Alex meets the Hobbit: Januar 2013

"They pissed and spit on me, tried to shoot me. But it was the easiest race I've ever done".

But, lets start at the beginning. Due to some knee injury in September I had been in a backlog of training anyway. Nevertheless, I did a lot of full day crosstrainings. To such an extent that I was completely overtrained end of December. Consequently I took a 2 weeks regeneration period afterwards and finally stood at the swim start at Lake Wanaka, along with just some 200+ irondistance athletes.

The Lake was rough, with strong winds generating huge waves. I nearly drowned on the swim leg, I almost wanted to quit every single second. I never thought of being in the water for nearly 85min and getting seasick on a swim!! My breakfast kept coming up and down. Yammi.. The Lake was quite cold too and I couldn't feel my fingers anymore. In T1, I was not able to get of my wetsuit quickly and also had to get rid of all the water. 8min in Transition.. Omg..

Couldn't get worse I thought, Yeah.. I thought. The bike leg started quite nice towards Mt. Aspiring National Park, along Lanke Wanaka. Some up and downs and not too much wind. But, after returning to Wanaka and continuing towards Lake Hawea, strong north-westerlies hit me and I hardly made progress.

Finally after 5 hours in the race I started feeling comfortable at all. After 6 hours I was finally free in my mind and around 7 hours I felt such an energy push in my body that could have been called FUN.. Yeah. From this moment on I knew that I was going to finish this race.

Sometime during the race I overtook a female competitor. Just after entering the drafting zone she got out of her saddle and started to pee!! Omg, nearly got showered.. Ahh.. Told her that this was disgusting, she just smiled...

Only minutes later some storywith snot, but this hit me. Ahh.. And last but not least, a big bee or what ever decided to commit suicide on my glasses. Blinded.

Cause of my lack of power endurance I kept on a quite low heart rate. I got of the bike after 8h in the race with an average of 145bpm. Sweet as..

On the run course the sun was quite strong. Luckily I got creamed in T2 :-). The marathon was not flat, it had some 100's in altitude.. The race director said during the briefing:

"Walking is like smoking a joint. Nice, but keeps you slow. So dont walk. Run."

Even though I had been looking forward this spectactular run course, I just didn't want to run. I continuously wanted to withdraw from the race. But I knew why. I was just lazy. I had no pain. Running was easy. I was not fast, but it was incredibly easy. So there was no excuse.

Running an 150bpm average was more a training than a race, but who the fuck cares.

I am the fastest Austrian in this race.

On the last mile, the crowd was cheering. Driven by pure adrenalin I sprinted along Wanaka's waterfront and finally over the finish line of the world's most scenic iron distance triathlon.

And it was so easy.

The race in numbers:

Distance: 3.8km swim, 180km bike, 42.2km run
Time: 12h 53min 18sec
Weight lost: 4kg
Energy burned: 6300kcal
Tail wind ratio: haha, kidding ey?
Average wave height during swim: 1m
Unintentional hydration during swim: too much
Top speed: 72km/h :-)

Lake Manapouri: End of the world

Fiordland ist neben nass vor allem eines. Einsam. Die Straße zwischen dem Manapouri Kraftwerk (nur per 1h Bootsfahrt zu erreichen) und dem Doubtful Sound ist die einsamste Straße Neuseelands. Neben den Bau des Kraftwerks in den 50ern dient sie eigenlich nur mehr als Touri Zubringer zu den Cruises im Doubtfull Sound. Hier ist wirklich der A**** der Welt. Aber ein schöner...