The mass start of 2000 odd at Tenby was genuinely one of the highlights of my day at IMW. I vi idly remember hitting the first turn buoy, turning quickly back and just seeing this washing machine of foaming water, arms and heads everywhere, gorgeous Dawn light and the famous Tenby amphitheatre in the background. Loved it.
But I guess coming from a sea dwelling background (not really surfing, but playing in the sea in all sorts of crazy weather and conditions) it didn’t phase me at all. Despite not being a great swimmer. But I guess there’s a difference between a confident (ow) swimmer and a fast swimmer.
Very similar recollection of Tenby myself GB, getting to that first buoy was key, I managed to get slightly to the right so even got round it fairly painlessly, although I do recall pushing my way towards the front of the swim. My best IM swim time, 60:20 I think but I think it was either slightly short or there was some helpful current.
Is it mass start’s in Nice? I’d (probably wrongly) assumed it would be rolling within your age group, which would probably make more sense.
It was about 0.7 degrees hotter at this stage last year, and fell to 25.1 by 8th Sept. So on a similar rate of decline, it looks to be right around the cut off. I wouldn’t mind non-wetsuit tbh.
interesting, yeah i’m thinking like you, hoping for non-wetsuit. i’ll be in a swimskin for the first time. It feels like some kinky bodice…i’d imagine!!
It’s the first two ramps right at the start that are the worst. Half a k each or so. They’re grindy out of the saddle. There’s then one other little section but most of the next 10k or so is false flat climbing you can do on the aerobars largely.
The main climb is just a consistent 10k @ 7%. The opening few hundred meters are probably the hardest. It’s then just a standard mountain climb with almost zero let up.
I was in 36-28 and wasn’t spinning, but was 75-80rpm, so not too bad. And was trying to take it somewhat steady.
The descent was fine. Quite a lot again on the aerobars. Chunks of resurfaced road too which was nice. Every major sharp turn has painted warning signs on the road. Not a free ride either, lots of little kickers and false flat sections in the middle of it.
I’m not saying I’m going to be fast by any stretch, this sort of climbing really doesn’t suit me, but bike choice wise, TT is certainly the right one.
Oh, and it’s hot. I’m sweating buckets lying under a parasol! One sea temp website has it at 27 currently. Non wetsuit looking highly likely I’d say.
thanks for the info Stenard, really handy. My road bike is in transit so can’t change my mind now. but i was going to change my tyres to conti 5000’s from the current tubeless gavia slr’s. I was assuming the road surface was shite, so this was my reasoning to swap the tyres out. You reckon it’s not too bad. BTW no one sweats more than me, probably around 18ltrs/hour
Your time looked pretty good for a low power, which is positive. Noticed that the first climb you maintained pretty close to 30kph, and then dropped to a long section around 10kph, I am guessing you were saving your legs. On your descent, I only saw a couple of big braking sections - I was expecting more. We’ll see on Sunday, but I would hope for under 3 hours from what I can see
but who’s going to win?
surely Rhyf will still dominate, but the men, not so obvious. i reckon Blummenfelt may give brownlee and gomez a run for their money. shame we’ll still be in the hills by the time they finish
I think that must just be a quirk in the elevation profile. That 20-30kph bit was a good 5-10 km section after the opening kicker that was little more than false flat. These are the two bits.
Col de Vence is a different beast to any of the climbing that comes before (which are all just punchy little sections). That’s akin to the climbs on the Etape. Just relentless gradient of 7%. I wasn’t “pushing” up that, but I still averaged 199w which isn’t far off what I’d aim to do Sunday. At the gradient, I couldn’t do much less tbh!
just had a play with BBB,
i like all the stats, never really looked at it in too much detail before,
predictions are 2:48:29 road bike
2:48:00 TT bike
235W avg power, NP 250, i think that’s doable
My bike is also already on it’s way so no changing, also not overly concerned as I still think I’ll descend better on it. On the flat bits I’ll either get onto the TT bars or just the drops. I really don’t have a clue what the bike legs are like at the moment so I’ll just go with RPE, if that’s 235W good, but again won’t be too concerned if it’s not as long as I don’t trash them, I would like a sub 3 bike though.
The heat does sound quite worrying given my problems in it this year, although I think it’s going to drop a few degrees in the next few days? But going in the last wave does mean running right in the middle of the day.
I’m putting my rubber shorts in just in case, the wetsuit is with the bike, although there’s mention of jellyfish, did you see any today Stenard?
Current plan is to register and get my bike on Thursday AM then plod around the course.
But if I don’t get packed in the next 20 minutes I won’t be going anywhere!
I’m jealous of all your numbers. This year I’m only realistically going to deliver c200 normalised. Maybe 210 if I push up the climbs a bit. BBS is only giving me 3:13 for the former, and dropping to about 3:05 for the latter.
If I could push 250NP then it also would have me around 2:48, but that’s never going to happen. FTP last year was only 252, and is down this year as its never recovered from spring marathon training.
I really need to focus on the bike for next year, its becoming an obvious and significant (relative) weakness.
I am arriving Friday so will miss the race briefing. But I did read the Athletes guide. Apparently we swim in the sea, then cycle over a mountain, then run along the promenade twice
