First Triathlon – Preparation

After almost haft a year of preparation it was time to participate in my first triathlon and what an awesome experience but let’s recap from where this all started …
Last year in November I thought about doing my first triathlon and this is where I stood: I could only swim the crawl for 25 meters, I have never set on a racing bike and I was injured on my left and right ankle so for over three month I din’t run. Great! 😉
But then things picked up … Beside a core muscle training once per week I started to swim twice per week and after a few weeks the first success was to crawl for 5 then 8 and end of December for 60 lanes (each lane was 25 meters) and in February 2014 I mastered even the 152 lanes which was part of my dream plan for 2014. So swimming wise I was on track. Still very slow but with the confidence to conquer the distance.
End of February it was time to participate in my first trainings camp in Malaga and after one week and more than 300km on a racing bike I felt that this is going to become a great sport for me even though my body needs much more race bike training. One trainings camp more (in Porec, Croatia) the confidence and fun for cycling grew further.
And for the running part I started in January with very very slow but long runs and the pain in my ankles was gone. And as I love running this was a good sign.
And now it is the 10th of May 2014 and only one day left for my first triathlon ever, how exciting! All my gear for the racing day is prepared … story to be continued …
Cycling in Malaga

Long time no update from my site and thus a short flash back to February when I went to my first ever trainings camp to Spain to learn Cycling on a race bike. Together with some experienced cycling mates I was on my way to southern Spain, Malaga.
We arrived there end of February and for one week the hills around Malaga were our training grounds. Especially one hill which went up from 0 to 965m was twice part of our course. Amazing to cycle over 1 hour only up a hill, great fun.
The weather was already nice with up to 25°C just the gusty wind was a bit disturbing. So let’s tell you about our regular day, which looked almost every day like that:
Wake up at 7:45
Have breakfast at 8:00
Get ready for the cycling day till 11:00
Cycle for 3 to 6 hours
Take a nap … long nap 🙂
Go for dinner at around 19:00
Go to sleep at around 22:30
And here some impressions from our trip. Thanks Jochen, Daniel, Andreas and Tomasz who joined in this trainings camp and helped me to cope with a new sport. Result: I love race cycling 🙂
- Jochen, Sven, Daniel, Tomasz and Andreas
- I was not to heavy but …
- … my luggage was. Thanks that I could distribute it to all others 🙂
- Andreas checks his “new” bike for the week
- So many orange trees, great that our hotels name was something like: Organe tree 🙂
- Wow first time cycling with a race bike
- Daniel my room mate and long time cyclist. Thanks for the great time!
- Daniel, you were a great room mate!
- Breakfast with the mates!
- Prepare for the day on the bike
- Getting our bikes ready for the day
- Photo stop, always a great excuse to make a short break 😉
- Thanks Andreas for staying with me on those steep ramps up to the top
- Yeah we made it to the top 🙂
- Great view on our way back to Málaga
- Time for a soccer match
- New player of Málaga and his manager in red 😉
- First spanish live match 🙂
- So funny, this is Amanda and I met here in Costa Rica in 2013 and now she is in Spain, small world 🙂
- Beach impression in Málaga
- On our way to a course outside of Málaga
- Photo break 🙂
- Thumb up for the great nature and track 🙂
- Ok this street was not the best, but in general great streets and very careful car drivers
- Conquering the next hill 🙂
- 6°C and rain not the best weather, but …
- … they had a hot wooden fire to heat us up again 🙂
- Time for a snack and drink onto of a hill 🙂
- Mmmhhh again some delicious food in one of our breaks
- On our way to dinner 🙂
- Yeah at night time it was still cold, but I was prepared 😉
- Mmmhhh delicious italian food
- Evening in central Malaga
- After dinner in the city center
- Sierra Nevada is still covered with snow