Monday, August 28, 2006

Race 9: 18eme Triathlon International Du Mans, Le Mans 1500m/40km/10km. 9th July 2006 The story of this race is far more about the journey there than the race itself. It began at the Rennes train station, where Adam and I purchased two rather expensive train tickets to Le Mans. We boarded the train with our bikes and thought all was ok, until one of the train conductors saw and told us the bikes had to come off. Was he joking? We started telling him a rational reason for having the bikes, and showed him the race entry information, but he kept cutting us off and repeating “NO VELO”. Stage two, I pulled out the train timetable that has indicated which trains allow bikes to be carried on board, there was no train for the whole Sunday. I showed him and yelled back “find us a train and we will take it”. He replied with his old favourite “no velo”, really pissing me off. I then swore at him and told him he would have to drag me off. He then went into train conductor overdrive, used more English, and said “ok I call the police, that’s it I call the police”. I told him that’s a good idea, as I couldn’t imagine getting arrested for trying to get a bike on a train for a 1 hour journey. The time till departure was now about 5 minutes. Adam had given up trying to rationalise with the guy, and had found a second conductor, who had heard the commotion and was assessing the situation. He offered a better solution, another train we could catch. Adam took his bike off the train and told me to do the same. I reluctantly wheeled my bike off the train and less than one minute later the train shot off. Our new helpful conductor showed us the train we could catch. We now had to go to Laval then catch another train to Le Mans. The train from Laval departed at about the same time our race was scheduled to commence!!!!!!!!!! Nooooo. We thanked him for the help (??) and proceeded back the ticket counter for a refund. I called one of the guys on the team, Gwen Dupas. We knew he was driving there, but he has a super small car, too small for bikes, I thought this option was better than walking. When he answered his phone he was not far from Le Mans and was a little shocked we were in Rennes still. He then told me the team bus should be available (we had been told it was still on another trip). I called Bertrand Helluix, one of the team managers and explained what had happened, and asked about the bus. He told me to leave it with him and so I hung up. We eventually reached the front of the huge ticket line and explained to the girl we were kicked off the train could we have our money back. Well the answer to that was no. And the logic behind this phenomenal decision was that the train had already left. Adam and I entered our second argument with the SCNF train staff. This time I wasn’t going to loose. She offered us just under half our money back, still some $50 short of what we had payed, and said there was nothing she could do. Madness. She was now looking behind us for the next person in line, like the matter was over. Now lets just recap the events so far; We now had far less if not no time to get to Le Mans, and were, at this point $100 worse off. I demanded to speak to someone else and she did this came back with the same answer so I sent her off again. This time she said nothing when she returned, scribbled something on the tickets and handed back all our money. Hooray, finally a fair decision. Being Sunday no car rental place was open and getting a taxi was out of the question, so we were pretty much out of options. Then my phone rings and it is Raph, our team manager. He tells us the bus is free and he can meet us at the Cesson clubrooms with the key in 20 minutes. We were of on our bikes in a flash. With this fantastic news we were laughing and cursing the train line and recapping our story, all the while riding as quick as we could to the club some 10 km away. We met Raph as planned and got the key. He told us we had to leave right away if we were to make the race of off we drove. We arrived at the race 40 minutes before the start thanks to some great navigation from Adam and some disregard to the speed limits.

Everything from here went according to plan for me but not for Adam. It was an Olympic distance race on the outskirts of the town famous for the 24hour car race. I was third out the water about 30 seconds behind Adam and Benoit Buchard. I rode the first 5 km very hard, caught them and then hung back, letting Benoit set the pace. Nearing the end of the first of two laps Adam was shown a black card for drafting. He was pretty close but it was a pretty harsh decision. I took off after this, fearing the same fate and worrying the chasers were gaining. I went super hard for most of the second lap and with about 5km to go the TV motorbike told me I had 1 minute lead. The run was solid but not super hard and I did what I needed to win the race, finishing about 50 seconds ahead of the next finisher. Adam was required to do a penalty lap on the run, but when he passed the area and asked the officials they said nothing so he just ran on. He finished third and went up on the podium, got his trophy and flowers, posed for the newspaper and was then disqualified. Our team members were very disappointed as we had clearly won, and now missed our on the team money. Result from race 9: 1st

Race 10: Dinard Aquathon 700m/5km. 10th July 2006 The Following day I travelled with some of the team and a heap of other club members to a place called Dinard. Dinard is right on the North coast of Brittany and is a popular summer destination, famous for its historical houses and quirky beach tee pees that you can hire for the whole summer. I thought we were doing some aquathlon training, however learnt it was not training but a race. I made a number belt and ran with no top. It was only a small and a lot of fun. The swim was about 700m around some permanent buoys and the run was 3 laps making 5km along the promenade and up a steep hill to an old house. Very scenic. I felt pretty good considering I had raced in Le Mans 24 hours before and ended up winning. Rodolphe Boutier from Rennes triathlon was second and Pierre Guilloux from Cesson was third. Raph jokingly told me a while after that it is very important for a Cesson international to win this race as they have for a number of years. My prize for the race was a lovely Dinard jumper with some of the famous beach tee pees embroidered on it. Result from race 10: 1st with a jumper

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Race 8. 2nd July 2006 Triathlon Saint Jean de Monts. 1500/40/10 Yet another scorching hot day greeted us for the start of this race. The swim was a 2 lap triangle in the sea with a run out of the water between each lap. After the swim was a massive run up the beach (the tide being right out byrace start) to an enormous transition area on the esplanade of St Jean de Monts. The 40km bike was three laps of a pretty flat circuit, and the final10km run was four laps of 2.5km, including a 3-400m run through the soft beach sand, delightful! The organisers of the race had been happy to have two Australians race so gave us a few nights accommodation for Adam and I right on the course. We were the sole representatives of team TOC Cesson, so no team prize money today and also no bus. We rented a very nice station wagon and found our own way there. I feel the team from Saint Jean de Monts were too strong anyway as they had all hands on deck for the race, and even formed a group huddle and chanted before the race. Adam and I did the same but with just the two of us it didn’t quite have the same effect. On the crowded start line over 300 nervous athletes pushed and toed for some precious front row sand. As with all of the French races there is no wave starts, just one big start, and there is never enough room for everyone on the start line. I chose the extreme left of the start line so as to not get caught in the crush in the middle. Stretched between the two ends of the line was a rope to keep everyone back. It was tied to the pole I was starting next to and I remember thinking that when the start happens and the rope is lifted it will not go up high enough, still tied to the pole. I was still nutting this problem out when I heard a siren. Must be the start I thought, so without hesitation I ran around the pole, pushed through the arbitrators (race officials) and started running for the water. A few seconds later was the official start gun, but this meant nothing as the entire field had already started sprinting down the beach. Adam told me after he had been caught momentarily by the rope, putting stock in my round the pole decision. I have a video of this start for anyone who is interested. You can here the two starts quite distinctly. I ran into the water towards the front of the field, swam as quick as I could and rounded the first buoy in about 7th right behind our French swim coach, Roman. I had seen him swim1:58 for a 200m the week before, so with that in mind was happy to be with him. I have conveniently excluded the fact he was not swimming in a wetsuit, but I was still happy with my position. I moved up a few positions over the course of the first lap and exited the water in 4th for the start of the second lap. Adam and St Jean de Monts number one guy Benoit Bouchard had got themselves a little gap off the front by about 15seconds then came Roman and myself. I passed Roman on the run back in and spent the remainder of the second lap on my own, unable to catch the two in front but pulling away from those behind. I got out of the water 53seconds behind Adam who had Benoit 9 seconds behind him. It was so hot that I may have already been dry by the time I reached my bike in the transition. On the bike I felt pretty good and worked hard to get to the front two. I didn’t think I was so far behind so really pushed to get to them quickly. After about 10km I reached a straight section of road and could see them way off in the distance. Oh crap I thought they are getting further away from me. I persisted with the pace I had established, not because I thought it was effective but because it was all I had to offer. Surprisingly, by the end of the first lap I had almost caught Adam and Benoit was not too far in front of him. This was better. This out and back section of the course allowed people to see exactly where others were. Then I passed the guys behind me, and saw a big bunch of around 10 guys. They were all sort of but sort of not drafting. Please note this was a non drafting race. I figured they would probably catch me within the next 5 km the way I was riding. I caught Adam and went off in search of the leader on the road, Benoit, but I couldn’t see him. At the cross over section of the second lap he had a very similar sized lead, and I, to my relief had extended my advantage to the chase pack. I really pushed the last lap. Partially to get more time on the pursuers but predominantly to catch Benoit. My tactic was based solely on my own stupidity as I had no idea where the entry for the transition was or how to finish the last lap, so figured if I follow Benoit I could copy him. I did it. I caught him with about 3km to go in the bike leg. When I reached him he looked very very tired, and was not moving too quick. I yelled that he should lead as I didn’t know the way properly, but he told me afterwards he had know idea what I was saying. I soon realised I had to lead as the pace had dropped significantly. As I neared transition I took my feet out of my shoes and turned to see Benoit doing the same. That must be the right time I thought. Its his home race, he would know. Wrongo! We still had about 600m to ride, 300 past transition, a u-turn then 300 back to the dismount. We both had to do this section out of our shoes. At the u-turn I passed Bertrand, one of our team managers. He was yelling at me "well done" and "allez allez trez bien" (go go very good), and I yelled back "I have got no idea where I am going". I didn’t. I rode at a slower pace back to what I thought was the bike dismount line. Benoit followed. I jumped off my bike and started to run it, but we had to run for a very long way. Benoit still followed. We ran a big square, first away from transition then back towards it. I looked across the square area to see the guy who was in third…..Still riding!! I jumped back on my bike but 10m later arrived at the actual dismount line. Benoit admitted to me after the race he also had no idea where to go, so just copied me. We both had a laugh at how much time we had squandered. I exited transition on the run in second. Not behind Benoit but behind Nicolas Tharreau from Les Sables tri club. He had caught us in the end of the bike leg as we were running our bikes. He ran out of transition hard and sped over the soft sand section. Weary of the heat I ran out a bit easier, although I don’t think I could have gone as quick as he had over the soft sand. At the end of the first lap he was about 25 seconds in front of me, Benoit had retired with exhaustion and the next competitor was over 1:30 behind. Gaps didn’t really change a lot after that. I put I a big effort to reach the lead on the third lap, but Nicolas was too strong and crossed the line 17 seconds in front of me. Marc Lepetit, who finished second in Laval triathlon, was third 1:27 behind the winner. Result from race 8 = 2nd