Report by Robert Dreyling .
The last event of our relay tour this year, we choose the triathlon in Ratingen. The event is almost perfectly organized and the team of Georg Mantyk is doing a great job here. By the way, it´s the largest pool event of Germany, with about 1800 participants.
One special thing of this yeas was, that Micha“ The Fuxx“ should do the swim part.
It should be like a thank you, for all his support throughout the year and that I´m allowed to ride the Pink Lady. Micha´s club is located here and the Pink Lady was born near by. But…
Yes, the weather, on Sunday morning it was raining cats and dogs and weh ad only 12degrees. But we didn´t care much about this and so, Frank and myself drove to Ratingen to have some fun. We were registered for the short distance. Micha was a bit nervous, because, he took a year off, after he spent all his strength, power and effort into the qualification for Hawaii, last year. On Saturday evening I received a SMS from him with the words, you don´t know about my shape. I just answered, that the event the day after, was just for having fun.
When we arrived in Ratingen, it was time to shake hands, because: Ratingen is Pirate Area.
Check in of the Pink Lady, and waited for things to come.
Than, things getting started. The weather hadn´t changed. Rain and cold. The best job of us had Micha. After 17:30min he came into the transition area. After a quick change, I went on the bike course lying on the 4th place of all relay teams. Power just from the beginning and trying to catch the guys ahead of me. I know the course from the years before, but I always keep wondering about the hard bike course, because obviously Ratingen and environment is almost flat. But you had to ride lots of ascents, 4 times, 4 rounds of 10km with 3 U-turns each round. It´s difficult to ride when it´s dry, and today it was all wet. Let´s have some fun.
I haven´t thought very much about the rain, I wore my aero-helmet with visor, and during the first round it was all fogging and I wasn´t able to see anything. So, I tried to tookoff the visor and to place it in the pocket of my tri top. Much better, but riding, fast, with no glasses is not really funny, on a descent with 70km/h. You don´t see anytinh either. But everything went fine.
After the first round, Frank yelled at me, that everything was all right and that I catched everyone ahead of us. All right, already after the first round I tought, but I didn´t know what would come from behind, so I accelerated some more, at the end of the 2nd round, Frank told me, that the gap was raising. So I did an easy 3rd round and in the 4th round I gave everything I got and brought it to the transition area and to Frank.
Of course, I still was able to „
„Do the Rob“, this time while hitting the wall.
Thank you to my friend Martin Rath, who was a track attandant and did all the pictures of me. Thank you Martin.
Back on the bike, or better running course, now Frank had to run 3 rounds on a hilly and angular course.
Because Frank didn´t know what the other are up to, he ran really fast right from the beginning.
In the middle of the 3rd round, he had a huge gap between him and the others and was able to bring it home. It was all fun here and at the end we were 13min ahead of the 2nd team, with the fastest bike and running split..
See you next Ratingen. It´s like a „ Have to Event“ and really good organized by Georg and his team of TTR08.
ATTACK and „Do the Rob“
