Discovering the deep way the places I meet when racing is on of the thing I like most. I'm not talking about "tourism". I'm talking about jump in my car, start early inthe morning and go to Klagenfurt, Austria – where I raced three times the Ironman - on mardi gras day.
It was great to discover that upthere for Carnival everything is closed for holiday and everyone get masked: you can really notice those who don't.
–So, let's put on our runner masks! – said Stefan Petschnig, Ironman Austria's marketing and media manager. With him and his collegue Helge Lorenz I ran for an hour, chatting about sports and immersed in a nice sun.
I met them for the first time when their race was at its first edition, with 130 starters. Now it's one of the most important of the whole WTC circuit, and this summer will have a maximum of 2,000 entrants.
They always had a good feeling with Italian athletes, and I don't think we go there the massive way we do just because it's so near our border. We're talking (bad!) of some international star of triathlon when all of a sudden I stop myself: we're running along the canal connecting the Worther lake with the town, right where the swim exit of the Ironman is positioned. In that very moment I realize that the canal is frozen, and beautiful, under the warm, Spring sun.
My mind goes to when I was exiting the water well after an hour of hard swimming: my attention is like suspended. Even Stefan and Helge look smiling the swans, forced to limp on the thick ice instead of floating on the water with their usual class.
I wake up from all this when we reach a square, and then a bar, for a coffee. The sun starts to be warm, but I wouldn't sit out and sip my coffee if I hadn't had a whole hour running, but I notice that the little tables outside the bars are messed with lots of people enjoying a chat and drinking something. Easy: the bars put some warm blanket on the chairs – something we don't know in so-called Sunny Italy.
But it's a good idea for the aid station of one of our winter marathon, don't you think?
If you want more info about Ironman Austria 2003, info hardly earned from the organizers themselves, click here. If you want to know something even about the olympic distance triathlon they will organize on June 15, 2003, click here.
Prova: scarpe salomon XA Series
Il fiato grosso e la sua coltivazione