On Aug 27th I finished my 1st Ironman in Podersdorf, Austria.

But first things first …

In 2003 a friend of mine told me about triathlon and he said that he will finish an Ironman before the age of 36. I didn’t dare to bet on this too. But from then on the thought about finishing an Ironman was always on my mind. My poor wife had to bear part of the burden because some holidays were moved or canceled, a lot of weekends spent for workouts and all the time she heard me talking about it.

Then I knew that is was the last chance before running over the 36-year-age-line and so I register of an Ironman in Podersdorf, Austria (3.8 km swim, 180 km bike and 42 km run).

Training coach

My constant companion and digital triathlon coach TriCoreTraining sent me training plans regularly and told me that I had trained enough (nevertheless I can always do more ;).

I then packed my stuff with the legendary triathlon race checklist (I would never start without).

Preparation

Woke up at 4 a.m., the I ate spaghetti as breakfast and then I was ready for the race. It was a hot summer day (34° C / 93° F), the sun shone like hell (that’s also the run track’s name ;). Swimming was great, biking was still ok but after running the first lap I thought I had to stop. I felt like I had a sunstroke (dizzy, sick). Suddenly after a prayer to the weather gods, the weather changed from hot to heavy winds. Then, with a slow but constant pace I run the last 30 kilometers.

Finally after 13:18:28 I finished my first Ironman. Thanks to my great support team (without them I can’t call myself an Ironman)!

Finish

Here are some statistics from my online triathlon trainingplan software TriCoreTraining.