Hello everybody

it`s already a few week old that I packed my gear and moved to Canberra for the D squad winter camp. It was like always a hard time to leave my family back, but it`s olympic season and that`s motivation enough.

It`s great to share a flat with my good friend Bart Aernouts and train with coach Darren and my team mates. The picture is from our training pool, which I see quite often these days!

cheers Andi

Thanks to Enervit Austria for the support in the last couple of years. They support me since I`m a junior, which is pretty special!

Enervit stands for anti doping proven sports nutrition, which helps me in training and racing. If you Austrian and can`t find the Enervit products in a shop near you, visit www.sport-equipment.at and you can order direct.

Cheers Andi

Thanks to Subaru and especially the carhouse Gimpl in Puch/Sbg for the great car and the big support! Everytime I come home, I`m looking forward to get in my car again. In the winter on our austrian snowy roads, the permanent 4 wheel drive is king:)!

Cheers Andi

(recovery Thai style)

Hallo everybody!

Back in Austria, back to training:)! It was a taff year with lots of up and downs, but I try to life in the moment and not look back. We analyzed a  lot and we learned a lot. Next year gonna be different and we go back to oldschool daz coaching.

Consistent good training and no stress is my motto for the upcoming period.

I had a good couple of weeks of with doing nothing and recover my immun system in Thailand. Once back home I started back into training and built a good support system around my new home in Salzburg next to the olympic center. Its great to train back home, we have a whole lot of trails a good pool and cycling is great as well.

Its always nice to meet some other austrian sport peoples back home and to chat with one or the other winter olympic medal winners. Its inspiring to hear their story and to have the same dream to make the olympics.

Middle of Jan I`m going back to my squad in OZ, but meanwhile I enjoy being with my family and train a lot in the austrian winter!

Have a great and healthy new year!

cheers

Hi everybody!

The last race of the season, the World Cup in Aukland, is history and I`m right now already in Thailand on holiday.

I had a great week with my homestay Sue and Graham and prepared as good as possible for the last big hit out of the year. The course was a really good (taff) one and a big amount of spectators was expected, so I was looking forward to get out there and race.

My swim was very average and I felt a bit lost and beaten up, but I tried not to lose motivation and fight hard, knowing that I can catch back some time on the hilly bike course.

Coach Darren and me had only about 3 1/2 weeks time to prepare for the last race block and on the bike I can pick up some good shape pretty fast. That paid off on that day and worked quite hard the whole 40km. We had a lead group of about 8 people in front and I managed to work my way from pretty much last to the main chase bunch.

Like always in ITU racing, only a few people are willing to work and do a proper race, the rest is sitting on the wheel and simulate not being able to help. I got quite frustrated with some of them, which I regret, since thats the way these races are played.

My motivation was different, go hard or go home! and I had fun riding that course:) We managed to get rid of quite a few people and after T2 I tried to hang on the pack for Top10. I cramped a bit in the first lap and lost contact, but managed to catch a few people from the lead pack. In the end I finished 15th place, which was good Olympic points and a ok end of the season.

The most important for me and Darren is, that we are the only one who know with how much little training we could squeeze the best result possible out and that was a good learning experience. Next year gonna be hopefully a more healthy and mistake free year, where we can just do the consistent work and better days will come for sure!

cheers Andi

Hello everybody!

I`m since six days in Aukland with my great homestay Sue and Graham, who give me the feeling of being home, after a long time on the road! Thanks a lot guys!!! + David + Tom and family. Its great to have now some more friends on the other side of the world:)

My travel from Columbia was very long, but it was also a smooth one, so I found my legs quite quick here. I managed to get some good training in, but not enough to upset my immun system or the recovery process.

The race gonna happen on the weekend in downtown Aukland on a really nice and hard course. The bike is like the original Columbia WC course pretty hard and if the legs are behaving, I should have some good fun!:)

I think just like before the last race, my coach and me a did a good job and we made the best out of the situation we are in. After that last chase for points, my body is ready for some holiday and fulling up the batteries! More on that later, first its race time:)

Cheers from the beautiful New Zealand!

Andi

yesterday was my first race after being sick for three weeks and four weeks of training in Arizona with my coach. So the preperation for this race in altitude of 2000hm was quite short, but we did the best job we could in that amount of time.

We came in thursday and I struggeld quite a bit with the lack of oxygen and never really got used to it. Sedona was only on 1400 and this race was about 700hm higher, thats quite a difference.

I had an average swim but managed to bridge to the front after 2km. From there on we raced quite hard and I had good legs. The pace was high, but there was never a problem to stay in front and counter some attacks on the last two hills. After T2 I tried to find rythm but my legs were not moving, I guess due to the altitude.

I managed to bring home a solid 19th place into the finish, only to find out that they disqualified me. It`s my fault that I couldn`t see the board, a professional checks before the race, not during.

I found out that I managed to put all in the box, but when I jumped on my bike I was with the foot straight on the line and it has to be after the line. What 10cm can do……:(

Of course I`m very dissapointed with me and with not making Olympic points! There is not much time to think about the past, tom I fly to Aukland and prepare for my last race of the season.

cheers andi

Cheers Andi

Hello everybody,

the last few month were quite taff and a bit crazy. I was sick before I went to the last two Asian races and our plan was to prepare straight after Yokohama for the next block of racing. But on the flight home I catched the flu and was all the time back home in Salzburg in bed with fever.

Just before I left for our last training camp of the season in Arizona, I was feeling better and ready to fly. The coach did a great job with me up here the altitude of Sedona and we built back day by day, looking for the consistency.

Now 1 1/2 weeks later we are in the full swing again and my body is handling the training really well. Sedona is a stunning place and a very motivating and inspiring area. In my flickr account are some nice picks, which I will update every now and then.

My next race is the World Cup in Columbia in about three weeks and since there is not much time, we will race from some solid miles, instead of hard intensity work. Its a bit special again, but the whole year was like that:)

We learned a lot from this year and I`m sure that I will benefit from that different experiences in the near future!

Cheers Andi

Hello everybody!

The race in Yokohama went as expected and it was again a quite hard experience.  After the health problems in august and the short preperation phase, my goal was “just” a Top 30, to get my start place for next year and some olympic points.

I had another solid swim and I was in lap 1 in the lead pack with another 40 guys. The bike course was crazy with about twenty corners per lap where you needed to concentrate the whole way. I kind of enjoyed the criterium style racing, only wished to be in better shape:) The heat was also on, with 38C and 95% humidity, so hydrating was the main goal. After another great transition I was out on the run on 8th place and from now on it was all about surviving and running consistent. With a 29th place I did what I could on that day and raced quite clever, but of course its not what I want.

I said already before the race that my main goal is coming home healthy to able to do the work for my last remaining races of the season. Having said that, I catched a virus on the way home and was for one week down with fever and a heavy cold. great:(

I guess I learned a lot this year, we made some mistakes in the prep in spring and during the summer I was always in a rush, straight after the races, to play the catch up game and raced too much. In reality there is nothing like that and I should have done a few things different and just be consistent, since thats the key. So I learned that the hard way and now I try not to stress and train whats possible till my next race in Columbia.

More on my upcoming races and where we prepare in my next blog, this one is already too long:)

cheers andi