yup, while the Pirate crew with Captain Ron and Ubi Blutsventje are frolicking in the Canary islands with their MTBs, two Pirates, Svenja and Jörn of team www.team5spinner.de and Bernd were at the cross-run, in a foot race in the rain! On Sunday we did a little MT riding, in the snow!!!

The last sport event before our training camp on Mallorce was the 13th Waldnieler half marathon on Saturday! Where is Waldniel?? Exactly, that's what I wanted to know… Waldniel is situated behind Mönchengladbach, towards Holland! At 3pm the start for 314 half marathon runners took place in really shitty weather, sleet and temperatures around freezing!

What was cool was that we didn't know anyone here, but they also didn't know us!! We stood out the most at the starting line in our Pirate running shirts! The start went well, I (Captain Jörn) was right in the first group in 5th place! Svenja was hanging out by the fastest woman that was taking the race very quickly!!! 5 laps, damn tough!!! A lot of soft, muddy ground or asphalt, which always went uphill!!! The track really kicks your ass!!!

Stayed up front during the first two laps, even though I noticed that the tempo was a little too fast for me in a half marathon!! The newspaper says I had "cramps", that is also correct!!! However, I just couldn't take it when this local yokel tried to overtake me on the second ascent…! So I went full throttle and was off, I got to the top and "exploded"...ha ha ha, well at least I won the mountain standing clearly - yes!!!! At the pit stop I decided to first pee in peace and wait for Svenja! She showed up after a short time with the 2nd woman behind her!

Sveny gives me a hand signal, telling me she wants to run in a 4 step per kilometer rhythm. And off we went!!! We ran the last 3 laps really speedily and continuously! The last lap was even a few seconds faster than the one before it! And our 18th kilometer was run in 3min55sec, crazy fast!!! Sveny shook off that 2nd woman and came in 2min in front of her, winning…! Awesome!!!!

2 Pirates in the newspaper, one of them was even successful. Jülicher Newspaper, Jülicher News, Thursday March 3rd 2005
By the way, I came in 15th behind Sveny overall! That gets me a towel - thanks!!!! Snowbiking was our reward. We rode our MTBs in the deep snow…
Tomorrow we're taking off towards the south - Mallorca here we come!! Ubi Blutsventje wished us some "good skiing and sledding"…. - thanks man!! I believe things will be looking differently in Mallorca next week!!!
Happy days - ride on - sveny & jörn - www.team5spinner.de