Saturday, May 30, 2009

Duathlon Bayernmeister!


After last weeks events in Budapest, things went from bad to worse when the International Duathlon of Casablanca scheduled for next week was cancelled....Lianne did her best to calm me down and in the end we decided to head to Munich and check out Germany for the first time. Lianne learned German at school and we both wanted to check out the country so it worked well.

I wasn´t hopeful of finding any races in Munich but my brother (Thanks Beany!) found a race called the Schneider Weisse MagicMan Duathlon which is the Bayern Duathlon Championship and I was just pumped to try out the Cannondale Slice for the first time. The race has been going for 14 years and past winners include Norman Stadler. The course is a flat 5km run/hilly 34k bike and another flat 5K run to finish.

Anyway, the race was very scenic and after a fast first run I had a solid lead. I was caught and passed by a strong bike rider half way through the bike and he proceeded to put a 1 minute gap into me in the last 16km. I have been in career best running form so I was confident I could catch him and eventually at 4km the pass was made and I was able to enjoy my first victory of the trip and the title of Bayernmeister!

Huge thanks to the organisers (Run-Bike Kelheim) of this beautiful race...especially Race Director, Toni, for being so accomodating and finally, to Cedric Hasenfratz and Cannondale Switzerland. I am glad I have finally thrown a leg over the saddle of this awesome machine and look forward to many more victories on the Slice!

Regards
Radar

4 comments:

Ryan Baugh said...

well done magic man. glad to be of assistance.
what was the prize money?
quote of the day
"hindsite is wasted if persistence is not learned".
again well done,
beanie

Unknown said...

Congrats Radar, what a run performance! I was just wondering how you could lose more than two minutes on the bike to a (really well performing) agegrouper who is maybe around Top 50 in Germany.
Did you onyl focus on the run?

Rafael Baugh said...

Hi Chris,

Good question and thanks for writing in. Firstly, I must say that Steffan is a very good cyclist and his bike split would be very competitive with any tri/duathletes I am sure. Being a sport of equilibrium though, my personal focus must shift for different races and objectives. This season my objective is to be a medallist in draft legal ITU Duathlon. This requires fast running and a lower body weight, which reduces the power output on the bike somewhat. Also, the training is not geared to threshold work on the bike to maximise time trial performance.

Thanks again for your email and I hope that answers your question

Best Regards
Raf

Unknown said...

Ok, you got me convinced :)
Good luck for your next races. I'm still a bit proud (and wondering) finishing just a few minutes behind a world class duathlete.