Hi everybody,
I decided to write this blog in English as it is starts to become just easier for me than writing in German and beside that my local community is giving me a hard time that they can't read the German blog's (Rick this is JUST for you!).
The Leadman in Bend was a race I wanted to do already last year but couldn' t make it happen, but I put it on my bucket list for 2013. With having a bad day at the Challenge Penticton I wasn't sure if doing another full Ironman distance race would be something I should try instead of the Leadman. The Leadman race is a bit different regarding the distances. It's a 5km swim, 223km bike and a 22km run. Just looking at the numbers I have to say it plays into my strengths, but who of you knows the area around Bend in Oregon knows that it is not necessarily flat. Jenn and I decided that we will drive to Bend. We packed the car with everything we needed and made a 15hrs road trip. The week leading to the race was a bit stressful. My mum and her husband arrived on Monday to visit us for the very first time, before the started their 4 weeks road trip thru western Canada. Beside that I had a tummy bug and a sore throat, so not necessarily the best things to have prior to a race! We arrived Wednesday evening in Bend and our first impression was great. A beautiful city and everything I would need to be a happy boy. It's the first place in the US where I would move directly without even thinking twice about it, but back to the race. The swim was at Cultus lake, which is about a 45min car drive out of Bend. The water was about 16 degrees, which was great, considering that the air on race morning was about 3-4 degrees. The forecast said it will be a cool day with a 30% rain chance. So it was all about dressing warm and as much rain proof as possible. The swim start was in 3 waves and each wave had about 100 athletes. I had the smoothest start I ever had in a triathlon. I lead the race for the first 400m until a guy passed me in a speed where I didn't even consider to follow him. He took off pretty quick. The water was steaming , my goggles fogged up and I had trouble to see the bouys and the lead-kayak. The course was a 2 loop course with an out and back. At one point I looked around and I had a 75-100m lead to the guys behind me and was about 50m behind the first guy and I don't know why but from one second to the next I had this song in my head. I should feel a shame that I actually know it but it stuck with me all day. If you want to know which song it was, check this.
I don't know how that happened but I swam too far. I had trouble to see. As I mentioned earlier, my goggles fogged up, the buoys looked all the same, I just breath to the left said- the buoys were on my ride side and all over all the water was steaming cuz it was warmer than the air. So I just swam past the turn around buoy and realized it after about 100m. I looked around and saw 3 guys in kayaks sitting close to the buoy to make sure that everybody turns around and doesn't cut the course. I am aware that first of all it is my responsibility to make sure that I find the right way during the race. But it still kinda pisses me off that this 3 guys did nothing while they were seeing me swimming too far. When I stopped they looked at me and one of them said, "You swam too far dude, the turn around is here!". I couldn't believe it and was pissed about myself and the guys in the kayak and all the guys who I saw swimming around the buoy at that point. With an extra adrenaline kick I started to hunt the others down. I had probably my best swim ever as swim shape is very good at the moment and with this little bit of extra anger I had to make sure that I didn't push too hard. I finished the swim in 5th or 6th and swam around 200m more than the others.
The bike course started with an out and back before we had to ride 2 loops around Mt. Bachelor. After the out and back I was sure that I sat in 6th position, I felt good, not too cold (I was wearing a windproof shirt, a wind proof vest, fleeced arm and knee warmers, shoe covers and mittens- which caused my slowest T1 ever). My game plan was to ride to first 100km not to hard to be able to go harder on the second lap. There is one long stretch which is about 30-35km uphill. It starts really easy and you can push hard and it gets steeper and steeper to about 9-10% and it end's close to the ski station at Mt Bachelor. The downhill part is fun, a 2 lane highway style road and no major turns... I decided on the top that it's time to move and started with a new downhill PB. 115km/h! I have to thank at this point Ingolf and Peter from SPOCE bikes, Kelly from energyLAB wheels and Robyn from TAYA. Your guys material is awesome and I wouldn't go that fast if I wouldn't have a 100% trust into your gear! THANK YOU!
The bike ride was- like the swim- a very lonely time. If there were 50 spectators on the course it was a lot. Of course there were the aid-stations with some more people, but I will write about them in a bit.
It started to rain and the temperature dropped, but there for did the wind pick up. All over all a really pleasant experience.
Back in Germany I used to ride with some pro cyclists during the winter and one of their rules was: "if you are cold, ride a bit faster!" That's what I did. Problem is, when you have still about 100km to go, it is cold on the flats and the uphill and even colder on the downhill to get all the energy back into your body. I knew I am going too hard but going much slower was not an option as it was just too cold for me. Normally you can rest a bit on the downhills, but here you had to push the paddle just to stay warm. It rained and stopped again, that's how it was all the time till I had the final, about 25-30km long, descend into Bend. At this point I was mentally already out of the race. I was sooo cold, I haven't had any feeling in my feet since the swim, my clothes were wet for hours and my muscles were just tight and tired. I rode into T2 and was surprised that I was still 10th overall. Some guys passed me during the last 60-70km and I thought I was clearly out of the Top10, but I guess I wasn't alone with battle against the weather. I stood in T2 talked to Jenn and told her that I am empty.
This bike course took everything out of my body I had to offer that day. I think I was well prepared for the course but the weather made it just so much harder, that I wasn't able to handle it. I pulled to cord and called it a day. I don't regret this decision. I was a little bit sick before the race and have a cold now. I left everything out there, but it was not enough to finish. Of course it is nicer when you cross the finish line, but when the conditions are so extreme and the distances are so long ( I still raced for 227km that day) you can't control everything.
Instead of a medal you get a belt buckle at this race. When you finish under 9hrs you get a big one and under 11hrs a smaller one. During the race breifing the race director said, that he handed out just over 50 big buckles in 2012 and that he hopes to handout more this year. In fact he handed out 0! The winner time was 9:05hrs. That also shows how hard this race was on that day. My deep respect to everybody who crossed the finish line this year!
I would also say something about the race organization. The potential of this race is huge. The community of Bend is outdoor active and the set up to have a great race seems perfect! At the same time the community doesn't seem to be included into the race. It starts with easy things, that I didn't see any advertisement for the race. There was no pasta party. Not that the food is usually so great, but I just think when you pay a few hundred dollars, that should be part of the experience for the athlete. Spectators were basically not welcome at the swim start in the morning. All athletes were brought up to the lake by bus and they had 2 buses for spectators. If you choose to do that you had to wait till about 11am (since about 5:00am) till they got driven back to the finish area again. My personal opinion on the volunteers during the swim got clear I guess. The aid stations were probably the worst I have ever experienced on a race. First of all I don't want to blame the people at the aid stations for it. I appreciate that they stood for hours and hours outside, were probably as cold as we were and tried to support us! BUT, I think nobody told them how that should/could work efficient. Just a few examples. The Gatorade bottles they supplied had still the little plastic covers under the lid. Because of that I had to stop twice, take my mittens off, take this thing somehow off- not so easy with ice fingers- and continue my ride. That this is not really helpful to maintain your rhythm. Also, if you wanted water you had to stop to refill your bottle, as there were no water bottles provided. The same if you want a gel or banana, stop and grab it. That reminded me on a RTF in Germany. These are bike rides organized by different clubs. It is not a race and the roads are not closed, but they provide aid stations where you can stop to fill up your bottles and grab a gel or bar. These are great training rides and I always liked to do them, but for a race, where most people paid several 100 dollars to participate, that is not exceptable in my eyes! As I said before, I don't want to blame the volunteers for that. They did their job as good as they could under given circumstances, but I see a huge need for improvement on the side of the race organization.
That's it! I have nothing else to say! Would I go back and race there again? I don't know! Did I love my time in Bend? YES! It's a place where I probably would have never went to otherwise and it seems to be an awesome place and I can imagine to go back for some training!
So my first real English blog. I am sure there are tons of mistakes in it but (RICK) at least you get an idea what I am talking about :)!
Thanks for reading this and stay tuned.. the season is not over yet!
