After some of the most hectic travel I’ve ever dealt with,
plus the smallest hotel in the world, I got to the race site and set up my
transition. Had there been sun I would have finished setting up my transition
in the shadow of the Eiffle Tower, but alas, the clouds came and the rain
started to fall. It was cold and wet for the entire women’s race and that trend
carried on through the men’s race.
To get to the swim pontoon every team had to dive into the
22c degree(non-wetsuit) water and swim about 50m and climb up to choose their
spot. Our team is ranked 4th in the series so we were up on the
pontoon all wet in the freezing cold waiting for the other 10-12 teams to get
announced and swim over. Once everyone was on the pontoon it was a very quick
start and we were off. The swim was an out and back in a canal that has a
fairly strong current, so the 350m to the first buoy is very fast and coming
back is extremely slow. I had a great
warm up and was feeling the best I have felt pre-race in a very long time, and
luckily this feeling carried over to the beginning of the swim.
When we started I was just cruising and was right in front.
I didn’t have to battle for position or anything. My team mate Raoul was
pre-determined swim leader so I backed off and got on his feet. Around the buoy
I was being polite to my other team mate Igor Polyansky who was caught on the
inside, and I took a wider line then normal around the buoy so he didn’t get
crushed. This turned out to be a mistake. I ended up getting kicked pretty hard
and pushed to the outside. I lost Raoul’s feet and found myself in about 6th
position heading back against the current.
It was pretty nice being in the
middle of a group in this swim scenario because the draft going against the
current was amazing! I found myself next to multiple world champ Javier Gomez
and knew that my position in the pack was fine. The line everyone takes coming
back is RIGHT next to these large boats that are docked at the edge of the
canal, so about 200m from the swim exit (and since I got pushed to the outside
around the buoy) I found myself nice and secure in the pack, but too secure! I
was boxed in between two people on my left and a massive boat on my right. The
lead swimmers started to creep away with the last 100m to go and as I saw this
unfolding I couldn’t do anything about it. I wanted to get around the swimmers
in front of me and to the side of me but I was blocked on every side. It was
pretty frustrating not being able to swim harder and having my best leg of the
race nullified by poor positioning, but I was telling myself, “It’s ok, your HR
is like 130, you’ll just be able to run faster”. “Don’t worry, you’ll make the
lead group!”
After the swim I ended up exiting the water in about 10th
position a full 15 seconds down from Raoul and a small group of 5 others. This
was the first time I have been panicked in T1 to try and catch the front group.
I had a solid T1 and got on the bike with a long string of athletes right
behind me. I ended up riding away from everyone except Pierre LeCorre and one
other athlete (Don’t know who it was)who were in front of me and I yelled at
them “Allez Allez Allez!!! Let’s go!!” Looking up the road there was about a 10
second gap to the lead group of Raoul Shaw, Javier Gomez, Fred Bulaubre, Aaron
Royal, Vincent Luis, and Alois Knable who were already in a smooth pace line. I
rode extremely hard with my feet on top of my shoes for about ¾ of the first
lap with a little bit of help from Pierre Le Corre and the other athlete. After
¾ of the first lap (There were 4 laps of 5k) I finally got onto the back of the
lead group. Once I was there I was able to sit in a few rotations and get my
feet in my shoes, drink some fluid, and recover a bit. Once I got settled it
was like a team time trial on the bike.
The 9 of us (even though we were all
from different teams except Raoul and I) worked extremely hard and very well
together. No one was missing a turn, and we knew we needed to keep up the high
paced effort on the flat course to be able to stay away from the chase pack of
about30 men. We all thought we were doing well until we looked back on the
final lap and saw the chase pack had brought us back (which was crazy because
for the first 3.5 laps we had a fairly large gap). That was extremely
frustrating for me after the swim situation forced me to put in a mega effort
to catch the lead group on the first lap of the bike and then how hard we rode
the rest of the ride to not have a gap into T2. Once our group was caught the
pace slowed a bit and the bike leg became a battle of positioning going into
T2.
I placed myself well and was top 10 going into T2. As I was
running to my transition area (which was at the opposite end of the dismount
line) I was on the left of another athlete and apparently in between him and
his transition spot. It all happened so fast but all the sudden he and his bike
turned straight into me (as I was yelling “Whoa whoa whoa!!”) and I was instantly
tripping over his bike. My bike got stuck and then hit by another athlete from
behind which spun me around and by the time I got un-hooked and racked my bike
I had lost about 8-10 seconds in transition. 10 second may not seem like a lot,
but in these high paced races 10 seconds is like an inception dream! So with
the combination of the extra effort I had to use to catch the front group on
the bike, and with the T2 mishap, the prospect of a top 10 was gone before I
even started the run.
I found myself starting the run in around 40th or
something. I had already lost the front group, which looked like they were
miles away already, and ended up having to run solo the whole time. I passed
quite a few guys the second lap, and was trying to motivate myself to run
harder, but it’s very hard to push yourself into that kind of pain when you
aren’t in a group and are racing for top 30. I held my own and ended up
finishing 22nd. Not exactly the result I was looking for as this was
my last French Grand Prix and I was perfectly tapered for it, but I didn’t crash
and I have another solid experience in the books!
ur still my hero!!! DYL
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