Benja's small Triathlon Blog

New Season - new helmets

2010-05-14T23:52:00.005+02:00

Just to make this quick and pain-free for everybody:
Please use the poll on the right to select which color you would prefer for our team in 2011.
Yes you can vote for more than 1 color at a time, but please vote only once to keep things fair!

See you all in Gladbeck tomorrow!:)

Benja

ps
If you aren't member of our bundesliga squad and just stumbled on this page because you googled for q-rings, I would ask you to ignore this post and not to answer the poll. Thanks! And btw, I still ride the q-rings; )

Aerotesting with Mr. Chung

2010-04-21T21:17:00.003+02:00

Well not really with him, but using his extraordinary methodology to analyse the field-testing we conducted in our velodrome here in the university in cologne.
And with quite some success!:)
First was Nick Staggenborg, an aspiring swimmer who has fixed himself with some nice cycling legs (the running legs are in the works, I think he is using the latest beta version, release end of Q2 maybe early Q3...) where was I... Ah.. yes he will be shocking some people soon with some blistering bike splits!
Long story short, although I am far from having put together a perfect test protocol we already were able to save 20 watts from his original position (even 28watts, but he might not be able to hold it together for 90k's so lets say 20)! And he even should be able to hold this position as it is even slightly higher than the previous one.

Next one was Zellerman
His initial position wasn't bad at all, but still left plenty of room for improvement.
I tested the praying mantis position (made famous by a guy named floyd...) with him, and err...
Let's put it this way:
First of all it was fast, really fast, so fast that I won't post the numbers here as nobody would believe me:D
But most of all it was fugly as hell and he felt it wasn't ride-able at least not for a long time.
That's really a shame as if he would/could train to ride this position he could gain some serious time.
But we still found a considerate amount of time, although this is a serious understatement. Putting his arms closer together and raising his arms a tad resulted in a decrease of CdA of 0,027 ~ 23Watts!!! Further testing showed that by opening his mouth and poking his tongue out accompanied with rocking back and forth on the saddle cost him nearly half of the CdA gain.
All in adds up to at least 1:12 minutes over 40k and 2:43minutes over 90k, if he keeps is tongue to himself;) this could easily turn to 1:42 and 3:51 minutes!

Last but not least Tommy had to try a ridiculously steep "Praying Mantis"-position which was so bad that he would be 15 minutes slower over the ironman leg if he would finish without crashing first which given the steep angle seems unlikely:)

John Cobb once said, that short helmets like the Giro advantage work well for people with round backs, while long helmets like the Spiuk should be worn by athletes with flat backs.
And as always he is spot on, Tommy tried both the Giro and the Spiuk and given is Lance shaped back (@ zeller dont cha wish your back was bent like that? ; ) ) the Giro tested ~ about 15 watts faster for him than the spiuk!

All in all it was a long day.
I hope I haven't bored you too much!
To summarize the day, I was very surprised by the huge effect of apparently little changes in position. But the data is correct, although the estimates of Crr aren't at 100% the difference in CdA remain about the same.

BIG THANKS to Sebastian, Nick and Tommy for participating and helping me learn more about aero-testing!!!

hugs and kisses

Benja

ps
I'll try to never post something as boring again;)
next time at least with pictures!

Comeback

2010-04-19T17:28:00.002+02:00

Well, I haven't posted here in a long time, again!
Due to having a really shity training season so far, and pure lazyness.
The last half year has been a real nightmare training-wise as my knees don't seem to be as forgiving as in fall. I pretty much haven't run since Octobre. My swimming was with ups and downs, I swam a personal best over 400m in 4:35, so things were going pretty well. Of course I got sick again and still am for 6 week in a row. This was the second time this year I couldn't train for more than 4 weeks in a row!!!
As you see things haven't be going as planned lately.
But there ist still a little hope left.
I still belive I can have a good mid-late season.

Just a short update

cya

Benja

Q-rings final verdict

2009-10-01T09:41:00.002+02:00

I continued riding q-rings for the rest of the year.
I have the subjective feeling:
Pros:
They improve sprinting and accelerating out of the saddle, or at least you can achieve the same amount of power with less work.
It FEELS easier to power along in big gears. Again I think there is not more power produced but less work is needed for the same power.
They may cause fewer stress on the knees.
And most importantly: They look really cool:)

Cons:
Shifting is definitely slower than with round shimano rings.
It is difficult to set up the front derailleur.
Not for everybody, seem not to work with every pedaling technique, if you a have a very round spin they may not be an advantage for you.

To sum it up, I like them and I think I'll keep them:)

Have an awesome day,

Benja

Swimming with Mr. Jaskolka

2009-10-01T09:22:00.004+02:00

That was a pretty tough morning. I'm still feeling a bit dizzy. Not because of the strange beer we had yesterday (beer with sherbet, which markus [the puss] refused "ah that's to bitter, I don't like that..wähähä [that little crybaby:D, luckily he'll never read this;)]) but because of very cool swimming session with Marek Jaskolka. We swam side by side 3x1000 and astonishingly I felt really great. I felt smooth, powerfull and fast.. eeerrrr at least I FELT fast, we actually were cruising at 1:30 pace /100m :D
So I think my overall technique is pretty much okay at the moment. But still I am slow like Peter Meyer..^^
Yesterday I ran with Lars Fricke and it was absolutely AWESOME! Due to a little confusion concerning the right way home we ran pretty much twice the distance planned. My first over 10k run since 2007! Yay!:)
As you can see training is progressing and I am confident!
Ah yes we're still learning quite a bit here in Leipzig, more than I could have hoped for.
Cya soon and please forgive my many mistakes!

Benja

Trainer B part1

2009-09-29T09:47:00.002+02:00

Now writing from Leipzig, meaning I am currently in far far away from home in East-Germany.
The air is a bit different here causing some people constant headaches! - Yes, Markus is whining like a little girl the whole time:D
We had quite an eventful trip to Leipzig! Georg forgot an "S" in the when typing in the name of the street in his Navi.
So we landed in some kind of strange neighbourhood. Smashed windows everywhere, graffiti sprayed on the walls.. we all felt a little bit uncomfortable:D
Luckily after some time we saw through and could correct our mistake!
More about the IAT and what we actually do here in a little bit.
Cya

Benja

Eicma 2009

2009-09-25T20:07:00.020+02:00

Back from Milan, my feet are still hurting like hell!
But damn, what a city! Really cool!
Very cool as well, EICMA!
Not a global player as eurobike or interbike but big enough to keep me running around for 3 hours!
So here are my highly subjective highlights:
LOOK:
really slick looking new special edition paintjobs:

Colnago:
Again the best looking bikes came from Colnago:

But not far behind, the company we all are most interested in:
FOCUS :
The time trial frame got a colour update and a different set of aerobars for 2010.

2010 Cayo was redesigned completey with new beefed up Downtube and BB30 Bottom Bracket

But most importantly the izalco was completely overhauled for 2010.

Even though the handlebars are mounted in an almost ridiculous fashion the bike is absolutely AWESOME!

The new Chainstays are supposed to make the frame more compliant, they certainly look the part!

The headtube diamteter has grown and the cable routing is now internal. Looks all very smooth and really really cool!

The Downtube has grown as well and the BB30 BB rounds up the stunning picture!

Nice shaped headtube!

All in all I have to say the bike is absolutely marvellous!:D I really hope this is going to be our new team-bike!:)

Different frame colours for the izalco are:

Team Milram Replica with new Sram Force

Different colour scheme for the izalco, also nice and also possibly an option for our new team bike.
Cya Later

Benja

2010

2009-09-20T11:10:00.005+02:00

Nearly 5 months and zero race reports later I'll start posting again!
To make things short, we had a fantastic season!
The guys were incredibly strong and we accomplished our goal and advanced in the 1.Bundesliga for 2010. As I announced in spring, I did not compete in any races this year. But the guys did extraordinary by themselves! I would have needed to be on the top of my game to be of any help. As this was not possible after the curcimstances in march and april I enjoyed quite a nice summer with only very "light" training:)
But now for 2010 I really want to earn me a spot on the team. In consequence I will have to improve my swim and my bike by quite a bit. But my absolute focus is and must be on running where I will try to slowly build up my form over the winter. Don't expect miracles in the beginning but I hope to have descent form coming february.
Now I'm off to milan for a week!

ps
Here are some small swim videos I made in the last week. Quality is poor - I am sorry, will do better next time!
Eike - He really is in pretty good shape!
Thommy-prepared for the rough waters of barcelone
Clemens - in pretty decent shape compared to the previous years! (But there is still so much more to come! If he'll keep on working on it, he will blow some poeples minds next spring!)
Freddy - this one is really worth watching, as a special guest appears towards the end..:D
Benja - well I am really not happy with my technique or pretty much anything in this video.
Yesterday was a step in the right direction, slowly very slowly I hope I am getting where I want to be technique-wise. Speed is still a whole other story^^

I really need to pack my bags now!
Cya soon

Benja

Its looking good, lads!

2009-04-28T23:35:00.004+02:00

The doctor is now 99% sure that it is not a myocarditis. I may have had a minor one in february, the blood results due this week, will tell. If that is the case I will have to put my sport activities on halt for another month or so. We'll see. The source of all the trouble seems to be partly stress related. Still I don't think I will enter any competition this season. Maybe I will change my mind.. I'll explain in due time. thats it for now.
Good night!

Benja

ps
Thanks to all of you who were supporting me in this time that was much harder than I'd ever admit!

The moment of truth..

2009-04-28T10:32:00.002+02:00

..is hopefully now upon me, as I am heading to the cardiologist in about 5min for the final diagnosis. Wish me luck! See you this afternoon

Benja

Well thank you very much..

2009-04-21T19:29:00.002+02:00

..you tiny little betablockers. I've been taking these for the past five days, and they really seem to be helping matters. I feel a lot better, but still not really problem free. I went to see another doctor after the bloodtest turned out negative (which was quite positive I think),and according to her my symptoms could match a myocarditis. The devastating truth is, there seems to be no foulproof method to rule it out. So all I can do for now is do nothing. I have another appointment with another cardiologist next tuesday. Till then I will start taking ibuprofen in case I might have the worst.
Wish you all the best and see you soon
Benja

So much for Plan B...

2009-04-16T20:41:00.003+02:00

Long no hear from me, and long time no train for me as well^^
I had some heart problems in the last past weeks. These kind of thinks really wake you up. It started with some sort of pressure in the chest region accompanied by shortness of breath. While these two things took place, my heart found it the right time to introduce a new beating rythm. It changes from beating super strong to very weak, from fast to slow pretty much at will. It came from time to time. Mostly when resting or after a workout. Those things really alarm you, I tell ya. So I went to see the doctors. Well it appears that my blood-pressure is a little bit to high at 140/80. So far so good, but is that all that is behind my problems? The doctors still can't outrule a myocarditis. So I still have to wait with any demanding activity. The heart-echo was ok, the rest-EKG as well, at the moment I am waiting for the Results of the longterm EKG and blood-tests. They prescribed me some betablockers, but hey I don't want to swallow pills for ever..
Back to triathlon..
That's for Triathlon so far. If it turns out that everything but the blood-pressure is fine, I still don't think I will really race this season again. Maybe I'll do one at the end of the year for fun..
The most frustrating part is that I haven't trained for eight weeks and I still have no idea what all that is about.
Hope to have better news next time!
Cya

Benja

ps
maybe I should rename the blog..

So...let's hear about Plan B!

2009-03-17T08:09:00.006+01:00

Hi everyone, this will be about me for a change.
To summarize my situation up to this point:
I had a very good december, swimming quite a lot,
and made some good miles on the bike. I had never bin this fit since ..err..ever?!
Than came january, everything started out fine, but it all ended in a desaster.
Week #3 was a rest week from which I have not recovered since. I had shoulder problems after pretty tough swim workout( 15x100m in 1:16, start-time every 1:25).
I even had started running again. Only slow and only 10min at a time. But somehow, I was still to much for the damn knees. Before I could figure out what was really going on, I found myself unable to run/bike nor swim for 3,5 weeks.
The only good thing I thought was that I did not want to be in shape to early.
Well that can I assure you now;)
And after 3 and a half weeks of doing pretty much nothing. The training camp in Mallorca was upon me.
My knees felt better and I was able to train almost normal. The shoulder wasn't making any trouble as well. Although I felt pretty weak on the bike and overall I could finally train again. After taking it easy for the first days, I was able to train pretty good for about 3 days.
Unfortunately my roommate Zeller caught a cold which turned into a bronchitis..well you can imagine the rest..I'll just say having him coughing all over the place did not help matters..
My last day of real training, and it has been to this day, was the february 26th, a really great and first of a life-time 202km ride. Maybe I'll go a little more into depth about this superb experience, but I really wouldn't bet on it;)
Well two days later I have a really bad cold, sniffing, headache and a little bit of fever now and then for 3 days in a row. The fever vanished after I got home. But the cold and the bad feeling did not leave me for another 2 weeks. I tried training, but had to realize everytime that I still wasn't fit enough to train properly.
As you can imagine I am quite devasted right now.
My absolute A-race for this season, the olympic distance in Buschhütten on the 10th of may, is suddenly so close.. I know that there is no way in hell I'll be ready to show my A-game there. This was the one event I really wanted to shine. So what now?

So I am in the need for a Plan B.

At the moment it looks like:
I will try to give my very best to be in shape for the Team Sprint in Herscheid. But we will see what the next few weeks will bring. Otherwise I will be aiming at the races in juli as Mr.Hein will be out crushing souls in australia at that time. He's doing "research" for his study - "yeah right" - we all now what you'll be doing you lucky bastard. If you don't come back as pale as Zellers ass, you have a lot of explaining to do!^^
Soooo..( as you should know by now I like that word and will include as often as I wish:) )
Plan B is on and it still won't be no easy journey.
So hold on to your knickers my lads, I'm on my way!
wish you all the best, and mostly health
yours

Benja

Mallorca que isla dura

2009-02-23T11:20:00.006+01:00

Hey everyone! Long time no hear. So I'm back at the "Wifi für nullo"-Bar to give yall a quick but meaningfull insight in what's been cracking the last Days. *Flavor Flav mode off*
I think I'll start with the body count:
One injured: Ali killed his knee in the first week chasing after a super-strong Matthias.
One sick: Zeller got a really nice sounding bronchitis after a freezing cold descent. With 15 °C and sunny weather he must have been flying at about 100km/h or sweating like mad:) Your call.
I have a little bit of a cold myself. Having not been able to train for 3 weeks at all. I have a really hard time finding into a training rythm again. Six-pack has nearly completely vanished, and the ice-cream isn't helping matters;)
I woke up today with my mouth swollen from my top-right wisdom tooth (molar).
But screw it.
We had an awesome ride yesterday! Yeeeaah!
Cap Formentor! F***ing windy but reeeeaally buuudöfull:)
(I flatted the wattage-curve to make it visible on one sheet, sry no altimeter data, but you can imagine it from the speed and power data)
It was pretty tough clinging on to Guidos rearwheel on the climbs but a lot of fun all the same:)
The high wattage between 55 and 70 is me on a luckily succesfull solo flight to the Cap Formentor.
Shame was that simon's rear derailleur was really giving him a hard time, stomping into nothing every other minute.
On the way back home, our "lose canon" Guido decided to crank it up a little. You can see the peak at about 92 min. I stayed with him for about 2 minutes than deciding than made the only right and life-saving decision to sit up and wait for simon.
While I was pretty exhausted after this 2:20h ride, Matti and Markus pulled a solid 194km with a striking 28km/h pace.
So much for now. A lot more storys to follow in the next days.
Have a nice day,
hasta pronto!

Benja

Markus Mr. 100%

2009-02-07T11:34:00.013+01:00

So much for alphabetical order..what you're gonna do about it? Wanna stop me? .. Na didn't think so!
But this post is about Markus.
Originally a swimmer, his progression in the last 4 years made swimming to his weakness.
Well he wasn't born for swimming anyway!:) (maybe I'll come back to that later;) )
He became a decent runner and always was a very "special" cyclist.
Special as..hm.. well, imagine a bowl, throw in some big legs, good aero position, great aerobic base and threshold, mix it with big training volume and then spice it up with poor bike handling skills, and fear of curves. And what do you get, well something strange that's for sure! He could hammer away from the peloton on every straight road but would get caught in every corner.^^
So maybe Hawaii is something for him.. we'll see in the next years:)
But what makes him Mr. 100% is that no matter what is on his training plan he does it 100%. Although sometimes it could be wiser to listen to your body,
not listening to it at all will get you the training volume you need for making big progress.

I am really looking forward to our trainingscamp in Mallorca (17.2.-2.3) where we hopefully get some big miles on the bike done. Not as much as he did last year with Matthias (2000km in 2weeks) but sufficient.
That is enough for one post, a lot more to follow!

This was only a scratch on the surface of this really nice and colourful guy!

Have a nice day!
cya

Benja

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< He's strong so he gets to stand in front:) >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Hobby:)

2009-02-02T16:35:00.002+01:00

One of my favorite hobbies is parcouring.
Although as a triathlete I pretty much suck at it.
My moves and skill aren't what one would call refined.^^
But its still great and doing funny stuff indoors in a much more safer environment is even more fun!
Here is one of many very memorable moments:
Felix this one's for you!

Matrix-suuper SlowMo!
Don't feel disturbed by the crazy dude screaming in the back!;)

Felix doing a backflip,
I hurt myself once doing one, so no backflips for me during the season.
Mr. Backflip cya next fall;)
So just backhandsprings and some other safer stuff for now:)

First one on harder surface (scary^^) back in the days.

Just to give a short insight what I like to do:)
more pics to follow

cyall

Benja

Next up - Guido

2009-02-02T15:49:00.000+01:00

Damnit he's huge! But if you conquer your fear and talk to him, you'll see he is a really nice and friendly type of guy. Meeting him in the pool on the other hand is a different story!Better start praying, cause he will smash you! It will not just look and but completely feel like war!!! (8x200 in december slowest was 2:29 and he was looking as if he was just warming up^^- I gave it all just to stay on his feet)
Beeing an ex-cyclists he's known to smack some asses on the bike as well. So no doubt he will come with the leading group to T2.
And it doesn't stop there!
As Zeller has to admit that "he can run" pretty fast as well!
He finished in 33:24 on the very windy course of Pulheim 3 weeks ago.

So all of this must look pretty much like I am trying to kiss his ass here, but just calling him a good triathlete would be a big understatement! * Really he is not standing next to me holding a baseball-bat!;) *
To make it short, the competition must be warned as he is one of our Top-Guns for the upcoming season.

So keep a look out for him leading the pack!

have a nice day!

cheers

Benja

Q-Rings sum-up or..

2009-01-25T23:04:00.000+01:00

Originally this should have been the wrap-up of my experience with the q-rings in the last 5 weeks.
But somehow I feel like I am back to the starting line.. but first things first!
Summary:

Week 1: Choppy but a somehow faster feeling outdoors, horrible on the trainer though.

Week 2: Not as choppy as week 1 but still not round, got used to run it on the trainer (still not great)

Week3 : Spin is getting better. Short testing of round rings feels horrible and reveals their possible disadvantages.

Week 4: Finally a good spin and a really good feeling, great 4 hour ride outdoors with them.

Week 5: Tried round rings for 10minutes, felt horribly in the beginning, 2min later, SWOOSH! I am back to my old spin and the q-rings felt nearly as bad as on the first day.

Even my knees don't seem to know which direction I should pursue in the future.
This will need some good thinking. I'll stick with the small q-ring and round big ring for now. But a decision has to be made in the near future. All ideas appreciated!

have a nice day
cya

Benja

Zeller - "my background is running

2009-01-19T00:01:00.001+01:00

Zeller, triathlete, 23 years old.
Blonde, blue eyes, good looking, ivory skin.. but wait don't get too much excited here guys!
Its a dude:D
And he can run,
5ks in 16:17 in really difficult conditions today! He'll be attaking the 16min margin next week in Porz.
So much about his strengths.
Although he's got a huge (and if I say huge I really mean H-U-G-E - really, you wouldn't believe..) man-crush on Lance Armstrong he prefers to stay a runner/ triathlete, keeping the immitation of Lance to quoting him all day long and stalking him over the Internet:)

BTW, Lance if you read this keep an eye out for him and get this restraining order going before you come to europe!
so much for Zeller for now, as I'm too tired to go on.
If anything comes to mind I'll post/edit it right away

Ah wait all in all, great guy!

(pic is from his homepage - linked below)

Love yall!
hugs and kisses
yours
Zac Efron

Zeller Homepage - great pics^^

*I wrote this being really tired, so I really got no idea what I wrote up there
cya

the Kölner Triathlon TEAM 01

2009-01-18T23:28:00.001+01:00

There is no perfect Team.
Every Team out there got its own pros and cons, like Inter Mailand having Marco Materazzi in the team, like Astana having Contador(sry don't like him^^), like Berliners are filled with jam ( very exclusive personal taste, but you know where I'm going with this). Some things just do not work together like Clemens and lactate acid, Markus and turnarounds or Zeller and nuts (DZnuts excluded).
Our Team is not excluded from this rule. While our problems seem to be rather minor, they still can be pretty annoying. I'll just name one for now (keeping the others for later, hehe ;)
Well it seems like we'll be forever stuck with the color red in our teamwear as it's part of the Team-logo and our presidents favorite color.
Don't cry now, I know you expected greater flaws, but its my blog so...
..live with it<|:)
But I didn't want to write about my dislikes but rather more about what I really love about this team, that we are all pretty much good friends. Everybody has his own mind, is weird in some way, can of course be annoying from time to time but deep down I really like all you guys very much.
Therefore I will present each one with a special post in this blog. (I'll only present members of the 1.Mannschaft or maybe just the ones with own homepages - because I'm very lazy)
I'll be starting with Zeller, working my way up through the alphabete to ALi.
So see you soon, with an update on Sebastian Zeller
cheers

Benja

Rotor Q-Rings Test

2009-01-12T13:04:00.000+01:00

I have been curious about these ovalized rings for quite some time now.
And well, of course I bought them.
I am not sayins all promises about saving x-watts with them are complete BS but the orthopedic advantages made more sense to me and finally led me to trying them out. If I get a wattage gain as well I won't say no to it.

Fitting was no problem, I installed only the small ring to have a round big ring for constant comparison.

1.Try
It was about 0° C outside so I decided to take them for a 10minute spin and finish the session at home on the rollers.

First impression:
Really weird:D
Not in a bad way. It felt somewhat pretty choppy but at the same time I had the feeling of beeing able to put constantly more power on the pedals. My Cadence went slightly up (+5)and I had the urge of riding much faster. Which was concerning the temperature and the cold wind not the best intuitive move.
Back home on the rollers they felt even more choppy. Maybe the indoor trainer added to this feeling.
My knees felt pretty good so I will continue the experiment

I have been riding them for 2 weeks now and will report back in the next days.

All infos about the q-rings and how they work on
Rotor USA
Rotorbike.com

have a nice day
cya

Benja

Lets get this baby started^^

2009-01-12T11:32:00.001+01:00

So after everyone is getting their Homepage online, (even Zeller!;)) I had to do something! As a homepage is too much hassle and would feel a little akward, I'm going to setlle with this blog instead.
Since I won't have much things to write about in general I think I will be posting in english here. So even if no one read this blog, at least I will be spending my time on the internet thinking I did something for my english!:)
Hope you'll maybe find something interested here. (absolutely no guarantee, as I have no idea at the moment how I will continue this blog from now on)
So have fun and click on the links to find homepages of real athletes.
Have a pleasant day!
cya

Benja