Triathlon

After finishing my first marathons in 2002, I wanted to finish an Ironman. I took 12 months to prepare myself accordingly. Since I didn't master the crawl technique, I joined the Bocholter water sports club in the triathlon department in 2003, where I learned and improved my swimming style.

It was an ambitious goal to finish an Ironman with 12 months of preparation. I finished my first ever triathlon on July 6th, 2003 over the Olympic distance in 2:36 hours. This day should also give me more motivation and so I took part in a competition held by the Triathlon Magazine, where Lothar Leder's target time at Roth Ironman had to be estimated, which I predicted with an accuracy of 2 seconds and so the main prize was a trip to the Ironman Hawaii won 2003 with "Meet and Great" by the Leders. That was motivation enough and so I prepared for the Ironman 2004.

My first long distance was on July 13th, 2004 at the Schloss Triathlon Moritzburg, where unfortunately I had to get out of the bike with stomach problems, but that didn't throw me off the track, instead I did my first long distance on August 11th, 2004 at the Ostseeman in Glücksburg finished in 12: 10h.

In 2004 and 2005 I was still a team member of the Bocholter water sports club in some competitions in the NRW League, and in 2005 I finished the Ostseeman again. In the following years I was a relay member at some competitions, for example in Roth.