Les Sables D'Olonne Grand Prix

I landed in Paris Charles de Gaulle airport last Tuesday after a very long two days of travelling and flying. I was exhausted and couldn’t wait to get to my homestay so I could have a rest and recover from the travel. I was greeted at the airport by a very excited Thierry and Martine, members of the Tri SUD 18 Club and the people I would be staying with for the week. We arrived at their home in Bourges after a 4 hour drive from the airport, where the jetlag began to really set in and I could barely keep my eyes open. I was introduced to Thierry and Martine’s children who were lovely and welcomed me into their home with their best English. I literally couldn’t keep my eyes open at this point, as it was midnight in Australia, so I decided to have a small nap for an hour. This turned out to be my worst decision yet as I ended up sleeping for 6 hours, waking up just in time for dinner. As you can imagine, I did not get much sleep that night and suffered the effects of jetlag the following day.

After getting settled into training and the time zone in Bourges, I had a chance to experience the French way of life and even had the opportunity to visit their local festival, Printemps du Bourges. A huge thank you to Thierry, Martine and their family for their hospitality and for being such nice people. I was very fortunate that they spoke exceptional English, and taught me a little more French whilst I was with them.

On Friday afternoon, we headed south to Les Sables D’Olonne for the first of the French Grand Prix triathlons. I was very excited to meet the other four girls in my team and to race with them in such a high-level event.

The other girls were lovely and tried very hard to communicate with me so that I understood exactly what was going to happen across the weekend. Saturday afternoon’s race was possibly one of the most interesting and exciting races of my career so far, a 400m swim/10km bike/3.4km run teams event. Five girls started the event, working together to get the first three girls across the line as quickly as possible.  The weather was very wet and cold so we would have to ensure we stuck to our tactics the best we could, keeping safety as the first priority.

The water was a flat, lake swim at a chilly 13 degrees. In the swim, we planned to have the stronger two swimmers at the front and back, the weakest in the middle and the other two girls on either side to assist with a draft zone. I was at the back of the pack, pushing the feet of the weaker swimmer in front. This was a very new experience and was a lot of fun helping out the other team members. The swim went mostly according to plan and we came out of the water in a solid time.

We completed our transitions together and headed out onto the bike, electing to have 5 girls start the ride (3 vying for positions and 2 for assistance in case of a mechanical issue or flat). The three of us worked well together, with the other two girls dropping off the back but keeping us within sight in case a problem arose and we needed their bikes to finish the race. Everything went very smoothly though and we rode well together for the 10km.

The three of us set out on the run together, setting a solid tempo early on. We were allowed to assist each other in any way possible to get across the finish line, so we decided that we would take turns to push the slowest runner from behind. This was a very strange concept, especially considering we would be racing against each other the next day, but a lot of fun none the less. We ended up having the fifth fastest run as a team, so we were very pleased with our efforts.

Overall, we finished in 11^th position out of the teams, determining our ranking for Sunday’s sprint distance race. Time to rest up and recover for the race the next day.

We woke up on Sunday to the news that the water was below 12 degrees, so the race would be a duathlon. We then got word an hour later that the wind speed had exceeded 75km/h at the race site and the event would be cancelled due to safety concerns. We were all disappointed but pleased with our efforts from Saturday. Our next race will be in Dunkerque on the 20^th May, fingers crossed for some favourable weather.

I am heading to Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain today and will be staying there with Ron Darmon, Luis Arriaga and our coach, Warwick Dalziel. It is the same training base we used last year and is ideal for us. I can’t wait to get over there and settle in.

Ellie xo