Not that I like to be 2nd place but being satisfied with the fight and the grit right to the end makes such a race more memorable, even though you would rather that you fought to the end and came out on top. This time I have to be satisfied with 2nd.
I am especially happy with the race because 4 weeks ago I had my doubts but was able to knock out a lot of hard sessions since then and the body seemed to absorb everything and somehow I made it to the start line with good form and a lot of confidence.

BEFORE THE RACE: Like I said I felt very well prepared. I also managed to sneak in with the Texas A&M swimmers to get in the pool every day which I really need leading up to a race. Last year Daniel Schmoll and I flew in one week before the race which I felt was a little too early, as you can’t cook your own food in a hotel room and the nerves sort of build up as you are not in your normal surroundings and there is so much prerace buzz going around. This time I shortened it slightly, coming in 5 days before race day, and now would say 6 days would be optimal adjustment time. Even though the weather in Germany has been pretty decent I also find it hard to adjust to warm, humid conditions and is something I need to work on. In drug testing after race I was pretty shocked at the colour of my own urine, despite having had over 3 L of fluids after the finish.

SWIMMING: It actually embarrasses me as I sound like the pied piper every time I get to the swim portion of my blog. I felt great in the pool the last few weeks, had posted great times in sessions, thus, feeling pretty optimistic. Compared to last year here in Galveston, I got off to a good start and was hanging on the back of the lead group for about 500m when I noticed the inevitable split, and it opened up one swimmer ahead of me, I went around to try to cover it, and gave all I had but couldn’t manage to close it. With arms throbbing I let it go and tucked back into what became the 2nd Chase pack. Sitting in felt like a warm down pace, but as soon as I tried to swim to the front and push the warning lights started flashing.

BIKE: The first and last bit of info I got on the bike were “3min to the leader” as I mounted my ride. I knew that the bike course would be tough on a lot of guys and knew despite my god-awful I would make the inroads I needed. The wind had changed a bit from during the week and was slightly less of a crosswind and more of a headwind going out, although I felt in changed again on the way back.. but that could just be me. I could nevertheless feel that every time a car went by I could drop two gears and could imagine how often there would be a car or motorbike next to certain athletes up front. But that is the advantage you earn when you lead and nothing you could blame the leaders for.
I started to pick up the pieces as I missed Lances attack being still over a minute back at that point. I felt bad for Michael Raelert as he was just fixing up a punctured tire as I wen t by. As I could the rest of the contenders I decided I would need to push hard for at least 15min more. Though I wasn’t too concerned about catching Lance and Poulat up front I wanted some room to breath on Ronnie, TO, and I certainly hadn’t counted Michael out yet as from 2-3 min. back he is still a serious threat.
I will add, even if it sounds arrogant, that I am not riding at 100% yet. I have not ridden more than 1hr30min at a time on the TT bike. Why? When I do ride TT, I ride HARD and one thing I learned from last year was that I was hot too early and one way I thought to change that this year is to stay off the TT bike until later in the season. Until now I have done a few short turbo sessions on the TT and a few interval sessions. On a course where you ride 99% in the aerobars, you can feel it if you haven’t been training there.

RUN: I was definitely more worried about the distance behind me to O’donnell and co. than I was to Armstrong and Poulat ahead. My running shape is better than ever but I wasn’t so sure how well I would handle the humidity. Thus, I ran out as conservative as possible while also hoping to give the runners behind as little hope as possible. In hindsight, the 10km run last weekend was probably a tick to close despite the confidence it gave me as my calves were sore through most of the week. I felt confident and controlled as I took the lead and held it through 2 laps but then realized during the last lap it was inevitable that TO was going to catch me. I slowed a little to gather some strength for the final charge. Obviously TO had the advantage coming from behind, in his home country , running down a ‘kraut’, plus I know he has good speed coming from short distance racing and I wasn’t too sure about a final sprint albeit that was probably the best plan and the one I considered. But when he caught me and didn’t blow straight by made me think. I ran on his shoulder briefly and I could tell he was really on his limit and spent a lot of energy catching me. I then thought I maybe shouldn’t give him a chance to recover and I put in a surge straight away to see If I could kill him early. The attack really hurt me in the wind but I thought it must have hurt him as well, so I gave him a short break and went again, this time knowing that I was probably in big trouble I didn’t drop him. He went with my second surge and only seconds later paid me back and that was it – I couldn’t go with and my legs were in total shutdown mode and let me tell you I was happy to see the finish line and the small square of carpet behind it where I could collapse.

A Huge congrats to TO, a great win by a great champion; Ronnie: great run, and great finish; Michael you learn the most on days like those.

Five weeks on an island that looks like your on the moon at times, and sometimes you feel like it too.  With training weeks up to 45 hrs and at dinners playing the pied piper asking and answering the same questions to newcomers over and over… – ‘how long are you staying?’ ‘are you fit?’, what races have you planned?’…it definately feels like another planet at times.

It sounds tiring and after 5 weeks it certainly is.  But I do love these extreme training blocks as they provide the much needed foundation for a long hard season. Fuerte and Playitas especially is an ideal place to get’r done!
To make things even simpler, during my stayHannesHawaii Tours, Scott, and Magic Sportfood as well as my coach Lubos Bilek were all on tap so I was able to kill multiple birds with one stone and also had fantastic support during my stay.

During the first two weeks I smacked out some hard sessions now and again but backed off and mostly logged miles and meters, neither my philosophy or Lubos’ for that matter.

For most of camp I was living in ‘Vivienda 41′ together with Czech superstar Filip Ospaly and my freind and fiercest competitior Andi Boecherer, to make up bloody fast appt and no lack for good training partners.

Something I learned from 2011 is that I was in fantastic shape early and for a big part of the season is was a matter of holding my form.  It was good for confidence but extremely tiring as the season progressed.
This year things are looking a lot different as I am much behind where I was last year at this time.  After a few somewhat frustrating sessions I have realized that ‘forcing it’ is not the best way to get fit, but to ‘let it come’ and hence the more moderate milage in the second half of the camp.  Is that called patience?  What me?

Now that this block is done it is time to ramp up the swimming intesity, (after a short rest period), and to fill the legs with lactate in a few 10km runs and perhaps even see how fast I can get my new Plasma 3 rolling now and then.

Then at the end of March I head Stateside to continue the training and compete in a few races, the first being 70.3 Texas where I have some unfinished business from last year where I had some technical difficulties.

I’ll head to Tuscon after that and am lucky enough to do some sessions with Cliff English’s training group, which consists of some of speedier american/canadian Triathletes.

That is the plan for the next phase.  I will keep you posted.

Unfortunately my old friend and competitor Felix Schumman couldn’t come with so I had no partner for the Mountain Bike rides which we used to hammer each other on.  Fortunately I did have Daniel Weinbereier, a Physiotherpist and athlete to accompany and I quickly realized he could inflict a lot of pain on the trails.  Sometimes it is good when someone shows you your weakness because then you realize you have some things to work on.  At  the end of the camp I caught a lovely intestinal virus that seemed to get the whole group of us at some point during the camp.  Not cool, but when you are just mildly sick and can’t train proper you can still work on some things that you might otherwise put to the side.  Thus I am using the time wisely and working on my core stability and flexibility which will be key as I head down to Fuerte Ventura at the end of the month where I will be training with sick-fast guys like Andi Boecherer and some of the other Lubos Bilek-coached athletes as Lubos is heading up the Scott Camp for Hannes Hawaii Tours at Playitas.  Can’t wait to ramp it up.

If you look at the final result, you’d probably think ‘the cocky kid wanted to win and he ended up 6th and was 20min from the win’.  Well, I guess that is true, the flat tire didn’t cost me 20min, even if the replacement wheel was a 28 spoke training wheel, I think in total it cost about 4 min.  It is also a fact that the womens winner Leanda Cave and mens 3rd place finish Victor Zyemsev also had punctures.

I was never one to examine my race based on what place I was at the finish whether I’ve won or finished 6th.  I have even had races where I have won but was not happy with the performance.  However, I am not completely dissappointed with my performance in Arizona.

Swimming is going to be what stands between me and real success in the future if I don’t improve it.  I don’t understand how I can lose so much time from the leaders.  I feel like I am going 100% the whole swim and in this particular swim I let the lead group get away already after 50m.  At least there was someone to work with in the 2nd group although I think I really let the tempo slacken when I was at the front.  Later, when I couldn’t help hold the pace, he obviously tried to drop me  but fortunately I had enough fire to go with these accelerations or I may have lost even more time.  On the bright side, he managed to shake Mich Weiss and I was off on the bike with a 20 sec buffer to him.

It is always a bitter moment when you hear the first time split to the leaders, especially when it is a ridiculous 6 min!  As my swimming has been so up and down I just went with it and thought there as 7hrs left to make up that time.  And so I began.  I felt good, was eating and drinking, and my legs felt relaxed and I realized I was making pretty good time already going past some of the guys in the first 30km.  After the first turnaround (at 30km) I found myself less than 3 minutes down on the leaders. The biggest problem out there is traffic.  Because it is a 3 lap course, the amount of athletes on the course makes things pretty hectic.  This is why I decided to try to bridge that gap before we got into the 2nd lap so I would have the escort of the lead vehicle guiding me through the age groupers.  I was able to close the gap rather fast after that, I think partly because most ride a little less power on slight downhills and partly becuase I ride the fasted machine there is.  The time split in the result list tells another story tho, 1hr21min28sec was my time for the first 60.6km – 45km/hr and on pace for a 4:04 split.. :-). The exerienced athlete would say I were a bit naive… does this boy think he is Superman?  Maybe that is how I felt but I have been doing this sport since I was 12 and know what it feels like to be riding over my head.  I stell felt very much controlled and had planned to back off for a while once I had caught the leaders.  I did just that and had a little picnic and a stretch and then thought it was time to go again.  In the group ahead of me everyone seemed loathe to take the lead and since niether Llanos, Amey or O’donnel were in the group I thought it would be good time to put the pressure on.  I thought that Martin Jensen a Danish athlete known for a strong cylcle leg would want to push the pace with me.  So it was at about 65km when I started to push again.  I kept my eyes ahead and thought I would wait until I reached the somewhat wider BeeLine highway to see what things looked like behind as it was too hard to tell as we were constantly passing lapped athletes.  Once I got there, the media motorbike let me know that I had about a 40 sec lead on the field.  I was just starting to ponder whether to go it alone or sit up a bit and wait for the group when I heard the nightmare-ish pffffffffffffffffffffffffffff a sound worse  to me than a dentists drill.  I was rather surprised how calm I remained as I dismounted and went to work with the change – normally I blow up and completely lose control.  Maybe it was a bad omen to have practiced changing a tire at race-pace only a few days earlier.   To my dismay I had a 3cm tear in the tire and a new tube would have surely popped as soon as I inflated it.  At the same moment I was realizing this the race mechanic rode up with spare wheels.  He wasn’t super quick but before long I had a new rear wheel in place and was back on my way.  I still ended up losing a good 2 min and once again had to make a move to the front.  As I  closed the gap and was back with the leaders I started to feel the effects of the heavy exertion.  I had eaten and drank a lot but I think riding the intensity I was cost a lot of energy and I started to feel rather weak.

The engine sputtered and then finally shut down.  I rode the next 20km like I had drank a 5th of Vodka and lost over 5 min on the leaders I had worked so hard to catch. I have never suffered so badly and felt so ill. I pulled off and sat in the ditch, chewing on a Peanut Butter Powerbar and waiting to be picked up.. then I thought it might take hours for someone to come and get me so I got back on my Plasma and started to spin and finish my Powerbar.  After about 20min I started to feel some energy come back and started to think somewhat positive.  My plan had been now to ride back to transition and pull out, but I started to think it over and didn’t want to face the regret of giving up, and the conotations as those who pull out once pull out again.. it  gets easier every time.  So when I made it back I slipped the shoes and and stumbled out of transition.  I had made a new goal to finish and had to fight hard for 42km to push out the negative thoughts. I had been so ready and excited to duel it out to the finish but this duel was left to the others and I just ran as well as I could.  I ran quite well for about 21 km and then just got more and more tired, and slower and slower.  It was not like in Roth when my legs simply wouldn’t move any more, this was and entire system/full body shut down and I really struggeld to keep moving.  The worst was when Torsten Abel and Viktor Zyemsev in turn went blazing past me.

I was surprized to see in the result list later that I had run 2h55min.  From the feel of it I thought I had jogged that last 10km in 2hrs, berely faster than a walk and thought my run time would have been close to 3hrs30min in total..
Now I need to congratulate ever Long Distance Triathlon finisher from a different perspective.  Gutting it out when motivation is low and things go poorly is much different than when everything seems to go your way.
I have learned a lot from this race and will take it with me for next year.  Now for a decent seasons break to recharge for the next charge.

The first strike was at Buschuetten Triathlon which is an Olympic Distance ‘Non Drafting’ event where the organizers always try to get a mix of Germany’s best short and long distance athletes in the same race.

After one of the best swims of his career (in a race ;)) Kienle quickly moved to the front of the field but was pursued closely by Andy Boecherer and Dirk Bockel.  The rest of the field, including short course aces Maik Petzold and Ivan Vassiliev had to battle for fourth on this day.  Kienle was unable, however to shake Boecherer or Bockel on the bike but showed his complete abilities when he annihilated them both on the run by over 2 min -  yes, our boy can run, too.

2^nd race on the schedule, Heilbronn City Triathlon, (2km-60km-14km) was meant to be a showdown with ‘Little’ (Micheal) Raelert who turned out to be either ill or injured on the day and not ‘fit’ to race.  So the day ended up being a revenge match with Andi Boecherer who ended up going for a tape to tape win against our boy – at least we know he’s mortal.  Kienle, who felt straight away on the bike that the legs didn’t have their normal fire power, struggled all day to close the gap until his coach Lubos Bilek told him to shut’er down with 5km left in the run as it looked like a lost cause. Better to save it for the big match-up with ‘Big’ (Andreas) Raelert the following weekend at Challenge Kraichgau.  Kienle cruied home, holding his 2^nd postition.

Finally, The Big match up with Andreas Raelert, who had also showed some ridiculous form this season at IM 70.3 Mallorca coming down a few minutes off the bike but decimating the filed with a 1hr11min run!  Kienle was fired up and ready for this one!  With an average swim, Sebastian came into T2 with a 2min deficit on Raelert but was quick to reduce that to nothing in a matter of 30kms. He kept the pressure on and managed to leave an impressive field including Norman  Stadler, and French powerhouse Francois Chabaud in his wake.  But this race was in no way over.  Despite a 4min buffer to Raelert, Kienle knew he had to dig deep in this run.  As expected, it turned out to be real thriller with Raelert catching Kienle in the last 3km of the race.  Sebastian, clearly cooked crossed the line with a smile knowing he he gave everything, racing Prefontaine style from the front and leaving it all out on the course.

Stay tuned, the duell is far from finished.  The two will meet once again head to head at Challenge Roth in 4 weeks time where it will be decided who Germany’s number one Triathlete.

After last weeks performance I really had hoped to prove to myself, my competition and fans that my swim has indeed improved, but alas, this would have to wait.  At the least I could show that I can ride much better than I did the week before without any technical problems.

The pros were sent out in 30 second intervals onto the bike course.  I was pretty happy to have start number 22 as there would be lots of bait strung out on the course for me.  Despite deciding to hold back the first 45 km I was able to knock off 3 guys already in the first 10km.  That was some added motivation.  On a pancake-flat course with strong winds, it can be a real head game to the so being able to real guys in all day was great.  I tried to keep my power constant on the way back with the tail wind and was well over 50kmh (yes I was loving it!) for a good half an hour and made a lot of time on the leaders.

At km 80 I was able to catch the “lead group”,  and heard one of them say “Fuck this is number 22, he is more than 7 minutes ahead of us”.  Yep, that’s about right, see ya!

Running was more than just a formality.  I knew I was well ahead of the leaders with low numbers but a few of race favourites (ie. Drik Bockel no. 40) had higher numbers than me and I had no idea how far ahead I was.  I ran the first 9 miles with 3X World Duathlon champ, Paul Amey who came off the bike not far behind but let him go on the final straight which was 4km long (knowing that i was over 7 min ahead) but finished strong with one of the fastest run times of the day.

I am happy with the win, beating some world class athletes by well over 5 minutes.  Form is very good and I am ready for anything.

I really enjoyed the trip and want to thank the organizers of the 70.3 NOLA you folks did an great job! also Daniel Schmoll, Terenzo Bozzone, Ronnie Schildknecht, Sam Leblanc and the rest of the Biest Milch Crew for good company and support.

Finally, my first big win in the USA!