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!