Jamie Rhodes - Professional Triathlete

Alpe d'Huez Triathlon

Well, yesterday was the day of the iconic Alpe d'Huez Triathlon and as i had mentioned earlier on a previous blog i was entered and looking forward to the big race. Now that it is finished it is safe to say that i am glad that it is all over.

My performance yesterday was not quite what i had planned, however neither was the weather. It was a fantastic experience and a very long day which saw Jono, myself and physio Leon leaving Aix les Bains at 8am to travel the two or so hours to the top of Ad'H. The drive was quite easy and uneventful and when we got to the bottom of the climb we dropped Leon off so that he could ride up the hill and meet us at the top. It was handy to drivethe course first as there was fat chance that i was going to ride it before the race.

The nature of the race meant that there would be two transition areas, one at the swim exit which was held in a lake about 17km from the bottom of the climb. The lake itself was used to create hydro-electricity and was only open to swimming for the Triathlon week. Every other day of he year it is forbidden to swim in the lake whic is a shame as it was quite a spectacular scene. However, the knowledge of the area and skill of the local adolecents jumping off the breakwall into the water seemed to disprove this statement.

Jono and i got to the top of the climb where transition 2 was and also the finsh and registration areas. I registered and got my race pack which included a brand new XL bike rag and my race numbers. After this we realised that we had quite a deal of time to kill, so we found a nice little patisserie with some nice deck chairs and oder some nice little baguettes and cans of diet coke which came with a nice little price tag. Jono had warned me that Alpe d'Huez was expensive but i found 25 bucks for two ham and cheese rolls and two cans of coke a little steep, not unlike the gradient of the hill i was to climb only a few hours later.  

After some time, we found the mental strength to peel ourselves off the deck chairs and make the drive back down to th race start at the lake in Vaujany. It was starting to get hot and i tried to stay out of the water as much as possible. After a short bike warm-up i made my way down to the transition area where i got to stand in a line for the better part of half an hour. although this did give me time to do all of those important things that i had neglected previously, such as putting on my race numbers and taping my TORQ nutrition to the top tube of my bike. It also gave e a good opportunity to sweat out half of the fluid in my body. I think by the time i got to rack my bike i was down to about 52kg. They had announced over the PA that we were not allowed to do a swim warm-up prior to race start as the electricity company had not turned off the hydro and they were affraid that we might get sucked into the turbines. This statement was also soon disproved as i joined the other 100 or so athletes who had already entered the water and begun their swim warm-ups. It was refreshing to eventually get into the water as the outside air temp must have been nudging the high 30's. The water was a chilly 16 degrees although there were definitely areas in the lake that were less then this and sitting tagnet on the start line for what seemed like about 20 minutes as the Frenchies tried to get everybody behind the start line i got quite cod. Eventually after the race officials had already handed out a few yellow cards to competitors for not staying behind the imaginary start line, some intelligent individual realised that the chances of everyone starting behind the imaginary line were next to nil and started the race. The fact that there were half a dozen or so aussies pushing the imaginary line closer and closer to the first turning buoy did not help much, but the Franch race officials are always completely over the top and set in their ways. However it seems the athletes won on this day.

I can only assume that the starting gun or horn or whistle or whatever had gone as just about everybody to the left of me began to swim. This was my cue to go and i was off. I had a great start and had gapped everybody in my vicinity by about 50 metres and was swimming fast. But not as fast as the guy on my right who i saw when i glanced over at about the 200m mark. I quickly moved over to try to cove rhe five metre gap that he had on me but he was really moving and by the first turning bouy i was yet to brisge the gap. It was here to i decided i would really smash the next 50 metres to close the gap and eventually i reached his feet by the second turning bouy. On the way in to the swim exit i tried to sit in his wash and conserve energy as there was little chance that i would have been able to swim any faster than he was going and a few times he caught me napping and gapped me. I would put in soem more and by the time we reached the exit of the swim i was back on his feet. I took a quick glance when getting out of the water to see that we had a pretty big gap on the rest of the field. By the time i left transition after passing the swim leader i could not see anybody else enter from the water.

I felt really good for the first part of the bike and by 2km where Jono and Leon were standing i had put almost 30 seconds into the other bloke. I rode really well to the bottom of the climb, and although myheart rate was already quite high me legs felt pretty good. I could not see anybody behind me, but that may have had sething to do with the ambulance which was following me the whole way.

But at the bottom of the hill that all changed. As the gradient increased, so did my heart rate. I'm was't sure why i had been so high in the early part of the race ut attributed it to the heat. By now it was seriously hot and . At the beginning of the climb i was passed by a guy who was absolutely flying. He came past me that quickly that i was adament that he could not sustain his pace. Soon after he slowed and i as able to keep a gap of about fifty metres. My HR was nudging 180 by this stage and i was really feeling the heat and wondering whether i would make it around the 21 switch-back corners to the summit. At times the cars would come past and sit in front of you until they could move off and at one point when five or so cars came past and sat in front of me the heat was immense and i went into a real state. It was terribly uncomfortable and the tipping of the boiled water from my drink bottle did not help much either. I soon realised that i was going to struggle, given that i am not all that great in hot conditions and just tried to keep a steady state without going over the top. A couple more guys obviously found the going a litle easier than myself and passed me on the way to the summit. they caught the guy in front and made a group of three which is when i lost most of my time to them. They were obviously working well together, but i just did not have the legs to go with them on this day.  

I came off the bike in 5th with the hope of still running well. The hope faded after about 100m metres though and it was a tough, tough run. I was in a state where i was teetering on going into the red zone and really had to try and relax and stay composed. this is hard when racing and going uphill for the first two kilometres. I got slower as the run went onand was happy to finally make it to the finish, where i drank about 5 litres of luke warm fluid in the recovery area. I was so at this stage and was wishing that i was back down at the 16 degree lake where i had been about 2 hours earlier. On the way home i had a look at my bike computer to see that the average temperature on the bike was 39 degrees with a maximum of 43. I'm not sure how accurate this is but if even a few degrees out it gives you an idea of how hot it was.  

I was pretty disappointed with the result as i was really looking forward to doing well inthis race, but thats that way things go i guess. The conditions were not really great for me, but i was still happy with my effort and thought i was going well until i began to overheat. I was really happy with my swim and also the beginning of the bike and feel that if it had been a normal race with a normal bike course i probably would have done OK, but it was not........ as i found out.

Still, an amazing experience and another achievement i can add to the list.