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The race wasn’t due to start until 9.30am which is a pretty sociable start time in comparison with many other events I’d been to. We all got up at around 7am to do our final preparations before cycling down to the swim venue. It was a pretty relaxed affair to be honest and the Lac du Verney reservoir is a stunning location, particularly with the mountain backdrop and clear blue water. With the race commentator stopping to interview people as they were warming up, there was a real atmosphere starting to build. With our bikes racked and suntan lotion applied, we set about putting our wetsuits on before queueing up to get in the lake. All was going well until Ian managed to get his cord stuck in his zipper about five minutes before we were due to start. At one point it looked like he was going to have to swim without it, which at 19 degrees would have been ok (relatively speaking) but luckily we managed to sort it out.

We had literally just entered the water and were making our way to the start line when the klaxon went and the race got underway. With 1000 competitors thrashing about it was a boisterous start and there was a number of collisions, dunks and slaps going on at the first buoy. After that it settled down as I found some space and rhythm, but I still decided to take a wider line at the remaining turns. 2,200m later it was out on to the swim ramp and in to T1.

I can’t say I was in race mode in T1, I took my time and made sure I had my gigantic assortment of race food sorted before jumping on my bike and out on to the 118km route. The first 20km was pretty much all downhill, which was a nice way to get settled before hitting the first major climb of the day, Alpe De Serre, otherwise known as the Col de la Morte (Hill of the dead!?). As alpine climbs go, this was a fairly nice one. The ascent wasn’t too severe, there were plenty of switchbacks and perhaps most importantly, it was mostly in the shade. Palmer came flying past me at the foot of the climb, which was to be expected (although I’d secretly hoped to hold him off for a little bit longer).

Along the route at each km there were category climb signs indicating the % incline and distance left to the summit. I found these really useful to act as a positive energy boost, and it wasn’t too long before I reached the top of the climb and the first food station. This was more than welcome, even if the food on offer was a slightly different selection that I’m used to. I’ve never had the option of ham, dates, quiche and cheese in a race before. I decide to play safe with bananas and petits pains, as well as refilling my drinks bottles.

The descent from the top was spectacular. It was great to get some speed up and take in the views on the way down. All too quickly this levelled out again and it was back to steady climbs including an ‘extra’ col to Valbonnais. The toughest part of the course so far turned out to be Col D’Ornon which is a very long and very exposed climb of around 20km. The ascent wasn’t too severe, but it was relentless in the heat. It was a relief to go over the top and get the speed up again through some windy but spectacular roads to Bourg D’Oisans. This was the final feed station before Alpe D’Huez, so the water bottles were refilled once more and some more strange culinary delights were taken before getting back on the bike to start the iconic climb.

I’d read about the climb itself before coming out but nothing can prepare you for the hardest part over the first few kms, particularly in 37 degree heat and after 104km of tough riding. In spite of that I was feeling good. I was trying hard to take in the surroundings and enjoy it as much as I could. The signs on each switchback with previous stage winners was a definite motivator, and I was picking off a few of the other competitors as well. Good sign.

However, it wasn’t long before the wheels started to come off. I felt the first twinges of cramp at turn 15, so I decided to take a mini break to try and shake of the cramp. Big mistake. My legs started seizing up almost immediately, so I jumped back on to get going again. For the first few hundred meters I thought I’d shaken it off but at turn 13 I was locking up badly. I eased myself off the bike and tried to walk to get my legs moving again but my legs were fully locking. After a few minutes one of the many first aid cars came by and stopped to see if I was ok. The guy was a godsend. After a quick chat about where I was cramping he started massaging my legs back to life. It felt like some kind of horrific medieval torture as he stuck his thumbs in to my quads, making me squeal like a banshee. His workmates were finding this hilarious, shouting at him to press ‘harder, harder’ as I was screaming. To be fair, it must have looked very funny.

After what seemed like an eternity he got me walking again. At that point Walshy cycled past and we exchanged pleasantries (or something like that). Unbelievably, I managed to get back on my bike and get going again with a cute round of applause from my rent-a-masseur savior and his laughing mate. I was back on it.

Although it was still tough, I was feeling like I’d been brought back to life. I got my legs turning and made it to the top of the climb where I rejoined Walshy in T2. It was a relief to have made it to the summit and off the bike. The thought of starting a half marathon was less than appealing though. Your mind is in a funny place at times like these, you go through some dark moments. The devil appears on your shoulder repeatedly to tell you to throw in the towel and just bow out, ‘you’ve done the hard bit, just take a rest, sit down. Everyone will understand if you give up…’. But that’s not really an option. Trainers on, get the race done.

I saw V and Lily for the first time just as I came out of transition. It was a great lift to see them, and, get their encouragement as I shuffled past. This was the first of three laps of the run course at 2,000m altitude at the top of Alpe D’Huez. As per the rest of the race, the scenery was spectacular. Each lap had an uphill section for the first half over some rough terrain, followed by a nice descent back to the transition area. It was clear that a jog/walk strategy was the only way to go. I started to cramp half way through the first lap, so sustained running wasn’t an option.

You could see casualties everywhere, it was like the march of the walking wounded. I passed Palmer coming in the opposite direction at the end of his second lap. His knee was giving him some serious pain, so he was struggling. I think we all went through our own personal journey that day, I know I did.

I’d been taking on so much fluid and snacks that by lap 3 my stomach was seriously complaining. No one wants to know the detail, but the search for a viable portaloo became priority number one. Once that goal had been accomplished (it’s all about the small wins), my stomach decided that further evacuation tactics were required. Trying to avoid dousing any unwilling spectators with an unwelcome surprise I just about managed to find a bush before doubling over and being sick. Not my finest hour.

The rest of the final lap was about getting to the finish. With my stomach feeling somewhere near normal I managed to walk/jog my way to the end, even managing a ‘kind-of-run’ over the last couple of hundred metres. The feeling of making it on to the finishers carpet and crossing that finish line was amazing. After getting a hug from some weird beaver costumed guy after the line I collected my medal and polo shirt (good bling!) before hobbling in to the finishing area. It was so good to see V, Lily and everyone else. For the first 10 minutes or so I felt pretty dizzy, so I scoffed some pasta to bring myself back to life. What a day.

The whole race took 9 hours and forty four minutes, but it was not about the time. I couldn’t have cared less how long it took to be honest. Yes, it would have been nice to have actually been able to run the half marathon and to have avoided cramp halfway up Alpe D’Huez on the bike, but it was never meant to be easy. The fact that 300 people didn’t even finish the event said it all. This was not an easy race. Not by a long stretch. Bucket list race ticked and something that I can bore people to death with for years to come.

After my last 5 hour Sunday ride, and final long run Friday I was done with my main training. It’s always a weird time when you’ve done the hard yards and are essentially waiting for race day. The big benefit this time was flying out a few days before to get ready for the race. Makes a change from getting up at 4am on a Sunday morning to travel to a venue somewhere in the UK.

Victoria, Lily and I flew to Lyon from Birmingham airport and then took a hire car from there to the Alps. I had opted to drop my car off at Palmers the week before so that it got there in one piece. I had originally hired a bike box to take it on the plane, but given the airline wouldn’t book it in in advance I didn’t fancy taking the risk of it not making it on the plane with me.

Ian had booked the chalet for the week near the lake that we would be swimming in, Lac de Verney. It was an inspired choice. It was situated up the hill on the way to Vaujany, where most people come in the winter for skiing holidays. The view was spectacular.

The lads had already been there for a few days and had been for a few spins, including going up Alpe D’Huez. I’m secretly glad I wasn’t there with them, I really didn’t fancy going up that thing twice. We went for a short ride the day before the race to test the bikes out and get some miles in the legs. It was stunning. The weather was amazing too, at nearly 40 degrees. This was the one factor that was going to make a hard race even more challenging. I must admit, I was getting slightly worried about the heat. Being a pasty fair-haired guy, I wasn’t exactly great at coping with warm weather. Staying hydrated over the duration of the race was going to be top priority.

That afternoon we drove up to the exhibition area at the finish line at the top of Alpe D’Huez to register and drop off our running kit in to T2. It was my first look at the legendary 21 hairpin bends of the iconic mountain. I’m not sure whether it helped or not, but at least it gave me some idea of what I’d be facing the next day. The Tour De France had come through only a few weeks before so all of the road graffiti was still there. I’d watched on TV Geraint Thomas storm to victory on the stage, and it looked amazing then. Experiencing just a tiny part of what G and the peloton had gone through just added to the anticipation.

We had our mandatory pre-race carb loading pasta meal that evening and started thinking about race itself. Everyone was understandably getting a bit nervous but excited as well. I think we’d all been in a state of denial since we’d entered the event. None of us had ever done anything like this before and although we were pretty confident it would be ok, there was no guarantee how we’d get on. Probably a good time to have a proper look at the race guide and understand what we’d let ourselves in for.  Bring on race day.

The other aspect I hadn’t even considered when signing up to Alpe D’Huez was the effect altitude might have on my body. A bit of a worrying oversight really. Luckily my coach came up trumps again as she had links to the Loughborough University Sports Science Services Department which had an altitude testing facility. The idea is that you do a control test involving a 30 minute bike set followed by a 30 minute run to capture your body’s normal response to exercise. This is then repeated in an altitude chamber a week later to measure the difference in how your body reacts to the conditions.

The method for measuring the difference was twofold. Firstly, blood samples were taken at regular 5 minute intervals to measure blood oxygen saturation and the blood lactate response (blood samples were taken from my ear. Apparently by squeezing as hard as possible and making it look like I’d been punched repeatedly by Anthony Joshua). This was to determine the reliance on carbohydrate as a fuel, which could then be used to determine pacing and fueling requirements. Secondly, ‘performance’ was measured using power output (on the bike), perceived level of exertion and heart rate bike to understand if a ‘drop off’ in intensity occurred at altitude.

The amount that blood ‘desaturates’ of oxygen during exercise can provide some indication as to how well one can physiologically cope (i.e. maintain VO2max) when competing at altitude. Some research suggests that although there is not a definitive oxygen desaturation ‘threshold’ established, athletes who desaturate more than others will likely be more negatively affected at altitude. From various sets of data collected in published research, it seems that desaturating beyond ~90 – 92% is approximately the boundary that separates athletes between being able to maintain their VO2max well or not so well at altitude. My data showed that I did desaturate <90% during the altitude chamber session towards the end of the run, although for the bike and the first part of the run I was only marginally below.

The overall conclusion was that I responded fairly well overall to altitude exposure, and with a sensible pacing strategy and adequate nutrition I would hopefully cope well competing at altitude. However, as altitude can increase the rate of dehydration due to increased ventilation, and with my sweat rate being fairly high anyway it was worth planning for a higher impact. Variations in temperature, clothing or wind speed could also influence that rate so it was key to ensure that my drinks had adequate levels of carbohydrate and sodium to cope given the long duration of the event.

Awesome, so I don’t have some ridiculous reaction to altitude. Just the 10,000 feet of climbing to worry about. Bonus.

I’d really enjoyed IM Staffs 70.3 on the previous two occasions I’d done it. The course is in my neck of the woods, with the bike route going through lots of the villages where myself and my friends grew up in around Lichfield. I was feeling good going in to it, particularly on the bike and run so I was going for a time quicker than 5 hours 40 minutes which I’d done previously. This was going to be a good race test pre Alpe D’Huez.

There was a change to the route this time though with T2 and the run being in Stafford town centre rather than Shugborough Hall. Everything else was the same, but the logistics of registering and setting up the transition areas the day before were far more complicated. These are the challenges of point to point races I guess.

As usual it was an early start to get the car dropped off in Stafford and then catch the shuttle bus to Chasewater park for the swim. I faffed about for a while as usual before catching up with Palmer, Aaron and Marcus. As we were waiting around near the start funnel to enter the water, the race announcer told us that the swim was delayed due to heavy fog. Fair enough, you could barely see 50 metres in front of you so it clearly wasn’t safe for sighting or for the race marshalls. However, the longer it went on the more likely it would be that the swim was either shortened or cancelled. This was not a good scenario for me given the swim is my strongest discipline. I really didn’t fancy a bike run only event, although the lads were getting quite excited about that prospect. However, after almost an hour of waiting around and endless trips to the toilet, the fog lifted and they got us going. Game on.

I’d decided to go for it on the swim and bike (well, as hard as I could). All was going well on the swim until around 1600m when I got my first twinges of cramp. Aaaagghhh. I couldn’t believe it. Same old story. I managed to shake it off, but this didn’t bode well.

Out in to T1 and then on to the bike for 56 miles through Staffordshire. As usual I was reeled in by the decent cyclists over the first 20 miles, but I was feeling good. Got some more twinges of cramp as I went along, but nothing too severe. I was fueling well and staying hydrated, so I wasn’t too worried.

That all changed on the run. I came out of T2 and started pretty strongly for the first few miles through the town centre. I took on plenty of drinks at the feed stations as it was getting warmer. At around 6 miles in I got my first major cramp in my calves so I slowed down to a walk to hopefully stretch it out. I managed to get going again after a few minutes but by 8 miles it was clear that the cramp was there to stay. I walked the remaining five miles. Gutted. I finished in 5 hours and 59 minutes, twenty minutes slower than my previous times. This was not the kind of race outcome I had planned.

It was clear I needed a cramp Armageddon avoidance strategy for Alpe D’Huez. Training for months on end to have my race ruined by cramp was not the plan. I needed a strategy. Marcus had also suffered from cramp during the race (although he still made the podium, so it’s all relative right!) so we compared notes. He was looking at magnesium being the main problem which he tested out on a 2 hour dehydrated endurance run. He took a magnesium supplement powerbar which seemed to do the trick. Having read around the topic, I concluded that I was losing too much sodium and probably was carbohydrate depleted.

I also spoke to my coach Kirsty and we went through my normal nutrition strategy during a race. The conclusion was that I was massively under fueling for the length of the race, even with my trusty superfood cake (which was in no way scientifically proven, but it had worked well for Ironman UK last year). We started to work out what I needed to take on board over the next few months. I took on extra carbohydrate powder supplements in my drinks, along with sodium tablets and nutrition bars. This seemed to work well during the long distance hilly rides I was now doing in preparation for Alpe D’Huez. Unfortunately, this was only part of the solution. There was no way of replicating the long Alpine ascents in the UK, or the weather conditions that I would face. There was always going to be a step in to the unknown. But that’s the thrill right!?

Over the winter I decided to get some turbo miles in. Not something I’d really been interested in doing before, but given we had a bit of a severe winter it was an easy decision. I was a late convert to ‘garage miles’ but was convinced by everyone that signing up to Zwift was the way forward. Unfortunately, I’m a bit of a techno numpty so it took a while to get it figured out. It didn’t help that my work laptop firewalled the software, so I had a bit of a game setting it up. Even now I only get to see a selective view, as the firewall stops me from joining group rides or races. Not exactly optimal or sociable, but it was good enough.

Still not sure I enjoy sitting on my bike and sweating like an idiot in my garage. It’s never a particularly pleasant experience, but everyone assured me that it would be good for my fitness on the bike. So I introduced myself to FTP tests, conditioning sets and lots of other gems that people had put on there. At least I was getting time in the saddle during some freezing cold months.

The one and only bike ride I did outside was in March with a fellow cycling mate who’d cycled up Alpe D’Huez the year before. The weather forecast had looked fairly decent for a couple of hours of riding in the morning but after half an hour the rain kicked in and it became decidedly ‘unfun’. Useful to catch up with Stu, but not enjoyable having to my thaw my fingers out when they were drenched and frozen.
Roll on the good weather.

Even though these are pretty much on my doorstep, I’d never actually ridden in the Peak District. I’d heard about some legendary climbs in there such as Winnatts Pass and the Cat and Fiddle, but never experienced them firsthand. What better way to get to know them than enter a 113 mile Sportive as a leg test ahead of the Alps.

I’d originally planned to ride this with some of the Lichfield Tri lads but I got gazumped by family stuff so I entered another version of the Sportive a week before. I managed to rope in one of my old rowing club mates, Andy, to do it with me. As it turns out, two others from the rowing club also turned up on the day so there were four of us sharing the delight of 100+ miles of relentless hills. And it was relentless.
I knew it would be tough, but I didn’t realise just how hard it would be. The hills just kept coming throughout the ride. Winnatts Pass came up fairly early on in the ride and it was short and sharp at 9.4% incline for 2km. Holme Moss was the next major hill, 7.3% for nearly 5km which was a pretty big test. At 75 miles I was feeling dead. My legs weren’t too bad, but I was getting so uncomfortable in the saddle. God knows how the tour riders manage to do this kind of things for 2 or 3 weeks. My ass was getting ripped to shreds!

I was very close to throwing in the towel. I was seriously considering stopping at the last feed station and calling a taxi back to my car. Luckily, Andy told me to stop being a wimp and get on with it. He was right of course. The last big climb was the Cat and Fiddle (so called as there is a pub of that name at the summit). This was 10km of climbing at 3.3%, much more like a long drag Alpine climb, but at a much lower incline. Getting to the top of that was a bit of a relief. The ride to the finish wasn’t exactly flat, as nothing is in the Peaks. But a ‘bit lumpy’ was far better than the previous 85 miles.

Job done. 3500 metres of elevation and over 8 hours in the saddle was mega tough, but at least it gave me some insight in to what a ride in the French Alps might be like. Just needed to get a new backside and I’d be fine.

Filling the gap left by Ironman was difficult. Post-race blues kicked in pretty quickly after the race. Don’t get me wrong, it was nice to get back to normal, rediscover sleep and give my body a rest. But once you’ve completed something like that, and the seemingly impossible goal is gone, it leaves a pretty big void.

There was no option, I had to look for my next challenge. I kicked a few ideas around with some of my Lichfield Tri mates and I kept coming back to one race. The Alpe D’Huez Triathlon. It’s not an Ironman distance race, so I could keep my promise to V of not doing another full distance event. This was something completely different. Firstly, it would be my first international race. I always fancied racing abroad, and I knew the location would be appealing. Secondly, it’s a very demanding course, involving riding three categorized climbs with 3,500 metres of ascent. The final climb being the iconic Alpe D’Huez, which is a legendary Tour de France stage. Once at the summit you then had to run at altitude.

A few of us at the Tri club kept batting the idea around and it was clear that there was an appetite to do it. I cleared it with the boss and it was soon cemented on the list of events for 2018. My mate Palmer took the plunge first, entering the Long Distance race. I followed suit soon after. We then managed to rope in Ian and Walshy, who also succumbed to the temptation of the ridiculous challenge. Boom, we were officially entered in to it. That was the easy part.

After pressing the button on the entry form, Cyrille Neveu, the race organizer sent us all a confirmation email that we had been accepted in to the race. Time to start planning. The first thing that happened was that we created a WhatsApp group called ‘Mountain Madness’ so we could start panicking collectively. It was clear that I would be well and truly out of my comfort zone. The Ironman UK race was the biggest race I’d completed by far, and with 2200 metres of climbing on the bike it had given me some kind of appreciation of appropriate leg torture. But the French Alps were a different ball game completely. There is nothing like them in the UK. It was clear we needed a plan to prepare properly.

I decided to carry on using Kirsty as my coach. It had worked brilliantly for Ironman, and I liked the structured approach to training that was laid out for me. It was a no brainer as far as I was concerned. Plus I enjoyed it. I’m clearly a sucker for punishment.

I also decided that I needed to book in to some events in preparation. Some of the Tri lads were entering IM Staffs 70.3 again, so I thought that would be a good one to go for too. I’d enjoyed it the last couple of times I’d done it, so it made sense. I also thought I should do another cycling Sportive as I’d done last year. This time though I needed something even more challenging than Rutland. It was hilly, but the Alps were on a different level. Without the luxury of going abroad I opted to enter the Peaks Sportive in Derbyshire. This was going to be my first big test of coping with some ridiculous inclines. I convinced some of the other Lichfield Tri lads to enter it too. Always good to have other loons signed up.

Game on.