Triathlon de St Germain

There was no escaping this triathlon. We'd signed up again but it was hard work to get up early this morning, to get out of the house and to take part. I wasn't really over my neck problem either and it wasn't the most sensible idea to go diving into a lukewarm swimming pool at 8:30 am in the morning.

However, there we were again and plenty of participants organised into 2 teams from Le Mesnil. I was in the English team composed of Nick, Paul, me, Sophie and Axel; and there was a second team made up of Didier, Eric, Patrick, Laurence and Pierre-Henri. Didier had done all the organising and everything was ready when we arrived at the pool.

After a quick warm-up in the pool, about 150 athletes waited in the water for the gun to be fired. We were off and the water went white with thrashing of arms and legs. I had a few blows from feet and arms in the head and torso and my googles were hit causing me to go sightless in one eye as they filled with water. An order was then created based on the speed of the different swimmers and I settled down into a steady rhythm, abandoning front-crawl for breaststroke despite the neck pain that this caused.

I thought that I was swimming at roughly the same speed as Nick until the guy I had mistaken him for dropped half a length. I climbed out of the pool to see Nick already changing into his cycling gear. We exchanged a couple of words and he was off outside, 30 seconds later I left to see that he'd already disappeared and that I was chasing again. I was on my old bike so that I could benefit from lighter weight and not need SPD shoes. The saddle was too low though and I lost some time from not being able to use more leverage on the pedals. I was relatively steady, but it was still a relief after 20k when I could leave the bike and start running.

As I had entered the bike park, I'd seen Nick leaving on the other side for his run. He had almost exactly the same start on me as last year when he beat me overall by 50m. This was my chance to see if I could run faster this year, and catch him before the end. I set off feeling good in my legs and running at around 14km/h (an estimate since I didn't have a watch to check speed or pace). I picked up speed as my legs got used to the run from the bike and I started catching other athletes and overtaking them.

When I reached the last hill alongside St Germain terrace, I could see Nick now about 100m ahead and I concentrated on catching the runners between him and me and chasing him down. I knew that there was about 500m to go when we left the terrace wall and he was about 25m ahead. He saw me on the last corner as he looked around going past, and I made an enormous effort to catch him and another runner from Houilles. As I drew alongside, he asked if we were going to sprint to the end or finish together. I didn't fancy a sprint to the line now and I was pleased at the idea of finishing together so that's what we did, crossing the line in 1:18:43.

Didier had finished ahead and his bike training paid off as he gained 2.5 minutes on us. Paul finished about 6 minutes behind and Laurence just after Paul in 1:27.

Laurence did a fantastic job finishing as 3rd woman and 2nd veteran overall. I was happier with her performance than my own as both Nick and I completed a minute slower than a year ago. Race didn't do any good to my neck and lack of sleep was a factor too. Still it was good to see everyone taking part and hopefully we'll have an even bigger team next year.