Arrived in Europe

So I arrived in Europe last week (Wednesday) and have pretty much not stopped traveling since. The 38hr trip from Australia wasn't too bad and slept pretty well throughout the flights. Stopped off for an hour in Bangkok then 8hrs in Heathrow (which was made easier with being the guest of my coach in the British Airways lounge). After the long stop in Heathrow-London we ventured on to Lyon, France where Jono Hall was waiting to pick Jamie (my coach), Sam Appleton and myself up for the drive to Aix-Les-Bains (AIS triathlon European Base).

I was only in Aix for a day, so not much training was done before I traveled to my French team (Besancon) on the Friday. Again with more (6hrs) travel to get there via train. The team manager was there to pick me up from the train station. I then went to meet the team, all of which were very nice. Had dinner with a french family (presidents son's house) that were super nice and its an experience - that i loved - to eat different food and see their culture. Tried to get some sleep to try and get ready for the 8hr drive to Dunkerque for the first French Grand Prix race - left at 6am! It was nice to break to travel up when we stopped off in Lille for lunch with the team, which was an unreal experience. Arrived in Dunkerque at 3.30pm. Put all the bikes together to ride the course before the race the next day. It was a very flat and technical course that was going to be challenging.



Race day. Besancon was ranked 14 out of 16 teams so we had third last pick on the pontoon which doesn't put you in the best position. It was 200m to the first buoy with 90 starters. This equals carnage around the first buoy! Wow! It was absolutely crazy! I got pretty smashed around the buoy but once we turned it was pretty much straight the rest of the swim where I tried to work my way up. I didn't feel good in the water from the start and only managed 30th out of the water. Decent transition to the bike but once I jumped on my bike I knew it was going to be a long day...I pretty much went backwards on the bike and stopped about 15km into the bike. I felt pretty bad for the team for not getting a result. But with the other boys going good we managed to finish 11th. Everyone was pretty happy with that result!

Long travel after the race again back to Besancon then onto Aix-Les-Bains the next day.

Starting to get some training done in Aix. Still not feeling the best but improving each day so that's a good thing I hope. Hopefully I'll be right for the weekends race in Morocco. Its the first ITU triathlon in the country which is very exciting.

I took some photos of La Revard today, which has great views! Pretty stoked I was able to go up there (1556m). But a little disappointed I couldn't see Mt Blonc, it needed to be a clearer day!





Shane