Exactly one week after my Ironman which we spend kitesurfing
in Baltic Sea, I had another race. It was a Half Ironman distance triathlon in
Doksy 30km from my home in Czech Republic. And I was really looking forward to
it J
Strange is that I’m never as wrecked after a triathlon than I’m after only a long distance run! So even after a monster race like the Ironman, I felt great and full of power. And because the expected race time was around 5 hours, I was ready to go full speed! Jan was competing also as his first triathlon and my parents were coming to support us, so it was even more motivation to do well. And I somehow felt that I would enjoy this one a lot! And exactly like that it went J
1.9km of open water swimming in a lake without wetsuit felt
cold, but only until the siren sounded. “Let’s just floor the swim and see what
happens” I decided and started swimming as fast as I could. It lasted about 500
meters and then I had to slow down. No breath, no strength and I had to swim as
usual. I couldn’t catch my tempo, was crashing with other slow swimmers, losing
direction and I felt slow. “Surprisingly” I really was slow and 43 minutes were
deep inside the second half.
Jan arrived shortly after me in the transition where I was
struggling to put my jersey and other things on. Took me an eternity to get out
and start pedaling. I wanted to keep my cadence high, but this time I wanted to
put a bit more power! And it worked. I was flying over 35km/h average past all
those people I lost during the swim and there was always someone ahead to chase
and to give me a push. Jan was struggling a bit, because he swallowed too much
water, but everytime I saw him in the other direction it still seemed that I
was not pulling away from him that much! At the end that was probably my best
bike ride ever! Fun over few small hills though the forest, blasting downhills
50km/h in aero position passing many others and staying out of any pain. Pure
joy J I
completed these 90km in 2:33 hours and felt strong.
Run transition was quick and I was on the last 21 kilometers
of partly trail and partly road run though a cooling forest. I briefly stopped
to put my knee band to fend off coming knee pain and was dashing though the
trail at 4:30 min/km! This time I didn’t slow down! “Let’s try if I can keep
the pace!” I said and kept going passing more competitors along the way. And it
worked again and I sprinted to the finish in one and half hours, with 4:49:10
overall time and on 38th position out of 250 racers! Jan took his
run easy and finished with 5:26:14 just in the half of the field. Not bad at all for a first triathlon J
It was just great and I felt equally great. I was pushing,
sprinting, chasing…I was racing! No thinking of survival, preserving energy. No
struggle, no pain. Ok…there was pain, but it was a different pain. Pain from
pushing hard and not from going too long. This race was just perfect. Not too
short, not too long, just right J
It cemented my decision of trying to focus more on having
fun doing sport. Racing is fun, but it has to be a fun race. And Half Ironman
distance triathlon is one of the most fun races I’ve done! I think I want more J
No comments:
Post a Comment