Double Race Weekend

Race 4. July 16th 2007 (Saturday) 20eme Triathlon de la baie du Mont st Michel. Sprint Now this would have to be the weirdest and wettest race I have ever done. Due to the race being its 20th anniversary the field was full and I went to the race unsure if I could even start. The weather was appalling and I was told by the organiser that I would have no problem getting in, just wait at the inscriptions tent with my stuff ready and when everyone has signed in then I could enter. Well 20 minutes before race start and they still would not give me a number. I was stressing. It was pissing down rain, transition was closing and I was not even close to getting ready. Then a man who had a friend that had pulled out of the race gave me a number and the officials accepted the exchange. It was now last call for the transition to close and the whole preparation thing went as a bit of a blur. I got in there, racked my bike and then we were off to the swim start. For this race it is no ordinary swim. Due to the massive tides in the region the start of the race has to coincide with the start of the rising tide. When I say massive I mean 14 metre rise and fall (yes meter) and it comes in at around 30 km/hr. You have to start the race standing on the side of the estuary and when they see the water moving inwards the gun goes. Its pretty nerve wracking as everyone is anticipating the start, jostling and slipping on the muddy banks. My heart rate is increasing just writing this and reliving the ordeal. Ok, I am calm again! Well I didn't see the tide swing but as soon as I heard the gun I leaped and dove into the frigged water. . . . . Black. It was so so muddy that every time I put my face in the water it was like the lights were turned off. As we had no swim warm up at all, my dive had sent a surge of cold water down my back and this and the fact my arms felt like lead after the first 50 meters made me feel like I was mad for trying so hard to even get in the race to begin with. After around 200 metres I found myself in a lead bunch of about 4 guys then my hand hit the bottom. Being super cleaver I thought 'oh I will stand up and run'. I went to stand and that is when I felt the full force of the current. I could not get my feet under me to stand and I felt it would have been quicker to just lay there as opposed to running. I went back to normal swimming and told myself I was an idiot for trying to out run the 30km/hr water! 100 metres or so later problem two presented itself. Due to the winding nature of the estuary, it was always a concern that I would end up in an area of less current and loose time to guys in 'the sweet spot'. The lead pack had broken up. I was in the middle with another guy, two were on the inside and one out wider. I was keeping a check on them all and then to my horror I saw the inner two guys getting to the bank and starting to run!! I swam at almost right angles to the shore to do the same but not long after my course change I heard a bunch of whistles being used to their full capacity and the two runners jumped back into the water to swim again. I then looked to my right and saw that the guy in the middle of the river was a good way in front and I took off after him. Well for the rest of the swim I pretty much zig-zagged up the river chasing others and we all came together at the exit. There were people there to help you out and stop swimmers missing the exit and being taken down stream. I ran into transition third and was first on the bike. That was to be the driest I would be for the remainder of the race. It bucketed down on the bike, so much so that at points I could not see holes and rode through them. I was joined by another guy on he bike and I gladly let him go in front, thinking he can set the pace for the first lap of two and sort of show me the way, then I can pass him when I know the course and get away. Nope! He was strong and I spent the whole bike leg hurting just to keep with him. I took a few more risks in the corners and could gain on the hills but he was better than me on the flats. I was glad not to crash in the wet as some parts were technical and very bumpy. Entering the final transition in was pretty tired and about 15 seconds behind the leader Nicholas Le Hir. As I racked my bike he was running out and third was still 1 minute 30 second out on the road, so the race was between us. I took the first part of the run out strong but very controlled as I thought he would tire after the hard ride and I still had 5 km to get past him. Well he did not tire. The run was 2 2.5km laps on wet muddy grass that crossed little streams and was as slippery as ice. By the end of the first lap I was 5 seconds behind Nicholas and sure he would falter at any moment. He was looking behind lots and hurting himself all the way. I felt crap but wanted to win so kept the pressure on. Its like one of those dreams (well not THOSE dreams!!!!) but the ones where you want to run faster but just keep slipping on the spot. I just could not make my body get closer to the little blue guy in front of me. He kept looking back and I though he was probably thinking "whats this guy doing?" Well I tried but to no avail. I hoped my head would fall of in the last km to take the pain away and I eased up before the line tired and beaten. On a lighter note, as a reward for finishing second I won a nice bag of biscuits! Now that's the race story, but there is more. The race is "The Mont Saint Michel Triathlon" (I have the T-shirt!) But it is not held at the Mont Saint Michel. I know this because Ella, Adam and I drove there and asked "where is the race?" and the parking guy laughed at us stupid tourists and said it was 30km away! Panic. We found it in the direction he sent us, after following lots of skinny winding roads, in the paddock of a tiny town called Le Val Saint Pere. It was a little bit of a let down as I thought a swim at the foot of that place would be super dooper. After the race we left Adam (as he was racing the following morning and the Olympic distance event) to spend the night with the local doctor and his pretty twin daughters (it speculation but I am sticking to the story in my head), and headed back to Rennes for a quick sleep and then off again to race the following morning. Now this race started at a bit after 8:30 PM!! so by the time presentation, pack up, kiss Adam good bye and pack up the bus was over we didn't get out of there till well into the night. Being so close to the Mont St Michel and having not seen it at night Ella and I decided to pop over. Its pretty! But the extra kms had put the gazzole situation into the critical zone and or attention shifted from 1000 year old churches to petrol stations. We pushed it as far as the petrol light would allow and stopped at a petrol station still 50 or more kms from home. At the later hour we were there (1am ish) it was closed and only accepted card in exchange for precious fuel. You guessed it you cleaver cookie. Our cards would not work! So here we were in some tiny town out of fuel, totally soaked, in the middle of the night and having to get the team bus back to Rennes by 9 the next morning to go race again. At least I was sort of ready as I still had my race suit on! After the longest 40minutes I can remember, contemplating the bus as a bed, a car load of A platers (P platers) stopped and we gave them money for fuel they could obtain by using their (not rejected 70 times) card. And everyone lived happily ever after, until the next day anyway!

Result from race 4. 2nd Lesson learned. Enter races early. put more petrol in the bus.

Find out how Adams race went at: www.beckworthracing.com

Race 5. July 17 2007. Brittany Championships Contre la Montre par equipe (Sprint) Early wake up for this one. Now I have done one of these races before and it was not all the fun it is cracked up to be. This time I was in a team of just three. Gwenn, Pierre and myself. It was important for our team to finish in the top 3 in this race as it was the last selection race for the club to qualify for the French cup in October. In the French cup every club that can get a team represented races and it sets the ranking for all the clubs in France by where they finish. It had rained all night and the trend continued on our way to and at the race site. By the time we got racing it had thankfully cleared and the roads were near dry. Our team was last to start out of about 80 or so teams, as last year we were the best (I didn't race). Each team starts one minute apart and race together with a maximum of 5 guys, and a minimum of 3 to finish. Starting with only 3 is a big disadvantage as there is fewer people to work on the bike and it can be a risk if something goes wrong (flat tire, leg falls off, someone dies). The team one minute in front of us were the raging favourites, Rennes. They are a division one team with many strong guys to pick a good team. In the swim I struggled, for air and ability as Pierre set the pace. I hung on and swam next to Gwenn most of the way so we all got out of the water as a little group and headed up to transition. And I mean up to transition. It was about 300m of uphill to the bikes, and it felt like it took 8 minutes. I needed food on the way I'm sure. We got on our bikes having taken 10 seconds out of Rennes in the water. The bike course was run over part of the world titles bike course so had paint and writing all over the road. It was a three lap course with one 2 km climb and another shot and super steep climb. Pretty tough. It was also very windy and a bit technical, Oh great! On the bike Gwenn found the going pretty tough so it was Pierre and I that set the pace. It cant of been too much of a pace as we got off the bikes 1 min 20 sec behind Rennes!! I felt good in the body but angry to be so far behind in the race so took off solid in the early part of the run. After about 300m I turned to see Gwenn had fallen behind so I told Pierre to run at his own pace and I will go get Gwenn. I pushed Gwenn, which might sound mean, but it was an assisting type of push, and it made him run much faster. It also made me much more tired. At one stage Gwenn built up so much momentum he ran passed Pierre, so I stopped pushing him and pushed Pierre back into the lead. I was very happy with how we ran as a group and when we crossed the line, thought we must have eaten some of the time back to those Rennes wankers (actually real nice guys, but it sounds tuff to call them wankers). Nope. They had ran 40 seconds quicker than us. There was not much else to say really. I tried to steal a prize off one of the girls in the winning team and later we gave our trophy to a drunk guy who looked like joining us in the bus for the trip home. He was stoked and kept shaking our hands and smiling. We passed him 15 min's later as we were driving off and he was still clutching it. He didn't recognise us at first (it had been a long 15 min's and we were all in camouflage fluro Cesson yellow!!), but when it registered he gave us a big wave and blew a few kisses. As with tradition, on the way home Pierre made us stop at "Mc do" for some well needed hot food.

Result from race 5. 2nd Lesson learned. Avoid this sort of race at all costs. Drunk guys love second place trophies. Pierre is addicted to Mc Do.