Towards the Long Distance Triathlon - Part 2: The Swimming

Swimming would be something new: I had never swum longer than a few hundred meters on a time before, so I would need to catch up on all points here. After getting my ear professionally cleaned so that the sea would not stay inside for an undue time, I noticed an advert for a Liveguard swimming course at my nearest pool - something I always wanted to do. To successfully qualify as a voluntary lifeguard, you need to demonstrate some competence in the front crawl style, so this would hopefully provide some incentive to look into this technique (along with distance diving). I have a major problem commonly experienced by male swimmers, that my legs are quite dense, and they tend to sink down if swimming too slowly. With the help of this course, I was able to extend this speed from a few strokes to two pool lengths.

To gradually see which swimming distance length was still manageable and to get used to the organisation effort, I registered for the middle-distance triathlon in Heilbronn, a well-established event an hour away by train. As I got on my way to the train, I noticed just before departure, that I had not placed the inner tube in correctly, and over time it had been damaged. Luckily, at the last minute that I found a bike shop wthat was still open. Though on the verge of closing and not having time to replace my tube, they still lent me some tools that were better than mine. Everything fixed on the spot, I made it to the bike check-in in Heilbronn.

The 1,9 km swimming took place in the Neckar river, the same river I pass or cross almost every day. Fortunately, it hadn't rained much beforehand, but the current that had to be swum against in the first half was still impressive. Since I could hardly make any progress with breaststroke and I could not keep up the crawl for long, I switched to the more forceful backstroke. Because the current was stronger in the middle of the river, I swam along the edge. However, this came at the price of occasional contact with vegetation and submerged rocks. Luckily, my old wetsuit was sturdy. The lifeguard course also helped ensure that I was not among those who had to give up. Thirty participants had to get out here, some with bloody knees. The way back felt like it only took a few minutes. I was not the last to finish.

The cycling part of the race was hilly, through fields, vineyards and villages. The local audience was also well involved, complimenting my bike with "condition over carbon". In Iine with this, I was still cautious to use the tria handlebar especially on high-speed downhill sections, and the gearing was more suitable for flat terrain. At registration, we got only one bib, which I attached to the front of the jersey. However, a cycling referee made me turn the shirt, causing a sunburn at the resulting neckline.

Apart from this, the running part through town centre was the least complicated, as expected. The sun was now behind clouds, temperatures in the high 20 degrees with a slight distant rumble of thunder that soon passed, as I steadily made it to the finish.

Towards the Long Distance Triathlon - Part1: The Mental Preparation

I decided to participate in a long distance triathlon. But there were several things to be checked: Did I have the strength, technique and endurance, and finally, did I really want to do it?

So first of all, I wanted to see if I still had the desire for effort. So I signed up for a local Silvester run. The traditional cross country run, held in the woods near Stuhr every New Year's Eve, stretches about 10 km through sandy geest, forest, and over meadows (the open country necessarily a bit windy). It went great, and I even managed to get a Top 5 position! It still flows!

So the feeling was still there; now the proper challenge was to maintain this momentum over a longer period of time. To practice that mentally, I planned to participate in a few longer endurance events of different types.

In February, a 50 km run would take place very close by, namely in Ubstadt-Weiher. Even as part of the German Championship – it's never too late to participate in something like that! The run consists of several laps around a pit lake and is actually not so different from the New Year's Eve run in terms of the course. The weather was cold and unexciting, so excellent conditions for running. But going round and round, especially in dull weather, soon became a bit monotonous, although enduring boredom was exactly what was meant to be trained. The motivation was maintained by anticipation of the well-equipped food stations, which I passed on every lap. In this way, I managed to cover the marathon distance well, but then my left hip started hurting slightly when lifting my leg. So I had to reduce the pace a bit and occasionally walked, finishing in 4:24 h. Though the mental endurance was strong, the body might show some limits, requiring a bit of attention and, if needed, moderation in the future.

In order to put less strain on those stressed tendons, I next looked for something that could motivate me for a longer bike tour. The cycling part of the triathlon takes far more time than swimming and running combined. Though I had previously done some long events, for example 400 km cycling Brevets, I had not much experience of riding under real time pressure, since these Audax/Randonneur events are long, but not very intense, as they require only an average speed of 15 km/h.

Studying lists of Audax brevets, I found that a 200 km brevet would start from Prague in April. The timing was convenient, it was easily accessible location-wise, and above all, transport of the bike by bus and train was also possible. I used my everyday bike for this. Although construction work caused massive trains delays once again, that completely ate up a generous buffer time for transfers, I still made it to the start on the outskirts of Prague in time. The Czech randonneur scene is very small, with about 10 participants at the start. Like for the British and Germans, riding was more of a solitary activity. Exiting the Czech capital, the route initially ran flat along the Elbe Valley on quiet side roads – designated bike paths were hardly present, except in Mlada Boleslav. Apparently, one can go far in Czech politics if one rants against bike lanes. However, the road surfaces were mostly in good condition and there was not much traffic on the road. Historical cobblestones, however, sometimes took a toll on a water bottle. Rural route, slight headwind, cloudy. From afar, the high point and turning point came into view - the 1,017-meter-high Jested.

In the 1970s, a futuristic tower was added to this mountain, and it looks like the elevation profile of the entire route. Going up caused a bit of sweat, but going down made me realize it was just a few degrees above zero, and so I started to shiver downhill. The route back was the same, and even the man loading my bike into the bus was the same who had unloaded it in the morning.

Since running and cycling for a long time was not so much of a problem, the challenge would be getting to swimming - to be continued.