The German Sparkle Party

Race Report ÖtillÖ SwimRun Engadin 2017

July 9 was a blast. Knutters and myself managed to pull a 4th place finish in the oh-so-stunning Engadin Valley. As Michael Lemmel puts it: Nature showed us who’s the boss.

Race Report Stockholm SwimRun 2017

The hard facts:

23 km (trail) running, 4 km swimming, 11 runs, 10 swims. 6th overall, 4th in Men’s.

The soft facts:

What had been planned as the start of a 2 week vacation turned out to be a very short but lovely weekend visit to the new kid in (Stockholm) town – the impeccable Runssel himself. Obviously, spirits were at peak level as this was the first outing of the original GSP in 2017.

When the gun went off it struck us right away that apparently all other teams (or just us?!) must have been misinformed. The majority was by all means convinced that the race was to end after the first swim. You get the picture. The starting pace was furious. We found ourselves far off in the middle of the field after the first 45 minutes. In true SwimRun spirit, it was Runssel who took the reins and steadily pulled us further up in the ranking. On the longer runs, we felt that we were in a good position to gain a few spots – some of which we lost again in the swims. GSP’s water performance was really off that day. But good for us: The longer swim sections had already been behind us and we could focus on a decent pace on the run sections. Old Diesel engines that we are, we were in full cry towards the later parts of the race. We were quite surprised when we learned that we had eye contact to the podium teams. If it hadn’t been for that bitch of a last swim, a medal might have been in sight.

But after all, we were more than content with what we made of the race, especially after a really hectic start.

A well-organized race, nice course, really close to the city and easy to get to. Tack!

GSP in the Press

Saturday’s edition of the “Heilbronner Stimme” featured some GSP wisdom on the use of compression socks in sports. Go grab some coffee and have a read - if you’re sufficiently educated in the German language, that is.

Race Report Frankfurt Marathon 2016

Ah well, this is not really worth a report. I was highly pumped after we missed out on 1000 Lakes but I realised there was still some fitness left in the tank. Also mentally, I knew I was prepared for a road Marathon suffer fest again - which took me long enough after an unsatisfying 3:00:10 Munich Marathon back in 2014.

Long story short: I blew up BIG TIME after averaging 4 min k’s (or even below) on the first half, strolling along, chatting and laughing with GSP ambassador Knutters. I bloody knew it was way too fast, but what can you do if it just feels so darn good. The hammer hit its target (me!) far too soon at 25 km. Loooong way from there. The second half of walk-running-ambivalence took me 20 minutes longer than the first one and I basically only made it to the finish for the reason that my wife and son as well as Markus had made their way to Frankfurt to cheer us on.

This Marathon business is a tricky bitch to master. Hopefully it won't take me another two years for the next attempt. I’ll still be swimming the next couple of weeks instead of running.

This can wait.

F.

Race Report ÖtillÖ 2016

„Why the heck does it take a cunning gang like the GSP almost two months to publish the latest race report???“ That’s a legitimate question I have been asking myself over and over again. The obvious and simple answer would be that we have been overly busy at the reproduction front. Two utterly competitive SwimRunners to be beaten at ÖtillÖ 2040 joined the GSP over the summer. That’s time consuming business - true. But to be fair, I think the real reason behind the delay in online awesomeness is that this Swedish classic on the first Monday in September just wears you out so much. Yes, you are fully pumped after this 75 km mayhem. Emotional overflow. But once the adrenaline levels drop, that’s when you start feeling the emptiness. This race and all the anticipation that accumulates in the build-up is just intense. And it picks up every year. Hence, if you miss this tiny time slot of post-race euphoria in order to put the pen to paper (or: fingers to keyboard), it’ll take you ages to properly reflect about the event. But finally, now is the time.

This year’s race started out weird. We positioned well at the start line but we were not prepared for how this race had evolved. Once the gun went off, things got quite hectic and we had some minor déjà-vus with our past in Triathlon battling. Athletes take SwimRun serious these days. And what had been a friendly and chilled-out get-together of like-minded adventurers all of a sudden turned into a fierce and fully professional endurance race. Ergo, we got overrun quite a bit. Smart blokes as we are, we did not get overexcited about it and decided to let the race sort itself out over time. Nevertheless, our pace was pretty decent, especially compared to recent years. But when we heard our positioning at the Red Bull sprint price approximately 2 hours into the race, we were reasonably shocked. We had not expected tobe THIS far off. It was reality check for us. Finishing well in this race has and will become tougher every year. It is blunt to compare the situation to that other race in some volcanic pacific paradise - but it just fits so well. Triathlon legend Faris also approved that ÖtillÖ „feels like Hawaii 15 years back“. I guess only time will tell…

Working our way through this harsh yet so magnificent piece of nature the GSP did what it does best: bromancing the shit out of this race. Steady efforts led to a steady pace led to a steady positioning. We managed to not experience the rough patches we went through in 2014, when Markus and I had our first outing in the archipelago. Luckily enough we stayed on top of things even after some major tumbles and falls and pulled through all the way to Utö.

As I said, this athletic surf & turf does not get easier over the years and that is why we slipped back in the ranking even with a significantly faster time then two years ago. But once you climb this last hill up to Utö Värdshus, there is nothing but joy and relief - no matter how fast you go.

And then there was this certain plan to set a solid base for ÖtillÖ ´17 qualification at 1000 lakes SwimRun just past weekend. Well - just scroll back to the top and you know the deal.

Once again, Mats & Michael together with their whole entourage delivered supreme endurance sports quality and we are deeply impressed how the sport evolved. The GSP will keep sparkling hard in order to try and represent many more times at the start line in Sandhamn.