1. The Swim
Clearly Alain's forte and the objective for me was clearly to limit the losses. I had the honor of starting 10 minutes before Alain, so unfortunately we didn't get to race each other directly.
It turned out that the swim course was pretty long: the fastest pro was out of the water in 24:35, which is about 2 minutes slower than last year, and quite slow for the distance. Alain showed good form in the swim although he had to swim up front and had a ripped wetsuit: 27:42, second fastest in his age group and 32nd fastest time overall. I swam very well for my abilities, 30:20, 18th in my age group and 89th fastest overall:
Lead: Alain by 2:38
2. The first transition
The way from the water exit to the bike park was quite long, plus we had more than 500m to cover in the bike park. This made for pretty long transitions. Alain made sure he was all pretty and wearing socks - took 5:09. I saved a bit of time and was off in 4:39
Lead: Alain by 2:08
3. The bike
The bike course in Mallorca is gorgeous. The first 15km are pretty flat. Then you slowly get into a climb that takes you up to about 600m at km 35. A short, technical descent is followed by fast rolling terrain back to Alcudia. The combatants' splits were:
Split
|
Alain
|
Nico
|
Difference
|
15.5km
|
23:03
|
22:51
|
Nico by 0:14
|
35.2km
|
47:26
|
46:06
|
Nico by 1:20
|
51km
|
20:53
|
21:19
|
Alain by 0:26
|
90km
|
57:32
|
56:51
|
Nico by 0:41
|
Total
|
2:28:54
|
2:27:07
|
Nico by 1:47
|
Very very close! Funnily I got my big frame up the mountain quicker, and "girly descender" Alain was quicker down the mountain. And since I get to write this post I'll just claim I worked waaaaay harder since I was alone on the flats whilst Alain found a brother in arms.
We both got very close to 37kph average and posted front of pack bike times: 47th overall (and 7th in his age group) for Alain, and 34th overall for me (6th in my age group).
Lead: Alain by 0:51
4. Second transition
Nothing much between us there - 2:52 for Alain, 2:53 for me.
Lead: Alain by 0:52
5. The run
Bike for show and run for dough - that's what they say. The run was hard for both of us, the heat getting to us and to add insult to injury the course was slightly long. I ran a bit slower than I had hoped (1:29:07, 10th in age group, 53rd overall). Alain knew he would struggle, given his injury problems in the past and ran 1:35:31 for the 18th time in his age group or 140th overall. It was enough though to overtake Alain on the sly...
Final: Nico by 6:04
Final thoughts: The duel is close and will stay close. On the long race in Frankfurt Alain's endurance qualities are going to come out for sure and for me it will be tough to keep fueled over 9 to 10 hours. But can Alain pace himself and how will he fare on the second half of the run? These are all things we don't know...
Stay posted,
La Grande
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