I did not write a post in quite a while, so it really is time to narrate my early season. After the preparation phase including the easter camp and the training race in Eglisau my early season kicked off with two longdistance races. The first one in Lignano and the second one in Thun.

Lignano:
The Lignano SUP Marathon is a 23 kilometers race around the city of Lignano, including sea, lagoon, canals and river.
On the day before the race the weather was really nice and gave us an idea of how good conditions can be in the northern Adria during spring.

Unluckily the weather changed for the morning of raceday and the we started in some heavy rain. The weather kept changing during the whole race and we saw everything from rainstorm to warm and almost sunny.

The beachstart went well, but at the buoy I got caught up behind a group, so I had to close a first gap to get back to Leonardo Toso who was in the third position. The conditions on the lagoon were good, but our draft train missed the direct line to the canal entrance, so we lost some extra meters on the lead (Codotto/Ionico).

The paddling on the canal was very calm after the rather rough start and the lagoon. We stayed in the same train until almost the end of the river where I managed to open a gap of a few boardlength to the others.

The big surprise came, when we came out of the rivermouth onto the sea, the wind had picked up and brought some solid knee to hip high waves straight to the shore. For us this meant to paddle the last 5-6 kilometers in gruelling side-chop conditions.

In the end we were all very happy to reach the finish line, and I was even happier to cross it in 3rd position.

The race, as hard as it was, was certainlz a good preparation for the long races during the season. I keep telling myself that the LostMills is going to feel short now.

ICE Race:
The weekend after the Race in Lignano I took part in the ICE Race, the classic Race between Interlaken and Thun. The race is a partner event of the SUP Tour here in Switzerland, so this was a first possibility to gather points for the overall rankings.

New this was, that the inscription took place in Thun, and the boards and participant were then shuttled to the start in Interlaken. My preparation for this race was far from perfect, as I still felt sore from Lignano and the following training sessions, and additionally I had the wrong starting time in mind, so I ate a whole hour later then I am used to.

I had a good start, but when deciding to get into the draft behind Peter Tritten instead of doing all alone I missed him by two or three boardlength and I just could not close the gap, which made me overpace and forced me to let him go.

At the first checkpoint I already had lost 30 seconds to him, but slowly I started to feel better and I saw that the gap was not growing anymore, so I could start to catch up. It costed me a lot to close the gap, but in the end I was in his wake after about two thirds of the race.

As I have lost a lot of energy during the overpacing and catching up I knew that it was impossible for me to force an early decision, so I waited for the 90 degrees turn at the end of the lake, just about 500 meters from the finish line. I managed to get the inside lane and sprinted my heart out to the finishline, luckily I could hold him off and take my first one on one win (he leads by at least 10 to 1).

The next day I had the honor to give an interview with the local radio station which you (in case you understand swiss german) can find here:

So all in all I feel well prepared for the upcoming races. The next race will be the Surf Classics in Murten (the next partner event) and then Sainte Maxime, the Lost Mills and the first full race of the SUP Tour Schweiz: Ermatingen.