Our triathlon team is looking forward to the strong support of their fans at the Rothsee Triathlon on 26th June 2011 and at the Challenge Roth on 10th July. On 10th July, Christiane Riefler-Karpa, Matthias Grosser and Mario Gurdanella will be competing as individual starters. Relay team 1 will consist of Andrea Weiss, Ronald Mühe and Carsten Angermeyer, relay team 2 of Peter Englisch, Norbert Richter and Harald von Blumenthal and relay team 3 will consist of our master painter Hanno Dietrich, Ralf Achtnicht and Michelle Saim.
No chocolate, no donuts. An amateur athlete could not imagine giving up his beloved sweets. For Matthias Grosser however, these sweets - just like alcohol – are strictly forbidden in the weeks prior to a competition. “You do not fill up a Ferrari with biofuel either, do you?" says the best triathlete of the Memmertians with a smile. However, the 25-year-old is far from talking large. His great incentive and his goal are to be among the ‘Ferraris’ of triathlon, one day. This does also mean that he completely devotes his life to working and doing sports – and he enjoys it.
When asked how he has managed to keep his motivation for so many years, Matthias Grosser explains: “You have to learn a lesson from your setbacks and always see the positive aspect.” On 5th June, during the Challenge Kraichgau Triathlon Festival, there was such a moment. On the running course, 7 kilometers before the finish, he realised that he had miscalculated. He had felt extremely well that day and had overpaced during cycling and running. Suddenly his reserves were exhausted, his muscles became acidified and the final kilometers were a real torture. In the end, he finished the half distance in 4:36:29, although he planned to finish in less than 4:30 hours. What are a mere 6 minutes? For a triathlete, 6 minutes seem like eternity. You need to invest hours of intensive training and a strong will in every minute by which you want to beat your personal record.
Needless to say, his goal at the Challenge Roth on 10th July 2011 is to improve his last year’ s personal record. He does not want to talk about his dream time, which would be less than 9 hours, but he has set himself a realistic goal of finishing between 9:10 and 9:15. The best of luck to you, Matthias! And of course to our other individual starters and relay teams!
