St Germain triathlon

Triathlon time has come around again and it was another early start as I waited for the usual suspects to turn up on their bikes on the way to the swimming pool for the September triathlon. We had pulled together a 6 man team : me, Nick, Andy, Didier, Philippe and Axel, so it was a bit of a surprise when I only saw 4 cyclists coming down the road this morning.

Andy was missing.

Andy is normally the most motivated to do this event as it gives him a reasonable chance to show Nick and I that despite his extra years, that he's still a tough guy to beat over a 500m swim, 20km MTB course and a 5km run. Andy's huge advantage is that he can swim and cycle. I just bet on my ability to catch him on the run, but with the extra training recently he's been doing would I manage it ? Well we'll never know now as he'd gone down with some man flu, but Nick was still looking good, having slotted in some secret training recently.

We arrived at the swimming pool to find that we'd be starting in the second wave again. I have to admit that I was a little disappointed as I'd liked to have started with the main crowd and the serious triathletes at the start. Still, it would always be a little less crowded in the second wave, which wasn't a bad thing. We left our clothes by the bike to change there for once in an attempt to save a few precious seconds. Back down to the swimming pool and we were off.

I set off as usual: thrashing my way up the pool in an attempt to swim the crawl. I got to the end and swam back in crawl too, before switching to breaststroke, less tiring and just as fast for me. I got out of the pool in 10:15 which is my best performance by 15 seconds and ran to the bike to get changed. Didier and Nick were ahead of me, Nick having swum a great 500m, only to lose his advantage by leaving his helmet in the changing rooms! I was having problems of my own with my top which had rolled up into a little packet on my back and which I struggled to unravel. I was still tying my shoelaces when Nick set off on the bike. 15 seconds later and I was off after him but he'd already disappeared at warp 9 down the paths.

I settled into a rhythm and tried to follow a few others. I was just beginning to feel good and pass some other cyclists when down a steep little slope, I suddenly found myself being thrown to the side and into the brambles with the bike on top of me. 'What the f***'. I looked at the bike to try and understand what had gone wrong but everything appeared in order and I set off again. I was perturbed by this and it was only on the next lap that I finally understood: my right pedal was near the floor and a rock caught this on my descent knocking me off-balance again. I held on this time and was more careful afterwards.

I regretted my choice of bike as I couldn't pull on the uphills without my SPD's and the pedals were very small for trainers. I should have used the old bike which is lighter without the suspension since the course was really dry and speed was of the essence.

As I pulled in at the end of my fourth lap, I saw Nick set off running and thought that he had a good minute over me now. I leapt off the bike and started chasing hard. I was running well from the start, with a constant pace and just breathing slightly too hard. I overtook Didier and encouraged him as I passed. I stretched on the downhills but still no sign of Nick ahead. On the return part of the course, I negotiated the uphill still feeling strong and set off again. I passed plenty of other runners as I was catching all the tail-enders from the first wave now. Still no sign on Nick's top though. It was only as I set off down the last straight to the swimming pool that I spotted him 50m ahead. I sprinted now and overtook a last runner to finish 3 seconds behind Nick at the end. A great session by him to create the initial lead over the bike especially that I couldn't make up over the run.

Great race and looking forward to see the official results now. I finished in around 1:17 which is identical to last year's time. A change of bike next year should help gain a few more seconds, but the run was the best I could have hoped for. Good event.