This was my first trip to one of the greatest Ironman distance race in the world. It is the course where Luc Van Lierde made the world leading time 7.50.27 on 1997 and it is also the bike course where Jürgen Zack holds the fastest time ever on 180 km IM bike course.

My main goal was to be the fastest biker and if circumstances where right then to go for new record as well.

Mostly thanks for hospitality of organizers I managed to bring my wife Evelin with me for support. People who know me they remember that I have made all my best results when I have my support crew on the course.

Race it self was enormous! Just few numbers here: total of 4200 starters and more than 150 000 spectators. On top of it we both with Evelin felt that race was extremely well organized, spectator friendly and gave us very good emotional experience even though my own performance had nothing to do with it.

Swim took place on channel which normally hosts only ships but was reserved this time only for swimmers. It was great for spectators as you could see the all course quite close and I have to say it was ok to swim too. Our start was 6.20 which was something new for me to start so early. If on daytime the weather was nice and warm around 28-30 C then at 6.00 am it was only 12 C which I didn’t expected. My swim went well finishing it with 53.58 and approximately 6 min behind the lead.

Was happy with that and after smooth T1 I started my bike with good emotions. My coal was to ride under 4.12 and it means very fast riding all the way through so I started with little easier to let my muscle warm up. My Garmin SRM power-meter was really kind to me as my average watts where 620 for first hour Well I was really moved be the numbers but my speed and situation with other competitors brought me down to earth very quickly. Most likely my power-meter didn’t like timekeeping mats which messed up my precalibrated power unit. Anyway I kept on pushing but my legs just didn’t responded and they felt really heavy (probably because of the cold weather). I was trying to use easier gears to get my legs spinning so they can warm up a bit. Unfortunately it got better only after 140 km and that was too late for me. Last hour the sun came out and I started to move normally. I ended up with 4.27.12 which isn’t too bad generally but it’s about 15 min slower then I was expecting. I didn’t have any big hopes on my run as I had’t run much between cycling racing i specially did to get fit for fast bike in Roth. Well I was still running ok between 10-25 km but after that my tanks just run out of energy and I finished the race barely moving. Run time 3.28.39 which gave me finish time of 8.54.15

I was not able to reach my main goal but I got valuable experience which also served a good training for Kona. Eventually there is only one race what really matters and that is Ironman World Championships on 10. Oct in Kona.

Thank you all for your support and help!