Thursday, July 17, 2008

Moving On To 2009, Final Thoughts On Ironman France Nice



I'll be heading up to Lake Placid this weekend to signup for 2009. This will be my final year in the 40-44 AG, but I still think I have a shot next year as I again more and more experience in Ironman. This weekend will be enjoyable for me as I will go up and soak it in, seeing how I have done my Ironman for the year. I look forward to getting into the environment and back to swimming, biking and running on the course only for pleasure and activity purposes. I have been ramping back up to things, although the last two weeks has been crazy and it has been difficult to get a lot of training time. Getting away for a long weekend will be good as I will have no distractions. We'll be winging it also, with no place to stay - I think the tent will be going with us and we will camp or find no $$ accomodations. The money has already been spent in Nice.

Some final thoughts on Nice: I really loved the country. If at all possible I would like to move there or maybe be able to live there for a period in some point of my life. I have really enjoyed watching the Tour this year and every time I watch I feel like I am revisitng a little bit.

Some final notes on the race:

Lot's of drafting duing the race. L'arbitre (referee - also on la moto (motorbike)) was more than generous blowing the wistle and motioning with his hands for guys to spread out. I did see a couple of guys get nailed and they deserved it. I think a lot more guys got away with it though.

In hindsight, if I had known that the temps were going to be so high (94deg), I would have left the aero helmet at home. Mine ventilates pretty well, but the added ventilations as it was so hot and it didn't really help on the downhill because the section were so technical and I found that we start to bunch up and be forced to spread-out (non, le prison pour moi - you go to the prison after the bike leg for cheating).

This course is porbably best done on a road bike with clip-ons - although I had no trouble on my bike, there were several times I shifted my mid-section behind the seat, like in a steep mountain bike descent. I di not want to get lanched off that bike! There were too many hairpin turns were you need to deccelerate quickly.

Before trying a course like this, I recommend taking a trip to bike in the Alps or at least go for another week to get acclimated.

This race was a great experience, very well organized and very unique.

Any well. Good luck to all of the 2008 LPers! I will be cheering on.

Next week I resume racing season with some shorter tris (Mass State Olympic 7/27) and some raod races (Newburypost 10mi 7/29).

Cheers!

-Kyle

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