Hi Guys,
I have now arrived safely in Eckenhaid in Eckental near Nuremburg in Germany. It was a long 2 day voyage from Sydney through Shanghai, Beijing, Frankfurt, Nuremburg to here with zippo sleep. I will be racing at Ironman Roth for a German team called Franken Speed Fighters. My homestay is an old friend, Matthias Fürst, who is the sponsor of the team and an Ironman racer himself (in fact racing Ironman Frankfurt this weekend). I will be joining his family for two weeks for Roth and they (Ines, his wife, and Bjorn and Carlo, his two sons) have welcomed me like another son. Eckental is a town made up of 12 villages each separated by a small divide of forest in a valley. A picturesque place for sure and it is absolutely stunning with greenery and great weather (25+ degrees at the moment). Plenty of great training areas surround. It is about 15mins drive from Nuremburg and close to Roth also. Unfortunately Sam will not be joining me here as it is too hard on her travelling whilst 5 months pregnant. Sam has joked thatI am to be called "the abandoner" for a little while whilst the job here in Germany is being done. I missed the first midwife meeting friday but luckily as would happen, Ines is a midwife here so I can get the tips and I don't get in trouble :) .
On arriving, Matthias took me for a 50min run. It was great to get out after the long plane trip and see the area. I then joined the team swim session for the evening in Nuremburg and it is always fun to learn to turn the opposite way in pools again - the back will be feeling this tommorrow. Pools are just like driving cars. The euros drive on the right and so swim up the right side of the lane also. It is actually quite hard to flip turn the opposite way - try it - but something I mastered living and racing in France.
A great 11 hour sleep and I was back to normal. The loan bike was built and all ok - always a relief. Matthias and Felix (another team member) took me for a ride thorugh some of the small villages that included some hops fields for local beer brewing, some cobbled paths, a few forest paths, and some cool looking old farm houses. The architecture always amazes me when you see houses that are older than your country and it has been a generational home for 400 years. I then took a tour for another 1.5 hours to Erlangen as the other guys are racing an Ironman this weekend. I had an offer to race for the team at the Hamburg World Cup triathlon series this weekend coming but passed up to focus on Roth the following weekend. I love how there are races every weekend in Europe whereas in Oz they are few and far between in NSW.
The food here is just great. Ines made home-made pizza and special bread for dinner and it was mouthwatering AND healthy. Perfect for a long training day. Breaky is cold meats, cheeses, yoghurt, juice, coffee and after this load up it is train away for the day. Matthias was off to Frankfurt for the ironman, so Heinz (a former 2hr25 marathon runner) took me on some bike tours in the region for an hour. I then did the extra training hours including efforts and had no car episodes at all. A bit different to the daily car check in Sydney. Training here is SO good. I always fall in love with Europe each time I come back with the ease and beauty of training and the respect triathletes get here. An hour run in the heat followed by a train trip to Nuremburg for a 4km swim set finished the training day. With the day in excess of 28 degrees, my winter skin got burnt, so time for the "sonnen milch" tommorrow. Will be nice to get some colour again so I do not get lobstered at Roth.
Another great thing is that the Tour de France is live during the day. Rather than jumping on the windtrainer in Sydney in the middle of the night to watch and provide endless laughs for my partner Sam, it is great to organise training around the interesting stage parts and end sprint each day. That and eurosport 1 & 2 and I am in heaven.
On Sunday is Ironman Frankfurt and I will be watching in between training to see how Cameron Brown goes and also Matthias, Felix, and the other Franken Speed Fighters Triathlon team guys. Sounds like perfect weather and wind, so should be a fast day. Two great things about Frankfurt Ironman is they are taking blood from each Professional before the race to check for doping (eg epo) and that the whole race is live on normal television for the whole day! Good that it is not just the top 3 guys being tested. Roth also has stringent doping rules which is great for the athletes and also the sport. Fantastic for the sport to have live telecasts all day long, no chance that happening in Australia. So I will be in front of the tv Sunday between my training hours watching the Ironman and Tour de France, how good is that!
Tchuss,
Bevan.
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