The second day's stage would take us away from Chur, first up north to Lake Zurich by means of running and cycling, then for a little swim and skating loop near the lake, and finally with the mountain bike all the way across to Lake Lucerne. I was to do the run, swim and mountain bike.
Run: 21 km, 250 m elevation
The run stage was roughly a half marathon from Chur to Landquart. Not totally flat, but no crazy hills (or mountains like on day one).
I started off quite a bit slower than for a stand alone half marathon and ended up spending the first part in a group around the overall men's single leader, Roger Fischlin. On the one hand, that was great as he was pacing nice and evenly; on the other hand, it was just a tiny bit slower than what I felt like running.
Unfortunately, the group was quite densely packed and we followed a narrow path along a small river, so passing and running off the front was easier said than done.
Eventually, after about five kilometres, the narrow part came to an end and I could run at what I thought was a better pace, just a bit faster. This coincided with the start of the longest uphill section of the course, and if I didn't want to look like a fool, I'd have to stay ahead of the group despite my less than stellar climbing abilities.
I played some back and forth with Markus from the second TriCo couple, while Kaspar from the third couple was long gone by then, on his way to the fastest split of all single and couple participants (and the extra treat of being first to the transition zone).
For a while, I ran with a single man who had about the same pace as me:
The little green pouch held the GPS tracker we were to carry with us at all times, which greatly simplified transition zone logistics as we always knew where everybody was on the course.
Meanwhile, our couple partners enjoyed the sun while waiting for us to get their cycling leg started:
To my shame, most of the group around the single men's leader passed me back again and I got confused by markers saying that I was one kilometre ahead of what my GPS was telling me, but in the end my GPS was right (and I had to do an "extra" kilometre).
I finished the run in about 1:39, probably more than ten minutes slower than an all-out effort would have been, but on the day it was good enough for the top 30% of the mixed couple field.
I sent Andrea on her way, and as the other two guys had arrived before me, we left quite soon to Lachen so we would be there in time before our cyclists arrived.
Road bike: 82 km, 350 m elevation
The bike stage was one of the faster ones with just one real hill in it, the Kerenzerberg:
And, judging from the picture, it was an enjoyable ride.
And a very fast one at that, placing in the top third of the field with a lot of men riding this leg.
Once arrived in Lachen, we moved our gear to the transition zone, so I had to take care of my swimming stuff and the mountain bike.
Now, to be able to transport our four bikes on the car, I had to push the seat post of my mountain bike all the way down. It was a bit a pain to have to adjust the seat all the time, but seemed to be the only option.
I was tightening the seat collar with my multitool, when suddenly something snapped: the screw holding the whole thing together had broken into two parts.
This is what the guilty part looks like:
I wasn't using crazy force or anything, but enough to break it. I started looking for the race's emergency bike mechanics, and when I finally found them, they told me that a) they didn't have replacement parts for that and b) I was already the third person with a snapped Specialized seat collar. Not too helpful!
Our amazing support staff told me to relax, and they'd try and source a new collar while I was waiting and swimming.
It was a very warm day and waiting in the neoprene suit a rather hot affair, but thanks to the aforementioned GPS tracking kept to a minimum.
I was afraid of had quite some respect for this leg as my open water swims around this distance had not been many. The course was planned to be three kilometres:
In the end, it was more like 2.8 kilometres, but I won't complain.
The water temperature was great, my newish Huub Aerious 3:5 wetsuit awesome (except some neck rubbing) and orientation difficult. The buoys were far apart so I had to sight constantly, and once even asked a kayaker for directions to the next buoy.
There was not much traffic in the water, so I swam mostly alone. As always, the sight of the helping hands to pull me out of the lake was most welcome:
My dad had come to see me, as this place was the closest the race got to where my parents live. When I met him after my swim, he was disappointed to have missed me come out of the water as he hadn't recognised me in my wetsuit, black as almost everybody else's.
Turns out that while he tried to figure out how to best shoot the exit, I was one of his "practice subjects" whith a result that turned out just great – hence the credit for the pictures in the gif above goes to my dad!
I handed off for the second longest inline skating leg of the race, at almost marathon distance.
Inline skating: 40 km, 50 m elevation
Andrea was more lucky with drafting this time:
While our supporters enjoyed a rare downtime in the transition zone:
Speaking of supporters, they kept being awesome and had bought me a replacement collar while I was swimming.
The bike dealer who had given it to them must have been less awesome, as it was the wrong diameter for my seat post. As I know now, the my seat post has a diameter of 30.9 mm, and the collar I had just wasn't tight enough to hold it in place. Our supporters had brought the defective part to the guy and apparently he even measured it to make sure, and still managed to give them the wrong replacement.
I had to live with that, and the solution was for me to take Andrea's bike. The frame is a bit smaller than mine, I tried to adjust the front and rear shocks to my weight, but it still was not my bike, but clearly better than no bike at all.
Mountain bike: 60 km, 1200 m elevation
The MTB course had been hyped as the "pièce de resistance" for the day, and that wasn't promising too much. The timing would be stopped at Lake Lucerne for a ferry ride across the water and a final short bit on the other side.
After leaving Lachen, there was a long and steady climb, not too technical, but still quite "breathtaking". I got passed by Ralph Näf, multiple MTB world champion, racing for a relay team, and friendly enough to say "hi" while zooming up the hill like riding a motorcycle.
After about ten kilometres of climbing, a long part of the course was more or less flat or just slightly uphill, with great scenery to take in:
Shortly before the Kleiner Mythen, a last hefty steep climb waited, and then it was all downhill to Schwyz and Lake Lucerne. I hadn't ridden these specific trails before, but one of our longer training weekends had been in the region, so at least I recognised parts of the course.
The technical part went alright, i.e., without any crashes, but again it was impressive to see just how fast technically strong riders can descend.
The last ten kilometres before the lake were easy asphalt and gravel roads, and once I'd reached the place where the ferry would leave, I got to enjoy a little break.
The crossing went by quickly with chatting and relaxing:
Once on the other side, there were just a little more than seven kilometres to go, all flat on asphalt, to reach the Gigathlon camp on the airport near Ennetbürgen:
Timing started only when crossing a mat, so groups could form and leave together. I got a nice, fast bunch with which I stayed almost until the end, when most of them decided to pass a slow bus on the sidewalk and zigzagging through traffic – not really worth it in my opinion, for a few seconds over the course of six days.
Here's me finishing the day:
I was very happy with the day, especially with the difficult downhill on a bike I wasn't used to.
Other people wouldn't share my happiness about the MTB course, as a lot of the relay teams and slower singles/couples got caught up in weather like this, turning the paths into mud slides:
We were only affected in so far as that our packing and preparing for the next day was a bit more difficult, trying to find our stuff in the messy car without the option to place things outside temporarily.
There still was the unsolved problem of my broken seat collar, and I was scheduled to do the MTB part the next day, but our supporters had scouted out a bike dealer near one of the transition zones and he was supposed to carry the part.
I created a little moment of horror when I managed to misplace our timing chip late that night; while preparing the things for the next morning in the tent, I couldn't find it anymore. I'm pretty sure I accidentally had given it to a single man in the shower truck, thinking it was his (and so thought he and his supporter), but I couldn't find him anymore. I went to the information tent and tried to explain my situation, further aggravated by the horrible phone connection to the place they told me to call, but eventually I got a replacement chip and all was set for the next day.
The day's solid work was good enough for the 31st place of the day, letting us advance to 35th in the overall standings. Our partner teams were by now on the 10th and 36th overall places, with the team just next to us struggling with a not yet quite healed broken rib.
Day two, stats (links to result lists)
Overall time: 19:41:49, 35/107
Day split: 10:30:59, 31/107
Run 21 km: 1:39:09 (4:43 min/km), 27/109
Bike 82 km: 2:36:26 (31.5 km/h), 35/109
Swim 3 km: 1:14:16 (2:28 min/100 m), 69/109
Skate 40 km: 1:45:45 (22.7 km/h), 48/109
MTB 60 km: 3:15:23 (18.4 km/h), 41/108
In case anybody was wondering about the fluctuating number of total places in the ranking list, these are due to some teams not finishing every single leg, but continuing the race without being eligible for the overall classification.
