Thyme Zones

What??? Suddenly I´m on contest mode again and lined up to get my starting number on my arms and legs printed. What happened? It seems that the terrible season, lead to another triathlon participation for me. Right. We are in the Provence, in Les Salles sur Verdon, to participate at the NatureMan Triathlon over the middle distance of 2-90-20km. Just a middle distance, no problem you think, but you´re wrong. The location of the event is right in the heart of the national parc Verdon, between the region of Hautes Alpes de Provence and Var. Right in the French Alps. Luckily I rode my bike in the last weeks a bit. On every contest morning you got a huge open air disco, the air is quite warm, but the water ice-cold. Bad circumstances, low temperatures forced me once to give up a contest in the mountains in 2010 and also because of a asthma attack. Well, even of the fact, that I swam before the start to warm up a bit, I couldn´t breathe after 500m and had to swim breaststroke to calm down again, no matter if I do the last 1500m by breaststroke. I can orientate really good, and this calms me down, the last 500m I can do freestyle again, okay, the time is not that good, it´s just swimming… Than I got on my bike, but I wasn´t that fresh than I thought I would be. After some time, the sign signals to turn right, the entrance of the ascent towards Aiguines, one of the four mean parts of the course today. Amazingly it doesn´t hurt that much, I think I trained good enough for that. Than I remarked, what I really liked very much of the races in the south, than the cold races in the north, the smell. Everywhere in the mountains under the sunlight it smells like thyme, rosemary and much more herbs. The sight became fantastic and let you forget the pain and the suffering. After 15km the course gets downhill and I rode as fast as possible to Moustiers-Sainte-Marie. When you arrive there, a 3km long with 165ascents is already waiting for you and the wind awakes. After all I got more than 1000m of altitude and a time of 3:40h on my watch for my bike split, but the hardest thing should start right know… Obviously the running course is like a dream, just cross country on small trails right along the lake. But the loamy ground became thru the sun to a hard and un-even ground, with large stones. The running hurts very much, one part even more a 500m long ascent where you had to walk and climb more than running. They´re all mad here…So, the 20km became longer and longer and the wonderful running course gets more worse, My foot are hurting, when I enter the ladder for the last time up into the small village. Come on, get your rest of your energies for a smile on the home straight, but that relaxed I haven´t been before, while crossing the finish line and my time??? No, we don´t ant to talk about my time…   The very next day, everything was fine again. After all, the NatureMan event is a fantastic race, a wonderful scenery, an ambitious course and an awesome community, I can recommend it to you, but don´t forget to exercise… Daniel Flöttmann alias  Sgt. Silverback

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