After the IM70.3 World Championship and my holiday in New Zealand in December 2024 and January 2025, I had to work a lot again. From the end of January until the middle of July, I worked over 125 days and then it was time for my long summer break in which I could focus completely on training, getting back in condition and continuing my house renovation/building my home gym. During my work, I have limited workout possibilities and time, and every year I have to train hard to come back into race condition. Unfortunately, in the last week working, I injured my left hamstring and couldn’t run on the treadmill anymore.
After coming home from work, I directly visited my physiotherapist and received a recovery program for my hamstring injury. A slow and low intensity buildup and after two weeks, I was pain free running again. Now it was time to increase the run intensity and volume. Luckily, in the meantime, I was able to spend many hours in the swimming pool and on the bike so my condition in those two sports were improving rapidly. A few months ago, I had registered myself for the middle-distance triathlon race of Challenge Almere for 13 September 2025, which was getting closer and closer…
Early August, I was training hard on all three sports. Consistently working out between 15-20 hours per week, slowly building my condition up. About 2.5 weeks before the race, I went to Almere to cycle the full bike course. Of course, I couldn’t cycle on the main road but had to stick to the bike paths but the layout, the long exposed dike section and the section back through the polder fields, were good to explore and familiarize.
Race Week
The week before Challenge Almere was to prepare myself for the race and taper the workouts. The weather in September is normally a pretty good but this year we had a lot of rain. I skipped some bike trainings and my swim/run trainings were low intensity with a few fast spikes to keep my muscles activated.
The race venue is about an hour drive from my home town but for easiness I had booked a hotel close to the area. On Friday morning, I drove to Almere and checked out the transition and the event area with all its brand booths. There was a lot of wind and the waves on the lake looked quite angry. That was going to be interesting… The wind during the dike and open polder sections were getting even more interesting!
The manufacturer of my bicycle, Ku Cycle, had a booth at the event area and I gave them a visit. A friendly welcome, chatting with them and other Ku Cycle owners, and they gave my bike a quick pre-race check and adjustments.
Then I went to the booth of Carborange, my nutrition supplier, and had another good chat and received interesting information of their Carbogels. I’ve been using the Carborange Intermix power sachets for over a year, and will try out their gels after the race in some intensive trainings. Previously, my stomach suffered from other gel brands resulting in puking etc. Carborange appears to be better for sensitive stomachs.
On Friday afternoon, I registered myself and received all the race items and information; the transition bags, race numbers, stickers, and backpack. I prepared my bike in a parking lot and checked-in at the transition area. All ready for race day!
Race Day
Early morning wake-up, breakfast and getting ready. Walking in the dark to the transition area to get my bike and transition bags ready for the race. Pumping up tires, adding the nutrition bottles, my bike and run shoes, etc.
Once done, I went back to my hotel room, packed my bag and checked out. Brought my bag to the car and went back to lake to watch the start of the long distance Professional and age-group triathletes. The lake conditions still looked tough with many small white caps of the waves. Several long distance age-group athletes struggled and I noticed a few taken out of the race by rescue boat. After a while it was time to head to the swim start. My middle distance race was about to start!
Swim
A few minutes after the first middle-distance age group athletes started, I was also in the water. And it was tough. The annoying short waves from the side combined with the poor visibility to see the buoys (and several other buoys still laying in the water which confused even more) didn’t make the swim enjoyable.
Finally after 36m14s, I came out of the water with a slow average pace of only 1:54/100m. This was still the 12th time in my age group but it felt horrible at that time.
A short run to the transition tent to change to the bike gear. The run to the bike took a lot longer due to the bike park layout but after 4m26s I was finally on my Ku Cycle bike. Now the race was ready to start!
Bike
The bike felt good and the first section was on a lot of shorter road sections with many turns and through the wind-sheltered areas towards the dike to Lelystad. After about 28 minutes I arrived on the famous dike. A long stretch of approximately 22 kilometers with the wind coming from the righthand side. My average speed was still reasonably high with about 45 km/h but this also meant that the section through the open fields to the southeast was going against the wind. I was pushing quite hard on the dike and then the fun started. My speed often dropped well below the 30 km/h and it was exhausting to maintain the speed and power. I started to feel light cramping in my leg muscles.
After about 78 kilometer on the bike, I turned back on a dike towards Almere. With the wind coming more from behind, my speed went up again to between 35-40 km/h. A last push to the transition zone and I completed the bike section in 2h34m04s as 13th in my age group with an average speed of 37 km/h. Not too bad but I was expecting a higher speed and quicker bike section! Still 13th out of 115 in my age group isn’t awful.
After parking my bike back in the rack, I changed in the tent for the half marathon run. T2 took me 4m22s.
Run
Directly after starting the run, it didn’t feel that good. It was pretty cold, my legs were heavy and close to cramping. After 1.5 kilometers I had my first dixi toilet visit, followed by a second visit after about 5.5 kilometers… My pace was terribly slow; running between 5:00 and 5:30 per kilometer. Dark clouds were forming around Almere and at kilometer 15 a short but heavy and very cold rain shower soaked me completely. I was shivering and feeling horrible. I had to vomit and everything came out.
After emptying my stomach, suddenly my body felt ok again and my legs felt better. My speed went up to a normal running pace. I was running at 4:15-4:30 per kilometer and in the last 1.5 kilometers, I was even able to push out a sprint of 3:30/1km to the finish line.
I still don’t understand what happened and why my body felt so horrible but the finish felt really good. If only I was able to get into that state from the beginning and had a decent half marathon run…
My run time was 1h51m06s and ranked me 49th in my age group.
Finish
I was so glad to finish this race. From the beginning I didn’t feel great and was struggling constantly.
My finish time was 5h10m10s, which ranked me 17th in my age group of 115 athletes.
Considering my horrible run, a top 15% finish isn’t even too bad but it could have been so much better. If I would have had a normal half marathon run of (conservatively) 1h30m, then I would have finished close to a podium place. If. But that didn’t happen.
Next Race
In less than three weeks, I’ll drive to Portugal for the Ironman 70.3 Cascais race. I’ve been in Cascais twice for the full-distance but I will compete in the middle-distance this year. In the upcoming weeks, I need to train hard to improve my fitness and condition in order to perform much better than in Almere.
After arriving in Cascais, I have two weeks to train on the race courses, familiarize myself and enjoy the good weather in Portugal. I’ve certainly found out that my body is struggling in cold and wet conditions.
Let’s hope that Portugal will have a good after-summer with pleasant temperatures and sunshine!
