After three weeks of resting in September I started my training by the 3rd of October. It was a quite unusual way to start training. I was on the startline for the first Marathon on Lake Lucerne. I was able to win this 42km race in 3:26:03. I enjoyed the most part of this race, the perfect weather definitly helped. But the last 10km are only about ignoring pain, time and distance. This emotion immediately changed when I arrived at the last Kilometre and was able to see the finish line. I was full of hapiness and confidence when I crossed the line. I think this is the same if you cross the lane first or last. It’s more about being proud to have completed this challenge. I had no doubt of competing again at the race in 2016. (In fact I do not have a choice, because my brother is organising this event)
After this nice little experience I put the focus back on 1000m training. At the moment this is not much different, it’s also about building up my endurance, but fortunately shorter. And sure I am back in gym, put on my running shoes, swim googles or climb up some mountains with my bike. I never had problems to find motivation for training and now so close to my most important season ever, this is sure not different. What is different is that I have more self confidence after my satisfying Worldchampionships in Milan. So I push myself over mental borders just because I believe I can. This definitly helps when you train alone.
The first month of training for the new season is now already done and last weekend we had some national team test. On this test we paddled 250m and 2000m, did Strength and a 5000m running test. I was able to prove my feeling in training right. Which meant that I pushed myself more and realised in all the tests almost PB’s. Normally after one month of training I am far away from this level. But now I can build on that level and hopefully go much further until next May when the European Olympic Qualification race will be held.
At the moment I am training at the National Sports centre in the south of Switzerland for two weeks. We have great weather here and I am such a lucky boy that the weather will not get worse this Winter. On the 30st of November I fly to Sydney and will train for 4 months down under. I can follow the training group of Tim Jacobs which includes the fastest Australian 1000m paddler Murray Stewart. I feel very privileged to join this world class training environment and this gives some extra motivation every day!
