Well, that was fun. Authentic fun. Cold fun.

Nicely snow covered ice instead of mud this year at the annual Cross-Duathlon in Murr. What a great and likeable smack-down to start the racing season. Runners, Triathletes, Duathletes and Mountainbikers – everyone’s there. A perfectly organized race that features a tough but fun course.

It’s always nice to travel to a race with a lot of friends and meeting even more in and around the transition zone. I only came back from Canada 30 hours before the start and was heavily jetlagged. While warming up I actually did not warm up at all. Freezing conditions, no ol’ dirty fahrrad riding since 4 weeks and an aching, tired body. Ain’t that tuff enough?

Timely enough everything sorted itself out during the first couple of strides. After running a bit more than 5k, mountain-biking around 18k and jogging 4ish k I was delighted with the outcome of the day – 01:15:01, 34th out of 197, no crashes!

No one said this race is easy-going and no one expects that from a course like this. It had everything. Thanks “Kamerakind” Fabse. Thanks Dirty Race!

Press: GER / ENG – Tri-Mag: GER / ENG – Triathlon.de: GER / ENG
Official Website / Results
Pictures / More Pictures / Bike Course Video / Another Bike Video
Blogs: Nils Frommhold / Drei8 / Bernd Weis / Felix Schuhmann / Marc Dülsen

Tune of the day: Classified “I Only Say It Cause It’s True”

“The sky grew darker, painted blue on blue, one stroke at a time, into deeper and deeper shades of night.”
Haruki Murakami

Random Picture 1: Finally a good quote. Found it in some street art book.

Not much transcribing around this petite chunk of the world-wide-cyber-planet. Time to change that. Pronto. Reckless. Momentous. Possibly.

After several weeks of excessive, nevertheless informal forest trail jogging and constant avoidance of the honest pain that was enthusiastically waiting for me at the local 400-meter oval, I couldn’t escape. Running fast. Well, running a bit faster then normal.

Year after year, all over Deutschland thousands of people line up to take part in organised jogs. We call this pre-NYE craze “Silvesterlauf”. Some of the oldest races in this country are run on the final day of the year just before people consume heaps of food and idiotically blast rockets into the cold and dark winter sky. What started in 1925 in cozy Brazilian climate throughout Sao Paulo became a significant part of the winterly German running season.

It has been a while that I have been on home-soil round NYE so I couldn’t find sufficient arguments not to race. Even the final stages of a cold couldn’t persuade me. This year’s race of choice was the jogging contest in Forchheim, a settlement right beside the French border. It seemed the organising fellas found their slot as they have their race on the 30th instead of the 31st. A tiny travel group made the journey to Baden. Reasonable 8 EUR sign-up fee and sunshine created an optimistic atmosphere. A fine pack of around 689 people lined up.

Starting calm on my fastest run after the training-pause was an essential. I teamed up with Steffen to ensure just that. A good and steady pace lead us into the forest area. The mud-covered back roads route was amusing. The rain during the previous days made the course a little mud fest. Shortly after the 3k marker I decided to test the squishy grounds. Our clutch of five was hitting a sharp right turn and I slipped (…I’m awaiting your email Shane). Muddy Buddy me. I desperately tried to catch up with the group but could not get the guys back as I had to fight the severe head-wind on my own. During the rest of the race none of these guys came back and I did not came any closer to them. At least I had 38 minutes time to think about my forthcoming track workouts. They will be necessary.

To shake out the legs, a friend and I decided to run Germanys largest “Silvesterlauf” in Bietigheim the next day. Just for amusement. I love this tradition.

Random Picture 2: Jogging up Manua-Kea a couple of months ago.

So to all my family, friends, mates, bloggers, buddies, pals, followers, cronies, readers, partners, sponsors & haters out there:

YOU are going to have an incredible 2013!

Some of my favourites from 2012:
Record: El-P – Cancer for Cure
Song: Toni L & Def Cut – Tornado
Mix: The Sight Below for Resident Advisor Podcast (RA.322)
Runners: Brooks T7
Meal: This baked Salmon at Kaleo’s in Pahoa, Hawai
Coffee: Greenwell Farms, Onouli Estate Coffee
Race: Cuenca 100k (I DNF’ed but an incredible race. I need to go back!)
Drink: Pony Malta
Book: Ayn Rand – Fountainhead (This book is older but I just read it…)

Random Picture 3: Successfully trying to make interesting pictures with a underwater camera.

The local city-marketing website proudly states:

A daily total of more than 100,000 people are on the road by bike, and there are twice as many bicycles as residents, namely 500,000.

Hendrik, fellow blogger, jogger and two wheel-loving resident of “Germany’s bicycle capital” guided me around town for an icy jog throughout Münster’s white-looking “Winter Wonderland”.

Topped up with a Brooks meeting a very constructive day. Loads of excitement to come next year.

Watch this space!