‘Bike for show, run for dough’ is often the mindset in pro triathlon but surely not this week at the first ever IRONMAN World Championship in Nice where many eyes will be on a spectacular and challenging 180km bike course.
Few are better placed to explain what’s in store than Mark Allen. He’s best known for his six Kona titles but also boasted a remarkable 10/10 record in the Triathlon International de Nice, a race which in his era attracted the best of the best.
We caught up with Mark a day after he’d driven round the whole bike course to get his insight and perspective – essentially, how he would race it.
Though he pointed out right at the start that it’s a voyage into the unknown for everyone, saying: “Nobody’s done a World Championship here, so we don’t really know what the strategy will be that brings the victory.
“What’s the good way to do it, what’s the wrong way to do it? No worldwide audience has seen the course like they’re going to be able to on race day – and if I was a woman and I knew that I’d be racing here next year, I’d be looking at every second of the live feed just to go, okay, how are they doing it?
“It’s amazing, it’s iconic, it’s beautiful. You’re riding through these valleys and mountains, literally with buildings that are a thousand years old. There is no course like this anywhere and you have to be on it the entire bike ride and the marathon. It’s not going to be about numbers on your Garmin and all that s**t.”
So with that, let’s dive into the detail…
Swim – Lange could have ground to make up
“Well, the interesting thing is it’s a (in the) water start in the Mediterranean which they’ve never done here before in Nice. It was always the run down on those cobble rocks that would kill your feet!
“I think there’s so many guys that are good in the swim right now that I don’t think it’s not going to be a deciding factor in the race. Most of the guys who can bike and run really well, are also going to be right up there in the swim.
“There could be some exceptions – maybe somebody like Patrick Lange, who’s generally back a little.”
Bike – Epic challenge awaits
So all focus then switches to the bike course and while Kona is far from easy, Mark was quick to point out that the concentration levels on two wheels will be a world away in Nice.
He told us: “This is a very hard course. This is not the kind where you just sort of put your head down and drill it like Kona. The bike course there, you have two turns – a left on the Queen Ka’ahumanu Highway and the U-turn at Hawi, and you put on your brakes when you get to the transition area. This is not that kind of course!
“I’ve driven round the bike course because it’s even a little bit different than what they used during IRONMAN France and very different to the course when I raced here in Nice. The course that I did and Sunday’s are worlds apart in the sense that there’s 40 miles more of cycling than than there was in in my day.
“And it’s epic. Anybody who says, I don’t know if I want to go to Nice because Kona’s amazing, they’re missing out, I have to say.
“It’s very hard to see it on the map or even the profiles but when I drove it, it’s like right away you’re on a gradient, and it just feels like it goes up and up and up. And this is just to sort of start to get you into that backcountry. So the first 40k or so, you’re really climbing. Even up to 60k, you’re basically climbing, and you’re just getting farther and farther away from Nice, and at the point where finally you kind of get a little bit of a reprieve, all of a sudden you have another set of climbs.
“I think this course really lends itself to helping split up the field, obviously, with a number of long climbs and then a lot of sort of false flats like you’re climbing. And then you get to a point where it levels off and you think, okay, now I can really go hard. And you get down in your aero position, but you’re still actually climbing. So there’s this load on your legs that is very constant.
“And at around 94k at the turnaround, you get to the point where you feel like you have been moving away from Nice for way too long. Psychologically, if somebody can just compartmentalise their race and just stay with the moment of each of the climbs, stay with each moment of each of the sort of false flats and all that, they’ll be fine. But if you’re thinking, where’s a turnaround? Where’s a turnaround? Then it’s going to wear you down.
“So you head back and then you start to kind of get some downhills. But even with the downhills, you still have a bunch of things to focus on and there’s still a climb to come. You go through just these amazing villages and there’s going to be some very high-speed descents, with 180 degree turns so bike handling skill is going to be paramount. I don’t think that anyone can necessarily make up massive amounts of time on the downhills.
“Obviously, on climbs you can make time if you’re fit, but there’s a lot of stretches as you’re going down, where it’s sort of curvy, but you really do have to still pedal. And those come in the last part of the bike. These winding, semi-downhill stretches where if you’re not on a big gear, you’re going to lose a lot of time to somebody who is on a big gear. And so I think that last 60k of the bike is where somebody could really make some separation if they’re on their game, if they’re focused.
“And that’s the other thing. I think a lot of people are going to think when they get to the downhills, they can relax, but it’ll take a lot of concentration at that point. And that’s also at the point where you come down out of the high plateau area, which is going to be very cool, where the temperature is going to go up. You have to concentrate on the very technical parts, but you also have to concentrate on those sort of downhill stretches where you still really have to pedal hard.
“The hard part on any Ironman bike is around three-quarters of the way through because that’s just at the point where you’ve been racing for kind of four hours or so where the day starts to get real. And on this point that’s also round about that last climb before the long, final descent, so you really have to stay on it.
I think it’s just going to take a lot more mental energy out of people than they think. It’s absolutely a world-class course.
Run – Crowds will be ‘off the charts’
When Mark racked up that perfect 10/10 record in Nice the run course was very different – effectively an out-and-back where you just had one chance to see who was ahead of you. It’s four laps on Sunday and he feels that will make a big difference.
He explained: “I think that because everybody will be able to see each other so much, it really gives the guys a chance to size each other up as they make so many passes back and forth. And it makes it harder for somebody to sort of make any kind of sneak move.
“It should be a fast marathon. Again, the thing on that is going to be the pacing. The tendency would be to go, okay, two loops and I’m halfway done, and then I’m going to really pick it up.
“But I find that sometimes if you divide it in half, you can end up blowing up at the end because you start going too hard too soon. And so for me, if I was going to do it, I’d divide it up into the first loop, and then the next two loops would be like one next level up, and then the last loop would be the third level, so I’d kind of have more like three steps in the pacing of it.
“That kind of strategy is really nice on paper but you may need something completely different if you’re going to win it, depending on how the race is panning out!”
One other variable with a four-lap course is going to be the fact that age-groupers will be in amongst the pros but Allen doesn’t think that will make a big difference. He said: “It can be annoying. You’re weaving your way through age groupers at certain points and that can be a challenge, but I don’t think it changes anything significantly.
“And the huge thing with four laps along the Promenade des Anglais, which has so much Côte d’Azur history and ambiance and feel, is the incredible atmosphere it will generate. I’ve been walking and running on the promenade this week and just on a normal day, it’s packed. So on Sunday, the crowds are just going to be off the charts.
“Having a full-distance IRONMAN World Championship here is just a whole other level, partly because the organisation gets ratcheted up a few notches, so there’s a lot of fine-tuning to the course and just everything that goes on in and around the event.
“And secondly when you look down that start list, you might know it’s missing the Norwegians or it’s missing Max Neumann, but that list is chock-a-block. And so I think it’ll be much more exciting than anybody could have ever imagined, just because so many guys are going to be semi-close and keeping track of each other on the run so the dynamic is going to be constantly changing.”
Another level
We’ll be catching up with Mark later this week to see who he thinks will thrive on the course but he’s adamant that Nice is the perfect venue for a split World Championship, with the women getting their chance next year.
He added: “Nice has its own special character and quality. You have the azure blue of the Mediterranean. Then it’s majestic out there on the bike course and finally you’ll have this incredible crowd energy that will be carrying you on the marathon.
“And so it’s like if you can tap into each one of those pieces and really just be completely absorbed in it, that’s when you’re going to see an athlete pull something out that you go, wow, that was amazing. And people will feel what that person connected with to get them across that line in first place.”
