Three weeks after finishing the Norseman Xtreme I participated in a half ironman distance race. The reason was that I had recovered unexpectedly fast from my Norwegian experience. I felt so good I just wanted to do one more long distance race this season. Two days after finishing the Norseman I felt fit enough to climb the grueling Gaustatoppen, the original location of the Norseman-finish, but banned on race-day due to bad weather. To be honest, I think the reason I recovered so fast was the fact that the last 17 k. of the run were so steep (10%) I really wasn’t running at all, merely shuffling or speed marching.

Anyway, the race I picked was the Nordseemann (Northseeman) located in the German city of Wilhelmshaven. Hey, I live close to the German border. I had done a little training while in Norway, but not much. Back home, in the last weekend before the race (so two weeks after the Norseman) I rode 100K on Saturday (on my PC’s) and ran 18 k on Sunday. After this it was time for my second taper in three weeks.

Of course, I was a little anxious. I once raced two ironman distance triathlon in three weeks, but that was 1996, when I was still young. Anyway, the swim went OK, the bike was pretty hard work, but after exactly three hours I was running again. The run was out and back four times. There was a pretty steep bridge after one k. that the runners had to cross eight times. I took it easy during the first two k. but once again felt great. I maintained a steady pace, and ran both the first and the second ten k. under 45 minutes. Total run time: 1.29.02. Boy, did those beers the Germans always serve at the finish line taste good. I did this race twice before in 2003 and 2004 (pre-PC years), but was never as fast.

After this, I tried one more race, but the Norseman finally caught up with me. I felt so tired I called it quits for the rest of the season and started training on a regular basis again only last week. Right now its swimming once a week, biking (on my home trainer) twice a week, skating once a week and running twice weekly. The biking is exclusively PC-work. My first race next year will be a wintertriathlon with running, biking and skating.

In my next blog I will tell you all about my left leg.