With the Vitalmonitor to the Ironman!

How it all began

My name is Klaus, I am 36 years old and now a triathlete with passion. But that was not always the case. I have been doing sports all my life. In the past it was a lot of soccer, some running and skiing. Everything just for fun: without a plan and without a real goal.

From duathlon to triathlon

After a duathlon in the summer of 2015, the dream of the triathlon or Ironman had grabbed me. Although this sport was never really an option for me due to my non-existent crawl swimming technique, I have set myself the IRONMAN World Championship in Hawaii in 2020 as a life goal for this very reason. The Ironman consists of the following distances: 3.8 km swimming, 180 km cycling and 42 km running. At that time completely unimaginable and rather crazy seeming.

It was clear to me: if I want to do this, I need a plan, a professional training control and appropriate support. An acquaintance (himself a long-distance triathlete) told me about Vitalmonitor. That was the birth of a successful "partnership".

Training control via the vital monitor

At first, however, I still wanted to design the training with the Vitalmonitor myself. I bought a heart rate monitor and after one year of training without external support and only with the help of the Vitalmonitor, I could already show good improvements. But that was not enough for me, because I had the feeling that I could still use the possibilities of the Vitalmonitor much too little.

Individual support with the Vitalmonitor

So my way led me to Berny Schimpl from Sport in Motion and in the fall of 2016 the first performance test followed and a short time later the complete training control via the Vitalmonitor. After the daily morning measurement, I note my training workload for the respective day and received the specification from Berny (even on Sundays and holidays - THANK YOU BERNY). I quickly got used to the many measurements at the beginning and meanwhile the vital monitor also goes on vacation with ?

I quickly noticed: The training was intense, but without getting into overtraining. In addition, I was able to regenerate perfectly. The first yardstick was the half marathon in Linz in April 2017. I was more than satisfied with a time of 1h34min. For comparison: At my first half marathon in the Wachau in the fall of 2015, my time was 1h51min! Top motivated I trained diligently further in view of my annual goal 2017 - the Ironman 70.3. in Zell am See in August. The interaction with the Vitalmonitor and Berny worked perfectly and I was spared from injuries.

The first Ironman

After a perfect training summer, 2 successful triathlons over the Olympic distance, the time had come at the end of August: The Ironman in Zell am See was on the agenda. 1.9 km swim, 90 km bike and 21 km run. The tapering had worked wonderfully and it was finally a great race in which I felt very good over the entire distance and could finish the race after 5h 23min.

After the race is before the race and so I am currently in the middle of the preparation for my next stage goal, the IRONMAN AUSTRIA in Klagenfurt next July. I am still injury-free and I can't even remember my last cold. With a training workload of currently almost 15 hours per week, it is immensely important to control the training correctly and to avoid overtraining - the Vitalmonitor offers the perfect support here!

Slipped into overtraining without the vital monitor

At the beginning of November, the vital monitor was not available to me for a few days and I took over my training myself. Over-motivated, I went to work and was promptly presented with the bill, in the form of a total state of exhaustion. In the meantime, everything is fortunately back on track and the training is running again with the vital monitor. This example has shown me how important the Vitalmonitor is for me (my girlfriend is sometimes even "jealous" of the Vitalmonitor *joke*).

Facts and figures

Facts, figures and effects after one year of training control with the Vitalmonitor:

• Performance increase by a staggering 17
• VO2max according to Garmin (the tendency is decisive) from 41 to 61
• My current BioAge is 25.7 years.
• Interesting also the course of my resting pulse since fall 2015 - at that time I had a pulse of over 50 at the morning measurement and now the value is just over 40 with a few outliers downwards.

My goals

My 2018 milestones on the way to the World Championship in Hawaii in 2020:

• Marathon Linz April 2018
• Ironman 70.3 St. Pölten May 2018
• Ironman Austria Klagenfurt July 2018

In one year the second part of my story will follow. If you don't want to wait that long, you can also follow my journey to Hawaii on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/klaus.hochreiter/

A big thank you also to my girlfriend who always supports me on my way and stands behind me!