I get back from my recovery run on Wednesday afternoon and have a quick peak at my email, the french have been it touch. “Arry you will come for the French Iron Tour on Friday? Oliver Freeman e will not do” 

I race the Iron tour it 2005 when it was 7 races over 7 days all across france. It’s not quite the same now, a team relay over 250m 7.5km 1600 on Saturday afternoon, a sprint race on sunday morning then half an hour afterwards 100m, 2.5km, 600m set off at intervals so the first person across the line is the overall winner.

With the last french grand prix coming up in two weeks time I thought this sort of racing might be good to shapen me up and to practice some hard running off a tough bike, my sessions for the weekend were all replicating this anyway and you can’t  replicate it any better than racing it agains 5 guys who were on the Olympic start line.

I said I would go if they could cover all my expenses and got an email back saying, “arry it is not possibe” No problems nothing lost. 9am Friday morning and there is a call from france “Arry ze English boy Jonney e cannot come we need you, we will pay, the flight it leaves at 4, you will come?

Seemed to make sense so off I went, Will Clarke, Paul Amey, Alistar Brownlee, Aaron Harris and Dann Brook were all going to be there, plus the New Zealand boys and the frenchies, Fred Balaubre, Olivier Marceau, Toni Moulai, and Tommy the gun. Racing in France is always nuts, you don’t know where you are going or whats going on, they have a sat nav that they don’t listen to and they always know a short cut that actually ends you up in the garden of someones chateau.

The racing was good, exactly what I needed for some quick work and the travel wasn’t too bad. The bike course was super narrow and technical with alot of motor pacing going on for the french boys at the front. They don’t mess on the bike the french boys, it was on the whole time. As i’ve been working on the running my Bike isn’t up to mixing it with the top boys and I got spat out bot days, My swimming is still good enough for me to be up there, but as its not my focus I was hurting by the start of the bike then when it hit 50k an hour through the chicane I was in all sorts of trouble, so come the run I was cooked and could have been bekele but wouldn’t have run anywhere fast. 

So a fun weekend that served its purpose, and hopefully will really help out for the final division 2 race in two weeks time, where the swimming and biking isn’t quite at Olympic and perhaps i can be bekele on the run. Well i’ll need to be if we are going to get promoted.  It was also awesome to cath up with the boys, I love learning more about the sport and the coaching and spending a weekend with some of the most knowleedgable athletes in the sport it a great way to get better. Despite an average finishing position and a 5 hour drive back from Stansted a good weekend.  

Whilst the G.B team were landing at Heathrow I was at the Peter Tavy Bank Holiday Fayre. It’s only two miles outside Tavistock, but I still got lost on the way. Jim Cole had promised me he wasn’t turning up for the 5 mile cross country race, but there he was grinning on the start line. Just time for him to tell me that he’d been working on the bar at his daughters christening so had stayed pretty sober the previous night and that the full english breakfast 2 hours before the start had seen him right, then off we went. A little lad of about 8 took us out for the first 400m before collapsing by the side of the road, I took it on for a bit then Jim came past half way up the 1.5 mile climb. I came back through near the top, Jim took the chance to get reaquainted with his breakfast and that was that. I love Summer Fayres, they are properly British. We had to wait an hour for the awards because the sheep sheering competition was in full swing, and no one really watched the finish of our race due to a poor scheduling clash with the duck race. The hour wait was good as it gave me a chance to check out the “extreme sports for teddy bears” someone had made a teddy bear size Roadio machine to top last years teddy bear death slide from the Church Tower. I would have liked to be landing at Heathrow, but until i’m running a bit quicker a British Summer fayres on a monday afternoon isn’t a bad place to be. 

I went into Morrisons a few days ago and as usual had a quick look at the papers which I had no intention of buying before I headed towards the pastry section. Heather is normally on the back of the Tavi Times, but this week she was on the front page of the Sunday Times drapped in a gb flag standing in Silver medal position wiping away a little tear. Good work Fell, Tavistock is going nuts about you!

Have you noticed that the worse the race the longer it takes me to do the website update?

Pretty gutted with London, the organisers had done a fantastic job of getting a strong field over, infact they had done far too good a job. Anyone who wasn’t in Beijing sniffed the 15k and had found their way to the start line.

Thankfully this included the french swim bikers Sanson and Poulat so I was hoping for a repeat of last years break away. I used to live with Ben, so I got my mandatory kiss on both cheeks before the race and tried to ask about the tacitcs. “arry you know we will go, le truc ce’st, can you go with us?” 

I was convinced it was going to be nuts, these boys don’t run that fast and with Robbo and the Raealerts chasing it had to be a fast swim and a balls out bike. Everyone was nervous at the start and crowding around the french boys, it must be weird to know that the whole field is thinking only about your feet.

We had the usual fun and games with the start line and the canoists trying to get us back, but we finally got going. Nothing happened, I was expecting to go out for the first 200 in under 2, but it just didn’t go, I settled in 3rd and waited for the big attack to come, but it didn’t. I wanted to be as safe as possible through transition so I got to the front and lead out onto the bike, at the first roundabout i got the call “one big pack” 

Thats how it stayed, 80 guys riding in a procession around the streets of London. No one got organised and the few stragglers who had missed the group were back on by tower bridge. At this stage I hit a pot hole and my saddle dropped 5cm, so I did the second half of the bike in my little ring looking a lot like a circus performer.   

As always it was carnage coming off the bike I took my first few steps and just wasn’t going anywhere, I guess it was a combination of still not quite being right from the crash,  riding with the low seat and not having the minerals of the boys who headed through their first km in 2.40. Whichever way my first 5km was down right pathetic. I got going a little over the second 5km, but by then it was all over, and I just felt really that alot of people had come to cheer me on and I totally didn’t perform. 

On the positive side, I knew my run was awful and felt like i was going slower than on the jog home from the winter sessions yet I was 25 seconds faster than last year on what appeared to be exactly the same course. I know, coulda, woulda, shoulda… didn’t. Will sort it out for next time. Off to the track in search of some get out speed.