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Saturday, June 25, 2011

Here's some of the Motley Witten crew I've been getting around with...

Jens 'feeling rather warm' Bödecker 
  • Jens is my homestay here in Witten. He specifically loves the warm winter kit during Summer rides and he is also my Can Kebap partner. He races 1st&2nd division for the PV Witten Bundesliga Team. Jens has also managed to get me back training on the tartan track for the first time since August 2010, congratulations Jens.


 Christian 'mudflaps' Schellhoff
  • Christian is a local cyclist, who aside from riding with mudflaps on his road setup, drinks a lot of coffee and beer. He has decided to combine his hobbies, and has started a road team. 'Beer Ride' sounds a bit weird, so he called the team 'Coffee Ride'.


Tim 'tiny' Allen
  • So small I couldn't take a picture. A local cyclist, Tiny can always be found weaving in and out of the Peloton, and I'm told he's impossible to draft off. Tiny and Christian are both the backbone members of the Bochum Coffee Crew, as seen below...

Dommi 'where's my hair gone' Wawrik
  • Sadly, at only 19, Dommi doesn't have much hair left, and perhaps out-performs Gemmel and Gaag in the race of the receeding hairline. Dommi is a good young talent, and while he crashed out of Euro's yesterday, he will be a big contender for the world junior title if he is on the startline.

Leo 'beard' Nelle
  • Leo has an impressive beard for a 20 year old.While where I come from, the word 'beard' is used as an esoteric insult, there's no insults towards Leo here. An envy of the bumfluff triathletes, such as myself.


Helga
  • Helga, minus the swimming/cycling/running is a pure born and bred triathlete. When he's not found sleeping, he's found eating. When he's not found eating, he's looking at the weather outside and procrastinating. On-on Helga.

...and lastly, Josh 'add something in the comments below if you're as witty as me' Amberger


Prost!


Tuesday, June 21, 2011

River Times 2.0 (special swimming edition)

A somewhat pointless expansion of last years River Times.

The great Ruhr, once a major economic artery for the North Rhine-Westphalia  industrial region, is now the humble home for Witten triathletes, and the maneating Wels Catfish. But I try to forget about that when jumping in, I find that the 15degree water numbs my brain perfectly anyway. ***while 15degrees is an arbitrary number, it is still very cold and will suffice*** The Rocket Carbon Wetsuit does the trick for the skinny triathlete body though!






Yes, I had enough time to take my camera out of my wetsuit and take pictures of the crew while I was swimming. Sorry boys :p

Anyway, I thought of a useful tip. Swim with water in your goggles to avoid swimming like Andy Potts and Richard Varga. What I mean is, while you don't realy want to avoid swimming as fast as these two athletes, you want to avoid their shocking navigation skills. Master this, because surprisingly, a little water in your goggles clears the fog!


Because this is an über swimming edition, I'm opening up a chapter from the D.Lush 'Book of Spells', my primary swimming resource. Ideal for the travelling triathlete without access to a swim squad.



 4.8km of swimming delight! You can also do maybe 200m easy on the end to make 5km, just so you can sleep at night.



Saturday, June 18, 2011

Burgs Bargain Buys

The Triathlon industry is what's going to hopefully someday provide me with a really good lifetyle, but the anti-consumer in me is also somewhat appalled by how much people are made to pay for some of the things on the market. So welcome to my new sporadic 'Burgs Bargain Buys' column. Today we talk about hydration for the long distance/non-drafting enthusiast. While I may be a newcomer to this game, I think I have some wisdom to pass on already...

Today I'm tearing a slab off X-Lab. Although I ride a Sonic Wing on my P3, I wasn't happy paying $170aud for it, so X-Lab can go sonic wing themselves in the face. Let's not even talk about the Sonic Carbon and its total 'I want my aero bottle setup to be more stiffer and 15grams lighter' carbon fiber redundancy.The important question is what is on offer for the cage setup that the Sonic Wing facillitates?

As I have found, cage setup is crucial. My first ride on my Sonic Wing was a disaster. I simply attached my existing road cages to the wing, and went about my business. When I ride solo, I dangerously prefer to pay more attention to my ipod than the traffic, and 45mins down the road it was time for my first drink. Who can guess what happens next? You're probably right if you're thinking something like  "Where the sonic wing are my bottles?!!!"

So what can can the long distance/time trial enthusiast do about this? Easy. You just have to spend $70 each (or about $150aud in domestic Australia) on an X-Lab Gorilla Grip cage. Yay for corporate crime! The worst part is that I don't even know if they work, nor would I spend that much to find out if they do.

Alternatively you could go to your local store abuy the 'I can't remember how much because I don't even remember buying them' plastic cage, which will never ever eject your loving bottles!!! Have a look below for the optics of this weeks 'Burgs Bargain Buy'...




Embrace this advantageous purchase, and happy riding!

Thursday, June 16, 2011

3rd in Klagenfurt

Happy to report my first podium finish for the season in the Klagenfurt 5150.

The first part of the swim was in a beautiful lake called the Worthersee. Apparently WTC rules say that under 24degrees is a wetsuit swim for everybody (correct me if I'm wrong), so I was a little annoyed because it's always a closer race with the wetsuits on. I had a little trouble from the start of the swim and didn't feel great. There were three of us (Hayes & Syseov) holding hands and butting heads until the third turning bouy on the map below, so after the bouy I conceded in letting Stuart lead. We had to navigate into a very small canal, which with the wetsuits, would have been smooth and easy swimming for the athletes behind! I was a bit worried it was going to be a large group on the bike because I think we exited with 5-6 other athletes.




The bike course was really tough, with a 6km climb on both of the two laps. Bertrand took command of the bike straight away, and was riding like a demon. Leading was bertrand, the Hayes and I, and we had surprisingly dropped everyone within the first 2minutes. I battled my way up the climb with a smile on my face happy we disposed Filip Ospaly et al. Bertrand managed to pull away from Hayes and I by the top of the climb, and by the decsent he had blown the two of us apart. Stuart and I worked well together (in non-drafting terms of course) for the rest of the bike, but we had lost 3minutes to Bertrand by the start of the run. Bertrand is an very very classy athlete, lots of kudos to him after that ride, and he wasn't using a disc either!

Here's the file, still without power though.... I'm too poor. The course was 43km by the way!







I was happy with my 34:34 run split after only 10 weeks of running and such a hard bike ride before. I think I'm heading in the right direction, and looking forward to getting the time down again in Zurich.



^^^ can someone please tell me how I can legally grow another foot or so?

Here's a bonus picture, the post-race kickflip :) I'm lucky no pictures from the post-race salsa party have emerged!



Sunday, June 12, 2011

Race Ready

At least the bike is, let's hope the body follows!


Running an Edge 500 mounted up front for max aero baby :0


I rode a lap of the course today, it's awesome. Steady uphill for 4-5km, crazy fast descent, so beautiful I may have to try to remember I'm in a race.


Let's go!

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Favorite Sessions Part 1

Bunyaville long run + BBQ breakfast with good company. Here's a feeble picture documentary...











Here's some bonus pictures:


Kookaburra with bacon fat


"Don't spray on open flame"

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Calendar 2011

I think it's a bout time I let those who follow me in on the races I'm doing this season. I'm actually only a week away from leaving home in Australia, first heading to Europe then America.

Non-drafting and Des Moines is still the goal, but I've deided to go to Europe to try and qualify. I still want to keep in touch with ITU, and will race a Euro Cup. If I race well enough they might just throw me in the team for u23 Worlds in Beijing. So anyway, here's what I have planned...

  • Klagenfurt 5150 (Aut) June 12
  • Duesseldorf Sprint Race (Deu) July 3
  • Zurich 5150 (Che) July 9
  • Geneva ITU European Cup (Che) July 24
  • New York 5150 (USA) August 7
  • Des Moines 5150 (USA) September 4
  • Lake Lanier 5150 (USA) September 11
I'm really excited about the race in Klagenfurt next weekend, the bike course has just under 2,000ft of vertical ascent! You can see the course profile here :)

So I'm still playing around with some good hill-work for Klagenfurt, and am really happy with how my running is coming along. Building up the km's and building up the speed. After Klagenfurt I'm heading back to Witten for a month to enjoy the company of the German folk, and to spend some quality time at Can Kebap. I'm also chasing a homestay in Switzerland for a few weeks, so if there's any readers that want to help me out, please contact me!