There will be more to follow but if you like to go up 10 percent average grades over 10 kilometres and really enjoy going really fast down similiar grades all within 6 feet of near certain death on roads that in places don't have guardrails and have sheer drop offs of hundreds of feet this is the race for you. You also get to go up the col de ilzard (probably spelled that wrong) over roads that tour de france heros rode very recently too. I rode over go Chris Froome and other names I cannot remember right now.
Okay now two days later and time to do update. I chose this race because I had a week of vacation planned and wanted to do a tri and also have it be a good trip for wife and daughter. The other good thing is this race is always on August 15 and this year that was a tuesday so with my holiday being saturday to saturday that worked. I am not an uber biker but don't mind climbing and it sounded like fun to ride on tour de france stage course. The bike is rather hard. I am not sure exactly how much vertical somewhere between 4 and 5000 metres. The cost is only 300 euro so even if you just do swim and bike worth it. The run has about 500 m of gain but I didn't expect to do it anyway. The next day I had to go back to Lyon to meet my wife and daughter so I couldn't kill myself.
The airline didn't send our luggage or bike when be landed on Sunday am so I didn't get it until monday at 245. That was a problem because embrun in 3.5 hours drive south and registration closes at 6 pm. I did alot of speeding and some creative detour on skinny mountain roads to get around french holiday traffic and got there at 620. Thank goodness lady at registration took pity on me and gave me package. Got to transition at ten to 7 and it closes at 7 and dragged by unpacked bike bag in and put bike together. Back to hotel had good supper. Hotel put on breakfast at 330 for myself and 6 other athletes. (the french take hospitality seriously). Race starts at 6 am so I walked 2.5 k downhill at 430 to get set up only to find out I couldn't get into T1 without photo ID so I had to run uphill get photo ID and come back down. Rather odd given I had race number on and race bracelet on my wrist and was asked for no ID on my way out of transition at end of race.
Swim starts in the dark at 6 am. Leaders follow a flashing light on a boat everyone else on mass start of 1000 follows. I started at back of group as I was late to start area and didn't know what to expect in terms of swimmers. It was two loops in a small lake which seemed good water quality. Wetsuit swim. The first 600 m I was in a washing machine of many swimmers. After that I decided to go wide and it was a bit better but by end of first loop got no better so I decided to go on inside shortest line buoy to buoy. Surprise almost no one swimming there everyone staying wide. Nice. I came out 68 minutes after I entered the water. I think I was about number 300 or so lots of bikes still in T1.
Then to bike. Climbing starts straight out of transition. I think in the first 30 or 40 K I must have climbed 750 m at least maybe more. I got passed alot. I think half of france passed me. At one point I fell over on what was about a 15 percent incline which didn't hurt much because I was barely moving. After that descent back down to lake. I was scrubbing a fair bit of speed on descents I live in pancake flat area and not much comfort going down fast. Then another 20-30 K and started going up towards approach to Col d'Izard. I was 3 or 4 percent with a few descents then it slowly got steeper. I can't remember exactly how long the col is but towards the end I passed a sign which said 13 more K with average 10 percent incline. I am okay climbing I make it up the beast on St.Croix and did that half bike in 3.5 hours but it was getting brutal at that point. With about 9 k to the summit I was basically done. It was 80 plus degrees sunny and I breathing as hard as I ever had to on a bike. Then I passed a race official who told me I had 45 min to make the top or I would miss cut off. Another K down the road and I was moving at walking speed so I pulled over and sat down and waited for the "clean up" bus. Which came along 10 min later. I was okay with that by that point I had gone about 100 k and probably ascended over 3000m. And I was going to get to go back to T1 and have a shower and a proper meal. I took the bus 3 hours to get back to T1. If you make if over the col the race isn't over. I'll finish rest report in another post as I have run out of space.
They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot
Okay now two days later and time to do update. I chose this race because I had a week of vacation planned and wanted to do a tri and also have it be a good trip for wife and daughter. The other good thing is this race is always on August 15 and this year that was a tuesday so with my holiday being saturday to saturday that worked. I am not an uber biker but don't mind climbing and it sounded like fun to ride on tour de france stage course. The bike is rather hard. I am not sure exactly how much vertical somewhere between 4 and 5000 metres. The cost is only 300 euro so even if you just do swim and bike worth it. The run has about 500 m of gain but I didn't expect to do it anyway. The next day I had to go back to Lyon to meet my wife and daughter so I couldn't kill myself.
The airline didn't send our luggage or bike when be landed on Sunday am so I didn't get it until monday at 245. That was a problem because embrun in 3.5 hours drive south and registration closes at 6 pm. I did alot of speeding and some creative detour on skinny mountain roads to get around french holiday traffic and got there at 620. Thank goodness lady at registration took pity on me and gave me package. Got to transition at ten to 7 and it closes at 7 and dragged by unpacked bike bag in and put bike together. Back to hotel had good supper. Hotel put on breakfast at 330 for myself and 6 other athletes. (the french take hospitality seriously). Race starts at 6 am so I walked 2.5 k downhill at 430 to get set up only to find out I couldn't get into T1 without photo ID so I had to run uphill get photo ID and come back down. Rather odd given I had race number on and race bracelet on my wrist and was asked for no ID on my way out of transition at end of race.
Swim starts in the dark at 6 am. Leaders follow a flashing light on a boat everyone else on mass start of 1000 follows. I started at back of group as I was late to start area and didn't know what to expect in terms of swimmers. It was two loops in a small lake which seemed good water quality. Wetsuit swim. The first 600 m I was in a washing machine of many swimmers. After that I decided to go wide and it was a bit better but by end of first loop got no better so I decided to go on inside shortest line buoy to buoy. Surprise almost no one swimming there everyone staying wide. Nice. I came out 68 minutes after I entered the water. I think I was about number 300 or so lots of bikes still in T1.
Then to bike. Climbing starts straight out of transition. I think in the first 30 or 40 K I must have climbed 750 m at least maybe more. I got passed alot. I think half of france passed me. At one point I fell over on what was about a 15 percent incline which didn't hurt much because I was barely moving. After that descent back down to lake. I was scrubbing a fair bit of speed on descents I live in pancake flat area and not much comfort going down fast. Then another 20-30 K and started going up towards approach to Col d'Izard. I was 3 or 4 percent with a few descents then it slowly got steeper. I can't remember exactly how long the col is but towards the end I passed a sign which said 13 more K with average 10 percent incline. I am okay climbing I make it up the beast on St.Croix and did that half bike in 3.5 hours but it was getting brutal at that point. With about 9 k to the summit I was basically done. It was 80 plus degrees sunny and I breathing as hard as I ever had to on a bike. Then I passed a race official who told me I had 45 min to make the top or I would miss cut off. Another K down the road and I was moving at walking speed so I pulled over and sat down and waited for the "clean up" bus. Which came along 10 min later. I was okay with that by that point I had gone about 100 k and probably ascended over 3000m. And I was going to get to go back to T1 and have a shower and a proper meal. I took the bus 3 hours to get back to T1. If you make if over the col the race isn't over. I'll finish rest report in another post as I have run out of space.
They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot