Jamie Rhodes - Professional Triathlete

PARTHENAY RACE ADVENTURE: Part 2

Part 2:

Now we come to probably the most unimportant part of the story, the actual race. The roads were wet, the swim was good, the ride was not and the run was about as good as the ride. It seemed that all of the racing, training and travelling over the past 4 and a half months had left me a little tired once again and I was not racing at my best on this day. It was a little disappointing and a lot frustrating as my body doesn’t seem to want to do what my mind says it can. Nonetheless, I was still able to come away with third place for the day, however fourth would have been a much better place on this day, though we did not realise this until later…

It was a pleasant surprise to see Jono standing on the sidelines when running out onto the run however. The story that he had for us after the race was a funny one. After we left him on his own on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere it was not long until the tow truck arrived to pick him up.  Now, after talking to the roadside assistance crew on the phone, he was under the impression that the car would be taken to the nearest garage to be eventually fixed on Monday as they would not be open on a Sunday. He was told to ring back once the driver in the truck arrived, which he did. It was then that he was told that the driver would take him back to his own garage and do the repairs straight away. If this was the case, Jono could not work out why the guy didn’t just bring the cable needed to fix the car and do it on the side of the road. Anyways, he went back to the garage with the driver (which happened to be 40km in the opposite direction) and had the new cable fitted to the car. He then drove the however many km’s it now was back to Parthenay to watch the remainder of the race. This was not a bad result, considering that when we left him, we were sure that we would be needing to find somewhere to stay for the night so that we could pick the car up the following day.  

Only with the prize cheque for third place overall also came the mystery prize of a drug test with some wacky French doc in the toilet of the local swimming pool. The first three male placegetters only were tested by a surprise French visit from whoever it is that is in charge of athlete drug testing in France.

This was my first experience of drug testing although I had seen a lot of it around the races that I’ve done and was aware of the process. And as is the case with all testing as soon as I crossed the finish line I was assigned with a escort who’s job it was to follow me around with lots of water and make sure I couldn’t swap my wee with anybody else. He was a nice man and spoke good English. He did a good job as I didn’t swap my wee with anybody and he always had plenty of water on hand. As most of you would be aware, it can take a considerable amount of time to push out a couple of drops after a hard race, but luckily on this day it was quite cool and overcast. It still did take quite a while to “fill the cup” though. But not as long as the ensuing paperwork and protocol that went along with it.

The Wacky French Doc was a full blooded knob and made things most difficult for everyone involved. I was so glad to have Jono on board as his ability to speak French was most helpful. Especially when trying to explain to the doc that I did not have my passport and that we did not feel it necessary to bring it for a race only three hours drive from where we live. This particular conversation went on for quite some time, before it became a little heated and then the doc gave in after Jono hit him up with some Jedi mind tricks (his abilities are endless).

So, after about an hour and a half, the piss was in the cup, the piss in the cup was then poured into two other cups, then the cups went into two bigger cups with snap lock lids and then the snap-lock cups went into the esky and then I shook the hand of about 40 people who were in the room and then we left, with my wee in the cup, that wee also in the other cups,  and the cups in the bigger cups which were now in the esky. And given the amount of water that I had consumed in that short amount of time, there was also a whole lot more wee in me… but I wouldn’t realise that until later.   

When we finally got out of the swimming pool complex it was time to try and find the others. The presentations had been finished for quite some time now which I found to be absolutely ridiculous. Apparently they had been calling us over the P.A system to come to the stage area for the presentation, yet we had no idea as we were all the way over in the toilet trying to squeeze some wee out of our dehydrated bodies. I couldn’t work out why we couldn’t just go to the presentations and then wee afterwards. This would have given us plenty of time to drink copious amounts of water, stand up and feel really bloated and then receive our awards. Instead, the first three placegetters for the day sat in a room drinking copious amounts of water, felt bloated sitting down all the while why the race organisers were made to look like absolute fools for losing three athletes. But we were told that we had to go and do the drug testing, so that’s what we did. 

Anyways, got that off my chest. The task of finding the others was going to a little more difficult than would normally be the case. Finding Nicko was easy enough as he was standing outside of the pool, but looking for Johnny was a different story. During the race, poor Johnny had had a little spill on one of the corners. Fully aware that he could possibly be in a right mess he did the only thing he could and attempted to jump back onto his bike as quickly as possible. Being in a country where you don’t speak the language and having to go to the local hospital to have a whole heap of stuff done to you that you don’t understand is not cool. And Johnny was aware of this, so quick as a flash he was trying to remount his bike before the crowds rushed in. Before he knew, little Johnny was in the back of the Ambulance arguing with the staff that he was fine and did not need to go to the hospital. But poor Johnny didn’t stand a chance, so off to the hospital he went. All of this took place before and during the time that I went off to the see the doc watch me do a piddle, so by the time I got out Johnny was all checked over, had told the hospital staff to go and stuff themselves and that he wasn’t having any x-rays despite his sore chest and that he wanted to leave. Therefore, all we had to do was to pack the car, go and pick up my cheque, grab Johnny’s bike and race gear from transition and then pick him up from the hospital. 

The first bit was easy as pie. The car was packed and we had left plenty of room to put Johnny’s gear inside. But when we went off to transition to get Johnny’s gear we had a bit of a problem, Johnny’s bike was not in transition. We searched for a good 15 minutes but it seemed that nobody knew where his bag, bike, runners or wetsuit were. After some time, somebody was able to find his bag up on the stage which we took and filled with some goodies from inside a big shed. Then, with a bag full of dried apricots and ginger cake we resumed the search for the remainder of johnny’s gear. We found it rather difficult to understand how his bike and gear could go missing, but this is France after all. After another 10 minutes of searching we were able to locate the whereabouts of Johnny’s runaway gear and safely took it back to the car. Left upon his frame was the remanence of the crash he had earlier in the day. It seemed by the small paddock stuck to his bike that he had fallen into some grass and if his bike was this dirty, we were scared to see how dirty poor Johnny was. (somewhere in the middle there, I located my cheque….very important. Stuff Johnny’s bike, get me my money!!)