It happened again and again that things one had imagined in advance well, nice and colorful, go horribly wrong. The Copenhagen Challenge for me was such a thing. Well, three days after this experience, I am still wondering what exactly went wrong where, what ever happened - but I ahead of myself.
good nine months this year, I took time to get ready for my season highlight. Long units in the pool in winter, many hours in the gym, long endurance training in all weather conditions for walking and cycling ... the list is long. My form has been increasing steadily in recent weeks, the individual races that I, as a preparation for the big day-X "contest, went better and better, culminating in a start-to-wire victory at the Short-Distance in Zurich, that is a form of triathlon, which is not at all to me. Copenhagen was able to come.
The conditions surrounding the race were two things: fantastic and catastrophic. Fantastic organization, the volunteers, the atmosphere around the event - I have never experienced anything! Disastrous weather on the day before the race - rain and wind, as they no longer had in Copenhagen for 35 years. Or for fifty - the media were not in agreement. The transition area in ruins, and sometimes up to half a meter flooded, the team had their hands full, put everything back in order before were ready to make the 1,700 athletes nervous on Sunday morning their equipment. All this worked perfectly.
Then the swim start. The water at the Amager beach was quiet as a pond, a little wind blew from the north - I plunged into the water and felt the circling of the first buoy already pretty lonely. After about a kilometer we found ourselves in a group of three at the top - I still can not describe how sensational felt that. Literally for years I had been waiting for this moment: a long-distance race, the start of the swim course - be up front!
War I in my previous long-distance triathlons in phasing out of the water is always a little dizzy feel, so this Sunday was no trace of it - I could losdrücken from the beginning, as if there were no tomorrow. A quick sprint through the transition area, glasses, helmet to and from his bike Until then everything was fine ...
I had not a hundred yards back down on the bike, so closed, not even both shoes, I noticed that my front wheel felt unusually soft. Of the previously pumped into twelve o'clock bar no trace - and here at the start line no opportunity to get at! The shock went deep, and while I still bangs on the first bridge on Amager beach, I decided, if possible, to the first aid station at kilometer to drive thirty to patch where the front tire and move on.
So it was only once, to find your own rhythm, something to eat and then increase the tempo. I had my PowerBar bars yet half away as it hissed at me - the front wheel, my first thought was, of course!. But that should not be - it was my rear tire, which burst open, not even me after two kilometers of the bike course easy. Not a hundred yards was a Race Marshal, where I stopped. The front wheel had meanwhile also become noticeably softer - two flat feet I would not mend. What to do? roll on carbon rims, worth over four thousand francs over bad roads to the next aid station? While I myself over trying to deny everything, I realized that the race for me was over before it had even begun.
What had happened? My tires were in the morning in order. Maybe at night storm had plenty of sharp sand and shell fragments through the transition area and on the streets so flushed that I said this is the death blow - I can explain it to me otherwise.
for me to say it now: look ahead, go ahead and hopefully someday understand the meaning behind it all.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who thought of that day to me and helped me. Here on the internet with names to throw me I will refrain from doing - those who are concerned to know this. Thank you in these bitter hours me being there.
Sincerely,
Fabian
