Ironman 70.3 Les Sables, France | RACE | TRAVEL | EXPERIENCE

Les Sables D’olonee is a beautiful French village located about a 4 hour train ride from the capital, Paris. The experience was tough but incredible. I loved the challenges and I can’t wait to come back to another European race – stronger and faster.

Overall Time: 6:45:54
Course: Bay Swim, Rolling Bike and Flat Run Course
Weather: Cold, Rainy, Thunderstorms and Lots of Winds

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Hello and welcome to my YouTube channel. I’m Aishwarya Jagadish and I’m a long distance triathlete from India. I’m currently one of the fastest in the country, and the last 14 months I’ve taken part in six Ironman 70.3 events, including the World Championships. Ironman 70.3 event. Includes a 1.9km of swim, 90km of bike and 21.1km of run. All done together, one after the other. Good morning from Paris. And this is my first ever Paris trip. Actually, first ever France trip. So I’m so excited. We came here at about 7:30 p.m. yesterday, and we reached the hotel at around 9:30 p.m., and after we went to a nearby cafe for a pizza, there were so many cafes nearby. And yeah, we were so exhausted after the long travel. The whole day went in traveling from Bangalore to Bombay. And then there was a layover of about 4 or 5 hours. And then we came in from Bombay to Paris. We took the Vistara flight yesterday all the way from Bangalore to Paris. And once we came back, we were super exhausted and we took a quick, good night’s sleep and yeah, we are here in the morning now. We’re going to go to breakfast. And after that we’re going to head to the railway station for our train to Les Sables, which is where the race is going to happen. So, just like that, the reason is actually in just two days, it’s on a Saturday because it got reopened by one day, which gives us very, very less time to actually prepare for, everything before the race. But it is still very exciting. How’s the swim? – UJ It’s pretty cold!! but it’s super calm inside as you go inside. So it’s very nice. And the first time I entered my hands froze and my face froze So. Yeah, somehow I just got my cap onto my ears, so then I felt slowly better. But now, The third time that I entered, It felt like, really nice. Just finished practising a little bit of entries and exits it’s slowly getting better and a lot better than last year. I guess. And looking forward to the race tomorrow. Noah is all set for his bike check in, and he’s all ready. And we’re going to add the stickers for him before we send him off. All Set?? Yes!! Ooooooo Now just thinking about the race, reflecting on it. It’s been three days and I think I did the best I could. Anybody else would have like really given up after the bike race. It was very, very challenging, especially when you’re not used to this kind of, weather and rains and plus my menstrual cycle and all of that. I think I did a fabulous job. Getting to that finish line was tough. I don’t even have any pictures. I just lost photograph. There are no pictures because it was raining crazy and even on the finish line I don’t have any pictures. because they had to, you know, move away from that, rainy area and but that’s okay. I think I gave it everything. And these are the experiences that are really going to build me up for the races that I’m going to do really well, me being 26, 27. But yes, this was it was amazing. And just swimming, cycling, running gear is is fantastic. I’m loving it. Let’s talk about the race itself. Six hours and 45 minutes on the race course sounds terrible, but honestly the race experience was incredible. It was very, very challenging, very tough and just a combination of personal health. I had my first day of menstrual cycle combined with the weather, the nature’s elements and forces made everything super challenging to an extent that I really was just looking to get to that finish line on this race. So starting off this race is an Ironman Pro Series race, and all the rules are very stringent in this race. So we could not wear our caps on the restart. We had to wear our age group race caps. We also could not access our bike bags and run bags on the race day morning. We also had to follow a lot of rules like have the bib belt on the bike, leg itself. So a lot of these rules are not very strictly enforced in the other Asian races that we have been to. So we were not very, very sure about these things when I started off with my swim. My goals are not really that tight, so I had to get that fixed and that was a little bit of tension just before I started. But once I got going, I think, this swim was my fastest swim till date. It was 36 minutes, but honestly, I just never, never got comfortable in the water. It was my wetsuit plus my tri suit. That combination was quite tight and quite suffocating. And also the water was just ridiculously cold. So just swimming through that I think was really tough. And I never, never just got my rhythm. It is one of the fastest swim courses. There is some amount of current that helps you move forward, but just the combination of buoyancy from the ocean and the wetsuit itself propels you a little faster. But in my case, I also had a good swim volume that had been building up so altogether it helped me, you know, enhance my swim pace. So after I moved out of the swim leg, I entered the transition, just getting my wetsuit out was really tough. My hands were, like, frozen from the swim, quite numb, and it was tough to get the wetsuit out. But after that, I just quickly collected my helmet, my gels and ran out on my bike and got in on my bike pretty quickly. And then, once I got into my bike, I think I realized that this is going to be hard because firstly, the course was not 90, it was about 90 was about 92 to 93. And after that, the most important thing is it started to rain. So when it rains in a place like this, it’s cold, it’s freezing. And once your hands get numb, it gets very challenging because you cannot access your gear, you cannot access your nutrition, your hydration, changing gears, changing your, up or braking can become really, really tough. This course also was challenging in itself. It’s a very windy course. There are windmills on the course, so you know how windy it is and is also not a straight out course. It’s a very technical course. There are roads which are just five six feet going through countryside and forests. So if you’re a slow rider, it just makes things even worse because you have to ride on the side of the road. And if you want to go aero and there are a lot of people overtaking you, it’s it’s very difficult. So I think the first, ten kilometers really took a long time. Even now, when we go out for the rides after the race, the ten kilometers takes like two, 30, 35 minutes. Just make it because the winds are, like, insanely, insanely ferocious here. It kind of like, blows it out. Or moving through that whole 90 plus kilometers of bike leg was really tough. It was my longest bike split ever, but I would also have to little bit account my menstrual cycle into it because it just makes it very difficult. And also another important aspect is that we’re not used to this weather. It’s really cold. It’s a different weather from the tropical region I’m from. And also just you don’t really know how much water or how much nutrition you need on this course because you are feeling numb. You’re not really feeling or able to listen to your body until you have that experience. Going into such races, it becomes really hard to assess how much of what you would need and you just don’t feel like drinking water, though you would need to drink water. So somehow I completed the 90km and then headed back to the transition. there was also another interesting thing that happened is that I didn’t have my bubble at all. And so in the middle of the because I had multiple conversations with referees who told me, or showed me a blue card saying, here you have a penalty that you need to, try out. I think that’s what they said, because I don’t understand French and they don’t understand English. So when I kind of came through the transition, I tried looking out for penalty turns and, speaking to a couple of people roaming around a little bit to find a penalty to end and asking other referees there. And that took a lot of time. But, I eventually didn’t have a penalty and didn’t need it, but I never knew it until I finished. But I just didn’t want to have a d q on this race, so I wanted to make sure I didn’t have a penalty. So I just exited the transition because one of the referees said, you know, I find it on the run course. So I started running, but honestly, my legs were really dead and numb. When I started running, I honestly started walking. it was just really hard. I walked, jogged for about two, three kilometers until I got onto the promenade. So once that happened and I go to the promenade, that crowd was amazing. There was so many people cheering us on. So after that, I kind of really picked up my bike. it picked up my run legs. I started doing well. I was hitting a good set of, numbers that I would have really liked. I went through the promenade, I flew down, and then it started raining. So that was the end of my. Yeah, good streak. And it’s all raining. And there’s also, like, a patch where there was a trail. So once I entered that on the second loop, it was all damp, all wet. And when it’s when it’s all wet, you don’t really know if there’s a, there’s a depth beneath. So you kind of like wobble around because you can’t see how deep up, your next step would be. So it was it was tough actually. When I started the run, I think all of them were running. This is something new to me because even back in other races, barring Vietnam, even the world champs, I did see a lot of people walking in this race. Everyone was running. This shows the kind of active lifestyle or the kind of, quality of the field that, this country shows. The last time I did a European race, I had a DNF. Not on a fitness perspective, but just because I had a bad day. bad luck. But this time, I was determined to get to that finish line, however hard it fell. Because it was hard. Let’s be honest here. I was feeling it all throughout my body, and a lot of times I had some thoughts crossed my mind like, do you really want to do this? What are you putting yourself through? I just wanted to get to that finish line that meant the world to me. For this race, because I’m aiming to get really better, really out there and give some excellent performances in the future. But for that to happen, I need to be able to learn, accumulate it, make mistakes and learn from them and grow in that direction. So for that, I really need to have these amazing, tough experiences that can really shape me to get to that level in the future. I walk through it. I don’t have any pictures across the finish line, the run leg and barely any pictures on the, yeah, on the bike as well, because it was raining the whole time. Everyone was on the covers. But yeah, just making through this thing and experience thing. The beauty of this whole race was insane, because it is so beautiful that I never even had to look at my watch the whole time on the bike. I’m a very conscious rider because I’m usually very concerned about like my timings and not very concerned, but I would say I am very conscious about it. But this time I just didn’t bother to look at the watch. One is obviously having to now concentrate so much on having to ride the bike safely and move out, but also it was so beautiful. The course is fabulous and if you really want to get that excitement out of cycling, you have to try a course like this. It is so beautiful. Good morning. How’s the weather today? It’s hot and shiny. One day after the this. I just went for some grocery shopping and then got some apricots. Plums? These are from Portugal. Some cherries, blueberries, strawberries. Some eggs, of course. And, yeah, they are favorite goat cheese. Different forms of them. And some feta cheese. And, yeah, some multigrain baguette. Also squeeze some fresh orange juice. And it’s just so much fun going grocery shopping you because you get so many different kind of berries and other items that we don’t tend to get in India. Super yummy ice cream in super cold weather. Starting raining raining I hope I don’t fall sick like this is like 9:30 p.m. in the night. And I just love how calm the streets are and how beautiful it is. Just you can hear the birds chirping, the seagulls chirping. That’s it. Thank you so much for watching this video, and I hope you had some insights into this beautiful country and the race as well. And please do like, share and subscribe to my YouTube channel. Looking forward to create more and more content for all of you in this lovely sport of Triathlon.