Dans les Alpes

Bonjour from Alpe d’Huez!

We arrived up to Alpe d’Huez yesterday morning and are preparing to take on the long distance triathlon tomorrow.  

Just what I thought it would look like

We finished up in the Loire Valley on Friday after seeing a few chateaus and eating a few too many pain au chocolats, and drove up to Chartres.  There we met up with Nicky and Davo who have been cycling through Europe encountering car doors, Italian hospitals, insurance companies and a few too many train rides for their liking.  We also met up with Darren the Ninja who had arrived in Paris the day before.  We were staying a lovely bed and breakfast which I unwittingly booked as it seemed to be the only accommodation left in Chartres but turned out to be about 400m from the 1km mark of the Tour course – parfait!

Training + sightseeing = winning

We rode some of the TT course in the morning and then spent the day spectating.  This was my first real live Tour de France encounter and it was fantastic.  It didn’t trump Roth spectating but my interests do lie more in triathlon than cycling, although I think that the atmosphere on a Tour mountain stage would be hard to beat.

Scored a free hat

The man of the hour

The next day we rode out of Chartres with the Poo Paraders as they made their merry way to Compiegne north of Paris, followed by a quick run then we packed up our Clio and headed to Paris.  Getting to Paris was fine, it was the 800m from the motorway to the hotel which was fraught with difficulty compounded by my inability to distinguish left from right and making poor decisions under pressure.  We finally made it there to drop off a bag then headed to the Gare de Lyon with some fantastic instructions from the hotel staff.  Jared did a great job driving in Paris and navigating the multi-lane (but with no lane markings) roundabouts and crazy French drivers.

Our steed

We made it to the train with about half an hour to spare so were able to relax for 3 hours.  The train took us to Grenoble where we stayed for the night then caught the bus to Alpe d’Huez the next morning.  Lugging our bike boxes and luggage was starting to wear thin and despite my efforts Jared would end up carrying most of my stuff, luckily in Grenoble we stayed close enough to the train station so that I was able to sneak a trolley to the hotel in the morning to make getting all our stuff to the bus station a lot easier.

Ascending Alpe d’Huez in the bus gave me a glimpse into what I was in for, we passed many cyclists suffering and bobbing their way up the hill which didn’t give me confidence.

After checking into the hotel and getting some lunch I mounted the Serottica and headed down the hill.  Jared has climbed the mountain before so didn’t feel the need to do the whole thing two days before the race so turned around a bit above half way and headed back up.  I started a lap at the official TDF signpost at the bottom of the hill.  As I had been warned the first couple of km’s were pretty gnarly and I was out of my saddle most of the way.  It was quite far until just the first bend and I began to wonder how this would feel after 100km… Once at the first village it eases up but is still pretty tough although I was able to stay in the saddle most of the way from there.
It took me 68 minutes to the official TDF finish which is about 1.8km from the finish banner in the town which most people stop at and is about 8 minutes from the actual finish (just saying…).  The leggies didn’t feel too bad at the end but it is certainly going to be a tough ride especially with the heat at the bottom half of the mountain and then the wind at the top. 

Going down

Neilio and Darren arrived later on – Neilio having driven 7 hours+ from Munich – so we had a happy reunion and a nice dinner then drove down the mountain to Bourg d’Oisans for café/chocolat chaud.

A J-Rad, a Ninja and a Neilio

Today we have had some items to take care of and will do a little run and maybe a paddle in the pool and just generally chill out and store some glycogen for the big day tomorrow.

Auf Wiedersehen Sigmaringen

Bonjour!

We have moved on from Sigmaringen and are now sifting around the Loire Valley in France.

Our last week in Sigmaringen ended with the last LBS-Liga race in Schluchsee.  I was again relegated to the bench due to my inability to swim which is a shame because it was a pretty hilly course which would have suited me.  J-Rad started for the men’s 2^nd team and had a bit of a shocker on the bike due to a sudden inability to ride downhills properly but had a good swim and run.  

Good laufren J-Rad

His team did well winning the teams division for the race and coming 2^nd for the season.  The race was held in a very scenic alpine town which unfortunately had some nasty alpine weather.  It was about 12 degrees with squally rain and gusty wind when we arrived, the rain moved on but it was still cold and windy for the rest of the time.

Nice venue for a race

A pool on a lake

 The rest of week was the usual schwim, rad and lauf.  I lost my schwim mojo a bit after a slightly arctic experience in the outdoor pool which had dropped a couple of degrees and then only managed one short schwim after that.

Radfahren went well doing a couple of rides with our Aussie mates plus a solo 100km to get ready for l’Alpe d’Huez.  Sadly our last ride in Simaringen finished with a downpour in some icy German rain but we were riding on a new route with a local German which was a nice change.  The weather is quite up and down with a couple of hot weeks then dropping down at least 5 degrees in the sun but more rain and cloud and no thunderstorms.  Crazy.

Laufen has also gone well with a bit over 50km laufed (?) for the week and a long lauf of 20km.  I am really going to miss running on the soft forest tracks, we obviously do have trails to run on at home but they mostly require driving to the bush and then avoiding tree roots, rocks, etc.  The trails are gravel not mud/dirt and wide and smooth so you can still run at your usual pace and also do uptempo/efforts, the trails at home are usually technical so a muppet like me has to watch her feet and my pace increases by about one minute per km at the best of times.  That being said there is nothing like running along Auckland’s waterfront on a sunny day so we do have something that the German’s don’t.

So we packed up all our gear and headed out of Sigmaringen on the train to Paris via Stuttgart.  The train ride to Stuttgart was full of interesting customers the most interesting being a couple of men in their 50/60’s sitting opposite us – one spent about 20 minutes giving the other man a vigorous arm massage while the recipient slowly ate a banana.  It was weird.

Guarding the Sigmaringen Castle before we go

Then it was onto Paris on the TGV, 1^st class of course.  It was very comfortable and we even got a meal which was a surprise.  Not quite the high culinary standard of Emirates but was well received nonetheless.  I was a bit disappointed that we only seemed to be averaging around 150kph but after about an hour we cranked it up to a bit over 300kph – how do I know this you may ask, I wouldn’t be a nerdy triathlon if I didn’t use my Garmin for purposes other than bike riding.

Smashing it

 We finally arrived at Paris and the train dropped us off about 500m away from the main part of the station.  Lucky for me some of the train station staff took pity on me struggling with my bike box and luggage and put my bike on a cart and took it to the station for me.  We then took another 30 minutes to find where the car rental was located (in the basement of course) and then zoomed out into the streets of Paris in our Renault Clio with gay abandon.

We are now situated in Blois for the next few days then onto Chartres to see the Tour de France penultimate stage before TGV’ing down to the Alps for a little race in the hills.

Au revoir.

One more week in Deutschland

Halo!

Week five in Sigmaringen done and dusted – time is moving quickly!

Last week’s training was a bit disjointed with our little trip to Maikammer at the beginning and then a trip to Roth at the end so I had to cram in as much as I could between Wednesday and Saturday.

The realization that l’Alpe d’Huez was fast approaching scared me into a 4hr radfahren – afterwards I saw that there was a bit over 1000m of climbing over 106km which is a bit less that the climbing up alpe d’Huez but in only 15km – hmmm. But I am making the most of what we have got here and spending some quality time in the saddle.

Laufren is going really well with my average pace on most of my runs getting quicker and I did a 17km laufren without any issues in the weekend – yeah!

The highlight was the week was a trip up to Nuremberg and Roth to watch the Challenge Roth iron distance race where a number of our Kiwi buddies were racing.  We were tossing up whether we went or not because it was about a 3.5hr drive and would mean a day of training lost, but having done Ironman races overseas I know how uplifting it can be to see a familiar face amongst all the foreigners in an unfamiliar country so that sealed the deal for me.

Once the decision was made I started to look at accommodation in Roth and came up with nothing – being a pretty small town with this triathlon probably being its biggest tourist attraction there is not much in the way of hotels.  The nearest big town is Nuremberg which had plenty of reasonable accommodation and is only about 30mins drive from Roth so this looked like a good option.

We dropped into Roth on the way to Nuremberg and had a look at the expo which was massive and still full of people at 6pm the night before the race!! The expo was bigger than Kona and had all sorts of triathlon paraphernalia, these German’s just love triathlon.

Challenge Roth expo - the place to be before the night before the race

By the time we got to Nuremberg and had din­ner it was about 8.30pm, we decided to get something from the supermarket opposite the hotel for the morning and then retire for the evening.  Because dinner took so long the supermarket had closed so we decided to see if there was anything else similar open.  The old part of Nuremberg (our hotel was on the edge) was pretty pumping with people everywhere and the further we walked the more amazed we were with the buildings which were very medieval looking.  I admit to being a completely ignorant tourist and had not even researched anything about this place that we were going to which was so full of history.  The buildings were absolutely amazing (most had been restored after 90% of the city was destroyed in WWII) and we walked over a massive cobbled square where you could just imagine witches being burned at the stake in the dark ages.

Apparently this used to be a hospital in the 13th century

Not sure what this was but it was almost next to our hotel

The next morning we set off to Roth which is a bit of a logistical nightmare to spectate as the swim start/T1, T2 and finish are all in different locations.  The Solarer Berg is a hill towards the end of the bike loop which is famous for the thousands of spectators which cover the hill opening a narrow path for the cyclists to ride through as they come up.  We figured this would be a good place to spectate from so we followed the masses from the swim exit to there and found a spot just up from the foot of the climb.  The atmosphere was absolutely amazing and as fantastic as everyone says.  

Wooo! A cyclist!

There was a crazy German on a PA system at the bottom of the hill – we couldn’t tell what he was saying but he was getting the crowd going.  We didn’t have to wait too long for the lead cyclist to come through – I am sure that people must get their toes run over by the motorbikes, that is how close it is.  I took lots of photos but it does nothing to show what it was actually like, my excitement levels were at an all-time high just being there.  We cheered the Kiwi’s through (and also Celiacsky our honorary Kiwi) and then made our way back to Roth to watch the run.

Gina

Two Piece! And she spotted us!

We had our bikes with us which made getting around a bit easier.  The run is on a similar path to Wanaka minus the tree roots and hills which generally makes for quick times.  Our main athlete Two Piece had a good time on the swim and bike but was finding the run a bit tough so we did our best to encourage her as well as the other Kiwis.  Once Two Piece finished (in a PB time) we headed back to Sigmaringen in our 29 Euro per day car ready to face our last week here.

Timo travels in style

Another stylist mode of transportation

 The last Liga race is this weekend, it doesn’t look like I’ll be racing so can get a some good training in the Big Jo bank ready for the l’Alpe race.

Sigmaringen Week 4

Guten Tag!

Time for the weekly Sigmaringen update.

Schwimmen has been going ok, I swam about 4 times last week with a long schwim of 4.5km – schnitzel von crumm!  Not sure whether my swimming has improved but my speedo tan certainly has. 

We had some good radfahren weather and have found a few new hills to ride.  I am starting to become well aware of the fact that I will be racing up l’Alpe d’Huez rather soon so have started doing some hill reps and need to step up the longer rides.

I have got my laufen mojo back and am laufen 45km per week with no problems (keine problem).  Most of it is still done in the forest which is good for the leggies and I spotted Bambi and his mother and brother the other day so the interest levels stay high.  I have even started incorporating some speed work into my runs which I haven’t been able to do in a while.

The second Liga race was set to take place last weekend in a nearbyish town.  It was a 1.5km non-wetsuit schwimm, ~40km drafting radfahren and 10km laufen.  Our coach/manager Elmer was having a difficult time with the second men’s team so decided to put me in it as the women’s team was sorted.  In the men’s league 5 men (occasionally women…) start and the top 4 times count so I was more of a back up in case someone didn’t finish – less than 4 finishing means no points which is worse than not many points for a bad finish.  I was mostly concerned about my slow swimming which could lead to not having anyone to ride with and being well down onto the run.  I wasn’t so keen on racing but saw myself more as an insurance policy in case one of the other 4 didn’t finish.

The weather leading up to the race had been great during the day but lots of thunderstorms at night which kept everyone awake.  Something about hot fronts which come together and create electrical activity.  The forecast for race day was for overcast and the occasional thunderstorm.  We got to the race venue and I racked my little Serottica in amongst the big men’s bikes.  The weather was fine but it looked like a front was moving in.  We were starting 15mins after the 1^st division with the girls 15mins after us.  The 1^st division were basically in the starters hands when it was announced that all the races were to be pushed back 30mins, something about a tree on the bike course.  So swim caps and goggles off and back to the van we went to wait until our start.  About 10 minutes later the rain started and it didn’t look like the 1^st division would start on time.  Then came the thunder and lightning which made the race organisers poop themselves and they cancelled the entire race.  Something about lightening and water being a bad combination.  We thought that we would be offered a duathlon or something similar, but nein.  

All dressed up and nowhere to race

 I was quite disappointed because although I didn’t particularly want to race the men I had psyched myself and was willing to give it a go.  Some of our teammates had traveled from Switzerland and the Czech Republic so they were pretty pissed.  The weather had cleared quite nicely at this stage but everything which had been sitting in transition was pretty soaked though.  So back to Sigmaringen we went.  I tried to salvage the day and went for a 90min ride where I got caught in a thunderstorm and was a bit concerned about being hit by lightning, followed by a 10km run so all was not lost.

The next day we picked up a 29 Euro per day rental car and headed up to Maikammer to visit our friend Claudia who lives about 200m from us (as the crow flies) at home but was here visiting her parents.  We stopped at the Ritter Sport Chocolate factory and stocked up – 69c for their bars which cost about $6 in NZ if you can ever find them. Nom nom nom.

How much did you say the car was?

 Once in Maikammer we were treated to some amazing hospitality by Claudia and her parents in their real live German house complete with a pond in the garden and a cherry tree.  Maikammer is a small town (4000 people) in the wine region of Germany ie there are vineyards everywhere, even rows of 4 or 5 in between houses.  There are also lots of castles up on the hills, some which have been restored and some which are just ruins.  Claudia took us to the next village over - St Martin which is even smaller (2000 people) and famous for its winemaking.  These two little towns were amazing – narrow cobbled streets with grapevines branching from one side of the road to the other.  The buildings were all so old and the houses were behind giant stone walls with massive wooden doors which when opened would reveal one or two house where generations of families would live.  Claudia’s dad was the GP in Maikammer for 26 years so she knew pretty much everyone.  We dabbled in a bit of wine tasting and were shown where the wine was made and stored in an underground cellar which looked like it was about 2000 years old.

When in St Martin...

Having a nosey

The next day we visited a couple of castles and went a nice run amongst the vineyards.  Claudia’s parents were most hospitable and provided us with some delicious home-cooked meals German style.

Breakfast Maikammer style

Nice run through the vineyard with the castle on the hill

Welcome to my domain

 We then left there and headed back to Sigmaringen via Strassbourg which is in France (only since 6 years ago apparently).  Strassbourg is very old and dates back to about 13BC.  It was quite touristy in places but has been fantastically restored and has a giant cathedral in the centre.  

Just popping into France

The cathedral was too big to for my camera

We walked around Strassbourg for a couple of hours, had an éclair chocolat from a patisserie and then headed back to Sigmaringen.  I was on the all-important job of navigation and sent us back in the direction of Maikammer (north) in rush hour traffic instead of south to Sigmaringen.  Opps.  Lucky my internal navigation system kicked in (or maybe that was Jared saying we should never have gone in that direction) and we didn’t get too far up the road before we were able to turn around and get on the right track.

Only two more weeks in Sigmaringen so time to crank up the cycling in preparation for the big race.