Alpe d'Huez Triathlon 2014

From Villard Reculas, Col d'Ornon straight ahead

The summer in Europe continues to be punctuated with cold fronts, bringing rain and cooler than normal temperatures for several days. We drove to Alpe d'Huez in the rain on Tuesday, torrential in places and really wondering if the swim could go ahead, or at least a reduced version of the 2.2km.
We knew the temperature of Lac Verney would be colder than normal this year, noone knew how cold until just before the start - 13.8 degrees was the official announcement. Normally swimmers would warm up in the water, but today most (including me) who tested the water ended up immediately jumping out the other side and sitting on the rocks waiting for the start.
A helicopter hovered very close to the lake to film the start, which was impressive to watch from my vantage point, then once the waters had cleared of the usual frenzy I faced the task of swimming the chilly waters, 2 laps in clear water. It was cold, I could feel my hands cooling all the time, and to feel the chill on my teeth was an unusual sensation. Still, the aim is to survive the swim and I managed to push on and swam with few problems apart from verging towards cramp in my calves on the final straight.
Many did not make it this far, some refusing to swim in the cold waters and others being helped out.
I stumbled around on the banks into transition, feeling quite dizzy at this stage whilst trying to dry and clothe myself. Here I met Rod, friend from Les Randommeurs, Haute Route 2013 - he's doing his first ever triathlon and he chose this one!
Glad I had full gloves, hat, arm warmers and gilet at this point, all necessary as the first 25km of the ride is downhill. Col du Grand Serre was its usual heavy mist/fog up to the top, then blue skies on the over side of the ridge when the temperatures finally rose to feel more like summer. I was feeling tired on the Col d'Ornon, and talking to another Englishman (so many brits in this race) wondered if I had enough for the 21 hairpins.
Don't think I had, as this felt like the toughest climb up to Huez I had ever faced. Etape du Tour, La Vaujany, Haute Route, in all these I felt stronger. Maybe it was the cold swim taking a chunk out of me, or just less training this year? Best time for me was the time trial in Haute Route of course, 59 mins. That of course would be the limit, so today 10-15 mins more would be acceptable. Ended up 1hr 17 for the climb, so slower than hoped. I was of course saving something for the run - cycling up here knowing you have to run for 2 hours at high altitude meant you really had to leave something in the tank.
The 3 laps of the run turned out to be a neat solution, and mentally easy to plan where you were, how far you had to go. Each lap seemed to pass by quickly. The course is undulating, not steep enough to have you hiking, and mostly road or solid path so nothing like the Xterra offroad runs. Very nice to still have the arm warmers with me as a cool breeze meant that it felt cold running into the wind, but warm with the breeze, so easy to adjust. I went faster each lap, probably gaining in confidence as I discovered the course, but by the end running at the limit after one severe calf twinge.

A few days have passed now, and this event still feels massive, the big tri event of the year for me for sure. Already think this could be done again, its a real challenge in tremendous scenery and I still have to spend a few days mountain biking on the lift network up here one summer.

TEMPS COURSE : 08:05:53.45
CLASSEMENT SCRATCH 288 HOMME 269
CATEGORIE MV1 44
GRIMPEE DE L'ALPE : TPS.01:17:18.43 RG.280 CAT.39

Swim
51:35.58 RG. 818 CAT. 147

T1
09:04.90 RG.677 CAT. 120

Bike
05:03:57.69 RG.218 CAT. 28

T2
02:32.68 RG.281 CAT. 48

Run
01:58:42.60 RG.330 CAT. 58


892 finishers. 60 DNF, 3 DQ. Winner Todd Skipworth, 5hr 51m 33s. Fastest female Catriona Morrison 6hr 19min 37s.

Bastille day - Mulhouse -> Planche des Belles Filles

XTERRA France

Another week, another XTERRA - 1,500 m swim, 34 km bike and 10 km run so only 7km different in the mtb section, should be an easy day right?
Well, this proved to be a completely different setup to la Vallee du Joux one week ago. From the parking in the big meadow leading down to Lac de Longemer to the sound system playing music to the spectators watching the triathlon for kids and mini kids, it was clear this would be a bigger and noisier event.
With the larger number of starters, the swim was a more hectic place to be and there was no escape to the left or right, just a very wide bunch of seemingly slow swimmers around me. Again, the lake was not cold, but with my fear of people grabbing my legs from behind, it still sends me into hectic breathing and so breast stroke was required for a while before I could find any space in the water to swim freely. Even one guy doing back stroke to my left, must have been trying to stay afloat, or lost his goggles.
Nice out and back, so the navigation was quite simple for this one, but the target for the lake exit was very difficult to spot from the water as it was dark and buried in the trees.

So onto the bike, and after possibly 500m of road, we were offroad, the final time to see tarmac till the next lap. The trails were heavy mud/rock tracks, mostly beyond your normal firetrack. For the first lap, the problem was the sheer number of riders blocking the trails, resulting in a large amount of hiking as inevitably someone would slip/fall then others would have to stop. Very little flat, if any, and it felt like a long ride to the feeding station where I was very much in need of water/gels.

The most impressive part of the ride was a large wooden construction at the end of the lap in the spectator arena, don't know if this can be called "north shore" as its wide and straightforward to ride, but it looks big and must have taken a fair amount of work to put together.

The run was real trail work, my shoes are standard asics road shoes yet today they did not slip - I recommend trail shoes for this course though. Its up and up, narrow to the point of not being able to pass runners ahead, then the only flat section beside the lake to the finish is covered in roots and boulders. One of these sent me flying, luckily I landed on soft ground but certainly woke me up to concentrate on every foot step on this tricky terrain.

At the finish we were rewarded with a nice medal, tasty Kronenberg and then it was an attempt to shower, wash bikes and pack up between some immense storms which rapidly passed overhead.     

Swim : 33m 37s 715th
Bike : 3hr 16m 06s (After bike, 405th)
Run : 1hr 5min 2s
Total : 5hr 1min 12s
360th, +1hr 46m 32s behind winner.

So, only 7 km mtb more than Xterra Suisse, yet more than 2 hours extra in total!