Trollveggen Triathlon 2011 Race Report.
It took close to a year, but here it is:
Åndalsnes, Electric mood, Music, Wetsuit, Wet! The rain was pouring, I was wet and I had not even entered the water yet. The fog heavy in the mountains. No running up to The top of Trollveggen. That was almost given. Assuming that we'd end up with the 10k road run on the top of trollstigen I had packed my racing flats in the T2 bag. A bit of a gamble, but not a big one. Then the message came loud and clear over the speaker: Rocks had begun to fall down on the road in trollstigen. The road engineers were on their way to block the road. The route would be changed. In stead of biking up trollstigen we would be biking to trollveggen and back. A fairly flat 20k time trial. Damn, I would have brought the time trial bike if I had known. The run would be up the neaksla mountain just beside Åndalsnes. Not exactly what I signed on for, but you have to hand it to Richard and the others behind the triathlon. They vere able to change venue in the last minute.
The swim was a 1200m two lap affair in Åndalsnes Harbor. This year a massive cruise ship lay at anchor while we swam along side it. Kind of cool, would probably have been swarmed with tourists if the weather had been better. As usual I had a spell of un comfy swimming and had to slow down to not panic. Also as usual I strugled to get back up on onto the pier. oh well entrertainment for the spectators at least.
T1 was pretty un eventfull.
the bike was alright. I hammered on, but it did not go very fast :(. I had been sick a few days before and suspect that had something to do with it. Also a racing bike with 11-28 was sub optimal for this. wet to the bone all the way. had to focus on finding the dryest lane on the road. passed some got passed by some too. HRM died the aquatic death :( but on the positive side I now need a new one ;)
T2 went pretty fast. Did not see any point in changing into dry socks ;)
We got to run the steepest up hill run in Norway for the run part (34%). burning pain in the calves way too soon after starting. Then lower back pains. had to cut back no more calf pain but the back pain lingered, but continued none the less. then I hear Frk Lien calling that she was coming to get me. That was motivating, so I gave it just about everything. 688 height meters, the reckord is 21 mins. Satisfied with about 2 times that ;) . Green silence was ok on wet stone and gras, Zero friction on mud and moss :( One of the contenstants that passed me used vivo barefoot. she claimed to have good traction all the way. Hm have to give those a try after birken.
On youTube the following movie conveys the journey very nicely:
