My goal in Ironman Austria 2008, which is only 2 and a half hours away from my residence in Zagreb, Croatia, was to be in the TOP 5 athletes and with that result qualifying for the Hawaii Ironman World Championship 2008.

6 months of preparation that’s behind me paid off. On Sunday July 13, I successfully finished my second Ironman race in a 10-year long career in sports and took the 5th place with a new croatian national Ironman record time of 8 hours, 28 minutes and 4 seconds.

Brothers Brad and Anton Storm, which are widely recognized as very fast in the shorter distance races of triathlone, led the way swimming through the Worthersee lake. After the swimming portion of the race (49 minutes) I was holding an excellent position with the leading group of athletes which consisted of many well-known names, like domestic favorites Norbert Langbrandtner (2nd place Ironman Austria 2002,2005, 2007), Werner Leitner (4th place IM Austria70.3) and Olympics-bound Norbert Dominik (2nd place IM 70.3 Monaco 2006) with only one man ahead of us; the winner of Ironman Austria in 2006 and 2007 and a big favorite to win the race, Mr. Marino Vanhoenacker (5th place IM WC Hawaii 2007).

Bike portion of the race was organized into 2 circles of 90 kilometers each with two more significant hills on the track. The rest of the circuit was faster and technically less demanding, which led to some inappropriate behaviour of some atletes called drafting. It was penalised with a black card, which meant 4 minutes added time to the final result.

After about 40 kilometers on the bike, weather worsened and heavy rain started to interfere with my planned pace for the bike section beacuse of the slippery turns and poor visibility due to evaporation of water up from the asphalt.

Somewhere along the 65th kilometer on the bike I started to experience some technical dificulty with my gear shifter and I had to let go of the first group to fix the problem. By later trying to catch up with the leaders I drove somewhat carelessly through one of the left turns and received a red card, with which they made me wait for 4 long minutes in the transition zone after 180 kilometers on the bike without eating, drinking or getting any kind of useful information about the competitors’ current position and time. I have to say that judges were pretty successful in discouraging drafting within the PRO group of athletes, while they were more relaxed with the EDGE group of athletes.

From what I could tell, I started my marathon run somewhere between 12th and 14th position in the race. In spite heavy rain and slippery track in some places, I managed to run the halfmarathon distance for 1 hour, 22 minutes and 20 seconds, which gave me a boost to finish the race with a 2:48 marathon time, and take the 5th place overall. With that my goal was complete.

Since the race was being held so close to my home base myself and 5 croatian athletes , who competed within the EDGE group, enjoyed a very massive and very recognizable red and white-squared support. Fans and family always represent a huge support and motivation to every Ironman, for which I am eternally deeply grateful.

My next big goal of the season is, of course, Hawaii, before which I will participate in some training-races across Europe.

race results

more about the Race

photos race day 13.07.2008

photos ironman austria 9.07-12.07.2008

video

Successfull competition in World Series Ironman 70.3

photos here

profile of the bike course on Ironman 70.3 St.Polten

I’ve recorded my bike section on race with Garmin Edge 305 model but unfortunatelly I forgot to stop the time after getting off on run so it is not possible to scan average speed and parameters. Still, the most important contents, like configuration of the course you can investigate in detail if you click on the picture below (MotionsBased web site).

After 4-hour competition on World Series race Ironman 70.3 in Austria, I have achieved 8th place in time 4 hours 2 min and 18 sec and improved my last year’s result for more minutes.

I swam fast and economic and found myself in the leading group on bike (infront of this group was only Bjoern Andersson, who was class on bike in juxtaposition all others attendee). I ride in this position untill 30th km, where I lost very perspective group because of few bed ridden curves.

I continued to ride alone next 30 km with aproximatly speed of 41km per hour, when I was catched by the following group in which were great favorites of the race, like Cigana Massimo, Uwe Widmann and last year’s winner Michael Goehner.

The moment of joinment with group from the back was just before one and only big hill where I (because of my solo ride before) lost strenght to follow their pace and lost about 3-4 min in last 30 km.
This little disadvantage wasn’t at all discouraging in my attempt to get in Top 10. With very good run I got ahead of 10 competitors and won great 8th place for Croatia.

I am very glad that my great rival from Mljet Massimo Cigana won this race, even more because he wasn’t often mentioned favorit of this race and he came from backplane. Massimo has very wisely and carefully used young and strong Goehner and catched already foreseened winner Andersson on the run . He granted his victory at the last finish of the race and so repeted his last year’s triumph from Mljet race.

Great austrian home favorites like Daniel Niederreiter, Norbert Langbrandter and Dominik Norbert (austrian olympic distance triathlete) didn’t make to get in Top 10.

German Uwe Widmann (married with Croatian girl from Međimurje J ), who at his last Ironmann Australia achieved great 6th place, had bad run and ended this race as 15th.

results here.

Successfull big race is behind me. This was only a lead-in for what is expecting me on 13th of July on Ironman in Klagenfurt. Winter training showed itself as very successfull and I improved myself in all three disciplines. With some small but significant details I soon expect stage on this kind of international race. With smile on my face I await on that day J