Xterra Lory Race Report

Swim 1/2 mile, Bike 12.2 miles, Run 8k

I signed up for my first Xterra (off-road) triathlon way back in March when I had been riding my mountain bike. It sounded fun and different and I do like mountain biking. Then summer came and I had a lot of road triathlons to train for and the mountain bike fell to the wayside. After surviving the Boulder 70.3 somewhat intact and the subsequent vacation, I was ready to mountain bike again. Unfortunately, I only had 2 weeks left until Lory. I got in 2 quality mountain bike rides, one of which was pre-riding the course in Ft. Collins a week before. I was glad to find the course was not technical, but I was apprehensive about riding so fast on single track with other competitors.

Come race day, I was able to carpool with my friend Heather, who is a very good Xterra racer. Having a companion made the 90 minute drive to Lory State Park go by fast. Transition was very much like a road triathlon, except instead of a parking lot, we were in a field. And instead of fancy TT bikes, there were fancy mountain bikes:



Also in Xterra races, instead of being in a wave with your age group, you are grouped according to swim and biking ability. I had rated my swim ability high and my mountain biking less than average, so I was placed in the last wave, 7, which didn't start until 8:40. The swim was billed as an out and back in Horsetooth Reservoir, but because of how the buoys were placed, it was really a long loop. As usual, I seeded myself in the front row, and as usual, I had 5 people jump on me when the gun went off. The first couple minutes were chaos as the jumpers realized that they really couldn't swim that fast for 1/2 a mile. I was soon out by myself, until a guy was swimming right next to me and pushing me off course. I had to stop and go behind him to the other side since he could not be convinced to angle the right way. I seemed to pass a lot of people in wave 6. My swim time was about 15 minutes (the timing mat was up the hill by transition) and only one person in my wave swam a pretty fast 12 minutes. Otherwise, there was a girl out of the water 20 seconds before me, and a girl who came out right with me.

T1 - the first transition was a bit slower than my usual ones because I had to put on my camel back and bike gloves.

The bike went much better than I thought it would. I'm embarrassed to admit, but when I did the pre-ride with D3 friend Jon, I forgot my helmet. I NEVER ride without a helmet, but we were in the middle of nowhere and had a time constraint, so I rode the course without one. Needless to say, I rode very conservatively. So on race day with race day adrenaline, I was feeling pretty good and rode faster than I had expected. Being back in wave 7, I did have to pass quite a few people. Sometimes we would get stuck in a line before there was an opportunity to get around and while I could have gone faster, it was nice to recover. The course was 2 loops with rolling hills, a couple sharp turns, some bridges and a few rocks. A guy in an Runner's Roost kit was riding behind me most of the way. He said there was no point in passing since we were going the same speed. We chatted back and forth periodically. There were a couple short steep hills that I had to walk up because people had stopped in the middle of the trail to walk their bikes and there was no way around. I finished in 1:10, about 10 minutes faster than I thought I would.



T2 - ditched the empty camelback (probably 16 oz of gatorade) for my fuel belt with 10 oz of gatorade (the aid stations were at .5 and 3.5 miles.)

And the run was tough, like I knew it would be. The first 2 1/2 miles went up a ridge, about 650 ft of elevation gain total. I wore my Garmin for the first time in a triathlon and except for not starting it for the swim, it worked pretty well:



I did a lot of walking, and would jog when it flatten out. I did pass a gal jogging while I was walking and I wanted to tell her there were no points awarded for style. The downhill was a relief, but I took the first mile too fast (and turned my ankle a couple times) and then was out of gas for the last 1 1/2 miles. My watch put my pace at 12:02, but really it was more like 16 minute miles up and 9:00 miles down with some 9:30 efforts at the end. And I found it difficult to move my feet nimbly over the uneven, rocky terrain. Also, it was getting pretty hot on the shadeless ridge, even hotter for me since I started 40 minutes after wave 1.



At the end of the race, there was a sweet slip 'n slide. It was the best finish ever, even though my shoes got wet and gushy for the rest of the day.



Swim: 15:45
T1: 2:11
Bike: 1:10:57
T2: 1:34
Run: 58:38
Total: 2:29:04

5/21 AG
33/99 female
135/266 overall

All in all, I had a lot of fun and would do another Xterra. I would want to practice more trail running and my crappy old mountain bike probably needs to be replaced. Right now I haven't ridden a nice new bike so I don't know how bad my bike is, but when Heather was putting it on her bike rack she did mention how heavy it was. And it's not even a big bike!

And one last picture... As we were driving south on 287 south of Longmont (I-25 had stopped by Berthod) I looked out the window to see this:



Now, waiting at an airshow to see a stealth bomber is one thing, but not being aware that there even is an airshow and being somewhat in the middle of nowhere and seeing one is pretty wild. We followed it south all the way to the Jeffco Rocky Mountain Airport and caught it as it did its flyby, it went RIGHT over the car. I am very sad that Alex wasn't there with us.

Outdoor Divas Sprint Race Report

Swim: 750 meters, Bike: 12.4 miles, Run: 5k

I found the key to feeling good about a race is to go into it with low expectations. REALLY low. I only signed up for this race because back in May, I was pestering my sister-in-law Sarah about doing a triathlon. She had been talking about doing one for a couple years, but so far there was no doing. So Sarah said, get on the computer, find a race and let's sign up! She wanted one later in the summer to allow for some training and was more in favor of a woman's only race. Outdoor Divas fit the bill. The only problem with it was it was only a week after the Boulder 70.3. But no matter, I said, we shall triathlon anyway!

So as I mentioned in the 70.3 report, I finished that race, then took a 7:30pm flight to Maryland. Once there, I drank beer, leisurely swam a couple times, experienced a few days of DOMS* and then had a connecting flight back Saturday, getting home around 8:30 pm.

I did not have high hopes of "racing" and kept reminding myself that I was Completing An Event. One nice thing about WithoutLimits races is they start at a much more reasonable hour of 8:00. I got to sleep in until 5:15, and left the house a bit after 6:00. In an astounding bit of coincidence, Sarah and I pulled into the parking lot at the same time.

I started in wave 3, going off around 8:30, Sarah was wave 2, about 5 minutes earlier. I think I noticed being at sea level for a week most during the swim. I felt that I was gasping for breath more than usual. I took an inside route (this counter-clockwise course also favors my left-side breathing) and missed most of the traffic. I think I passed most of the girls in wave 2 somewhere in the lake.

Look, another getting out of the water picture! It looks like there is fat oozing out of my wetsuit, but if you look carefully, there is someone directly behind me. Plus, my zipper is still mostly zipped up and I assure you my wetsuit is not ripped on the sides. I do, however, not have an excuse for my expression.



Sarah was in transition when I got to my bike and I was so happy, I know she was most worried about the swim. I hopped on my bike for the first time in a week and started hammering. My legs did not feel fresh and perky.

One problem with this course is that the 12 mile bike consists of 3 loops. There were about 500 competitors, with a wide range of skill and fitness levels. The end result being that by the 3rd loop, it was very congested. I was passing 4 women at the same time and I saw some sketchy behavior out there, like women passing on the right. No one passed me and even though my legs felt like jelly the whole time, my bike split was 2 minutes faster than the Summer Open Duathlon debacle, and my average power was 12 watts higher.



I started the run a bit hesitantly. Legs felt tired, but not weird tightness or cramping. There weren't too many girls out there yet and I only saw one women in my age group pass me. She ran 4 minutes faster than me so there wasn't a chance that I could try and hang on. It was hard to judge how I was doing since my age group had been split into two waves, the second going in wave 5. Somehow I managed a 28:35 5k, which after the 70.3 disaster I was pretty happy with.



Swim: 14:12
T1: 1:27
Bike: 33:58
T2: 1:08
Run: 28:35
Total: 1:19:19
5th AG (out of 105)
31st overall (out of 477)

I ended up only :25 seconds short of my PR on the course, and considering how beat up I felt I was pretty happy with that. See, lowered expectations! I'd like to really hone in on some speed workouts in the next 6 weeks and tackle this course for the last time this year at Oktoberfest and hopefully shave off a couple of minutes (crap, you see what I'm doing? I'm raising my expectations).

And, of course (and there was never any doubt) Sarah finished too. Yay Sarah!



*DOMS - Delayed-onset muscle soreness. Not to be confused with instant-onset muscle soreness. And oh yeah, it's possible to have both at the same time.

Boulder 70.3 Race Report

Swim: 1.2 miles, Bike 56 miles, Run 13.1 miles

Yup, I'm just going to jump back in like it hasn't been 8 months since my last post. Lots of stuff has happened. I might fill in some of the gaps, but probably I won't. So here it is in August now and Boulder 70.3 was to be my "A" race of the season. Yet even going into the race I knew I was not going to have my best performance ever. A foot injury in February prevented me from running much and I knew my training was lacking. But I hoped I could at least shuffle through the run and beat my time from 2 years ago.

Normally I don't have many pre-race adventures but I had a doozy this race. This season I have been biking over to the races at Boulder Res. It's about 6 miles and takes me a bit over a half an hour pedaling very easy. This morning, I ran over a nail or something and flatted at 30th and Valmont. PANIC. Now, I'm a very proficient tire changer so I wasn't worried about that per se. My first concern was that I don't leave myself a whole lot of extra time before the race. This race started at 6:30 and transition closed at 6:15. I flatted at 5:35. Once I could breath normally, I changed the tire relatively quickly and did my first ever fill with a CO2 cartridge. During the change I kept calling the house to see if Jeremy could drive up with another spare tube. I think it's just bad karma to ride or race without tire changing equipment. I called at least 10 times and no one woke up. I accepted that Jeremy would not be able to help and finished the ride to the Res. I got there about 6:00 and got my area set up and then pulled out my tube to see if I could patch the hole really quick. I couldn't find the puncture, then one of my rack mates (seeing me on ground trying to blow an inter-tube up with my mouth) asked if I needed any help. I said, "Well, what I need is a new tube." and she said, "Oh, I have 3 extra ones, take mine." I hope she had an extra good race. My teammate Sally gave me another CO2 cartridge and I was back in business.

I was in wave 10 so I didn't start until 7:15. I used the time from when transition closed to my start to stand in a port-a-potty line. I had a very nice chat with a guy from Alaska. My swim was pretty uneventful. I was swimming with a small group of women and stayed on course pretty well. Ironman changed the swim course so that the first leg wasn't directly into the sun and that helped a ton. The only incident worth noting was near the end. I was drafting off another women from my wave on her right side by her calves. She passed a guy who had started 2 wave in front of us and I got stuck in a bottleneck. I did not hit the guy but I might have brushed his shoulder. So I was pretty surprised when he came back with a punch the the ribs. There is no real swim stroke that could have created that hit, it was intentional. I hope he had bad race karma. I made my goal of a sub-40 min swim (which always seemed very reasonable, but I hadn't done in my previous 2 halves).

Here I am on the left exiting the water. It's pretty rare to get an official race picture of any part of the swim:



My bike leg was awesome. If anything, I am glad I raced for this part. I was feeling strong (could have had something to do with actually training on the bike, plus an 8 day bike tour of Oregon in July). I had a race plan and I followed it to the letter. I kept my power where I wanted it and took in all the fluid and nutrition I had planned. I felt strong and smooth. The course is two loops, and on the first loop I passed a guy and he didn't like that. So he re-passed and was really pushing it. His legs were going up and down like pistons and it just hurt to watch. I let him go, then on the same part on the second loop I passed him again. He made one more feeble effort to get me, then dropped back for good. I passed 6 women in my age group on the bike plus lots of others from the other 9 waves. My average cadence was 89 (woot!) and my average (not normalized) power was 126. I rode the second loop faster than the first and my bike split was 8 minutes faster than 2 years ago.



And then came the "run." Right out of transition my left hamstring started cramping. I have never cramped before (though I did have tight calves at the Summer Open duathlon) so I tried to jog it out, hoping I'd loosen up. I didn't. My first mile was over 12 minutes and my hopes for a sub 6:00 hour finish were already dashed (I needed to run about a 2:20 half marathon for that). I was wearing my race belt with Infinite in it and I tried to drink it hoping that the salt would help with the cramps. It didn't, but it made me feel nauseous. Oh, did I mention it was already 90 degrees at this point? I don't do well in the heat under normal circumstances. By mile 4 I was feeling nauseous and started to get dizzy, plus my right quad starting the cramping fun. I really wondered if I was going to DNF. At any rate, ending up in a medical tent was NOT part of the plan, as I was getting on a plane in 7 hours. I started walking even more with the intent to finish uninjured and somewhat healthy.

As usual, running by the finisher chute was depressing. I remember being a spectator last year and wondering why so many people were walking though the Res area where the crowd is. I had thought, "At least jog here people!" Yup, here I was, walking. I really really didn't want to do the second lap. As I was leaving the Res, I saw Jeremy driving in with the boys. He hadn't planned on coming and I was so happy to see him. And then - a miracle occurred. One of my acquaintances (through tri-friend Liz) came by. I had met Lauren at Stroke & Strides but didn't know her very well. She was starting to struggle, as this was her first half Ironman. So we started to run together. We'd pick a landmark that we would run to, then take a walk break with another landmark to start our run. And we chatted. It was great. The second lap seemed to fly by.

Here we are going into the second aid station. Becky and Ariel were volunteering, Ariel is selling me some gatorade.



The first time I went by the photographer, I was walking with my head down. They didn't send me that picture. This time, we decided to jog by for a nice picture:



I'm not sure what our run/walk interval times were (probably about 2 minutes each), but near the end of each run my cramping was almost unbearable and then it was almost relaxed by the time we started running again. Not only did I feel better the second lap, but I ran it faster too. I was sooo happy to be done. Lauren made us sprint the last 1/4 mile and she had more pep so she finished a couple seconds in front of me:



My new BFF Lauren. I cannot imagine how hard this would have been without her:



So overall, not my best race experience. I really thought that if I was really struggling, I could still do at least a 2:35 run. But it did give me new appreciation for how well Ironman Wisconsin had gone, believe me, I NEVER felt as bad as I did today during my full Ironman. So, upward and onward.

Swim: 38:11
T1: 3:06
Bike: 2:49:43 (ave 19.8 mph)
T2: 2:54
Run: 2:48:04 (12:49 miles)
Total: 6:21:58