Topsy-turvy opening in Europe

Now, where was I... 

That's right, WWIII at the airport check-in desk. Long story short, I lost and my bank account suffered some ugly battle scars from excess baggage. All aside though, I got on the plane and made it to Germany without too many dramas... (if I dismiss that my video screen not working between Sydney and Seoul; for reasons unknown we sat on the airport runway for 2 hours when we arrived in Incheon and; I got stuck in the window seat amid a pack of Korean businessmen who celebrated some "rery big deal" from there to Frankfurt. The same bunch who laughed when I ruined my airline meal by adding some, "hahaha, this is some rery hot Korean sauce"),  it was a great trip. How good is the New Zealand comfort zone eh?

From Germany it was straight down to Spain in time for the briefing for my first race - Banyoles. It's a ripper of a posse and even in early May the mercury was climbing into the 30's. See the view for yourself below, if you are reading in NZ, BYO warmth.

In hindsight, it was rather optimistic to adopt the number-8-wire-style, 'she'll be right mate', approach to flying Wellington-Sydney-Seoul-Frankfurt-Girona and stepping out of the plane on to the start line. It bit me in the arse, hard. Literally. Arriving in Banyoles I couldn't ride my bike without my arse cheeks feeling cripplingly tight, like my gluts were going to snap on any one pedal stroke. It was crazy, my arse was probably even tighter than the one on that hot girl in the skinny jeans I saw down on Heinrich-Fuhr-Strasse Street today. Only mine was awful. Dispite stretching my arse off, mind the pun, I was a mess come race day and biking was excruciating. I was faced with one of a triathlete's most feared 'D' words and had no choice but to DNF early on the bike. Having ticked the boxes in training and flown to the otherside of the world, it really ripped my undies and I was proper gutted, for me, and everyone who supports me.

Such is triathlon I suppose and due to the nature of the European beast, I had six days to sort my shit out and get my body together for the first Bundesliga in Buschhutten. This race was all new to me and consisted of a 5 x 200m relay swim, 26km team time trial ride, and a 5.6km footrace where the only thing that mattered was how fast your fourth-best team member could run. 

My body turned up to race and I was last away for Darmstadt, (my German club), in a swim so short it wasn't worth getting wet for, but *insert choice words* it was cold! In a blur we were soon humming along the autobahn, basically all 16 teams together. Dispite the road being three lanes wide, 16 x 5-man TT trains is utter chaos and is a crash waiting to happen. With my limited German in composed situations, my "links" (left) and "recht" (right) screams were gibberish to teams we were trying to ride around.


Glad to be out of the high speed carnage, it was run time, where I worked some entirely new muscles while racing. Being one of the stronger runners it was my job to get the weaker runners to the finish line as fast as possible. This meant hurling encouraging abuse in German-English; pushing politely, but as firmly as possible on their lower back; and being their very own dedicated water boy. As I write this the sorest muscles are my throat from screaming and shoulder from pushing! It all worked well though and the team was stoked to come away with 6th place in the company of some stacked teams. 

Awesome fun with some great guys, and being screamed at in German is an entirely new experience. Celebrations all round with some sponsored Krombacher-AlkoholFrie, athlete-style... then it was off to Burger King for the real festivities on the way home.

Cheers if you've read this far, that's bloody top notch and I appreciate your support / internet stalking. Hi Mum. I have so much more to write about all things Deutschland, but will bottle that up and bore you with it the next rainy day.

Okay, it's over and out from Darmstadt,
Tschuss, (German for 'see ya')
Nugget.