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
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