J’ai aucune idée

I had coffee with the President of Narbonne’s triathlon club today (friend #15). He explained the club’s general workings, about half of which I understood and the other half I hope is not important, and the structure of the workouts. He’s sending me the paperwork for my club registration next week, as well as the application forms for a license and insurance to race as a French resident. The club’s training hours are perfect for me; we swim on Mondays and Fridays at lunchtime and on Wednesdays in the evening, long run on Saturday mornings, long ride on Sundays, and track work on Thursday nights (which I’ll skip; I’ve never gotten over the association of track running with anxiety-ridden PE class). The President, Arnold, is doing the same Ironman as me in October (Challenge Barcelona - see my last post), along with a handful of others in the club, so I’m excited about that. It seems like a lot of the club’s members are long-course athletes; a group are going to Nice for Ironman France next month and another group to Challenge Roth.

I also got myself recruited to help with the club’s annual triathlon event, which happens to be tomorrow. I offered to help on the condition that I have a post where nobody could get hurt or go the wrong way if I don’t understand a question being asked of me. I went to the volunteer briefing tonight, and they wisely put my on a water station. I will hopefully be able to mutely hand out water and give some encouragement in the form of allez! allez! as they pedal off. I’m still a little anxious; I know what it’s like to ask an important question of a volunteer while racing, and the volunteer doesn’t know the answer, or worse, stares back blankly in stunned confusion (something I’ve been doing a lot of lately). So I’m now spending my evening ‘studying’ for tomorrow’s volunteer experience by looking up as many words and phrases that I think might be useful. So far I’ve come up with what I think is a good catch-all, to be delivered while pointing to my nearest fellow volunteer:

J’ai aucune idée – demandez à lui/elle! (I have no idea – ask him/her!)

That should do it.