Who am I
My name is Marcel Niedermeier, I am originally from Germany and I have lived in Helsinki and Espoo from 2019 to 2025. I came to Finland initially to do a Master’s degree at Uni Helsinki, and subsequently stayed to get a PhD from Aalto.
My Training History – Triathlon
Before coming to Finland, I mainly did some running, but I joined Helsinki Triathlon a few months after I had arrived here in January 2020. Little did I know that Covid was about to hit, and the first two triathlon seasons I’ve had in Helsinki Triathlon, were heavily interrupted. Luckily, as of 2021, we could resume consistent training and I have spent the last four years stepping up in distance – at the end of my first season, I participated in my first Heltri Ähkäsy and Rykäsy, at the end of my second season, my first half in Lahti, and in my third season I managed to step up to a full (in 2024 in Copenhagen, a highly recommended race). Which I apparently haven’t hated enough, so I did the full distance race again this year 🙂 in IM Frankfurt in June 29th, 2025.
My Future
Unfortunately, I will leave Finland (for now), I got the opportunity to resume training as a medical doctor in Germany. I am grateful for all the contacts and trainings we’ve shared together in Heltri, and I am sure that I will see many of you again in the future! Hopefully, I will keep coming back to Finland for visits and competitions, and I’d be more than happy to drop by a training or two to say hello. And conversely, do not hesitate to drop me a message if you are ever around and/or competing in the South of Germany. Until then, I’ll keep wearing my red Heltri apparel and wish you all the best, in both your personal as well as your triathlon endeavours!
The Ironman Race in Frankfurt was quite an experience for me. Here you can read my race report from the hot race:
Race report Ironman Frankfurt – a hot humbling heat battle
My main goal for this year was the Ironman Frankfurt, one of the most established long-distance triathlons in Europe that at the same time doubles as “European Championships”. Initially, I had set my eyes on the Ironman Hamburg (1 June), but in the lead-up decided to push it back by a few weeks to have a bit more time for preparation and also allow for some more outdoor riding. The training had gone relatively well, a steady increase in load without, luckily, getting sick for a continuous 6 months and without any other major issues. This would be my second long-distance, I felt more confident going into it and I could also improve my nutrition and hydration strategies during the training. In the weeks preceding the race, I kept checking the long-term weather forecasts almost daily, as they were slowly converging towards a hot day (best forecast before: 17 degrees; worst: 38). Shortly before, I knew it was going to be well over 30 degrees and very sunny – not ideal coming from a somewhat colder Finnish summer. During the last few weeks, I tried to do a bit of heat preparation, mostly by wearing more layers of clothes during (indoor) sessions. This may not have been ideal, but better than no preparation (plus, I have never been very good with higher temperatures).
Travelling to Frankfurt went quite smoothly, and I was happy to meet Teemu as a fellow HelTri athlete at the airport – it turned out we would even stay in the same hotel, very convenient! I arrived in Frankfurt on Thursday evening, with the race being on Sunday, which left two days for the necessary pre-race preparations, sign-ups, etc. Unfortunately, part of my nutrition was taken off me during the security check, as it was deemed too liquid for my hand luggage (didn’t think that one through). The race expo came to my rescue though, and I could stock up on the products I had lost. In general, with Frankfurt being the European Championship, the expo was quite big and required a lot of self-control to avoid spending even more money (I walked away with a t-shirt and new sunglasses). The transitions in Frankfurt are split between T1 and T2: the swim takes place in the “Langener Waldsee”, an artificial lake about 15km out of town, and therefore also the location of T1. Afterwards, the bike course first leads back to Frankfurt, before extending into a 2-loop course out to the North-East. It ends right in the city centre and close to the finish line, where T2 marks the start of the run. On Saturday, we therefore had to get our bikes to the Waldsee. Ironman organises a bus shuttle service to do this, which in principle sounds like an excellent idea. In practice, we had the misfortune of doing this on a very warm Saturday, and by far weren’t the only people trying to reach a lake.
Consequently, we ended up being stuck in a traffic jam with our bikes on the bus (with a more than questionable aircon) for some 1.5h, while being only about 2km away from the lake. Despite inquiring, the bus driver did not get the permission to let us and our bikes out to cycle the remaining stretch – all we could do was wave at all the smart people who had decided to skip the shuttle and cycle to the lake directly. We were even overtaken by people walking their bikes. Altogether, on Saturday, I spent a lot more time outside and in the warm setting up my transitions than I was hoping for – ideally, on the day before a hot race, you should keep it as easy as possible. There are no heat adaptations left to be gained, this close to the event.
Race morning, alarm at 2.45. Quick breakfast at the hotel, bags packed the evening before. There would be the same shuttle service to T1 and the race start, but luckily, no traffic jams at 4 in the morning (which doesn’t mean little traffic, many athletes and spectators also come by car, but our busses got priority). The biggest question at this point was: would it be a wetsuit swim? Many people were fairly confident that yes, until there was the official announcement via speaker: water temperature 24.7 degrees. With the cutoff for wetsuits being 24.6 degrees for amateurs, we had therefore just barely missed out. So we waved our wetsuits goodbye while shoving them in the streetwear bags, mentally preparing for a not-so-chill swim experience.
Some 20 minutes before the age groupers, the pro athletes started, which we could witness from the shores of the lake before heading into position ourselves. As usual, the swim start proceeds in waves ordered by expected swim times (which the non-wetsuit swim would royally mess up, to say the least). After some Viking clapping rituals, we were thus sent off, in what was probably my smoothest swim start experience.
The swim course leaves straight out, turns back, has a short Australian exit, before leading onto a second, slightly longer out-and-back loop. During the swim, the course was quite congested and full of people – it was difficult at times to find sufficient space for developing any approximation of a stroke. As an ok-but-not-great swimmer, the non-wetsuit experience makes it significantly harder on 3.8km, as sighting has an even bigger effect on the body position in the water, and it generally being harder to maintain a tight core and good position for this long. In addition, the early morning sun was pretty much in our faces on the second leg of each loop, making the orientation and identifying the location of the buoys somewhat non-trivial. At least, the water temperature felt quite nice to swim in!
T1 was well-organised and not overly long, with the exception of an uphill sprint on the beach to actually get there. I knew it was going to be a hot day, the weather forecasts having converged to about 33 degrees with a lot of sun and little cloud coverage. Correspondingly, I had slightly adapted my race plan, trying to pace the bike easier than I practised in training and focusing on staying hydrated and on top of my electrolytes. If on a day like, you mess up the hydration on the bike, you could be in serious trouble by the time the run starts – dehydration or hyponatremia are no jokes, and likely a DNF waiting around the corner. In addition, it was important to stay as protected from the sun as possible. I had applied sunscreen before arriving at the race start and then placed more sunscreen in each of my transition bags. Would re-applying sun protection after the swim, while wet and after the bike, while sweaty, work? I had no idea, I just hoped for the best.
With the swim being harder than expected, it took a while to settle in on the bike. At the same time, it got warmer and warmer. Unfortunately, about 90% of the Frankfurt bike course are directly exposed to the sun, with only the occasional shadowy areas providing some relief. The course consists mostly of countryside roads, broken up by villages here and there. There are no major difficulties, one “proper” climb (ridden twice) and one cobblestone section (nicknamed “The Hell” (seriously), and also ridden twice). Ironically, one of the two bike mechanic tents was located right after the cobblestone section; guess why. Otherwise, there were about as many fast and easy stretches as there were slow ones (about 1-2% gradient, but over a long time).
In total, they had put eight aid stations on the bike, and those were seriously needed. I stocked up on a bottle of electrolyte drink at almost every station, plus an additional bottle of water to simply pour over myself to cool down. I estimate I went through about 6l of fluids on the bike, slightly more than I had calculated before, but that felt very appropriate at the time.
Towards the end of the first lap, I felt reasonably good and still quite “punchy”, so I decided to keep pushing. By this time, the bike course also got a bit emptier and easier to navigate, with the people who started too fast slowly dropping back. Still, now we were about to hit the midday heat, and as the bike drew to its end, one could sense a certain lethargy amongst fellow riders. Nobody was pushing super hard anymore; it was rather about getting the bike done with as little damage as possible.
Slowly, unfortunately, I could also feel my stomach complaining. In hot temperatures, digesting food is even harder, and the advice would usually be to stick to gels/liquid nutrition (which I did). But that didn’t prevent me from the required amount of hydration and electrolytes starting to take its toll. I somewhat reduced the frequency of gel intake and hoped that would allow my stomach to settle down in time before the run (spoiler alert: no). In any case, even when baking on the bike, passing the 170km marker on an Ironman bike course is a pretty awesome feeling. You just know this part is over soon, like, for real, this time. In addition, the last 7ish km of the course are pretty much downhill, and it’s a nice feeling to roll back into T2 at 40+ km/h.
T2 was again well-organised, with the bikes being racked simply by order of arrival. Grab the run bag, another scoop of sunscreen (also thanks to a volunteer who helped me spread it!), shoes on, out we go. The run consisted of four laps up and down the river Main and, similarly to the bike course, was pretty exposed in the sun. By now we had hit the peak temperatures for the day, around 33 degrees, and the felt temperature in the sun was not pleasant anymore. Immediately on the first few kilometres I knew, that the temperatures had affected me more than I had hoped for. While on a muscular level I felt fine enough, I was running low on energy and knew, whichever rhythm I would choose, it wouldn’t be sustainable.
My plan was anyway to walk the aid stations to make sure to get some nutrition and hydration in. Except that, by this point, my stomach had pretty much opted out of the game. 42km of nausea, cool. I managed something like three gels before deciding that the rest of the day had to work on orange slices (which are pretty awesome in these conditions), prioritising to keep the hydration up and somewhat sacrificing the nutrition (without nutrition, you can walk it in, without hydration, you’re walking to a DNF). All the aid stations also provided ice cubes and walk-through showers, which, while only providing a short relief, are still a huge help. I put the ice cubes everywhere: in my suit, in my cap, in my mouth, in my hands. There were even volunteers with hoses who would just spray you with water on command. Awesome.
For the first half marathon, this kind of worked, but I noticed that my walking breaks at the aid stations just got longer and longer, and soon also started taking walking breaks in between. It became clearer and clearer that with limited (read: empty) energy reserves and on the verge of overheating, this was the only way of completing this race safely, so I swallowed my pride and stuck to the run-walk.
The third lap of a four-lap Ironman run course sucks hard. Like, really sucks. You know it’ll take long and that afterwards, you get to do the whole thing again (and odds are, it’ll take even longer then). But there was nothing I could do about that. It didn’t really cross my mind to abandon the race, but I just really, really didn’t want to keep run-walking. Twice each lap, the course crosses a bridge over the river, and I would have to lie if I didn’t think that a dip in the water could have been nice. By now, also the ice cubes at the aid station had run out (or melted, or both), there only remained some cold-ish water that you could dip you hat into. At some point there were however some spectators who, it seemed, had hit the store to buy some more ice and were handing it out. While accepting outside help is technically a DQ, I did not say no. You are freaking legends for doing this.
On the last lap, the walk breaks during the run got even longer, but so be it. A shoutout to all the volunteers at the aid stations and spectators who kept pushing us, this was simply amazing. Finally, the last kilometre, last 500m, the finish line in sight. This part I forced myself to run, just because, I can overheat in the finish area. The finish line is located in a type of arena in the historical city centre and crowded with spectators. I almost don’t remember crossing it, I just made a run for it and caught a few high-fives. Afterwards, every athlete got a personal escort to post-race area (first time seeing this, I think they wanted to make sure that no one collapses). My escort greeted me with the words “come, I’ll take you to paradise now”. Hell, yeah.
Now some 10 days later when writing this report, I’m looking back at the race with mixed feelings. On the one hand, I wanted to deliver a strong performance and also get the pacing right, and I felt like training-wise, I was in a good position to do so. Still, the times I managed in the race, I think, do not quite reflect what could have been possible in normal conditions, and in a way, I’m still looking for the race day that rewards me with the experience that I have been training for. On the other hand, it’s a freaking Ironman, it’s not supposed to be easy.
There were about 3000 competitors, and just about 2200 made it to the finish. Only 30 out of 55 professional athletes finished. I couldn’t have done this any better in these temperatures, and already finishing the race safely and healthily wasn’t a given. Also, my sunscreen tactics worked and I didn’t get sunburned. In this sense, I’m still happy with it, even if I haven’t quite found the experience I was looking for.
Apart from that, the whole atmosphere is always amazing, though. It is never as easy to make new friends as in the expo and transition areas of an Ironman. You all know that everyone else is completely nuts and happy to have a discussion about the aerobars, or whatever else. The volunteers and spectators were fantastic and played a huge (if not the biggest) role in making this a memorable experience. It is hard to describe the feelings and emotions and goes through during the lead-up, race weekend and race itself of a long-distance triathlon. It is something like a half distance, but five times bigger and on steroids. Where on the day after you feel like a grizzly bear had you for dinner. Or something of that sort.
I’m well aware that Ironman races are expensive, but they are a well-oiled machinery and for sure will give you a great experience to look back at. Will I go back to Frankfurt? Probably not. Historically speaking, this race tends to be on the warmer side, and I think I’d prefer to discover a different course and location. Will I do another Ironman? Yes! Not next year, probably, but I am still looking for this well-paced and executed race, where everything comes together (and ideally, with wetsuits and at 20 degrees). Kalmar and Hamburg, looking at you!
Picture: Sportograf.com, Marcel in IM Copenhagen 2024
