Athletic Adventures: IronMan 70.3 Zell am See - Day 3

On Saturday I got to sleep in while Husband went to the race briefing first thing in the morning. I didn't think that many partners that weren't racing would go so I stayed in the apartment (although apparently a lot did go), so I was just ready to go out when he returned.

Then we had most of the day to do touristy things, so we headed out to a cable car. There are a lot of cable cars in this part of Austria (mostly to double as ski lifts in the winter time) and we planned to head up to 3000m, the highest point you can get to locally, and to see the visitor centre up there as well. So we headed to the Panoramabahn Schaulfelberg and went up as high as we could get, but it wasn’t until we got to the top that we realised our mistake! We got off at only 1200ish metres, and when we got to the top we noticed a map on the wall that we had missed at the lower level. It showed all the cable cars, how to get in between them, and which ones were open. All the ones we wanted were open, but we weren’t on any of them! The cable car we had gotten on didn’t connect to the top and we ended up just having to go straight back down.

Unfortunately, by that time we didn't have enough time to get to the correct one for the 3000m summit, given that would require driving and then a few other cable cars. We did have some more time though, so we headed back into Zell am See to one of the two cable cars that was in the town, the Schmittenhohebahn. This one took us to the summit behind the town itself, on a very large cable car that was designed by Porsche! It was a super view, we explored at the top (there was a lovely chapel up there too) and had lunch at a ski hotel at the very top (I made a very mature choice and ordered chicken nuggets).

Then we headed back to the apartment so that Husband could organise his things for the race. There was a time slot in which participants could go to the swim start and practice/experience swimming in the lake, and also around the same time Husband had to drop his equipment in the transition area for the bike and run legs of the race. I decided to work out how to get to the start on public transport... There was one local train which you could catch one stop for free and then it was a 10 minute walk to the start - but then it turned out that it was also just a 20 minute walk! So that was frustrating, but actually good in that I worked that out for us before race day (especially with only one train every half hour). Husband cycled on ahead to get started. By the time I joined him I was wishing I had brought my swimsuit, given it was super warm and sunny! They had actually closed the pool though as it was too busy, and by the time I got there Husband was finished anyway, so we walked back with ice cream instead.

We got back to the main part of the lake near the town just in time to see the daily display of music and water show, which was lovely. Then Husband decided that pizza was best for dinner, so we found an Italian place for dinner (there were a lot in the town) - although in the end he ordered pasta and I ordered pizza! We had a lovely lake walk as dusk fell and headed to bed nice and early to be ready for race day.