Camp Sigmaringen Week Two

Guten tag!

We are just coming to the end of our second week here in Sigmaringen and are embracing the German way of life.  We get up between 7 and 7.30, on the bike (rad) around 9, back for lunch, run (laufen) sometime in the afternoon and then swim (schwimmen) in the afternoon/evening, perfect!

The weather here has picked up big time with the last few days being hot and sunny which is a trend which will hopefully continue for the next few weeks.

We are finding our way around on the bike and have found plenty of valleys to roll through and hills to climb.  There are little German towns dotted along the way with usually only up to 5km between them, despite this though we have to be reasonable self-sufficient in terms of food and drink as, other than the odd bakery, there does not appear to be many gas stations or dairy-type places for re-fuelling if you get stuck.

ALZ domination at the local fun run

 Last week I swam around 15km, biked a bit under 13 hours and ran a bit over 3, totalling around 23 hours – still doesn’t compare to fulltime ITU or Ironman Pro’s!! Hopefully but the end of our stint here I will be doing around 30 hours :)

I am being careful not to be too over-enthusiastic in the running department as I was not running much before I left NZ due to my pectineus issue.  That seems to be completely resolved so I am building up from 40km per week.  Sadly my Garmin pooped itself earlier in the week and stopped working after a whole heap of condensation and water droplets appeared under the screen, so my kilometre tracking method has turned a bit sketchy but I think I can work out to the nearest half kilometre how far I have run.

Greatness lines the halls of ALZ

 There was an LBS-Liga race in the weekend at a little town called Schoemberg which is around 50km from Sigmaringen.  Jared was put into the Liga 2 team and I was the back up for the girls.  The race was 1km schwimmen in a dam, 30km rad of hills, cobblestones and corners (drafting) and 7km laufen with a short 20% hill, downhills and grass.

Transition

McLovin and Jared getting a pep talk

 Jared’s team (5 start and top 4 times count) did well with 3 in the top 10 (J-Rad 10^th) and came 2^nd overall.  The girls did well with all 4 of them in the top 10 and coming 1^st team.  The Liga 1 team didn’t do so well with one out with a puncture and another pulling the pin on the run but one of them came 2^nd overall to Daniel Unger who is the local hero.

Euro styles on the rad

I rode out to watch with one of the German’s who supposedly knew the way – our 50km journey ended up taking 64km with around 1400m of climbing and some pretty random roads/paths.  We managed to find a shorter way back which was only 55km so a solid 119km in total.

The girls race was quite frustrating to watch as the range of abilities from the girls at the front to the girls at the back is so vast and I know that I could be at least in the top half of the field but since our club is so strong all of our girls are at the front so the chance of me getting a start is not great.  Hopefully there will be some other non Liga races which I can do otherwise I will just put all my efforts into training for the l’Alpe d’Huez triathlon – that 16% hill we rode up this morning made sure that I hadn’t forgotten about that race…

The next LBS race is on the 1^st of July and coming up this weekend is the ITU WCS race in Kitzbuhel, Austria which is about a 4 hour drive from here so we can hopefully make it there for some spectating – the prospect of this excites me so much that I can barely contain myself.  Seriously.

Our accommodation - oh wait no that's Sigmaringen Castle