Germany 70.3 Race Report

After a few more days of rest in Antwerp and Amsterdam, Tri The World packed it all up, loaded the car and drove the 1.5 hrs to Wiesbaden and the Germany 70.3.

On our way there, we HAD to make a pit stop in Kerpen…the home of the Michael Schumacher, famed Formula One driver. Brian had seen his famous karting facility just off the highway on the way out of Germany and made a mental note NOT to miss it on the way back. Wow…what a rush!!! 8 laps of high speed karting at the Schumacher track was something Brian has always wanted to do.

As we pulled into Wiesbaden, we started to see signs for race #11. This was only the second year for this particular event, but apparently they had done such a good job of it, that the number of entrants reflected its popularity. We arrived at our hotel nestled on the Rhine River’s edge in the late afternoon. We got settled; leaving the bikes packed away in the car, as this was officially the smallest room we have ever had! We grabbed a dinner at a near by restaurant and called it a night.
Thursday morning brought us some sunshine and a relaxing morning. The hotel we were in was originally built as the guest house for a HUGE castle that was just down the road, thus no lift. We happened to be on the 3rd floor and we were finding that the 3 flights of stairs were killers on the legs. We ventured to the bike shop that was supporting the race. Brian was hoping to find a bit of euro-cycling shwag, but was out of luck. We also dropped into the downtown core area to see some sights. A nice a quiet day which was just what the doctor ordered.

Friday morning was mid mornings start sending us in the direction of the Kurhaus (Casino) downtown which held the “Ironman Village”. Registration was right in the Kurhaus and was well laid out. We are not sure if it went so smoothly because we were one of the first to register, or weather it was their organization. With kits in hand, we headed out to drive the bike course. We had spoken to Faris AL-Sultan in St. Croix who had mentioned that his training mates had raced and trained on the Wiesbaden course and warned us that it was one of the toughest bike courses he knew of. Since we had the time and the car, we figured seeing the course ahead of time was a win-win. At the 80 km mark, we pulled over to a road-side “chip wagon” style rest stop. By this time both of us were in a bit of shock with what we had just seen.

He was right!

By the profile listed on this races website, they claimed that there were no flats on this course….none. They were right. With 2-12km climbs (some at 10%...some more) and similar descents on very patchy surfaces with switch backs, we were visualizing how Sunday’s race would play out. This guy’s specialty was “sausage with curry”…maybe THAT will make us feel better!!

We had a long day in the car, so another early night would do us well.

Saturday morning brought sunshine for our bike building. We were a bit sceptical of the sunshine as most of the night brought heavy rains. This time, we built the Blue’s on the sidewalk in front of our hotel. Once we were done, we drove the 3km to the race site, where we planned on doing a short ride before we dropped off the bikes at Transition 1. We rode the course out of town, which brought our attention a nasty noise coming from Brian’s bottom bracket. We stopped a few time to try and diagnose what the issue was. All we could tell was that it was getting worse. After an abrupt turn around we arrived back at the car and discussions began as to how to proceed. The sound was not good. Brian’s vote was to head back out of town to the bike shop; Heather’s choice was to visit the tent which is usually set up at transition, run by the shop we visited. Obviously, Heathers’ choice was the wise choice as Brian’s thinking was quite clouded with negativity and despair. As Heather checked her ride in, Brian lined up for the mechanic to see the problem. As he explained the issue and the sounds, the mechanic got it straight way and tightened the bottom bracket….must have been the cobblestones!

With both bikes checked in, it was off to our pre race meal.

Early on race morning, we woke to nice weather and grabbed the first cab we saw outside our hotel to the race site. The driver knew a short cut to get us to the start line. This gave us a chance to see the swim course as we walked by it. Man, this was gonna be one ugly swim. It was in the Rhine, in the marina in what looked like Miso soup with not a cube of tofu to be found! This was one race where Heather started before Brian (there was a 30 min gap). She was set up in transition early and found the “toi-toi” queue. She caught a glimpse of Faris…he had been a last minute sign up for this race. Given how he described it to us, I expected he knew exactly what he was doing and had trained sufficiently for the course he knew well.

By 8:10, Heather was in the water, wading around for the gun to go off. Brian had sufficient time to check transition one more time and watch the pros exit the water, led my Faris, whom every one expected to be in that position. Sooner than later, Brian was in the water and trudging through the miso soup.

Swims for both of us were acceptable and nice to be over. The age groups were well spread out, but still, quite a bit of bashing goin on!

Out on the bikes, Heathers ride was progressing. She was making headway though her age group. Heather could not exactly remember where all the hills were located, so just kept riding managed to ride well for the day. Up hills were steady and down hills were cautious.
Brian on the other hand, had feared this ride for some time; no flats, long steep hills, the 4th race in 4 weekends and the faint sound of that noise he heard during the warm up ride.
The hills started at around the 12 km mark and the first was around 14% grade and 6km long. Soon there was another and another. The 4th notable hill was 10% grade and 14 km long. It had rained the night before the race so the down hills were gonna be extra tricky on top of their technical lay out. On the first decent, about 3k from the summit, there was the first of many 90 degree turns. The outside of the corner was covered in hay bales!!! HAY BALES!!! Man, I love Europe!
The hay bale idea was suddenly less romantic as I rounded the second 90 degree corner, as the rider ahead of him dumped his ride right into the hay bales. Brian reacted with his rear break as he saw the rider slide into the bales. Into a rear skid, he headed towards the bales on a very kind angle. With one foot clipped out, he pushed off from the bales and back into a somewhat straight line, and down the hill, out of the saddle and back on track.
Unfortunately, this was not the only rider he saw go down. It was a busy day for the road rash rangers! On one of the last technical down hills, there were no bales, just a 4 ft drop to a gassy field. The rider just in front of Brian did not negotiate the corner for the conditions and to his surprise, did the power slide across the road, into the air and landed in the field. With no over correcting this time, Brian continued on, incident free.

The race organizers thought that it would be appropriate to put one last hill (or so we thought) at the 78km mark. They called it the “The Hammer”. WOW…one kilometre of 16% grade position at the last place any triathlete would want it!

For all that we were warned about, this ride will go down as the ride you would want to do in order to prove to yourself that it’s not just about just putting in 90k between the swimming and the run. The hardware will be well earned today.

Heather hit transition well before Brian, as her ride was incident free and well raced. It was a treat to have full fledged bike catchers for this onee and transition helpers grabbing our bags and helping us in the tents. For some reason, Heather had to fend for herself in the tent and still smoked transition and headed on to the 3 loop course. It was set mostly in the Central Park surrounded by century old buildings of Wiesbaden! Heather noted that during her run, she was not keeping track of the course and was never quite sure what direction she was heading. She was also leap-froging this one runner for the good part of one of the 7km loops. Heather finally pulled away from her as they got lost in a sea of slower runners. Eventually needing to once again find a “toi-toi” porta potty, Heather ducked in for a quick stop. As she exited the little blue hut, she rejoined the run only meters in front of her recent running buddy. She heard a very pointed groan of disbelief as her leap froging buddy had to have thought she has seen the last of the Tri The World jersey in front of her. Never under estimate her on the run!

Brian hit transition no longer fearing the bike cut off time, as he was well under the allotted time. Given his anticipation, he had hopped for the best on the bike, but prepared for the worst and ran through every calculation possible, trying to see how close his time was going to be to the cut off. As it turns out, it was never an issue as the ride was managed and executed well. As he exited to start the first of three laps, he was pleasantly surprised with the legs and how they felt. Only 21km to go and then it would be 3 weeks off….what incentive!

Rounding his second lap to begin his 3rd and final lap Brian saw Heather all cleaned up and waiting for him. What a relief! After the drama of her crash on the technical roads of Austria and seeing all the offs this day his mind was on her well being until he could actually see her smile. She did the swim, survived the ride and was already done the run and this was the first time he had seen her since 8am! A familiar feeling of calm came over him once again and off he went for another 50 min of running.

With both of us across the line we said to each other….11 down, 5 to go!
As we shuffled our way to the finisher’s shirts and medals, Heather shared the fact that there was a tent with ALLL THE BEER YOU CAN DRINK!!! For a second…the shirt seemed like a “non-essential item”…..however calmer heads prevailed and we sat and enjoyed our medals, shirts and some of Bavaria’s finest golden elixir!!! Shortly after a couple of brown pops, we rode home…all 8 km of it, as has been the trend!!!

Monday morning, the routine continued as we packed the bikes and headed towards Frankfurt. Our flight was a long 8hrs to Toronto, a 2hr layover and then back to O-town. With almost 24hrs of awake time in us, the official TTW airport shuttle was right on time! A huge thanks to Tim McNaughton of Packed Apps for his continued dedication to this mission.

We now have 3 weeks to re-group and rest until we head out again on the road for numbers 12, 13 and 14 in Singapore, Brazil and Cancun….3 weekends in a row!
TriTheWorld.ca is catching on folks…and we feel privileged everyday to be at the heart of it. Pass it on!

Germany 70.3...wow...more pics

The sketchy decents...

One of the climbs....

Some of the traffic we encountered on Saturday.

Transition....race morning.


Like we said...this was a tough one!

Even MORE pics...

Some of the sights of Wiesbaden.

Our hotel view of the Rhien

Our little room in Wiesbaden.

Lookie what we found driving through Kerpen.

...and with the fastest lap....Brian Doanmacher

More Germany 70.3 pics...

Signing in at the Kerhaus

Hmm...who's on the list and who's not...

Heathers cap...

Brian's cap...

All you the stuff you get for the big day.

Pics from Germany 70.3

The Frankfurt Airport

..mmmaybe THIS is the bike I should ride!

Ahhh....how to take a pic with a beer in yourhand of a girl with a beer in her hand!

Tzone early on Sunday

Hetahers set up......

11 done....auf wiedersehen!!!!

Well, a few days late, but Germany's 70.3 is in the books.
We enjoyed the " all you can drink beer" at the finish line, packed and flew out the day after HOME!

With three weeks off before Singapore, it's all about the rest!

Will be posting some pics form the race.....enjoy!

Brian and Heather

...and more pics from Antwerp 70.3

The view form our balcony in Antwerp.

Ugh.....thats where the swim is in a few days!

Schwag back included tire levers, deoderant and wine...go figure!

Taking the elevator down below the river!

Not as shy as us North Americans I suppose!

More pics from Antwerp 70.3

...a day trip to Amsterdam. WINDMILLS!!!

What a SCORE for a rental car....at NO extra cost!

Heather and one of Amsterdam's canals

Beautifull buildings all overthe place!

...making good use of our balcony in Antwerp!

11 down, 5 to go....and we are lovin it!!!
We just finished Germany 70.3 and are ecstatic that it is in the books.
We are both happy with our day given this course and the challanges it brought us.
Off to the Wiesbaden Wine festival which just HAPPENS to be in town this weekend......when in Rome!!!

Can not WAIT to be back in Canada soon.........chat with you all then.....


Brian and Heather.......

We are just about to head to bed for the night and thought we would drop a quick line.

We dropped our bikes and our transition bags off earlier today. We had taken the bikes out for a test ride along the first part of the course and Brian was extremely uncomfortable as his bike was making an unfamiliar clicking sound. A once-over by the race bike support crew and it was apparent that it was only a loose crank. A quick clean-up and tightening, and all was well again.

From there, we headed into downtown for a bite to eat where we happened upon a wine festival. Lucky us, it happens to be on all week! Something to think about tomorrow on that long ride....

Fingers crossed for good weather tomorrow; so far it´s looking promising.

cheers,
Heather & Brian

Welcome to Wiesbaden!

We have been in Wiesbaden now for 2 days resting up and seing the town.
We were able to see the shopping district downtown as well as some of the country side.

We are staying at a hotel right on the Rhein (yet the view is costly, given all of the traffic!) and very close to the swim start of the race Sunday.
We checked in to the race site this morning....and then, as planned, drove the 90k bike course. On the elevation charts, it shows NO flats on this course.....well, we are here to tell you that there are indeed NO flats!!!! This will be one of the most challenging bike courses we have seen, given the number and length of the climbs and the technical decents, not to mention the quality of the ride surface. This ride will be a long day in the saddle. The only plus is the scenery...some of the views are spectacular.

Its past supper time now, and we should really find some grub. We will check in before race start with more news from Wiesbaden!

Brian and Heather

Well, the race reports are still being written, but in the mean time, here are a few shots of the trip so far!

..the view from our room in Antwerp.


...getting set up in transition before #10!!


The city of Antwerp.

...a quick trip to Amsterdam. Beautiful canals.


..Heathers NEW ride!!!!

Antwerp in the books!

With 9 races behind us, we were due for "challenging" weather. Today brought wind and rain, with little spots of sunshine here and there.

There are not many 70.3s with mass starts, and Antwerp is one of them. We decided to take advantage of this and raced the whole race together, as best we could.

Although the day came together pretty well, every individual leg felt long. The water was choppy, which made sighting difficult. Many stretches of the bike had head winds, which slowed our speed to sub-25k/hr. The run was 3 loops in town, each loop feeling longer than the last.

Still, we finished, and we're one step closer to our goal. The race announcer put us on the mic at the finish and we were able to share our story with everyone watching; truly the highlight of the day.

We've just finished a meal in the hotel restaurant, which included Belgian Fries and Stellas of course! And on our way out, we had a quick chat with some boys from the UK who had come down for the race. They posted great times; first 70.3 for them! We were able to pass on the story of our journey to them, which they seemed quite amazed about; hopefully they'll drop us a note when they get back home!

Now we're off for much needed bed rest.

cheers,
Heather & Brian

All's well in Antwerp!

Ahhh....what 17 hrs of sleep can do for the body!
We arrived on time (pretty much) at the airport in Frankfurt, set for the almost 4 hr drive to Antwerp. We grabbed at quick snack and headed to the Hertz counter where Brian's charm got us a BMW 318 Wagon WITH GPS in it!!!!
So, as you may imagine, the drive was much shorter than 4hr when one is in a BMW on the Autobahn!!
We checked in early to our hotel in the heart of Antwerp and crashed for a 1/2 hour or so. We decided to get some fresh air and see a bit of the town. At about 3pm, we decided we should eat and then head back for some more rest. We popped a movie into the lap top and rested. Heather fell asleep at about 6:30 and I shut out the lights around 8pm.
We just woke up!!!! Its 1pm!!!!!
So, off to build the bikes and get registered...check in is this afternoon, as tomorow's race starts at 11:AM!!!! We're still not sure whether or not there will be live-tracking. We'll put a note on here after we've checked in.

So with that we say "fraugehopha" (which is Dutch for "good afternoon"......just pullin yer leg)!!!!

Brian and Heather