sauna, and later a pasta dinner reloading. Life is good. :-D
Posted on: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 19:57:02 +0000
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