My first start as Pirate – on a 100km duathlon in Dresden on the 7th of may 2011

A bulletin – written jolty like the road we rode on at the 100km duathlon, and what is it, a 100km duathlon? This is a question, I would ask if I read about it, at first. And if you read the advertisment of the competition, that you have to start with 5 persons and 4 bikes, sounds comfortable and easy, like a road trip in may, a little bit bike ans some walking. So, I took a closer look at this competition the last year and it was quiet a interesting competition and wanted to take part. But what to do if there is no Pirate near by and still wants to raise the Pirate colors high? Normally A Pirate take hostages, but I invite me some guests, sounds nicer and not so hard. No sooner said than done. Doesn´r sound that hard, grabbing two colleagues of mine, Ron Tilger and Uwe Gröger, than Anett Spauschus of the SG Aufbau Chemnitz and than Ron got an idea, I got a friend from Cuba, he´ll join us, his name is Jorge Collazo, now ready was the international team, with just one real Pirate, me. The name of the team? Team Pirate won´t fit, so we called us “ Team Pirate and Guests”. And how do you motivate sportsmen? Of course with shirts…printing overnight and ready they are, for “ Member” and “Guest”. At this point special thanks to Ronnie Prinzlau and Rainer van Ellen for the logo. Sports dress for the motivation of the team... And how do you prepare yourselve for an event like this? Well, by exercise a bit, but together it wasn´t easy, some ran a bit and some rode a bit, no one know what came up for him and Jorge even didn´t show up for the first and only common exercise, while he was 5000km away in Cuba. The first exercise unit was a complete disaster, we wanted to do all at once, everyone wanted to run and we had two bikes, complete chaos at the beginning but at the end we got at least the theory….and we still wanted to start and participate. The date of the contest drew closer, and we weren´t able to reach, call, made contact to Jorge, but than twom days before the start he showed up. Than we took a look at the starting list, the start was with one minute gap between each team, and the start was the of given times, slowest first and the fastest at last. I searched the list, where were we??? As a newcomer, we should start from the front field, but no see…we got number 17 and only 16 teams after us, why the heck, the thought we were that fast. Because Ron Tilger and Jorge Collaza already competed in other competition and were fast, so they thought, the others were that fast aswell. Our time was about 8hours, really optimistic. Some advantages of the late start, we could sleep a little bit longer, because only the Capt´n of the team must take part at the briefing and also, only 16 teams could pass us, so, where´s the problem??? On the way to the start we told Jorge, what he´s up to, the hardest course ever, since the first time of this competition: Length: 98,0 km uphill: 27,4 km, 1622 meters of altitude, Ø 5,9 %, max. 22 % downhill: 31,4 km, 1618 meters of altitude, Ø 5,2 %, max. 24 % minimum heigth: 101 m maximum heigth: 435 m underground: bitumen: 62,7 km, 64,0 % gravel: 28,1 km, 28,7 % forest / meadow: 7,2 km, 7,3 % Jorge answered on this: “I haven´t rode a single meter this year”…well, day started perfectly, but at least he ran a little bit more… We went for the start, we had to use some bikes, that would fit most of us and a smaller one by me with some bike baggages with several implements and some extra´s, jackets, we didn´t use,because of the lovely weather -  the weather forecast told something about 20degrees on midday, with neverending sunshine and no clouds. 5 sportsmen – 4 bikes, totally relaxed just before the start Uwe had some strange preparations for the start, I haven´t seen it before, just seconds before the start, a big slice of bread with ground minced meat??? The start went good, I was the starting runner and soon I had a gap between me and the others of my team, Ron was still talking and forgot to get on his bike. Now we got on the course and immediately it went uphill, the first change went like during our exercises, but soon we found our rhythm, the first km we ran flat on an embankment of a railway, everyone of us thought about an easy comfortable day on the bike to attend the guy who was running. Ron and Jorge ran very fast and so tried the others of the team, our changes weren´t like the others, because of times or distances, we shouted out: How is going? How far do you want to go? It was some kind of odd, and like the change of the runners, we didn´t got an order, who got to be next, it was like, who felt like it…ran a while… It became more interesting when we passed the teams who started before us, and also while we were passed by the others, the faster teams, because we still got some air left to talk about bosh…The run really began for us, when we reached the first ascents, and the bikers becaem slower than the runner and when at this moment, the runners wants to change, it´s some kind of difficult. But even the runner didn´t know what he´s up to, by changing at this point on the “easy” bike, so it became a small competition within our team, because would the next one reach the mountain peak, before the next change or before??? Now it was time for the team-spirit, and I gotta tell ya, everyone pushed himself to the limits. Another interesting point was the bike change, because of the different sizes of the bikes and the team members, we even manage it thru some kind of well thinking, that everyone, received his own, seated helmet, after a round of change again. Only myself got a problem, because I didn´t exercise to ride 80km on a smaller bike and also in the open country as well like on ascents with 22%. An experience, I didn´t want to make again, a would offer you a kingdom just for fitting bike Easy biking, while reaching the 20km point... But we had also some more problems, soon we were attended by a small metallic noise of Ron´s bike and after a short time we knew, what it was, the cartridge of his bike wasn´t fixed very well, but with the help of our fingers and a stick, we were able to fix it, but we weren´t quiet sure about how much body stregth 50nm are???? And not only one, another we had aswell, first of all I thought it was abs, because the wheels didn´t blocked while hitting the brakes, but it wasn´t, it was just too much air in the system, but  not in one in both of them. But thru fore-sighted riding and in time reduce of the speed we were able to prevent crashes with the others and hindrances. And after half distance of the race, we just used the smaller chain rings and we don´t wanna talk aout the brakes of Jorges anymore. At the firt nutrition point we took a look at the offered menu and you could see, that you don´t need some designer food like bars of different producer. Here they offered all natural food like tea, water, bread with Nutella, cakes, pies,  uts, raisins, Russian bread, small waffles, apples, oranges and bananas( all peeled) are enough to reach the finish, somehow, but we started to use the nutriton points, firstly when we reached the 2nd, it became more serious at the 3rd and at the 4th, there they offered multi-vitamin preparatoins and of course some magnesium for cramp reliefs. The menu Some talking about the sense of sport nutrition? Not only the particpants needed a break, even the bikes or did they just fell because of hypoglycemia??? The team capt´n with some special rights while eating, sitting on a chair... After half of the distance, you could see at the teams faces the effort of the competition, luckily I packed 6 gels, and somewhere I found a bag of Powerbar fruit gum, some kind of rescue for my team and me. Uwe tried to eat a gel, while he was riding and so he did a somersault over his handle bar, I just herad it, because I was riding in front of him, sadly I didn´t got camera at this time, luckily Uwe wasn´t hurt or something else, and so he could get back on the bike again. Later, at a point during the race, we didn´t care a lot about, how far it is still to the finish, and it became funny again, with some pictures of course, like a change of relay like a 100m-race, or drafting behind a grandma on her bike, the team ride on, while the runners cry for change…Than came a long flat part, and at the end of it, I changed to Ron´s bike, a mistake for sure, I knew later, because at this point, the 22% ascent began and a cobble stone pavement, but this is nothing at this moment, when you´re at the end of an ascent, you pass it and on the way down, on a long straight road, you lost sight of your runner – where´s Ron? He assumed on a steep, ran thru the forest and took the wrong turn, together with another runner and biker of another team, but we get to knew it later, we lost 10minutes on it, so what to do? Wait? Get back? I just crucified myself by riding up this hill, on a smll bike, should I go back or sent another? I told Jorge, that I´ll take a look, Uwe and Annett just reached the peak at this moment, so I made up my way back down, with my abs-bike, down, I met a totally exhausted Ron, who just asked, if anyone would change with him, I did, but firstly Ron used the bike as a backup, when I reached the peak, Ron still had some meters to go on his bike, and I saw Jorge sitting really relaxed on a bank in the sun, what I didn´t knew at this moment that Jorge was exhausted as well, but brave as he is, he ran next and Ron received a longer running break. Now the time gap between the change, became closer and shorter, not only because of the speed, no because of the debillity of the runners, and I gotta tell you, that riding the bike at this point is not a recovery aswell, our rescue was the 4th nutrition point, we told Anett to hurry up, that she would reach the point first, and that she got enough time to eat and to recover, because it was her part to run next, but we reached the point, too fast, it was not so much time for her, so she ran on and we, the men of the team, ate first and a lot like they already reached the finish. After they filled up their storages, they chased Anett, because we didn´t want her to run for so long, and it was a chase, runner 12km/h, biker 18-20kn/h, it took a time, and she was glad about it, that we finally reached her, and the rest of the course. The rest of the course was quite simple, because the team was newly motivated, everybody wanted to run, but shortly before the finish it was my part to run again, just a short ascent, some coble stone pavement, and than, we finally reached the finish and with a time, we haven´t thought about. Home strait, altogether, only Anett is not in the picture... Everything and everybody reached healthy the finish, this was the most important thing, special thanks to the “guests”who supported the Team Pirate and “guests”. Girls and guys, it wouldn´t be possible without you... Beer in the finish area, the soup, the cake, the fruits and the „Bratwurst“, everybody ate lots of it, even Jorge wasn´t able to get all the food home, he lost it somewhere on the way home, he pushed himself to the limit The team – the finish – only lucky faces We weren´t just easy to agnize from the front...but we gotta keep a clear line between the guest and members of Team Pirate. A totally exhausted but happy TEAM, we all want to start next year here again, now we got at least a time 7:35:42h and the 25th place of 59teams, and a time under 7:30h would be possible, if Ron wouldn´t took the wrong way, but who care´s, we were just happy that we found Ron again… For the statistics, gap until the first 1:43h, but at least still 2:26h before the last. At this point, we gotta say thank you to the organizer of the VFA end:LOS e.V, for this wonderful competition and as well to Eleonore Pohl of the running scene in Saxony, without her, we wouldn´t have any pictures from the start or the finish. - Olaf Fiedler

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