05.06 – Bootcamp Maribor ..

… At the 37th World Sports Games of Medicine and Health ( “Medigames”) from 26.05-03.06.2016.

Finally, some good news from my side again 🙂

Quasi the Olympics for all medical professions, with many sports, with interesting symposia and people around the world. Sport connects! Yep, correctly recognized, what shall I do there as non-medical profession? Quite simply, accompany my partner at his competitions (cycling race in four stages), completing a fine training camp respectively the first in 2016 (with races out of competition) and finally – but no less important: taking some vacation and enjoying life.

Funnily enough we had Slovenia already prior to the announcement of the games for holiday/training in sight, the better the choice of the sports facility to get to know a new, uncrowded, quiet and beautiful spot on earth. What we did not know before: Slovenia, known as Tuscany of Styria, has superb wine regions; especially white wine, which did not came less inconvenient for our second hobby 🙂 Among other things, we had a fantastic wine tasting at the Vine cellar Steyer with Danilo and his cousin!

Contrary to the severe weather conditions in parts of Germany we had at this time about 95% gorgeous, summery, hot weather. Only at the 3rd stage of the cycle race, which ended exactly as mountaintop finish on the Pohorje at 1000 meters above sea level, it was raining Cats&Dogs … Murphys Law!

My training went according to plan, if not even better. The form for the Ironman in Zurich on July 24, is continuously increasing and it seems that the long-term consequences of my health disaster are now finally off. As mentioned above, I was able to participate as “relative” in the races out of competition. Of course, I opted for the running and the triathlon, which took place as Cross-Triathlon. For me, uncharted territory, I have never done any such. Nevertheless, I could finish after exactly 2 hours as 1st woman and 5^th in the overall field (unfortunately only 12 competitors). At the end of training camp I participated after 8 days of training, or 28h hours with 5800 highmeters of work in the legs at the Half Marathon. The 21km with again 200 high-meters went via a stunning path the city, along the Drava all the way back to the starting point at the foot of Pohorje. Also in this race I was pleased with my form, as it ended after 1.30,55h as 2nd female, 8th place overall within 42 total participants. Very satisfied and I hope, I can call upon this performance at the first test at Challenge Heilbronn in two weeks time (German Championship Half-Distance)

Overall, a really great successful and professional event by the French organizers. As a non-for-profit organization, the team relies on the implementing Tourism (with the hoped profit in form of advertising), what the volunteers of Maribor mastered excellently. At the closing ceremony Marseille was announced to host the 38th Games. As ‘Provence-Lovers’ we can very well imagine to be back!  The power density among the doctors was a positive surprise; Competition and measuring  at a high level is Fun 🙂

Here some more pictures