Jamie Rhodes - Professional Triathlete

Lekeitio Race Report

This is one of the ones that i had already written but i'll go through it all again for both the satisfaction of all of you and also for my own.

It was a bloody hot day in the basque country, as it had been all week as the throngs of Euskadi's headed to the local beaches to make the most beautiful weather and summer solstice. Sitting quietly in his room in downtown Mundaka was a young man awaiting his time in the sunshine later that afternoon. Although late race starts were not custom in his homelad, the young chap had become rather used to the 4:00pm time slot, and the benefits that came with that particular race commencement, such as rising out of bed after 10am.

This had become a regular time of uprising for the young lad during his extended stay with his very accomodating hosts and as he rose out of a deep deep slumber and made his way to the breakfast table, thoughts were running through his head of the day that lay ahead. It was important with such a late start that the young man do at least some exercise prior to travelling the 45 minutes or so to the local coastal town of Lekeitio, so he put on his Sunday best riding gear and made his way out for an easy spin to Gernika.

Although still early he could feel the heat in the sun on his arms and legs as he rode the undulating route to his destination. n the way he could see the crowds building along coast and finding their own special spot on the golden sand. Upon returning from his ride the gentleman settled down into his routine of "F&F" (food and F$#% all) for the next few hours or so. He had become very good at F&F over the past 4 weeks and was confident that should he ever be met with a spare couple of hours at any time during the day that he would be more than capable of filling in the time.

After completing his F&F routine for the better part of 2 hours it was time for the young lad to complete the important pre-race rituals hich included the cleaning of the bike, the arranging of the race equipment, the packing of the race equipment and the last and most important riual; making a deposit or two or three.

As he was out in the sun for another period of time, making sure the bike was clean, he coul once again feel the intense heat beating down on his naked body. tan lines seemed to have gotten the better of him with his busy training schedule and this seemed the most appropriate to remove such an unsightly scene.

Before long, it was time to travel to trael to the race and as he glidedgracefully into the Beamer he could feel the sun of all things beating down on his naked body. Correction, at this stage he was infact clothed... Anyways, the drive to the venue was uneventful. The route taken on this particular day was a little longer than usual at the advice of his co-driver and most accomodating of hosts. In his estimation, there would be a great deal of people heading to Lekeitio on this day, both for the race and also to bask in the blistering heat eminating from the sun. The same sun from before.

His esteemed co-driver was of course correct in his guesstimation of the increase in population on the small coastal town which was literally bursting at the seams. Car parks were at a premium and after a short discussion it was agreed upon by all to park in fron of the semi-trailer a little out of town. The fact that the beamer was now standing in the way of the semi-trailer's only exit path was of no concern to the co-driver whatsoever, so it was agreed upon that beamer would stay and hopefully the truck would too.

Race prepartion was no different for the youngster once he had arrived at the race site and as he had previously raced at the site and was aware of the course ahead of him. After ferociously staring down his competitors he made his way down to the swim start in his Taiwanese rubber suit. To his amazement, the sun was very hot on this day and his artificial outer coating was making for an uncomfortable walk down to he shore. Kind of like when you follow through a little bit when you're running and it all goes a bit squishy...

The women were first to make tracks so the lad made good use of the twenty minutes before his race start by toeing the start line in his rubber suit and thus reducing his body weight by a good five kilograms as he was standing in the direct sunlight and the sun was extremely hot. He was a little nervous and contemplated doing a little pre-race wee in the rubber suit but intelligently opted against the idea as a previous incident had once left him with a bit of a rash. The heat of the sun would also cause some discomfort.

The gun went and the young lad was off in pursuit of the fnish tape and with it another Txapela. His start was executed well and although he was still closely followed by a pair of competitors after the intial 200m, he continued to hold a strong pace and was able to pull away from his pursuiants. At the conclusion of the swim leg the yougster had put a gap between himself and the next nearest competitor of around 25 seconds.

After talking to the boss during the week about the plan of attack during the race, he was adviced by the honorable leader that the outward leg of the bike portion was the most important and that he should give it all to this point in an attempt to extend his lead. He did as was instructed and at the turnaround he had increased his lead to 1:15 on a group of five chasers with a further 45 seconds back to the man they call "Mikel".          

Th return leg of the cycle was a little differen however as the young man was feeling the effects of his effort on theway out and the 4km climb on the way back into town filled his legs with a little thing that athletes like to call "pain". But he was aware that he was putting some serious time into the chase group and even if he dropped his pace a little he would at least be able to hold the gap at around the same time. Upon returning into town and dsmountng his vehicle he quickly slipped into his runners and was off onto the run leg. He had increased his lead to somewhere in the vicinity of 1:30.

The run was a litle uncomfortable with the outward 2.5km mainy uphill, and as tere were some serious runners chasing from behind he kept the pace up to the top of the hill. After turning and begnning the run back to the finish he counted his lead to be around 45 cat and dogs and was confident that ths would be enough to see him to the finish line in first place, especialy given the downhill aspect of the return journey. Coming in towards the finish, the excited young chap made the most of the large crowd and soaked up the adoration of the fans crossing the line sporting a mighty big grin under the intense heat of the sun. 

After finishing, it seemed that he had taken maybe a little too much time with the crowd as to his surprise the second place competitor came in a close 8 seconds behind. Oops.

Nonetheless, the young fella had finished what he set out to acheive and was happy that all of the hard work in training had paid off again.