Sorry I haven't written anything in a while--life continues to be jam packed and some things have to give.
Well--for me, race season has officially started. First race for the year: XTerra West Championships in Las Vegas. I really could have picked something a little easier to start with--but its definitely high on the fun factor.
We are using this as a little 4 day mini vacation--it seemed like it would be nice to get a few days of sun and warmth--sometimes those plans don't work out--its actually been colder here so far than it is in Portland--though its supposed to get better for Sun and Monday.
I flew down Thursday night, Don drove to save the money on the bike transport, and picked me up at the airport. Our hotel was right at the race site---remind me that its worth it to stay right at the race--makes race morning so much easier. Friday we checked in and pre-rode the bike course. It's changed a bit from when we did this race 2 years ago--they took out a couple of dangerous hills--but don't worry--they did not make the course any easier.
Race morning we get up to temperatures in the upper 40's--with the high for the day forecast at 55. It was also raining-in the desert!. I open the sliding glass doors of out room to look out at transition to hear the cheerful announcer telling us that the water temperature is 57. At this point I decided that I hadn't quite packed all the right clothing. I figured out how to deal with it.
At about 7:30 we headed down to set up our transition area and pick up our timing chips and get body marked. This is the one area of the race that they could improve on a bit--they didn't have enough body markers so you had to stand in line for longer than was desirable given the weather. Once we were body marked we decided that being warm before jumping into the frigid water was more important than doing a huge warm-up so we grabbed all out swim stuff and headed back up to our room until it was time for the start. We stayed in the warmth for as long as possible and then headed down to the start--we only had to be outside for about 5 minutes before the first wave went off. We were in the 3rd wave--so we only had 6 minutes to convince ourselves to get into the water. Jumping off the dock into the lake was quite a shock! Given that we did not do a swim warm-up I knew that I needed to start slowly and use the first 400m as my warm-up--so when the cannon went off, I just started slowly so that my breathing did not seize (which is what it does if I go fast without a good warm-up in the water). Once I got going the water actually wasn't too bad (of course I couldn't feel my feet). I gradually increased my effort over the course of the swim--but not up to what I would consider a true Oly-distance pace. Came out of the water in 26:25--fine considering how conservative I was swimming.
T1 took longer than I normally like to take--but then I wanted to be warm enough and took the time to put on a long sleeved jersey, socks, gloves etc. XTerra T1 definitely has a bit more to take care of so should probably do a little practicing for the next race.
I headed out on the bike--the first part is a long easy climb up a paved road to the entrance of the off-road sections (which is 2 loops) and was good for getting the blood flowing to the legs before the relentless climbing started. The beginning of the off-road loop is really hard--all you do is climb--and its pretty steep. Once you feel like your legs are going to fall off you get a really short break that takes you into a climb that is even steeper--I didn't make it up this one (neither did most of the normal humans) and had to walk part of it. I could write a whole bunch about steep climbs followed by loose sketch descents--but it will just all blurr--you get the idea--climb until you think your legs are going to fall off, try to get your breath back, roll down the other side and make sure you feel comfortable with you rear wheel sliding all over the place--that pretty much sums up the bike course except for one stretch of flat twisty single track around the lake near the end of the lap--it was a welcome break. I was happy with my bike--though didn't quite break the 2hr mark as I had hoped (2:02) Don passed me somewhere about halfway around the first lap and I didn't expect to see him again until the finish line--but unfortunately I did--about 3/4 way he had a flat tire and I passed him back.
I had a good T2--being pretty efficient and not taking too much time.
Time for the run--or whatever it was going to turn out to be. I have been nursing a foot injury for the last couple of months--stress fracture--and haven't returned to running yet. This race is actually before I am supposed to run again--I did not want to do a dnf so my strategy was to jog easily and if it started to hurt to walk the rest. So--this was very different than what racing an XTerra is supposed to feel like. I set an easy pace (more like IM marathon pace) and just hoped that the foot would feel good through the whole run. Of course, since this is XTerra, the run course is anything but flat--we took off back out into the desert--and ran up some of those same hills we biked (or tried) up. I knew the downhills would put the most stress on the foot so I took those really easy--I kept my competitive nature in check when women in my AG started passing me (I had gotten off the bike in 3rd place). I think that I did pretty well on keeping the foot happy--I only started to feel anything on it about 1/2 mile from the end of the run--which is about when Don passed me--so he was having a good run.
I crossed the finish line in 3:36:46 - good for 6th place--again happy with that considering the foot (I I had run the same time I did when we did it 2 years ago I would have maintained the 3rd place).
This race was really about learning about XTerra since this is what we are going to focus on this year. So what did I learn?
1. I am not a mountain biker yet. On the road I am typically one of the faster women cyclists--this is not true at all for mountain biking. We have only gotten outside on our mtn bikes 3 or 4 times this year so I think there is a lot of room for improvement as we get more riding in.
2. Mtn biking uses your energy very different than road tri's---there is no trying to keep your power constant--when you need to push, you need to push and it is likely a max effort. Need to get more of this type of training included in the plan--the ability to recover quickly after a max effort is key.
3. Because of the high efforts you probably need to take in a few more calories than you do on an Oly tri--I think I did pretty good on this - 3 gels on the bike, packet of Chomps on the run
4. My body is currently used to IM level of intensity--I need to get it used to the high efforts of shorter distance racing--especially after a max effort--you don't get to recover if you want to go fast
5. Once the foot is better I need to spend a lot of quality time running big steep hills
I can definitely recommend XTerra racing to anyone who wants to have a really fun race--it may hurt, but getting out in the dirt is worth it.
