Germanic Update

Guten Tag from Sigmaringen.

Life here in Germany has been tootling over, we having been schwimmen, rad fahren, laufren, going to our new favourite Supermarket Edeka, eating, sleeping and watching ITU races in Kitzbuhel.

The weather here has been pretty fab, reasonably hot but with a few gnarly thunderstorms at night.  I have been working on my speedo tan in the outdoor pool and it seems to be working.

This week I swam Monday – Friday for about 14km in total.  The outdoor pool is nice on a sunny day but I still find it a bit chilly at times after about 3km.  There are only 2 lanes for swimming and it’s a matter of weeding out the floaters when we first arrive.  I have also found that I can get a lane to myself if I start swimming “Southern hemisphere style” (clockwise) because it makes the Europeans uncomfortable and no-one wants to share with the crazy person swimming the wrong way.  A couple of times in the squad I have inadvertently switched to Southern hemisphere style without realizing it which always causes confusion for the other people I am swimming with.

The weather was very good for rad fahren (bike riding) last week so I got out everyday bar Sunday when we were in Austria.  There is a valley which goes for about 25km where we do a lot of our riding, either straight out and back or else branching off to do a loop.  There are also a lot of motorcyclists who like to ride on the valley but don’t like to share the road with cyclists.  The cars are mostly pretty good though and very tolerant towards cyclists.  There are lots of good climbs around, nothing too crazy but decent 10-15 minute climbs and if you know where you are going you can string a few together to make for a very hilly ride.  There is plenty of wildlife around, mostly giant slugs and snails but I have also seen plenty of crows, 2 foxes, a few mice and a dead frog.

Rad fahren to the top of the hill

Running has been going well, I have mostly been running in the forest.  The forest is good because it is softer underfoot than the road and is fairly easy to find your way out if you get lost.  We did a long run in Kitzbuhel in the weekend which was quite a mission up and over a mountain trying to find our way to the race venue from our hotel in town.  It should have only been about 3km but we followed some signs which took us the mountainous way and ended up taking about half an hour.  The return trip took about 10mins once we were on the right track… Running down the mountain was quite hard on the old quaddies and I now have a serious case of case of DOMS.

I like to check out peoples gardens and they are all so beautiful

 The triathlon in Kitzbuhel was fantastic to watch and on an amazing course.  We went up the hill for the bike leg and the men ride up there so fast it is unbelievable.  The women’s race wasn’t as exciting but the men’s had a lot of the big names so it was awesome for us to see them up close and also to watch a race live that we would usually watch on tv at home.

Men starting the rad fahren

Kiwis leading the charge

Female kiwis leading the charge

 We went up a cable car to the summit of Hahnenkamm which is about 1600m up and had great views over Kitzbuhel and the other mountains.  There was a café at the top so we had some apple strudel - as you do while you are in Austria.

Nice view to wake up to

Our alpine accommodation

Military style poses up the mountain

The streets of Kitzbuhel

Going up

This weekend is the next LBS-Liga race and it sounds like I will be starting, there has been some recruiting issues on the men’s side due to injuries and other race commitments and they are talking about using me in the 2^nd team so that they can start because they only have 3 and you need 4 to start in the race – eek! I think we are also waiting to hear on others for the women’s team because there are some problems there as well so hopefully I get to race for them instead of with a whole heap of fast men…

So long Kitzbuhel

Camp Sigmaringen Week Two

Guten tag!

We are just coming to the end of our second week here in Sigmaringen and are embracing the German way of life.  We get up between 7 and 7.30, on the bike (rad) around 9, back for lunch, run (laufen) sometime in the afternoon and then swim (schwimmen) in the afternoon/evening, perfect!

The weather here has picked up big time with the last few days being hot and sunny which is a trend which will hopefully continue for the next few weeks.

We are finding our way around on the bike and have found plenty of valleys to roll through and hills to climb.  There are little German towns dotted along the way with usually only up to 5km between them, despite this though we have to be reasonable self-sufficient in terms of food and drink as, other than the odd bakery, there does not appear to be many gas stations or dairy-type places for re-fuelling if you get stuck.

ALZ domination at the local fun run

 Last week I swam around 15km, biked a bit under 13 hours and ran a bit over 3, totalling around 23 hours – still doesn’t compare to fulltime ITU or Ironman Pro’s!! Hopefully but the end of our stint here I will be doing around 30 hours :)

I am being careful not to be too over-enthusiastic in the running department as I was not running much before I left NZ due to my pectineus issue.  That seems to be completely resolved so I am building up from 40km per week.  Sadly my Garmin pooped itself earlier in the week and stopped working after a whole heap of condensation and water droplets appeared under the screen, so my kilometre tracking method has turned a bit sketchy but I think I can work out to the nearest half kilometre how far I have run.

Greatness lines the halls of ALZ

 There was an LBS-Liga race in the weekend at a little town called Schoemberg which is around 50km from Sigmaringen.  Jared was put into the Liga 2 team and I was the back up for the girls.  The race was 1km schwimmen in a dam, 30km rad of hills, cobblestones and corners (drafting) and 7km laufen with a short 20% hill, downhills and grass.

Transition

McLovin and Jared getting a pep talk

 Jared’s team (5 start and top 4 times count) did well with 3 in the top 10 (J-Rad 10^th) and came 2^nd overall.  The girls did well with all 4 of them in the top 10 and coming 1^st team.  The Liga 1 team didn’t do so well with one out with a puncture and another pulling the pin on the run but one of them came 2^nd overall to Daniel Unger who is the local hero.

Euro styles on the rad

I rode out to watch with one of the German’s who supposedly knew the way – our 50km journey ended up taking 64km with around 1400m of climbing and some pretty random roads/paths.  We managed to find a shorter way back which was only 55km so a solid 119km in total.

The girls race was quite frustrating to watch as the range of abilities from the girls at the front to the girls at the back is so vast and I know that I could be at least in the top half of the field but since our club is so strong all of our girls are at the front so the chance of me getting a start is not great.  Hopefully there will be some other non Liga races which I can do otherwise I will just put all my efforts into training for the l’Alpe d’Huez triathlon – that 16% hill we rode up this morning made sure that I hadn’t forgotten about that race…

The next LBS race is on the 1^st of July and coming up this weekend is the ITU WCS race in Kitzbuhel, Austria which is about a 4 hour drive from here so we can hopefully make it there for some spectating – the prospect of this excites me so much that I can barely contain myself.  Seriously.

Our accommodation - oh wait no that's Sigmaringen Castle

Welcome to Europe!

My big European adventure has begun!!

J Rad and I left Auckland on Sunday and after 30 hours of planes and airports and stinky people we arrived in Munich, Germany.  We spent the night in Munich and saw a few sights and then caught the train(s) to Sigmaringen which is to be our home for the next 6 weeks.  Along the way we learnt that German’s don’t really do breakfast the way we do with items such as salami and cheese being the order of the morning and we also learnt that finding something to eat while knowing zero German is really quite tricky.  Most people here speak some English so we haven’t had any problems yet but at the first opportunity I downloaded a translator app onto my phone mostly to avoid any bad dining experiences.

Glockenspiel

So we have joined the ALZ-Sigmaringen Triathlon club so we will stay in their accommodation for the next 6 weeks and train fulltime and race in the local races in the weekend.  There is only one girls division and 4 girls per team so how many races I get to do depends on how good the other girls are and if they are available to race.  There is about 3 men’s divisions so Jared is home and hosed.  It seems there are also a few non-club races around which we can also do.

At the moment there are 3 South African’s, one Aussie and one German staying here with a few more to come and go over the next couple of weeks.

Summer hasn’t quite arrived at Sigmaringen yet but the days are supposedly getting warmer.  Swimming in an outdoor pool with an air temperature of 8 degrees and water temperature of 24 degrees was not super fun but today it is supposed to get into the 20’s which will be nice.

Nice on a sunny day

 There is a nice forest just 4mins run from our accommodation with lots of trails to run on, just don’t mind the army setting up tents or running over the empty gun shells along the way.  We haven’t ventured out on our bikes just yet but will do so this morning and there is talk of doing a ride to the Swiss border in the weekend which will be fun.

"Running though the forest there's a wolf at my heels..."

Hoping this sign didn't mean we would get shot if we entered

Big brother is always watching

 We are basically living the dream of being fulltime athletes and seeing the sights of Europe at the same time.  There is not a whole lot to do with our downtime other than lie around, eat, nap, read, etc.  The internet situation is a bit limited with a cable in the hallway to plug my laptop into but I have also got a German simcard so can get internet on my phone for when I am lying in bed unable to move.

The Serottica is calling so I must be off.

Auf wiedersehen!