Vallée de Joux

Little update from last weekend: third triathlon this year and the shortest one to date - Vallée de Joux. Often called the "Geneva world championship" its short and sweet - 500m swim, 23km bike, less than 5km run, and all in the beautiful Jura. My old friend Alex came over from London for his first ever triathlon (another one hooked in the tentacles of triathlon, hehehe), so I joined him in the race.

Going really hard for less than an hour is not really what my body is up for these days, but a bit of intensity is always good in the weeks before Ironman. Saturday was another big training day with 3.4km swimming, 120km biking and a 7km run, so expectations weren't too high.

We got off to a nice start despite the rocky bottom of the lake and after less than 9 minutes were out and already jumping onto our bikes. Nasty stuff this quick swimming, not at all relaxed, I must say, and there was a distinct shortness of breath involved :-). My transition was definitely not short course worthy and so I set off about 15th after coming out of the water around 10th - the swimming is definitely getting better.

On the bike it was a matter of going all out for about half an hour and that got me an average speed of almost 43kph and an normalized power of 375w when I got back into transition. I really must say the bike is the best place to push hard for me, and I really loved moving up the field. In T2 I was in second place but unfortunately my transition only had me leaving onto the run course in 4th (common theme here?).

After that it was a bit of a survival slog, the tank was empty from the big day and a short night's sleep so I ran not so very well and came in in 6th - pretty chuffed though, given this is a sprint and the fatigue from Saturday.

Next stop: Frankfurt...

(thanks to Nina for the picture)