Alpe D’Huez Triathlon - A Big Day Out! By Paul Sellars

So as anyone that read the IM Vitoria Gasteiz race report will know, we are currently making our way around Europe with our caravan for a little while.

Now on the long Portsmouth to Bilbao ferry crossing, I happened to read about the Alpe D’Huez Triathlon, and it seemed that we were due to drive pretty much right passed it when it was happening as we moved from Carcassonne to Lake Annecy.  Far to good an opportunity to miss!

So, I set about shortening our stay at Carcassonne and Annecy by a couple of days each and inserting a 4 night stay at Camping La Piscine, a campsite literally at the foot of the Alpe with its own 25m open air pool.  I should also add at this point, a big thank you to Laurence at the triathlon HQ - what an amazing guy, with an athlete focused attitude not dissimilar to the Lakesman!  Firstly he sent me a personalised link to the “long” race which was sold out, he then recommended the campsite (after I decided against the option of dragging 2 tonnes or Buccaneer caravan up the Alpe to the official campsite!), and finally arranged the coach transfer for us on race morning. I really fabulous person who made me feel thoroughly welcome!

So, a few things about this event:

1. There are a number of different events during race week - a Duathlon on Tuesday, kids stuff on Wednesday, the long distance Tri on Thursday and Medium distance on Friday.  All adult events go up the Alpe

2. The 2.2km swim is in a glacial fed lake that cannot be swam in at any other time of year. It is UK cold - 16 degrees, unlike Lake Annecy that I have just swum in which is 25 degrees!

3. The long bike course (approx 120kms) takes in 3 “cols” before the Alpe - all of the elevation is in these 4 climbs - 3200m in total

4. The run course (20km) is 3 loops with 130m of elevation on each lap at 1800m of altitude. It also features a 200m downhill section at 12% on an airfield concrete runway - arguably more painful than the uphills!

5. Transition is split - T1 at the lake, and T2 at the top of the Alpe - they make it very easy though - more on that later!

6. I had only brought my TT bike from the UK as when we left I didn’t even know I was doing this race - I had managed to purchase an 11-34 cassette in Spain which I figured might come in useful and had tested that on a hill in Carcassonne!

7. This event cost £170 to enter!

So we arrived on Monday after a 6 hour drive, the campsite was full of triathletes and cyclists. I did a short run on flat ground along a beautiful blue / green crystal clear river.  Tuesday I rode to the swim start - 15km each way, mainly flat, beautiful roads and stunning scenery. The lake and swim start location did not disappoint!

On Wednesday we drove up the Alpe (god it’s a long way!) to register, check out the expo and T2. Whilst up there, I took part in an organised run loop course recce - 6.7km along with maybe 200 others. My expectations for run course performance had been established! It’s funny when you look back at previous years results and see the top people in your AG taking over 2 hours to do the run - now I knew why - heat, elevation, altitude……a potent mix designed to zap any ability to run that you may have arrived with! The run was followed by a choice of 2 further organised events - post run yoga or a free cheese tasting session - tough choice but I promised to do my own yoga session later in the day!

Race start was at 9:30 on Thursday and there were a fair few choices available to you to get yourself sorted.

We opted to drive to T1 on Wednesday afternoon to drop the bike off, and then get the free (not £20 as IM charged in Gasteiz)shuttle bus from the campsite to T1 on Thursday morning with my bike and run bags. The run bag was dropped off and would be taken to T2 for me by the organisation.

There was a practice swim area, and for the first time ever, I used it. I wanted to remind myself what cold water felt like, and even at 8:30 the air temperature was 25, so I guessed I would warm up again ok! 5 minute dip and out to put on my neoprene socks and thermal cap - soft arse, probably, but if you’ve got it use it. So now I was one of a few people in T1 with a TT bike, and with thermal socks and hat on - how to blend into you environment!

The swim start was straightforward….a slightly less formal version of the IM start pen process - about 6 people wide, lined up in fast to slow order. There was about 1500 people in the race and I positioned myself at the back of the “fast” section in front of the medium section.

The swim course is a triangle - 1050m out, right turn, 100m, right turn, 1050m back.  The only real challenge was sighting - no sighting buoys….just 2 grey turn bouys!  Anyway, I wasn’t first in, so figured it doesn’t really matter, and off we went!  The trusted watch alert after 20 mins showed me at 1200m, just short of the 2nd turn buoy - decent,  I lost some feet again on the way back, and maybe didn’t sight brilliantly….but out of the water on 40 mins - the lower end of my hopes, but ok.

Through T1 with no dramas and onto this bike course……I had spent a lot of time studying and memorising the sections of the course….and this was how it was in my mind:

Stage 1 (2 hours) 0-40km

25km, downhill and fast then the first climb to the top of Alp Du Grand Serre (15km at 7.5% 1000m).

Stage 2 (1.5 hours)

40-77km tech descent, flowing descent, Col de Malissol (3km at 7% - 200m) then mostly flat.

Stage 3 (0.75 hours)

77-92km Col D’Ornon (14.5km at 4% - 650m).

Stage 4 (0.5 hours)

92-105km downhill then flat.

Stage 5 (1.25 hours)

105-118km the Alpe (13km at 8% 1100m)

The important thing in all of this was intensity control on the climbs - my aim was 3 w/kg - 250ish watts for the duration of all of the climbs - that’s about 85% of FTP - which I know I can hold for a decent amount of time.

The first 25km flew by - very downhill, and very fast and we were onto the first climb in a flash.  I settled into my rhythm, making full use of the 34 gear on the new cassette and altering my cadence to keep to 250W ( I had my Garmin off auto lap and on manual lap, with a screen with time, 10 sec power and lap power on - so no excuse for over or under cooking it!). At the start of climb there was a lot of “chat” - officially there was a 7m draft zone, but nobody was too concerned on the hills.  What became immediately obvious was that there were lots of young, light people that were ripping up these hills faster than me…..but I stuck to the plan, crested the first climb, and then got my second weakness exposed - technical descents - my god - the Europeans can descend switchbacks!  I concentrated on staying upright and being thankful for disc brakes! The technical descent gave way into fast flowing descents which I can do…..and they were amazing…..topped only by the amazing views!

The course was pretty much rinse and repeat on the cold, with the aim of getting to the foot of the Alpe within 4.5 hours.  There are 9 aid stations across the 120kms……I took full advantage - 3 very nice “Alpe D’Huez” water bottles each time - one in the aero bottle to mix with tailwind, one in the rear cage for later, and one on my head!

No drama really just controlled uphill and as fast I dare downhill and arrived at the bottom of the Alp in 4 hours 25 mins…..nice!

So we all know the Alpe De Zwift…..well there’s 21 bends, that’s where the similarity ends!  The first 3km holds around 10%, and there were times when I was pushing far to close to my FTP just to keep forward motion…..each bend had a 20-30m flattish section which I used to take the pressure off a bit. The heat was intense and there was no shade at all - wrong time of day (38 degrees at the start and 31 at the top)

One nice touch for spectators, is that after Ann had got another free shuttle bus back to the campsite and driven the car up to the top, she could then get another free cable car down to the town of Huez - bends 6-7 to the fan zone - a smaller version of solar hill at Roth.

After the first 3km, as the roads levelled to 8ish%, I was surprised how good I felt and just kept tapping away.

There was a lot of support on the lower sections and some athletes were stopping for a few mins with their support crew…I felt like I might do that when I saw Ann ( this was after all an experience race not a time chasing race - mostly because I had no idea what time to chase!). I’d already stopped to pee on the bike - something I would never normally do, but after Gasteiz, I was so happy to have hydrated properly thot I enjoyed every minute of it!

I was actually quite surprised how quickly I seemed to get to the fan zone…it was much appreciated- saw Ann, but didn’t stop, just kept grinding away!

One confusing thing, was that the race guide gave the bike course as 118km, when I downloaded it to Garmin, I got 120km, if you did the maths from the info on the Alpe it was gong to be 121km.  Now normally, 3km on a long course triathlon would be irrelevant - but on this one, when you either finish at 118km or 15 minutes of hard climbing later, it started to play with my head, and as a shaded area approached at about 118km, I stopped on a flattish bit and had 60 secs to reset my mind more than body! As was typical of this race, 2 French spectators came over to check that I was ok, and then pushed me off “tour style” for the last couple of bends!  That’s probably a DQ offence, but not in the spirit of this race!

As I got towards what I now knew would be closer to 121km, it occurred to me that I had not seen any 55-59 bibs overtake me on the climbs, and whilst some may have done on the descents, I didn’t believe there were many - it would be interesting to see where I was in my AG (not that I was chasing a time of course)

I took my time in T2 getting some hydration from the aid station on the exit and set off onto the grimmest run course I’ve ever experienced! At this point, I wasn’t sure if I was pleased I’d done the recce run to know what was coming or whether I would have preferred to be blissfully unaware!

The first km is flattish across stones and a bit of tarmac, then you head uphill and off road for 1.5km to the first feedstation. Then a 1km out and back to the same feed station, down hill then uphill.  Then the killer km, all uphill at around 5-6% before 1km of mostly nice downhill with the horrible airport runway slope in the middle and then back onto the fairly flat last km and a u turn at transition and another feedstation. I took my time at each feedstation, taking on water, salt tablets, gels, dates, salty biscuits. My aim was 40 mins / 45 mins / 45 mins for each lap. I really couldn’t believe that I was planning to be happy with 7 min kms…but as it happened my expectations were bang on!

I saw Ann at the end of the first lap and she said I was around 13th in my AG which I was absolutely astounded at, as I knew there were over 100 due to start.  The tracker was quite hard work and you had to manually work out AG positions, and when I saw Ann at the end of lap 2, Dan had unleashed the mathematician in him and concluded, 13th was safe, and up to 10th was within a couple of minutes and catchable!

My heart was saying, great, let’s crack on and get a top 10 in this last lap, but I honestly had no idea how much difference altitude made to running up hills.  I could maintain a normal pace on flats and downhills, but as soon as the elevation came, I had no choice but to walk.  In fact on my 3rd lap on killer km, there must have been 150 people walking up it…..now I understood why previous year times had seemed slow!  I passed a couple of people in my AG, but they only had 1 lap band, and I needed them to have 2….so in the end I zipped up my suit and jogged down the finishing straight to take the banner in 8 hours 48 mins and 13th place in my AG.

Whilst I deliberately had no pre- race official expectations, I wanted to be top 20 and sub 9 hours - boxes ticked!  A bit of post race analysis indicated that without the pee stop and with a little more pressure in transitions I could have achieved a top 10 - but I honestly didn’t care!

To be able to compete with people in my AG that ride this sort of terrain and run at this altitude regularly was all I needed, and to successfully compete was a bonus!

This is a bucket list race for all of the right reasons - fabulous organisation, amazing location / roads / climbs and scenery and an absolutely brutal run to complete a memorable day out!

I would recommend you do it (not on a TT bike) but allow yourself the luxury to fully appreciate what you are doing, remember it and savour every moment!