Read Online Accidental Ironman by Martyn Brunt - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Martyn Brunt
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Walls, over the Schnell Bridge, past Smithy’s Hole and down the Rue de Two Dogs Shagging. Studying maps will reveal none of these place names (apart from Port de Pollenca), because they are coded references to incidents that have occurred over the years. The Schnell Bridge for example is so named because as we approached it once we bore down on a group of German cyclists in front. As we reeled them in over the bridge the rider at the back was heard to shout up to the front ‘Schnell! Schnell! Das Englanders!’, which almost caused our group leader Richard ‘Todger’ Todd to fall off laughing. Smithy’s Hole is named simply after a pothole hit at full pelt by Dave Smith, one of our number. While soaring airborne over his handlebars he looked like the most majestically graceful turkey you can imagine before he hit the deck with an audible splat.
Aerial dogfight re-enactments aside, it’s a great place to go and get some warm weather training done and while Egypt and Syria offer cheaper deals, it’s less noisy in Majorca and the natives seem friendlier. That said, I’ve never been there in summer when the vandal hordes of British tourists arrive. Let’s hope they never start rioting because it would be useless firing tear gas at someone who smokes sixty Lambert and Butler a day.
Training abroad also means you have the added satisfaction of knowing that everyone at home will be freezing their tits off and hates your guts every time you text them to tell them the local temperature and your daily mileage. I’ve always had to tread somewhat carefully with the lads I go to Majorca with like Todger and Andrew ‘Peachy’ Waters-Peach, a massively powerful time-triallist and huffing swimmer, because they are hardened cyclists and in this company I have always been viewed as something of a novelty. Being a triathlete means I am the only one to get back to the hotel after a day’s hard cycling, leap (slump) off my bike, don my trainers and head straight off for a bandy-legged two-hour shuffle. Mostly I was eyed with contempt by the cyclists, although they warmed to me after the occasion when my foot slipped out of the pedal as I dismounted and my bike’s top tube smacked me straight in the clinkers, leaving me to spend the rest of the day talking like Joe Pasquale. I am delighted to say, though, that I am now no longer alone, and the number of compression socks on cyclists, coupled with the number of wetsuits hanging on hotel balconies and the number of skinsuits and sun-visors seen plodding along beachfront roads in the midday sun, all indicate that the triathlete population is gradually taking over, forcing the cyclists out to the fringes. This may be thanks to Ironman Mallorca, which launched a few years ago. Whenever I go these days there are more people than ever out riding the racecourse and dicing with death by hurtling down Selva Gorge on their tri-bars. Happily the triathletes seem to have assimilated with the cyclists by observing the golden rules of training camps:
1. Always turn up at training camp saying you haven’t trained. Then try to duff everyone else up in the first session.
2. Always carefully select which race T-shirt to wear at breakfast so you can pose in front of your fellow continental buffet diners showing what you have achieved.
3. When bearing down on German cyclists, never ‘sit in’ behind them but instead attack and overtake at the first opportunity while maintaining a facial expression that suggests you are not trying.
4. The only Spanish phrase you should speak all week is ‘café con leche por favor.’
5. Always undo six days of Trappist monk-like living and avoiding anything deep fried at the buffet by getting out of your face on bargain lager on the final night and quickly resuming a potato-based lifestyle.
6. Have absolutely nothing to do with any nonathletic holidaymakers who are there at the same time, who look like a bunch of Wookies dressed
Aerial dogfight re-enactments aside, it’s a great place to go and get some warm weather training done and while Egypt and Syria offer cheaper deals, it’s less noisy in Majorca and the natives seem friendlier. That said, I’ve never been there in summer when the vandal hordes of British tourists arrive. Let’s hope they never start rioting because it would be useless firing tear gas at someone who smokes sixty Lambert and Butler a day.
Training abroad also means you have the added satisfaction of knowing that everyone at home will be freezing their tits off and hates your guts every time you text them to tell them the local temperature and your daily mileage. I’ve always had to tread somewhat carefully with the lads I go to Majorca with like Todger and Andrew ‘Peachy’ Waters-Peach, a massively powerful time-triallist and huffing swimmer, because they are hardened cyclists and in this company I have always been viewed as something of a novelty. Being a triathlete means I am the only one to get back to the hotel after a day’s hard cycling, leap (slump) off my bike, don my trainers and head straight off for a bandy-legged two-hour shuffle. Mostly I was eyed with contempt by the cyclists, although they warmed to me after the occasion when my foot slipped out of the pedal as I dismounted and my bike’s top tube smacked me straight in the clinkers, leaving me to spend the rest of the day talking like Joe Pasquale. I am delighted to say, though, that I am now no longer alone, and the number of compression socks on cyclists, coupled with the number of wetsuits hanging on hotel balconies and the number of skinsuits and sun-visors seen plodding along beachfront roads in the midday sun, all indicate that the triathlete population is gradually taking over, forcing the cyclists out to the fringes. This may be thanks to Ironman Mallorca, which launched a few years ago. Whenever I go these days there are more people than ever out riding the racecourse and dicing with death by hurtling down Selva Gorge on their tri-bars. Happily the triathletes seem to have assimilated with the cyclists by observing the golden rules of training camps:
1. Always turn up at training camp saying you haven’t trained. Then try to duff everyone else up in the first session.
2. Always carefully select which race T-shirt to wear at breakfast so you can pose in front of your fellow continental buffet diners showing what you have achieved.
3. When bearing down on German cyclists, never ‘sit in’ behind them but instead attack and overtake at the first opportunity while maintaining a facial expression that suggests you are not trying.
4. The only Spanish phrase you should speak all week is ‘café con leche por favor.’
5. Always undo six days of Trappist monk-like living and avoiding anything deep fried at the buffet by getting out of your face on bargain lager on the final night and quickly resuming a potato-based lifestyle.
6. Have absolutely nothing to do with any nonathletic holidaymakers who are there at the same time, who look like a bunch of Wookies dressed
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