Lovely Loire

Château d’Ussé, Loire, France

I don’t think I’ve been on the Channel Tunnel for at least 20 years. In fact, I feel quite old as I can remember it being built!

I usually travel to France with a van full of diving cylinders, so the Chunnel has never really been an option for me.

This time though, I was travelling extremely light in comparison.

All I had was my bike, my wetsuit, a few outfits and training kit.

Being a caver, I’d never been to the Loire region of France which is pretty devoid of caves but full to the brim with chateaus. Over 300 in fact.

I was on my way to the first Ironman event that had been run in Tours Metropole. It was also the first Ironman event with an indoor finish line, and the organisers had planned a stunning bike route which took in the incredibly ornate Château d’Ussé, which apparently inspired the story of Sleeping Beauty.

The Loire is easily reached in one go from the UK and I rocked up at my hotel which overlooked the river Loire.

Tours Metropole evening vibe

I always try to stay in comfort for Ironman races as I can usually hardly walk the next day and need some degree of comfort. This was never more important when I went down with covid during and after my race in Venice. The thought of being on a campsite or in my van would have been extremely miserable.

I spent the next few days doing some recce shake down rides and inspecting the stunning Château d’Ussé.

I didn’t risk a pre-race swim in the river, which was actually a tributary to the Loire, as I have quite a delicate stomach and didn’t want to get sick so close to the race. My arm since my bike crash was dodgy anyway, so I saw no value in stressing it before the race. I was already 10 minutes off my 1900m swim time due to my injury, so my aim was to just finish before the cut off and go from there.

The night before, I managed to find a hairdresser to do some battle braids. This was a serious test of my French as nobody in this region seemed to speak any English at all. This was followed by a shopping spree for race snacks in the local supermarket which was probably the most epic French supermarket I have ever seen. There was a cheese aisle about half a kilometre long and a ‘boutique de canard’ which was just as well, as foot and mouth disease on the continent had meant a £5000 fine at the port for anyone found importing meats or cheeses from anything with four legs.

But nobody said anything about wine, duck or coffee - so I filled my trolley.

There was a pizza and pasta place in the same complex and many athletes had the same idea. The place was half full of ironman T-shirts stuffing their faces with as many carbs as possible and steering well clear of alcohol.

The worst part about Triathlons is the early start. They usually kick off at 7am, with transition areas closing at 06:30, so most athletes are up and at it trying to force breakfast and coffee down at 04:30.

I always buy some sort of bagel and juice from the supermarket to eat in the car on the way to the races. Hotels are never guaranteed to do breakfast early. Not that I care, as I struggle to eat anything so early in the morning. Since the age of 14 it was ingrained in my soul that horses got fed first, mucked out first (all 6 of them) and one got ridden on the gallops before anyone even thought about breakfast. My body got used to it, so rolling out of bed and eating straight away is a huge struggle for me.

Even now, at work on my ship, I get up and do an hour’s admin and some yoga first before I set foot in the galley.

I nibbled on some dry bagel and a bit of yoghurt and decided to rely on gels, jelly babies and Nutella biscuits for the race.

The swim start was the usual queue of athletes all wearing the same-coloured swim hats. We chucked our flip flops, car keys (those of us with no supporters) and ‘after race’ bags in huge collection bins to find afterwards.

The professional athletes go off first and the rest of us inched our way down a blue carpet towards the river’s edge. We all missed the usual athlete’s prayer and ACDC send off, as we were all queuing behind a huge boat shed. I was a bit disappointed, as that was the best part of Ironman. A surge of swimmers set off up the river on the 1900m Roka sponsored swim course. It is a fantastic sight to see. With my dodgy arm, I seeded myself one group slightly faster than my expected time so that I could draft off anyone who came past me, whilst avoiding those who couldn’t swim. Even with one arm I was better than them and after Venice, knew now to stay well clear of breastrokers and doggy paddlers and those that liked to stop dead at random and ‘meerkat’.

Ironman now let athletes go in groups of 6, several seconds apart. The ‘gates’ are volunteers with outstretched arms. Every few seconds they drop their arms and it’s go!

The start was a floating pontoon, so there were various methods of entry, and I hadn’t really thought mine through. Whilst I can dive, it usually entails a bit of faff putting goggles back straight and pulling my swim cap back on. I opted to sit on the side, slide in and push off the pontoon. I was away.

River swims aren’t as buoyant as the sea, so I was grateful that it was still cold enough to wear wetsuits. I held my own on the swim, got into a nice rhythm down the back straight which went with the gentle current and it wasn’t long at all until we were turning at the last huge yellow buoy and heading back upstream towards the exit. I felt I’d had a good swim, and my damaged shoulder had coped, despite holding me up and adding 10 minutes onto my Venice time.

I got out of the water, refusing assistance as someone tried to help and grab my left arm. Oh no, no thank you….

I trotted along the blue carpet unzipping my wetsuit as I went, slowing only at the marshal’s request to walk across the temporary pontoon which bridged some sort of stinky creek. It was a bit like a bouncy castle and several of us were giggling as we laughed at ourselves doing this ridiculous sport. We trotted down the blue carpeted road almost a kilometre to the Exposition centre and the indoor transition area.

Transition is where you change from one sport to the next. As quickly as possible.

Plenty of athletes had been ahead of me and the bike racking was almost empty.

The indoor hall stank to high heaven of urine as clearly the porta loos weren’t coping and presumably blokes just peed wherever they wanted.

I went straight to my blue bag (B for Bike) and kicked off my wetsuit, flicking aside two ‘man spreaders’ who took up an entire gym bench by themselves, leaving no room for anyone else to get changed.

They moved.

I quickly towel dried my feet, got my socks on, gloves and helmet and stuffed everything back into my bag. I opted to run in just my socks to the bike mount line as I was now using SPD cleats and running in these clippy-cloppy bike shoes was just stupid. I was much quicker without them and put them on just before the mount line. I’m not yet good enough to leave my shoes on the bike and put them on in motion. Over Ironman distances the risk of falling are far greater than the time benefits you gain. Even Lucy Charles-Barclay doesn’t do flying dismounts!

I set off, glad to be on my bike and soon settled down into the aero bars, but my arm couldn’t tolerate them for very long. Once the pain crept in, I’d sit up and have a break. Then go again for a few minutes then repeat. I gain about 2mph extra for the same power output on my aero bars so they are worth the effort, but I just couldn’t make enough use of them when my arm and shoulder didn’t like it.

As the bike went on, I started to fade a little, perhaps through lack of fuelling and perhaps because some sneaky rolling hills crept in towards the end and they made me feel like I had hit a brick wall. I’d gone from an average of 30kmph to feeling like I was crawling.

I rolled back into transition well over my 3-hour target, racked my bike and changed into my running gear.

Running is my worst discipline. If you want to create a racehorse you don’t mate two Shetland Ponies together. But that’s exactly what my parents did, and the result was anything other than an athletic conformation. But it has never stopped me from trying. I’ve always loved sport and it has always transcended keeping my weight down, though clearly it has been lifesaving in that respect.

The heat of the day was in full force, and I made a nutritional mistake of finishing up the race with only water instead of electrolytes. The result was cramp in both feet at the same time if I ran, from 5km out.

After 15km my tank was empty and it was too late to refill it. I limped home and finished with about half an hour to spare. A very disappointing result considering I’d really seen an uptick in my fitness, and I had the experience of one Ironman 70.3 under my belt already.

The finish line was one huge party, with indoor fireworks, everyone with flags and glowsticks and cowbells all up the runway. It was like one big disco!

It was a fantastic atmosphere.

I was given my medal and went straight to the bar to grab some food and a pint. I was somehow adopted by Jersey triathlon club, and it was nice to have people to talk to after the race.

I went back to the runway to grab a flag and see the final finishers over the line which was huge party atmosphere.

Once I’d limped round to transition to collect all my bags and the bike, like buckaroo I staggered back to the car and tried to get changed before heading back inside to watch the awards presentation.

A British lady in her 70s had knocked 2 hours off my time. I was in awe of some of these athletes but in a way, it seemed a bit hopeless. No matter how hard I worked, training on a boat, training alone mostly, travelling to get the weather all through the winter and not being able to swim due to my injury, I was still almost last. Never actually last, but always thereabouts. I decided then that something had to change.

I had already lost 20 kg, but I need to shift another 20.

I could run a half marathon, but I needed to run more and get faster. No two ways about it. I needed to do longer bike rides, which is easier said than done when you only have an hour in the gym on a ship. So, my rides at home would need to increase significantly.

I had been doing everything right, but I couldn’t blame my injury alone. I had been training to finish. To just complete. To be miss average.

But now I wanted to be competitive and something in my brain shifted.

I was back on my bike 2 days later, cruising along the banks of the Loire.

I had enjoyed my time in the region and loved the Tours vibe, with the cosmopolitan bars gently lit along the riverbanks and the Al Fresco restaurants in the town.

Trams and bikes were the way to travel, and the air was fresh and the vibe relaxed. They were clearly very proud to have the Ironman come to town with the tri-dot banners everywhere and the entire exposition centre at our disposal.

There is a full ironman distance race at Tours in 2026, but with such limited training time on my vessel and being not allowed to swim at work, that is going to elude me for a bit until I work out a plan.

Race results.