Alpe D'Huez Long Course

If Carlsberg made triathlons...

This was a triathlon that I almost DNS and then when I did start I almost DNF. But finish I did and what an utterly epic race, hugely friendly, relaxed in a stunning location with a properly tough course. Although I have only done a handful of triathlons this is without doubt one of the best in the world.

But it was close to not happening, I was under the weather yesterday, couldn't even manage a five minute run round the block. Went to bed expecting to be a happy clappy spectator not a participant. 

Woke up this morning feeling perkier, thought I might as well give it a shot, if it turned out I was still weak and feeble then well, I'd step off the course and go home.

Swim is 2.2km in Lac Verney, a meltwater fed alpine lake. Yeah, it even looks cold... Massively relaxed atmosphere at the start, everyone just chatting and smiling and into the water we go. Holy Shite its COLD, probably 13 ish degrees. Had a little paddle around to settle the body into the cold water and thought I had done OK at adjusting but Bang goes the gun and BANG goes my heart rate, literally stratospheric. Within 5 minutes I'm looking around for the rescue boat - cant breathe, cant swim, thats it, I'm clearly still poorly, I gave it a shot but its over.

But the darn rescue boat was nowhere to be seen, grrrr... guess I better keep swimming then - and within 5 minutes or so it had all settled down and I quickly started enjoying myself, finishing as ever way down the pack, 828th out of about 1100.

Onto the bike, I had recced the course last week, its a stunner, a 115km loop with 3,000m of climbing finishing with an ascent of Alpe Dhuez.  An absolute corker of a route. As soon as I got onto the bike I knew I was going to finish the race, I felt good - not top drawer but certainly good enough to get through. Made up around 300 places on the bike -  but the end time was a little down on normal - the disrupted preparation / residual illness taking the shine off it.

And onto the run, 3 loops of 7.3km over a tough course - stony mountain trail, uphill and downhill round hairpinned roads - running I endure rather than enjoy but posted a not too shabby 2hrs 15 for a tough 22km.

On a good day I would have hoped for around 9 hours total but with residual illness / disrupted prep I was thinking more like 10 hours - chuffed to bits then to post 9 hours 1 minute, almost exactly bang in the middle of the pack, 589th out of 1100 ish.

Anyone who does middle distance / long course -  put this on your bucket list, its a truly amazing race. A few pics from the recce, and a walk of the run course just to give a flavour.