Pre-race: XTerra Worlds

We have been having a wonderful relaxing week here in Maui -- at least once we got our luggage and we got my bike repaired.  We have done some sight-seeing -- but nothing too strenuous.  Since this is our first time to Maui we hit the main tourist things:  Iao State Park and the Road to Hana--including O'heo Gultch.  To keep our time in a car down I think we will skip the drive to the top of the volcano this time.
Registration for the race opened Wednesday -- there was quite a big line as everyone wanted to get registered early -- you need your race number to get out on the bike course since it is all on private property.  We wanted to pre-ride as early as possible so that our legs were not tired for race day and also give us plenty of time if we wanted to go back out and practice any technical sections.
After we got registered we got ready to ride.
I doubt that any words I will use will do this course justice -- it is definitely not that technical -- I did not have to get off once for a technical bit.  Hills, on the other hand, reduced me to walking quite a few times.  From a physical perspective this course is brutal.  They fit 3000 ft of climbing into 18 miles.  I figured out how that compares:  Ride up and down Rocky point 3 times and you have your 3000ft in 18 miles -- only thing is we are also doing it in the dirt on mountain bikes and the hills are much steeper.  Right from the second you leave T1 you are heading up and it doesn't change much--except for how steep it is for the first 5 miles.  There are several longer steep sections that I just plain ran out of strength to turn the cranks in my tiniest gear.  Once you get to the top you are rewarded with some beautiful views of the ocean and neighboring islands.  You get a short reprieve of downhill for about a mile, just to turn around and climb back up a really steep jeep road that sucks all the energy out of your legs.  When you hit mile 8 you are at the top and finally get the reward of a super fun swoopy 5 miles of descending most of the way back down to the ocean.  Then you get the cruel joke -- on the course map it looks like you have a little climb and then a relatively flat 5 miles back to T2 -- well they lied--what actually happens over the last 5 miles is that you climb a couple hundred feet, head back down -- repeat way to many times until you legs feel like jello.  For fun they add a cyclocross like section where you do a really steep ride up onto the top of a dam, across the top, super steep descent, a couple hundred yards of single track through the trees to this loose rocky run up--kind of like Barton park only steeper, minus the rain.  It would have been nice if they gave us a nice long gentle downhill at the end so that our legs could recover for the run -- but of course they didn't.

Thursday we did a practice swim.  I love swimming in the ocean - and the beach we swim from is beautiful.  It is a beach start so we practiced running into and out of the surf (we get out and do a short beach run halfway through the swim - so we have to go in and out of the surf twice).  When we swam it was pretty calm - -and hopefully will stay so for race day.  Rumors are that sometimes there are some pretty strong currents - but I didn't notice anything particularly strong when we were out there.
Today I took off for my pre-run of the course -- it was actually more of a jog/hike--just to see what they had in store for us.  I think after the ride I was ready for anything--and came back thinking that is wasn't too bad.  The run course is of course also hilly -- the first 2.5 miles are straight up.  I know that I will end up doing a bunch of walking - particularly at the top where it gets really steep.

This is the view from almost the top of the run--we probably go up another 150-200 ft from here but there were no good views.  2.5-3 is rolling and somewhere in here you hit the highest elevation.  Mile 3-4 is a wonderful swooping downhill with pretty good footing and not to many obstacles to maneuver.  After that you drop into a ravine that is really pretty but a lot more technical -- and definitely has a climb to get back out of it.  After that is is downhill all the way to the beach - some good views a few technical spots - but a fun section.  At the very end you pop out on the north end of the beach.  Problem is the finish line is out past the south end of the beach - -they dont have it marked yet but we all know what is coming -- the course will be through the deep loose sand of the beach - -not down at the water or up on firmer ground--so about 300 calf screaming yards later we come off the beach and then only have another 200-300 yds UPHILL to the finish line.
And of course all of this is being executed in sauna like conditions.   We do this for fun right???
It is definitely going to be a challenging course and I hope my body is ready to hurt on Sunday because the only way to go easy on this course is to stop.