Race 11. Sprint Triathlon Plouescat. July 29th 2007

Another race marred by rain. Jean-Louis, the friendly race director had promised to provide accommodation for Ella, Tom, Tameka and myself close to the race and also sunny weather for the start of the race. Well he was good for the first thing as we had a great little bungalow right near the beach, but he was unable to deliver on the sun. The whole day was wet, a bugger for all the organizers who had done a great job, and quite frustrating as the preceding and following days were fine and sunny. The race was in a little town called Poulfoen, just a few km north of Plouescat in the far west of France. The sea was super cold and I had an ice-cream headache right from the start. It was a pretty unique swim course as we were marched about 500m from transition to the swim start then swam our way back through the marina of the small fishing village. It was then a sharp run up a steep boat ramp and in to the transition. I managed to do all that first, and got on the bike in that position. The bike course was two laps of a narrow, super flat course with more corners than kilometers. Those factors coupled with rain, muddy roads and heaps of lapped riders and you had yourself a pretty dicey little course. I pushed hard on the bike and with the costal wind found it pretty tough. I was glad to hear that by transition had a big enough lead to win the race. Tameka had done similar except for one of the last corners where she slipped on the muddy road and came of her bike. Her lead was so great she was able to remount and retain the lead of the race. I passed her on the run and she looked a little sore. The run itself was very scenic and pretty solid as there were sections where we ran over the top of the beach dunes, while 4 meters to the left sat a perfectly nice strip of untouched road! I crossed the line pretty heavy legged and was immediately greeted by Jean-Michel the commentator for the race. He got me up on stage so quick I was able to call the second (Tom) and third (Marc Lepetit) across the line. For our efforts, along with the trophies and prize money, we all got a big bag of artichokes, a specialty of the region. Result from race 11; 1st