Bill Scanlan

Fellow blog reader(s). I am afraid I have had another one of my ‘writing moments’. After getting home from training today, I sat down in front of the computer and spewed out this lengthy collection of words. Take it as you like and please ignore it you choose. I do not mind. It is what it is. Something I wrote quickly to capture my emotions of the time and something that comes straight from the heart.

After 4 hours on the bike we come across a fork in the road. The sign pointing left is as simple and plain as any other street sign in France. It reads ‘Lagarde d’Apt 12′. No more, no less. We make the turn and the road begrudgingly starts to rise skyward.

Today, we is Nico, Francois and myself. Outings with these guys are a gift to me and it is for this that they come with a sense of excitement but it is an excitement that is mixed the heavy scent of fear. Their class on the bike is second to none and their strength is beyond anything I have ever witnessed first hand.

Now the three of us face the 12 kilometre ascent of Lagarde d’Apt.

Lagarde d’Apt has no history that I am aware of. It is not the scene of some epic Tour battle, not the stage to a deciding moment in an athlete’s life, nor of a star’s fall from grace. Almost fittingly it is not a mountain with a name that carries with it some sense of giant foreboding – it is no Galibier, Tourmalet or Hautacam.

Not one inch of its 12 kilomtres wears any cycling related graffiti, not even from amateur races – no arrows; no words of encouragement stencilled to the road by loved ones; not even a line signifying ‘Grand Prix Montagne’ as is so common in these parts. It is nothing and it has nothing. But somehow this makes it everything.

Today was my second time up Lagarde. My first outing was also with Nico and some boys from the local cycling club. It was a day that left my ego in tatters. On that day I was schooled on the art of riding a bike. Unfortunately for me, I had until then thought that I knew a thing or two about riding bikes – but, it seems not. Today however, I felt better, happier, stronger and most importantly aware of what lie ahead.

What did lie ahead is unremarkable as all else to do with this mountain. Lagarde d’Apt climbs at the relatively gentle gradient of about 7 per cent. The problem however is this: The 7 per cent gradient is an absolute CONSTANT.

It is hands down the single most unrelenting climb that I have ever ridden. Even the much mystified and feared mountain known as Alpe d’huez has parts that are relatively benign. Sections where you shift down a few cogs so as to give your legs a different tune to dance to and likewise some steep parts that force you out of the saddle thus providing a much-needed change in pace and rythym. Even if you are unware of it at the time, such changes do wonders. This I now know. As they say, ‘you never miss your water til its dry’.

I stay with Nico for one, maybe two kilometres. Not more. The last words I say to him are, ‘Nico, you look too comfortable!’ ‘No!’ he replies with a smile as he rides off in front of me. The real climbing has started and I am hurting already. Damn this place – I have an unwelcome feeling of dejavu. Not again.

The climb continues but the gradient never changes. Francois is behind me somewhere. But this is little comfort. He probably has his chain steadfast in the big chain ring while doing some stregth work….most likely with one leg (his weak leg). Me on the other hand, I keep glancing to my rear casette in search of another gear – but there is none. Deep down I have always known this but sometimes hope is all you have.

The climb continues and my strength fades. Pretty soon, it is no longer about gracefully riding a bike. Instead I am in the midst of an ugly battle of desparation as I give all I can just to push each pedal down. Mu legs burn in mad protest with each grindingly slow revolution.

I dig deep inside of myself and I think of a woman I know. Her strength gives me hope and reason to fight.

It is not long before Francois passes me. He can see I am not in a good way.

‘Ca va Bill?!’

‘Oui ca va’ – I lie as big as any I ever told but it is all the french that I can muster.

‘Seulment deux kilometres!’ he yells encouragingly as he passes.

I am nearly broken. I stare at my shadow and together we climb, inch by painful inch. The weather is mild by Australian standards but sweat pours from my body. Salt stains my shorts and has formed a grisly white powder on my bike frame. In the distance, Francois looks strong and in control.

The dream of being a pro triathlete sounds glamourous but I am quickly learning just how hard it can be. As an amateur, it is easy to hide. I know because I did it all the time. Protecting my ego from truths that might sting. The amateur always has a ready arsenal of ‘could haves’ and ‘would haves’ but ‘did nots’: ‘work has been busy’, ‘I am too tired to train today’, ‘well I would have gone better you know, it is only a race’.

Now it is different.

There are no excuses. That eternal triathlon dream of being able to train all day is in my grasp but this brings with it a whole new set of challenges, and none of them are easy.

The gulf between me and the pros often seems impassable. Today is one of those days. Hell, Nico who is up the road somewhere is not even racing any more, let alone training. These guys have more race wins than I have race starts! Getting my mind to believe that I SHOULD BE and CAN BE riding and racing in the company of these guys is a big a challenge as any, and one that I have not worked out how to overcome yet.

I push on though because there is not much else to do. The guys will be waiting for me at the top. And the thought of one of them having to come back to collect me does not sit well. I try to stand on the pedals, in a vain effort to break the monotony of the climb, but my legs cannot support me and my bum crashes back into the saddle. I can think of many times when I have given my heart and soul to go fast on a bicyle but this climb has reached out and taken hold of my liver, kidney and spleen as well. What’s worse is that it is the second time it has done so. ‘I hate this place!’ I curse.

Eventually, I stop. Dead set in the middle of the road. I never done this before. Not in Alps, not in the Pyrenees, not in the climbs of Switzerland, Italy and definately not France. My brain snapped. It had had enough. I had given it an inch and it had taken a mile. It told my legs to stop working. ‘After all this was stupid, right?’ My legs agreed wholeheartedly.

As a salary man, I had always dreamed of being a professional athlete but now the thought of deadlines, phone calls, long days and nights in front of the computer seem almost attractive. At least I could do normal things with normal people. I could talk about the football, wives and girlfriends and social plans for the weekend. I could be done with this pain and sacrifice.

The woman I know tells me to get on with it.

She is not a cyclist but if she had of been one, she would have kicked this climb in the teeth by now and given it a word or two to get on with.

She has the type of courage and bravery that makes riding a bike seem like child’s play. And in all reality – it is. Like nobody else I know, she knows how to suffer; how to endure; and how to face the fears that stare you directly in the eyes. She is nothing short of remarkable and she is an inspiration to me. For in a life that dealt her a cruel, cruel hand – she never gave up, never looked back and never stopped loving.

I start moving again and eventually I drag my weary bones toward the top of the climb. I see Nico and Francois sitting on the grass leaning against a fence. Two bikes lie casually beside them. The only thing missing from the picture is picnic rug and a round of sandwiches, and maybe a cigar or two.

I reach the peak and look to the skies.

Today you have given me strength. A strength to continue to chase my dream no matter how far off it may seem. A strength to live life to the best of my ability and a strength to never forget just how lucky I am to be where I am today.

Thank you mum. I love and I miss you.

And happy birthday.

While Team BYL Perth spent the weekend working on their suntans, we at Team France felt the need to hold up the fort and so to kept ourselves busy with a weekend full of racing. The challenge: two races in two days and a little training thrown into the mix for good measure. What else are you supposed to do when not racing?

Day one – Saturday. The first race was ‘Les 10 Kilometres du Puy-Sainte-Reparade’. Having thoughtfully made race start at 2pm, the organisers provided the perfect opportunity for a little pre-race warm up. And so it was, on to the bike for a three hour stint at a solid pace. A nice little way to make sure the legs were nicely toasted (just in case the five hours of the previous day had not done the job sufficiently). While I was on the bike Claire packed the mighty Punto and headed to our rendez-vous – 15 minutes before race start and it was off with the bike gear and into the run gear. I had a good race and came home in a touch under 36 minutes (in 18th). Powered on by his new BYL shirt, Nico came in about minute ahead of me and Francois, like all good triathletes spent the morning complaining of tired legs before ripping out a casual 33 minutes for third place – nice!

In the company of giants - Francois on the left and Nico on the right

No sooner had we unpacked, washed and rested that it seemed like Sunday morning had arrived and it was time to do it all again. Race 2 was the ‘La Course du Coeurs’ – a 17 kilomtre run from the Cours Mirabeau, situated right in the heart of Aix (and rated the second most beautiful street in all of Europe!) to a nice little village by the name of Chateau Neuf Le Rouge.

The Cours Mirabeau - nice place for a race start

Unlike yesterday’s course, this one played a little more to my strengths. A stack of hills, a 5 kilomtre stretch of off-road running and a little more distance were sure to slow the pace down a little and put more of an emphasis on strength and endurance, rather than speed. I am very happy to say that I managed to get my first french podium with a third place and a time of 1 hour and 4 minutes and some. It was a great run for me and very pleasing to see that all the work we have been doing is paying off. All in all a great weekend of training and nice to have a solid 27 race kilometres in my legs. And a great way to finish off a very satisfying week.

Race winner Abdelali and me

The week just gone has been a big one with some highs and lows but such is the fickle nature of this game. And this brings me to the fact that there are many people who I must thank. So from here on in, this blog becomes little like a cliched post-match sporty interview – I apologise but I feel I must do this.

First of all the boys at ESP (Nico, JB and Gil). After some dissapointing test results on Monday the boys sharpened their pencils and pooled their collective knowledge to get to the bottom of what was going on. Hence I was back in the ‘lab’ on Thursday for four hours while the guys patiently and enthusiastically worked away like mad scientists. Two more tests were done followed by much analysis and in then end, we got some very pleasing results and we also gained some very valuable knowledge. I left the lab with high spirits and renewed motivation. Guys, you have been great and I cannot tell you how lucky I am to be part of your team. Thank you. 

The race just gone, was my first time at testing out the new BYL race outfit and I have to say that it is ‘da bomb!’. They say that the best gear is that which you don’t notice while racing or training. I have to say that while gutsing out a solid 17k, the suit worked brilliantly and I did not notice it all – no discomfort whatsoever. Ray, thank you! And thanks to 2XU and all who helped by supporting BYL.

And of course to Claire who spent the weekend driving from start line to finish line with a car packed with sweaty sports gear and and a greasy bike. For always being so supportive and encouraging and for feeding me the best and healthiest food going around. It’s no wonder that I was able to recover so well. Thank you my love!

This week I have truly learnt the value of being part of a good team and I consider myself a very lucky person. Quite how I managed to stumble my across such a good group of people is beyond me.

Next week we head to St Tropez for the first triathlon of the season. A nice little 750/20/5 smack session by the sea to blow away those winter chills. Sorry but I have to say another thankyou to Francois for getting me a race start at short notice.

And finally thanks to you for reading!

Gotta go as Claire and I off to have a celebratory Pastis or two

Today was a big day for me – it was my second bike test with the boys at ESP Consulting (now proud wearers of official BYL merchandise, thanks very much Ray).

This was the day when all would be revealed. The last test was back in December and since then I have been training hard and well and feeling super strong. Today I wanted proof of this etched in black and white ink on a page. I wanted computer generated and scientifically calibrated numbers that tell the truth and nothing but. I wanted to see unarguable progress, hard and fast.

A quick run down of how the test works. It starts with me on my bike on a stationary trainer at 100 watts, after two minutes the intensity rises to 125 watts, another two minutes and up to 150 watts and so it goes until I can go no further. All the while I am wearing a face mask that analyses my oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide expiration. From this, the boys can identify various athletic thresholds as well the fuel that I am burning to power the bike (fats or sugars) and heaps of other useful stuff.

My last test in December showed I needed to become more efficient in my fuelling and that I needed to burn more fats. Since then I have been living, breathing, eating, sleeping and training towards this goal. I have researched this concept a lot and after being skeptical at first, I can now see the merit in what we are trying to do. With the help of Claire I have changed my diet markedly and of course I have followed the training plan right down to the very last heartbeat. To become more efficient has been my daily mantra.

The test went ok in that I felt pretty good throughout. At about 350-375 watts I was feeling relatively comfortable but I had a sense that something was amiss – there was something in the body language and the murmured conversation between the three observers huddled around their computers that gave me a bad feeling. Still, all I could do was to keep my mind on the task and continue. The last few minutes crept up very quickly and some point beyond mylactic threshold things started to fall apart at a very rapid rate. I hit 400 watts ok and sat on it for what seemed like an eternal two minutes, then 425 watts. I held this level for 1 minute in December until the legs decided that the party was over. This time around I held it for two minutes and then it was all over rover. An improvement yes, but the ironman is not raced at these kinds of intensities, so this was not quite the holy grail that I was seeking.

To quite some dissapointment, the post test analysis showed that I was really no more efficient than in December, if anything maybe even a little less efficient. I hit the point at which my body starts burning more sugars than fats very early on in the test. This really was a shock to me. It was completely out of synch with my expectations and the feelings that I had been getting in training. Science and the real world had collided in spectacular fashion and now we are left with the task of trying to piece it all together.

After all the post test anaylsis, JB and I sat down and had a quiet talk about what we had seen. He said to that he was as surprised as me. And we talked, sure its not the result we wanted but it is just one test. Other indicators are all positive. We speculated about diet, strength work, body composition, timeframes for training effects and even different times of the day and how they can all affect metabolism. For some things we came up with some possible answers, for others we did not, well not yet at least. 

This afternoon was a sobering experience and now I have three guys and myself sitting and pondering where to from here. But the more I think about it, the more it becomes clear that we are operating at the boundaries of where science meets reality. We had an hypothesis and we experimented but so far our hypothesis has not been proven true. But all good scientists never cease in the quest for knowledge and understanding and so we do the same.

Endurance sports can be very complex beasts if you want them to be and the human body even more so and this is what makes our sport so interesting. The fact that I have some very good minds thinking about what has happened and where to from here tells me that we are pushing limits and entering bounds of uncertainty. This is real world science, and there is not a lab rat in sight. We are all being tested, not just me but the ESP boys as well, and this is exactly what is supposed to happen when the bar is set high.

I love this sport for the improvements, the wins, the losses, the experiments and the failures but most of all for its uncertainty. Nobody in the world can tell you how to train for and race the perfect ironman and this for me is the excitement that lies at the core of our sport. For when the day comes when you can program an athlete for a succesful ironman then it will be time for me to try something new.

Tonight, the story of Thomas Edison sits firmly in mind. I think most people know it but tonight it has hit home for me. When asked about his 6000 unsucessful attempts (yes 6000 according to a reputable text book that I have, not wikipedia!) to invent the light globe, Thomas simply replied that they were not unsuccesful attempts but rather he had succesfully found 6000 ways that do not work. History show us that he got there in the end. 

Live, learn and enjoy and be sure to always aim to BYL

Last time I wrote we were about to hit the high mountain ski slopes and I was fearful of broken limbs and a stint in an alpine hospital. But I need not have feared for Team BYL france is still functioning with all facilities in place and in working order. The skiiing was fun, well that is what Claire tells me. I would not know as I spent most of the day with my face planted in the snow beneath a tangled mess of legs, arms and skis. After a few failed attempts, I called it a day and headed for the pub meanwhile Claire sharpened her skills in preparation for her debut at the Vancouver Games.

A jubilant Claire jests about her ski supremacy

In other news, the Team recently celebrated its two year ‘wedding birthday’ (as is said in franglais) and so the decision was made to spend a few days in the south coast town of Menton, just on the edge of the French / Italian border. We chose Menton as not only is it a beautiful town but also it is renowned for its sublimely warm, sunny and rainfree climate. Well, in true Team BYL fashion, we arrived in Menton amidst a downpour of rain that lasted for almost the whole time we were there. Nonetheless, we were assured that there would not be a dull moment as Menton is home to the annual Fete du Citron, yes that is right, a giant party celebrating the humble lemon.

The town of Menton is fiercely proud of its lemon heritage – once the largest exporter of lemons in europe. To celebrate such a feat, the town puts on a spectacle involving the construction of gigantic objects out of lemons. If you wanted proof that the french are crazy then look no further. Claire and I were treated to giant dinosaurs made from lemons, lemon UFO’s, a haunted house made from lemons, and even a stunning version of the roman colesium made entirely out of lemons. What better way to pay tribute to one of history’s greatest works of roman engineering? Why yes, I can hear the Menton townfolk say, ‘let’s build it with lemons!’

Mom! Pop! Them aliens are here!! And theys taken our cow!!

In between all this touristic dilly dallying, I have been busy training as planned. The first six week block of training is pretty much done now and all has gone very well. I have had days where I have felt invincible and days where the mere sight of my bike has struck fear into my heart but as many of you know such highs and lows are all part of the ride. Right now, I have two days of r&r ahead of me and then on Sunday I will line up for my first ever french multisport event – the Duathlon de Salon.

The 5k run, 20k bike and 2.5k run should see my heart rate soar to levels rarely experienced by the slow moving ironman athlete and no doubt come Sunday morning my back teeth will be floating in lactic acid. Nice! After 6 weeks of training,eating and willing my body to burn fat for fuel, Sunday’s slap and dash session will be a high octane glycogen fuelled affair. Yes, a nice bit of fun with the boys to round out the the first block of training. I am looking forward to donning the BYL kit once more and will let you know how it goes…