XTerra Worlds: Race Report

I’m going to start this report the day before the race.  We had a pretty nice day and headed down to the pre-race briefing early to get some pictures and listen to the pro panel discussion they were having.  We hadn’t gotten everything ready for race day, figuring that we would do those final preparations when we got back home.  The panel discussion was good and for a change the pre-race banquet was also good.  Don and I usually avoid these events because we often get there and there is almost nothing that either of us can eat.  But we figured that it was the world championchips and we wanted to take part.  As a precautionary measure we had “dinner” for lunch—that way if we were left with not much to eat we would still be fine for race day.  Well they had a large variety of salads, rice, a couple of pastas along with meat and fish – both of us were able to get a decent meal from it.

We stayed and listened to all the speeches and stories and then decided it was time to head out---as many others had already done.  Just as we were leaving Dave K, the race director, picked up the microphone and said – wait everyone, I have an important announcement to make.  It seemed a little odd to wait until half the people had left to make an important announcement.  Well – they had just learned that there was an earthquake off the coast of BC that had generated tsunami waves and they were headed our way.  At that point they had only issued a Watch, and from the reports, Dave thought the race would be fine—but if the ocean was still too dangerous they would turn the race into a duathlon by adding a 4k run before the bike.

We headed home to do our final race preps.  We were greeted in the parking lot by one of the condo staff, handing our instructions of what to do—basically, get to higher ground if the sirens go off calling for an evacuation—we would not have to go to far—the local supermarket parking lot was high enough above sea-level—only about a quarter mile away – he was about half way through explaining this to us when the sirens went off calling for the evacuation.   So much for final race prep and a good nights sleep.  We went back to the condo briefly and assembled a few things:  change of clothes, water, food, pillows etc. – it sounded like some people were actually packing all of their stuff, but we did not go that far. 

We headed up to the supermarket and just hung out—there were people all over the place, sitting on lawn chairs, lying on the grass etc.  I guess where we were the evacuation zone is pretty narrow at the land slopes upward pretty close to the ocean, so things were not too crowded.  We talked to some people that were staying in Lahaina—and essentially the whole town was evacuated and it took them more than 45 minutes to drive the half mile up the hill to safety.

Then the waiting began—we read for a while, listened to the reports on the radio and decided that we better try to get some sleep so we kicked back in the car and did the best we could.  The tsunami hit - -but luckily it was not very big—at least in our area I didn’t see any damage the next day but we did hear of some flatter areas of the island where there was some damage close to shore.  Finally at 1:30 am they gave us the all clear to head back home.  We got to bed as fast as we could in an attempt to have a few solid hours of sleep.  Luckily XTerra starts at a civilized hour  (9) and we didn’t have to get up until 6.

Race morning dawned and we were not certain what kind of race we would be doing.  We certainly were busier that I normally like to be since we had not been able to get all our race prep done the night before.  We seemingly got it all together and were out the door just after 7.  We were staying about 1 mile from the race so just put everything on our backs and rode our bikes to the race—removing the parking hassle.  We just arrived at the Ritz (race was on the grounds of the Ritz Carlton resort) and Don proclaims a very loud :OH SH**  He left his running shoes back at the condo—I head on in to the race and he dashed back to get them.  I got my transition set up and then joined the line to get body marked.  At Xterra everybody gets the fancy ink numbers rather than just a marker so it takes a little longer.  I was getting close to the front of the line when Don showed up and joined me—so he did manage to get home and back in good time.

After we got marked we did our final preps and headed down to the beach.  They had said on Sat—that despite the tsunami the ocean was supposed to be pretty calm for race day.  Well they were wrong.  The surfers were out at the north end of the beach we were racing from—and they weren’t beginner waves. 

The race was going off in 3 waves:  pros, all the men and then all the women.  There was supposed to be 2 minutes between waves—but they promised that they would vary that by a bit so that they did not send any of us off into a big wave—it’s a beach start.

The XTerra swim is M shaped – we go into the water towards the north end of the beach, swim out and around a buoy about 350 yds out, back into the beach—run along the beach about 200 ft and then back into the water to swim out and around a second buoy about the same distance out—and finally back into the beach and then up to transition.  What that means is that we got to go into the surf and out of the surf twice.

I haven’t raced much in the ocean, and certainly don’t have any experience with race starts into this type of conditions so I placed myself conservatively and figured I would just swim around everyone once we got past the breaking waves.  The women did manage to get a start without the huge waves—I ran in and was able to dive under the wave that was coming at me.  Everybody ended up pretty scattered going through the surf so I didn’t actually find is very crowded out there.  Don did not experience the same since the mens wave was much bigger.  Once through the surf I started trying to sight the turn buoy so that I was sort of swimming in the right direction—it took a few looks as you could only see it when you were at the top of a swell.  I had been planning on using the end of the island of Molokai as a larger mark to sight on—but you couldn’t even see that if you were in a trough.  The water was quite cloudy—the rough water had all the sand stirred up.  I was expecting it to clear as we swam further out—it had the other days we had swam—but today it stayed cloudy the entire way.  Usually once you get past the shore break you are just into ocean swells and it doesn’t affect your swimming much—today was not the case—it was rough the whole way.  I felt like I was having a pretty good swim.  I rounded the first turn buoy and started heading for shore.  As I got close I started sighting behind me to try to see the size of the waves I would be going in on—well, I didn’t time it great and got caught in a big wave—the only thing you can do is cover your head and neck and wait for the washing machine to spit you back out.  I’m sure It was entertaining for those watching on the beach.  I extracted myself from the ocean and ran up onto the beach and around the flags—getting up and having to run in the middle of the swim really sucks.  Anyhow—time for round 2 with the surf.  I managed to time my second entry into the surf pretty good and had no issues.  The water seemed rougher this time—if that could be possible.  It really was quite fun.  The rough water  spread everyone out and I still had not crowding issues even though by now I was well into the men’s wave.  On the way back in there seemed to be more current and I felt like we were all swimming a big arc to get to the exit point on the shore.  Luckily I did not create entertainment on this time out of the ocean—timed the wave correctly.  I did get pulled back in a bit as I stood up—but that only slowed me for a few seconds.  Swim time 30:36 – or 4^th in my AG so pretty happy with the effort

The run to transition was pretty long – about 400m, all up hill (this will become a trend).  I practiced my Jim Ristow transition skills  I was just not very efficient.  5 min later (including the run from the water) I was out on the bike.

So the bike is 18.9 miles long and they manage to fit 3000 ft of climbing into in – Which means that you are either going up or going down for the entire ride.  The seemed to have a mission for us to get a great view right away so by mile 6 we were up about 1500 ft - -None of it super technical.  There were a couple of steep loose sections the pretty much everybody got off and walked.  There were also some long steep sections that if you were fit enough were definitely rideable – problem is most of us regular humans ran out of strength/endurance about halfway up these sections and were reduced to walking here as well.  The nex mile we got a reprieve and descended several hundred feet – which felt really good as that first climb really took a lot out of you.  Of course after descending that mile we turned around and when right back up.  I must admit the views from the course out over the ocean were beautiful.  A little afte mile 8 we topped out and then got to the fun part – 5 miles of pretty much solid downhill – there were some wide open sections (26 mph on a mtn bike feels really really fast), some technical sections and a couple of short ups that made you pedal a bit.  By the end of the descent we were pretty much back down to sea level – and it would have been nice for them to keep us there but true to their mission of killing us, the last 5 miles was up and down—no killer 5 mile climbs like at the beginning but just going up 300-400 ft and then back down – after the start of the ride this was pretty hard on the legs- they were ready to not climb any more.  In this section they also had a habit of bringing us screaming down and then putting a loose >90 degree turn at the bottom to send us back up the hill – which of course equates to not being able to carry any speed into the next uphill.  There were definitely lots of people in the bushes at those corners.  For anybody that followed us online, you could see from the times that Don and I were pretty close together – well we were.  I spent the majority of the bike ride watching his rear end about 2-4 riders ahead of me.  He took a bit out of me on the descents and ended up hitting transition about a minute before me (but remember he had a 2 min head start on me). 

I did a much better job of T2 and was soon out on the “run” course.  Keeping with the theme the first almost 3 miles of the race were up.  There was a bit of a break somewhere in the middle of the climb for us to weave our way through some trees on a flat to slightly down section.  At almost the top of the climb there was a section of about a quarter mile that was so steep it was even hard to walk it.  I will thank the race organizers for making about ½ of the run under tree cover—that really made it bearable from a heat perspective.  My race strategy on the run was to power hike the uphill sections and run everything else –I lost a lot of run training this year and really didn’t have the run fitness to run the big hills.  At somewhere around mile 1 I caught up to Don – I was power hiking a bit faster than he was.  He conceded me the race as I passed him.  Once I hit the top at mile 3 it was run time.  What I did discover is that I need to practice my downhill running skills more – I got passed by a few people that I had passed on the way up – just because I couldn’t relax and let it roll down the hill.  The run course isn’t too bad – there are a bunch of trees that you need to duck under or climb over but aside from those obvious obstacles the footing is actually pretty good.  They save one last short climb out of a pretty ravine at about the mile 5 mark and then it’s a nice gradual downhill to the beach.  Then, just for fun, they make us run the length of the beach (about 400m) in the deep sand.  Looking at my HR file its obvious when I hit the beach – my HR just spikes up to about 180 and stays there.  From the end of the beach it’s about another 100m uphill to the finish line.  Finish time 4:20:09

Overall I was very happy with my race given my fitness level and injury issues from this year.  I learned a lot and will know better how to train for this race in the future.  It was definitely a blast and I can highly recommend it to everyone.  I think in the end the XTerra training is going to help with my IM training – I am definitely much stronger because of it and hope to carry some of that strength forward to next year.