Alpe D’Huez Triathlon

You would have noticed a trend by now that I like to travel for my triathlons, participating in New York, San Francisco and now the French Alpe’s. This post reflects on the week that has just been, in one of my toughest ever physical challenges…

Well it seems a lifetime ago that I was sat in my hotel room watching the final stage of the Tour de France, yet it was only 6 days ago now. I am already sat back on the ferry home after what feels like the longest journey home ever. Endless toll roads and sum what 9 hours driving so far, just another couple when I get over into Dover. Oh by the way, travelling alone through France makes hard work at toll booths, having to get out the car and dart round the bonnet to collect the ticket or pay the fee!

There is no other way to break it to you other than the Alpes beat me up! I will get to the race in a little whilst, but first let me tell you about the build up over the last week…

When I finally got to the Alpe’s area on Monday I could see the sheer size come up out of no where, I have been skiing here many times yet it still feels like it hits you before you know it. The whole place looks completely different by summer, little to no snow on the valleys that would typically be hidden by dense white snow! As I approached Alpe D’huez and started to drive up the 21 infamous bends, my confidence was shattered! The incline is severe, we are talking over 3000 ft of climbing in just around 8 miles, with no flat bits or let up at all!

This played on my mind the whole time I was driving up the road, over taking many cyclists, pushing and panting their way up the road. At that time I knew I was going to be in for a tough day when I hit this! I met a guy called Tim at the hotel who was unpacking his bike, I asked if he was doing the triathlon, he didn’t even know one was going on. He was on his way to the south of France for his annual trip and thought this time he would stop by D’Huez and check on the climb. I told him I had planned to ride the climb in the morning and we would have to swap his story later so I know what to expect.

The plan Monday evening was to go for a little recce of the run route and try to flush the legs out after 2 days driving. The route looked to be ok, little hilly, but the scenery was immense! Seeing snow capped glaciers in the distance just makes this place beautiful!

I managed to catch up with Tim in the morning, finding out that it took him an hour and a half, I thought I may yet be able to do the 2 hours that I had previously set my self. After a good breakfast I got my stuff together and set off. The 8 miles took me a total of 30 minutes to ride pedal free downhill! Amazing, I did manage to capture this on the GoPro and will share on my Instagram page at some stage (@ijustfeltlikecycling). Knowing that when I did finally make it to the bottom, I would have to spin 180 and head straight back up was a little daunting, but here goes!

After taking the obligatory picture at the beginning of the climb I started thinking to myself this could be an eternity of pedaling in my lowest gear! I am so fortunate that I decided to go for a 11-32 cassette rather than a 28 looking back, otherwise it could have been somewhat a different day. I took my time getting up the climb as I knew I had the race only a couple of days later. I am so glad that I did as all my nerves were settled from doing so. The hardest part of the climb comes in the early stages, which by the time you get to bend 13 – 12 it comes at you and hits you in the face! Little rascal! This followed by another cheeky section at 9 – 8 made the early and middle stages very difficult. Looking back they may not have been tough, but in the moment they definitely seemed it! Add to this the fatigue I guess you can start to see why it is such a tough climb. All in all I never stopped once, I had planned to so that I could take some photo’s but I also wanted to know what the constant cycling would feel like for a long period of time. I was also in my lowest gear the whole time, with say a handful of times getting out of the saddle to push harder, or to just change the position of the ride. It took me just under an hour and a half to get to the top. Happy days.

That evening saw me go for a little swim, I wanted to relax from this point on as I felt like I had already done a lot of walking back and forth to town and the expo. I had to do an extra couple of journeys as I put the bike into a lovely little shop to have the brakes bled. Seem’s like the hydraulic system doesn’t like being laid on it’s side, which I found out when trying to brake on my descent of Alpe D’Huez. Nothing too serious that ride as I wasn’t pushing it, but come race day I needed those brakes in tip top form! Obviously had to pick up a new jersey from the shop along with some water bottles! It’s all about having a good stash game!

Race day…

Firstly I had to make the decision on whether to drive to the lake or cycle. Yes it was a split transition triathlons, where T1 was at the bottom of the mountain and T2 at the top. I decided to drive down there and in the end thankfully I made the right call. I heard stories that it took some people 45 minutes to cycle there, albeit 95% downhill I just didn’t fancy riding there with all my stuff in my back pack and be shattered before I even start!

Now I hate being late and I am a very punctual person, but turning up to the triathlon and being third into the car park says a bit about my OCD. I parked next to a Spanish lady Melina who I ended up becoming friends with throughout the day. There we were both sharing what time we were aiming for, little did we know…

You meet some fantastic people at triathlons, everyone is in it for the same reason, apart from the select few people that want to win it that is. It is a generally great atmosphere, evening buzzing for the start, they also seemed to pack a lot of the English next to each other, either that or we all said a similar forecast completion time. I was slotted next to Josh and we prepared together, zipping up each others wet suits and getting into the water.

Now let’s discuss this swim. In the build up, they suggest that the swim isn’t to be taken for granted, it would also go on to be my longest open water swim. What a beautiful beautiful lake and setting, water temperature was at a lovely 18 degrees, so not too cold and probably perfect swimming conditions. The lake is a dam that is used to produce hydro power energy, so for the other 363 days of the year no one can swim in it. They shut the turbines off for the 2 days worth of triathlon and set the scene for a pretty epic swim. Like most triathlons, you get in the water and take a traditional wet suit wee to warm the body up. I had drunk a lot that morning and was a little busting so I knew this wasn’t going to be a quick one. Anyway during my wee, the start klaxon decided to go off! By now I am mid wee and also about 100m away from the start line, at this point I started to realise it could be a long day!

I didn’t manage to finish the whole of the wee which played on my mind for a little bit and took me the best part of 30 minutes and a whole loop of the course to settle into any rhythm at all. I found myself mixing between front crawl and breast stroke for that first loop. I couldn’t get my breathing working, I think I was a little bit apprehensive about the start and generally open water swimming. I only got hit a few times, I sometimes wonder if the guys are even looking where they are swimming or if they just go hell for leather and throw their arms around. Once I got onto my second loop I found my rhythm and was front crawl all the way home. When reviewing my Garmin data later that evening it looks as though I swam 2.5km in total instead of the race distance of 2.2km. Hence why my time came out at around 56 minutes rather than the 45 that I was aiming for. Another strange thing happened in the swim after about 20 minutes which any swimmer will know is a pain in the arse, cramp! In my calf which meant I had to swim for periods with a flexed foot pointing towards my knee, not the most efficient way to swim! I don’t know how this happened as I had a good breakfast and took on lots of liquid electrolytes before the race even started. Anyway I managed to get out the swim in about 800th position from a field of 1075, and it was time for the bike!

My transition time wasn’t the best but I wanted to make sure that I was equipped and ready for the bike course. We also had to put all of our stuff into a black sack to be taken up to the finish line for us, the first time I have ever had to do this in a triathlon.

The bike ride was probably, actually definitely the hottest bike ride I have ever attempted! Now I have cycled through most of Europe and in many hundred plus bike rides, nothing can prepare you for cycling in the heat or the Alpes! Wycombe just doesn’t have the hills to compare or compete!

This ride is 10,000 ft of climbing in just over 70 miles of cycling! That’s almost 25% of my JOGLE climbing in a small fraction of the distance. The 70 miles was broken up into 4 descents and 4 climbs. Setting off from the lake on a lovely downhill allowed you to take on some nutrition and settle into a rhythm before the first climb hits you. Boy did this one hit me hard! This was a climb of 15km and 3300 ft climbing, as I said earlier 10,000 ft over the 74 miles is a hell of a lot of climbing! I thought I had a good cadence and pace about the first climb, yet when I made it to the summit I knew I was a little off the pace!

Over the course of the next few hours a lot was going through my head. I was doing the calculations based on current average mph, miles left and climbs left. Working out when I needed to be at the top of the 3rd climb in order to make it to Alpe D’Huez and the finish.

Then mile 50 came and I think my body started to shut down! I got severe cramp in my legs, which if you read one of my previous posts about race nutrition you would know that it was something I used to suffer from. I couldn’t even manage to eat at the aid station, I was soo bloated from all the liquid I was consuming. Miles 50 – 54 felt like an eternity, I met a Frenchman called Kelian who had been asleep under a tree and was feeling about as good as me at this point, we decided to ride the next 2km together to the aid station at the top of the 3rd climb. At this point the 3.5% incline felt like a killer slog!

It was at this point that I think the inevitable dawned on me…judging by the time it took me to climb Alpe D’Huez on Tuesday and then knowing how far it was from the 3rd summit to the base of the Alpe D’Huez climb, I calculated that I needed 1:45 in order to make it to the top. I had probably the fastest descent ever! Beautiful scenery and a long stretch of downhill cycling, not a car in sight and hugging the mountain side. I managed to get to the bottom with 1:30 on the clock and thought I had made good progress!

Before making it to bend 21 (the start of the climb) I got cramp again, this time bad enough to made me stop. There is only soo many salt tablets and electrolyte you can consume, so I had to get off and try to stretch to relieve the cramp. Restarting on a 10% incline isn’t easy and if you followed my blog back when I rode to Spain you will remember my rule number 1, NEVER STOP ON A HILL! I managed to get going though and got around bend 21, then further realisation kicked in. I did the math and based on my current speed which was half the speed from earlier in the week, it would have taken me 3 hours to complete the climb. I had a tough decision to make, do I push on and do damage to my body knowing that I am probably going to miss the run, or do I stop…

As I got round this bend and weighed up all my options, Kelian was ahead sat on the wall. We both decided to throw in the towel, which if you know me was not an easy decision to make! As we sat there both frustrated we tried to flag down any car we could to hitch hike a lift to the top. Then all of a sudden I hear my name, Melina had been picked up by her friends and she pulled over to give me a lift.

I was devastated, words cannot describe how I felt at that moment and indeed the whole evening and next day. I wasn’t alone and many others were in the same boat, only 754 people finished the race, so 321 people had a DNF. Chatting to some of the others we felt like it didn’t require a cut off time for the bike ride, especially since it wasn’t a closed road cycle race. Why start so late in this case, when it could have started earlier and had a higher success rate of finishers!? Seeing everyone with their medals and finisher t-shirts killed me. I was in a massive down, my body was shattered and since finishing the back of my knee has felt like a strain, maybe the 10 hour drive home has had something to do with that!

Maybe JOGLE had taken more out of me than I had first thought, working on my endurance for that event instead of speed, could have been a detriment to the pace I needed to ride this race at. Or could I have struggled because I needed to push on early and felt the impact later on.

Something I haven’t shared so far was the race day temperature. It was a cool 40 degree heat on that Thursday, which played a massive part! This was hotter than my New York triathlon where I ran the slowest 10km ever (blog post to come at some point). I just couldn’t regulate my body temperature at all. I am now suffering some neck burns because of it, this may also be a mix with some wet suit rash but I think 7 hours out in the sun with neck exposed could have done the damage. That heat is something you just can’t train for, not without paying to go into heat chambers, and for someone that does these things for fun I sure wasn’t going to that extreme.

I have an empty deflated feeling at the moment, although the support from friends and family checking in on me has been great the last few days. At least I know I have only let myself down with this one!

Right now I think my body is telling me to chill out! Maybe I have over done it these last couple of months, the immediate reaction is to pull out of my triathlon in Wales next month and start again next year. Could this also be the end of my long distance triathlons. I say all this now, but I am always looking to challenge myself and rarely say no to something. Or maybe I just do better when I am competing against myself and going solo?

Next up is the Nutz Challenge in September, just a casual 14km obstacle race which I plan to enjoy. Then I will concentrate on my speed that I lost in training for JOGLE, see if I can tick that sub 23 min 5km park run off the list before the end of the year.

That’s all for now, time to enjoy a few more G&T’s before heading back to work tomorrow.

Hope you enjoyed the read…