ironman nice

So it was Ironman Nice once again. Came here as well in 2006 but somehow never managed to race in one of the best Ironman courses in the world. Even Jeff had a word with me there and he threatened to put me in for the race. Luckily I fended him off saying that I had just biked 250km from Gap plus I had no wetsuit. =D

In between all the eating, suntanning and babewatching I found time to do the bike loop 2 days before the race. Apparently the route had changed slightly since 2006 and I got kinda lost on the way out of Nice. But the route was well marked after that and I made the 60km to Le Bar sur Loup with relative ease, where I stopped for a sandwich lunch before the right turn to commence the 21km Gourdon climb.

ironman expo

tanning with letch..

and with the rest of the world

bikes stacked nicely after check in

even a foldable bike!!!

All along the route I met triathletes recce-ing the bike course and some would honk or shout out words of encouragement. Lovely. 2 days later I would be doing the same for them at the transition area. The next 100km passed by pretty quickly and soon I was in Nice with all the crazy traffic again.

Race day. It was la fête de la musique the night before and many of the revellers were still milling about the beaches. Went to the start with Colin and while he prepped for the race start, I went off to do my race crew duties at transition getting up close and personal with all the bling bikes. =P Its impossible to post all the photos here so here's a link to all the bike porn.

At the end of the day, Marcel Zamora scored a hat trick of IM Frances, whilst Martina Dogana claimed her first IM victory. And Colin finished comfortably with 30mins to spare! Hooray to all! =)

pro pen

and they're off!

first swimmer coming in

jaja: the crowd's favourite

the pros coming back and running into T2

there were just these 8 lonely bikes for a long time

this is what i call being prepared

morale booster

colin coming into T2

at the finish

So with the finish of Ironman Nice ended my looong bike/run weekend - 420km on the saddle and 60km of running in 5 days! Took the TGV back the next day, and got to take one of those newfangled multi-seat configuration TERs on the way back from Lyon. =)