Simon Pratt travelled to Nice with partner and fellow Viceroy Suze to tackle IM. After registration and racing  on Saturday the nerves unsurprisingly started to kick in, really not helped by lots and lots of carbon being wheeled around by bronzed, toned athletes and not a leg hair in sight!  

After a 4am Sunday alarm call, he headed for the advertised ‘120 m section of beach promising a calm swim start’.  Unfortunately 2500 other people obviously had the same cunning plan! 6.30am and it was mayhem – after naively deciding to trust the group around him for directions all seemed fine until a North African trawler pointed out they were heading for the Suez Canal!  Simon was relieved to finally climb  out the water in one piece after a very challenging 1.23.

En route to transition Simon managed to entertain the crowd by falling flat on his face after hearing Suze call his name and looking away from the approaching ramp.

The bike course was a scenic one lap route with 1800m of long, but not too steep climbs and fast winding descents: ‘Very enjoyable apart from the headwind on the last 30km and the ####ers would clearly think drafting is mandatory. Off the bike after 6.10 in the saddle.’ After transition it was out onto the run; Simon finished the mind numbing 4 laps along the sea front in 4.07 crossing the finish in 12.06.

AND promptly popped the Big Question to Suze who said yes!