Today I joined the Université de Nantes triathlon club for their weekly workout. I told my host grandma that I expected it to be only guys because I never see women running here. She wasn't so sure and thought there'd be some girls... When I first got there, I sat on the track and there were a handful of girls. I waited and waited and then asked a girl "Etes-vous ici pour le traithlon?" No. They were there for "athletisme" which is essentially track practice, but she pointed me to the building where she thought they met last time. So I walked down the hill and asked "Etes-vous triathletes?" and sure enough, this skinny blonde guy was like "Yeah...." and then I presented myself, in French, and they were like "Ok..." so I stood there. I was REALLY hoping we'd go in the building to find spin bikes ready for our use.
Then the coach came, decked out in Dextro ITU world championship pants and a Portugal "triathlo" vest. He started shaking all the guys hands, and I had been told that generally upon first meeting people, they shake hands in France. But then he came to me, the sole girl, and COMPLETELY ignored the hand I half offered. Only in France do girls kiss their coach upon meeting him. I think if I tried to kiss coach Brett he would've jumped backwards about 10 feet. lol (Ok, well strictly speaking the french "bisou" is not a kiss, you essentially touch cheeks. No ACTUAL kisses. Still...) Then he asked if we were ready to go, and we all headed back up to the track. BOOOOOOO. I need to do SOMETHING other than running.
As we marched up the hill, me and 11 guys, I laughed quietly to myself at being right. We stood up there awkwardly and just as he told us to start our "chauvement" (warm up) ANOTHER CHICK CAME... although she looked pretty masculine to me. I found out late she races TT and has never done a triathlon.
After the chauvement, we did "edjucatifs" which YOU GUESSED IT are DRILLS. Funny story: they called skips "la petite fille contente" which yes, means happy little girl and if your "petite fille" was "trés contente" you lifted your knees higher. French people are nuts.
I held in there on the warm up and the drills, but then came the workout and I suddenly realized that I might as well have been working out with the men's cross country team. First we did 4x (200 m fast + 1' active rest + 300 m fast) RI = 35", then 5x (300m) RI= 1', then 3x (200m fast + 100m easy). OH HEY SPEED WORK. We started and OFF WENT THE GUYS. I watched them round the track and thought "holy crap... they can't be serious." Then I remembered the coach saying "the goal is to work hard at your level" and looked down at my watch. 7:30 pace and hurting. Ooohhhh yeaaah. So then while they all whipped around the track I kept pushing all my hard reps to hit between 7:30 and 8 min pace (per mile, this is). It was rough. Very rough. The last rep of the 300m with 1 min rest I was ALL BY MYSELF (although ahead of the other chick!).
At the end of the workout, the coach asked who had a TT bike at their disposal and at least 9 people raised their hands (remember, with me there are 12). After practice I asked the coach where I could find a used road bike and he was essentially like "yeahhhh idk."
In the end, I really like the coach and he actually gave me pointers between reps. The guys, well, they're guys. They're not really interested in that random American girl who is bringing up the rear. The other girl is nice but seems a little weird... idk. Maybe I'm being quick to judge but she runs really strangely (although pretty fast) and wore the oddest outfit to practice.
I'll keep going because, hey, what the heck, it's speed work on a track for the next 13 weeks and I really am a fan of the coach and I think I can get something out of it. It's no NU tri though <3 Haha I think it's funny that we worry about only having 60 members in our school of 8,000 when there are 34,000 people at this school and they have 12 people on their team. I'm telling you - French people don't work out.
*correction: I have found out that VTT means velo toutes tourrain aka mountain bikes... but perhaps it ALSO means trial du temps. Ugh. FRENCH
The image of you trying out the French bijou on coach Brett is hilarious. Italian don't work out either, at least not like Chicagoans. I know there are fewer people here but it just seems like fewer proportionally. Like, the lakefront trail is long and jam packed from early morning until after the sun goes down. Here I see a few other people on the marked running trail.
ReplyDeleteI miss training with NU Tri!!