Athlete information
Actually, through a friend of mine who was a triathlete himself. After his first Ironman, I got his red Eskimo swimming cap (which I still proudly keep by the way) as a thank you for the support. As he said at the time, for swimming training in the future. So I started to get more involved with the sport and was helplessly at the mercy of the fascination of triathlon. After 15 years of handball in the first and second Bundesliga, as well as excessive tennis, it was a completely new experience for me.
The combination of 3 completely different sports, each of which represents a challenge in itself. So it never gets monotonous or boring. Above all, the joint training sessions with teammates are always a highlight in every respect.
The sub 10 hours at an Ironman was always an imaginary limit for me that I wanted to undercut from the start. I managed to do that at the Ironman Austria 2011. Despite a suboptimal race, I was able to achieve this goal, and I'm still proud of that.
In addition to the sporting trinity, there are of course many other things in my life. I work as a technician at VERBUND. There I am responsible as a project manager for power plant conversions and new constructions in the electrical engineering sector. Not necessarily the 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. job, but the variety and the challenges that have to be mastered are also very appealing at work.
But the most important part of my life is my family. I've been a proud dad since September 2013. Lena, my daughter, and Daniela, my girlfriend, give me my home base, so to speak, which is incredibly important to me. I try to spend as much time as possible with them outside of the sport and the job.
Time management and tolerance are the 2 buzzwords that come to mind. Training, work, and family cannot be reconciled without precise time management. In addition to 45-50 hours of work per week, up to 25 hours of training should also be accommodated.
If the time management doesn't work out that way, you need a partner who still supports you and tolerates some things. Especially in the training-intensive phases, where the daily routine is limited to work-training-eating-sleeping, it is certainly not easy to have a triathlete as a partner. At this point, I have to thank my girlfriend for this amazing support. Without them, I would never be able to pursue my passion for triathlon like this.
Consistent, optimistic, original, stubborn.
“Love it, change it or leave it”
