DAY 4 Le Triathlon du Alpe D’Huez

• Bike - ~30km to bottom of Alpe D’Huez, TT up
• Swim 1.5km timed swim
• Run – 10km run race
• Add the times together for a broken triathlon competition
• Bike home (down ADH then 30km up the Col du Lautaret.

Yesterday I helped Walter over the Col du Lautaret. He thanked me with a beer and a couple of wines last night but I felt mostly ready to go today and was looking forward to arriving at a key climb fresher given the downhill approach.  The key thing that has been bugging me is my guts. I often don’t handle altitude well when doing long haul flights and on camps at altitude. I remember back to our Italy camp where one day I literally could not walk more than a few hundred meters without crushing pain in my guts. This time around  the altitude, combined with the BIG increase of carbs and the hot weather has my guts not in their happy place but it’s still manageable.

Today was a broken triathlon with the winner would take home 6.3 points with each subsequent place dropping by .3 of a point. My plan on the bike was to ride by feel but hopefully sit ~270w and just do my thing. I remember from last time that the grade was a nice steady 6-9% and the hairpins give you some welcome breaks, it’s also nowhere near as long as the big brutes like Ventoux, Izoard etc.

Shortly after we kicked off we had our first rain of the camp which was heavy at times but quite welcome. I was happy tapping out my target power and feeling pretty comfortable……until about 3km to go and my guts went south. I would have loved to have a light saber and open my stomach up to release some tension like Han Solo did in “the Empire Strikes Back” with that big beast to put Luke Skywalker in to keep him warm. So I did fade over the final section but still seemed to be gaining on Shannon. Meanwhile Iain Wood had found his legs and unbeknown to me was bearing down along with John Ballard. All in all I had not dug too deep and felt OK about the ride. Best of all the weather had cleared up at the summit for our swim and run. My time for the climb was 58mins which ranked me 4122 on strava (better than my 6500 on Mont Ventoux)

I’m trying to find some good words to describe the pool at ADH. It’s a funny set up with 2 lanes on each side @ 25m long with a bulkhead that goes out a few meters. It was nice set up  but what was not nice was the service. It was like we were walking into a sterile laboratory with the staff upholding the law with great vigor. No shoes or socks on pool deck – fair enough. No short (togs) allowed in the pool – it was strictly speedo’s only. Guys that were wearing tri shorts had to roll them up to trick the staff. I wanted to put my bike shoes in the sun to dry – absolutely not. Then despite them being late letting us in they gave us a 7min warming to get off site when our scheduled time was done. Unbelievable!

We broke into 2 groups and for most it really was a case of just banging out the 1.5km. Many struggled with breathing at altitude but I seemed Ok with it. For me it was not a great swim at 22:28 (so just a tickle under 1:30’s), that was a fair reflection as I really did not put in a huge effort as well as the altitude effect slowing us down. Every length I was put off with Phil lying side on his side looking over the pool with his big hairy chest out so I blame Phil for my poor time.

Next stop was the 10km run which was 2 laps covering much of the ADH triathlon course. Off the line I knew I was in trouble hardly being able to breath with the altitude and my guts churning. Thankfully after a couple of km’s I was able to settle things down and just ground out the 10km. The legs certainly were not hurting but the lungs were not capable of any more. Rob Mohr ran a good strong effort to take out the 10km with a negative split.

Overall Adam K took out line honours with relative ease from myself. There were some other good battles with the swim often being the decider

1. Adam K
2. Me
3. Shannon
4. Rob Mohr
5. Iain Wood

To finish out time at ADH we sat at an outside café with burgers and pizza before rolling down the hill and back up Le Grave with a 30km climb. All except the Holy Hammer Murray Lapworth who extended his run to 2hrs while we ate.