A Rendezvous ... ... with his own bastard
point 6:45 clock - to coincide with the cannon of the Protect Ötztal - USP of the band and start time for the rendezvous with his own bastard takes on the starting grid of the Ötztal Sunday round trip. The 30th Ötztal cycling marathon starts. Let's go! over four passes, distributed through three climate zones to 238 km, which are peppered with 66 turns.
indescribable hardships and rigorous training, the starter who participate in the "Ötztal" behind him, exhausting altitude and steep ramps on. The adequacy of 10,000 kilometers of training 9months preparation time to get to your destination? Many are deliberately built to plans, some depending on your mood trained.
form on the track turned out the various types, such as the biter, and the breath, the sinewy, the Wanderer. During the long day they will for the race director on familiar figures, human of flesh and blood, more, sweat and courage. As with most difficult marathons meet even the Ötztal Radmarathon three completely different performance groups. About 100 of the 4000 starters want to win. Some 1,000 participants to a personal best effort, they claim themselves.
The rest, ie the majority of those fighting for dear through.
twice over the border to get to know one's own.
No problem: This Sunday, 29 August, they all performed to their limits, some even beyond. The road is long and steep. The Sun, they can roast, or freezing rain, maybe even snow, will cause them cold.
insider of the cycling scene, who have already completed the Ötztal describe the difference to other challenging marathons like this: "According to Trondheim - Oslo (580 miles) you fix & finish - after the Ötztal are` just yet dead. "
12 massage therapists set up along the route the cyclists the Wadln restored. Muscle stimulation devices available to participants at critical points available, as are anticonvulsant magnesium supplements at the five aid stations administered. Overall, the Users Choose from 13 different beverages. 12.5 liters of fluid per participant are available. On the last and most difficult, 29 km, Ascension of St. Leonhard Passeiertal to Timmelsjoch - ie from 700 m to 2509 m, are placed two aid stations. In the refreshment of the eye wanders in Schönau looking upward along the steep slope opposite. Turn around and bend, the road to - seemingly to the sky, where they finally reached the highest point. At this sight reports the left brain, who lives in the triangular reason, and they immediately adopted with the thought: "No, not up there," Only the right speaks sporty to you: "You manage too!"
Who Wins the Ötztal cycling, regardless of the time, can be proud of themselves, for the day trip through three climate zones is true today, after 29 years, still as the toughest test of cyclists. At the 238 kilometer route is rolled after each pass to a new mountain, the last to the Most High waits. There will be difficulties, of course. Crises will come and spasms. The voice inside me will one day get to know them. Heli Maier, the inventor of the Ötztal said, even at the first held in 1982: "Who mitfährt here, is because it is what to do wants. The route must be brutal. They want to torture yourself to count in the target of the happiest people in the world! "
