XTerra West Championships

Flew down Thursday night so that we could get out and pre-ride the course prior to race day Saturday.  Got the pleasure of finally meeting Wendy Jenson in person.  We have been Facebook and iamTri friends for several years now, but have never ended up in the same city at the same time.  She got talked into doing the sprint version of the race by her coach – and has not been on her mountain bike in years.  We were able to meet her on Friday morning to do the pre-ride and give her a crash course in mountain biking skills.  She was pretty nervous at the beginning of the ride and kept swearing at her coach for getting her into this.  

 By the end of the ride she had relaxed and gotten the hang of it and was looking forward to the race.   What was apparent from our pre-ride was that the conditions out on the course were much more difficult than previous years.  I guess they have had some heavy rains down here and that made the trail much more rutted and exposed a lot more loose rock.  In a couple of the washes, the rain washed down a lot of sand and gravel so these were really deep tire sucking sand/gravel bogs—there is one wash that you ride for almost a mile—yup, deep stuff the entire way.

This year they changed the race schedule – the sprint race started at 8:30 and we didn’t start until 10:30.  Oh goody – forecasted high 90 and we were going to get to race right through the heat of the day.

I was doing a lot of experimenting with this race (I know, nothing new on race day – but this was not a key race for me so a good chance to try some of this stuff out when it doesn’t really matter).  After listening to Chris Bagg’s nutrition talk, I decided I would give his nutrition regimen a try and see how it worked out.  My during race nutrition, at least for the shorter races is not much different than he recommended, but my day before and morning of nutrition was a lot different.  So Friday, I did what felt like eating all the time, mainly carbs, big breakfast, little dinner.  Saturday morning I did the big bowl of applesauce.

Race morning we got up at a leisurely 7 am, fiddled around for a bit and then took our stuff down to transition to get a good bike spot (our hotel room was less than 100 yds. from transition—awesome!).  We found Wendy and wished her luck and then watched the start of the sprint race.  Then it was back to our room to eat some more and generally lounge around until it was time to warm up.

Water temperature was reported at 58 - -but it really didn’t feel that cold—I guess having the air temperature already approaching 80 helped.  We jumped in about 10 min before our start to get warmed up.   Just before race start the wind really started to blow—they actually had to take down the inflatable arch at the swim exit or they would have lost it.  The swim was pretty uneventful – I found a pretty good pair of feet to follow most of the way to the first turn buoy.  After the second buoy we were swimming into the waves—a little choppy but not too bad—though pretty sure it slowed everyone down a bit.  Got out of the water in 25:56 - -not as fast as I usually like to be, but all the swim times seemed to be a little slower—I guess because of the wind.

I seem to be really bad at Xterra transitions and this one was no different-maybe one day I will figure it out.  I was just about on my way out on the bike when Don arrived—which is about normal.  I took off on the bike.  The start of the ride is about a mile on pavement up a gentle grade until you get to the entrance to the trails.  I used this to get the legs spinning and ready for what was to come.  Once you enter the trails you drop down a short hill and then start a huge long climb—I would say it’s not that steep, but everything is relative—you still end up in your littlest gear for most of it—but you knew you could keep going as opposed to most of the rest of the hills where you are in your smallest gear and praying that you don’t spin out, hit a rock or have your legs give out before the top  (all of which happen).  The course is 2 loops with the first half of each loop being a series of really hard climbs and a couple of tricky descents with the mile of super sandy wash thrown in as the only flat section.  The second half of the loop is a little easier with less difficult hills and a really fun section of twisty single track along the edge of the lake.  So I get about 30 min into the first loop and look down to take my first gel and find out that somewhere during all the bumpy sections 3 of my 4 gels have been jettisoned.  Well, adapt and overcome.  I took the only gel that was remaining.  When I got to the feed station I grabbed a bottle of Gatorade rather than straight water as I was planning—figured that would make up for 1 of the lost gels.  

Have I mentioned the wind yet??  When the wind kicked up, I was thinking, no big deal – you are going slowly enough on a mountain bike that the breeze should help with the heat but not affect your bike too much.  Well, I was wrong.  It was blowing so hard that it could pick you up and put you back down—not on the trail—not good given the extremely loose conditions.  You had to be super careful descending to be able to hold your line.  Even climbing the steep hills it was tough—when you front wheel was a bit unloaded it would grab it and try to push you off the trail.  About half way into the second loop I can over the top of a rise and saw some course marshals stopping some of the riders—I couldn’t figure out what was going on.  I caught up to them and was also stopped.  There was lady that crashed hard on the first loop---she had broken her femur.  Where we were they couldn’t get the ambulance in so they were trying to get a helicopter in to evacuate her.  While the helicopter was trying to land they stopped all the bikes.  The helicopter gave it 2 trys to come in and land—but couldn’t—the wind was blowing too hard.  Eventually they got her immobilized and loaded her into the back of a 4WD pickup to get her to a location the ambulance could get to.  All told I was held up for about 11 minutes.  The course marshal indicated that they would try to correct our finish times—they wrote the time on our race numbers—but as I see the results posted, no correction has been made.  I used the opportunity of the stop to fish into my camelback and grab the emergency gel I had stashed there - -so now I had made up for 2 of the 3 lost gels.  Remainder of the ride was uneventful.  The ride back down the paved road is usually a nice rest/spin to prep for the run – but today it was not—straight into the wind.  Total Bike time:  2:12:59

I did a better job at transition 2, taking a few extra seconds to take in some calories to make up for the lost gel.  Off onto the run—the legs complained but after about a mile they started to loosen up a bit.  So the first mile and a half the run is up – first in a wash and then the top half on a dirt road—this leads you to the trail system and we run part of the same course that we biked—including some of those hills that you couldn’t ride your bike up because they are so steep.  As I entered the trails I noticed that the woman ahead of me was in my AG—I knew that she had been stopped for the helicopter as I had—but she was stopped before me—so if they were correcting the times, just passing here wouldn’t be enough, I needed to gap her by close to a minute.  I slowly started to catch her.  She was great at keeping running—but I actually finally passed her on a really steep hill—she was running—and I was power hiking.  I guess I can hike pretty fast.  Now I wanted to push to get the gap.  There is one hill of particular note on the course—at close to mile 4—basically it is a really steep scree slope—the of course we go straight up—it was even difficult to walk up it—my calves were screaming by the time I got to the top.  The good news, this is the highest elevation for the whole run course so once you get there its mostly downhill—though not necessarily easy downhills, and of course a couple short nasty ups thrown in.  I made myself push as hard as I could to get that gap on the lady behind me—and it paid off—I crossed the finish line about a minute and a half ahead of her.  Total Run time 1:04:27

I was really happy with my race.  If I take the 11 minutes off for the helicopter stop I was about 4 minutes faster than last year - -But that doesn’t really show actually how big of an improvement it really was due to the conditions.  The pro’s were about 12 minutes slower than last year.  The lady that I passed, I have raced several times before and she has always been 15-20 minutes ahead of me.  With the time correction I was about a minute out of 3^rd place (she made it through before the helicopter stop)—this race was a stacked field in my AG – the first 3 women were 1,2,3 at the World Championships last year.

I also set a first for me – usually if I compare where I place in each sport – my swim is the strongest followed very closely by my bike and then my run is way in the distance.  In this race I was the 113^th fastest swimmer, the 177^th (uncorrected) fastest biker and the 112^th fastest runner.  I have never been a stronger runner than the other sports—I guess I should be looking for races with a brutally hard run.  I also had the 2^nd fastest run split in my AG

So, I guess my training is on track.  The training with my new bike coach, Kirk Whiteman and strength training with Scott Brown at Adapt seems to be definitely paying off, on both the bike and the run.

Rebuilding

OK - so maybe I stole the title from Jim Ristow, but its sort of what I'm doing.  Reflecting back on the year - I had a lot of fun, still kept in shape and accomplished what I set out to do:  take a mental break from the discipline of Ironman training.  So I would say on that, mission accomplished.  After this break I am planning on some pretty serious IM training - I will be the youngest in my AG next year and that's the best time to try to get to Kona (as you get to the older AG's).  So, this off season I have taken a look at my body and am doing some serious work to get it ready for next year.
What have I done?
1.  Addressed my bunion issues - -this is a work in progress, but the podiatrist is pretty positive that I can take care of it since it was not too bad.  This has caused me to have to buy new shoes, wear braces on my toes and learn how to run again (in minimalist, zero drop shoes).  This rebuilding is going well.  I am up to 5 miles in the new shoes and everything is going well.  The real test on bunion pain wont come for quite a few months -- not until I start doing 100 mile bike rides.
2.  Give myself over to my Adapt trainer Scott - -Right now Scott controls my workout schedule as we work on my biomechanical issues:  my right hip and as we dig into things, also my left shoulder.  These workouts are really more physical therapy than strength training at this point but I have definitely noticed a difference in the running (my hamstrings are starting to do some of the work!). My hip still goes clunk - -but the clunk is getting less and less.  We have just discovered some weak spots in my shoulders - so very much a work in progress.
3.  Examine my body composition.  Its a hilly race at elevation next year--don't need to say much more.  Currently at 20% BF and would like to get down to 17-18% (This is pretty lean for a 50 yr old woman - -you youngsters and guys don't laugh)  I have a ton of difficulty dropping weight when I am training hard.  So despite it being the holiday season I am trying to take care of this now.  I am now down 7 lbs from where I was at on Thanksgiving day - -probably about 5 more to go.  I am guessing that I will have a bit of a pause for Christmas week but I want to be there by the end of January.  Then I will need everybody's support to keep me there all the way to September.  I will not have been this light since freshman year of high school!
4.  This isn't really on the rebuilding theme - but I have decided to be self-coached this year after many years of having a coach--I guess only time will tell if this is a good move or a mistake.  I learned a lot from my old coach and well - -I'm currently paying for 2 kids in college - so no coach will certainly make things easier.  Over this off-season, I have been laying out the structure of my program all the way up to Tahoe- and I'm pretty happy with what I've come up with so far.

Mentally, I am itching to get on with the real training - -and that is a good sign.  January 7th is the day to start - so I just have a couple of weeks of unstructured exercise left and then the work begins.

Learning to Run Again

This fall I am on an interesting journey to take care of all those niggling parts of my body that aren't exactly performing like they should.  #1 in this area is to spend some time with my trainer at Adapt to work on my right hip.  Just for a brief history, I have popped my right hip out of its socket twice in my life.  Being out was painful, putting it back in was painful and rehabbing from it being out was also painful.  I have been living with a less than 100% right hip for the past several years.  The guys at Adapt think that they can get it back to close to 100%.  Given the results I have seen from several of my friends, I believe them.  So, for off-season I have given myself over to Scott and am doing whatever he says.  Luckily, unlike Chris, he has said I can do some light running and biking during the therapy.

#2 niggling body part if my left foot - specifically the bunion on my left foot.  I have lived with it for years - -it mostly pops its head up at the end of a long bike - after being in the cycling shoe for 5 or 6 hrs if gets really stiff and sore.  If anyone has watched me start the run of an ironman, most of the weird run style is from the fact that the big toe on my left foot won't bend for the first mile or so.  Through the Adapt exercises I have been doing I have also discovered that the range of motion reduction isn't just at the end of a long bike, it's there all the time.  Scott recommended that I go see the podiatrist and get it taken care of before it gets worse.
A month ago I went to see Dr Ray McClanahan at NW Foot and Ankle.  He specialized in sports podiatry.  His assessment was that he can fix my bunion (without surgery) as long as I am willing to make a few changes.
So first change:  I have braces for my toes!  The purpose is to gradually move my big toe out over time.  He said it will take close to a year to do it completely, but I will see some improvement quickly.








Second change -- well, throw out all my shoes and get new ones.  Oh, yeah, forget about buying anything that is remotely stylish.  Basically, I need shoes that will allow my toes to straighten out and have no heel or toe spring (toe spring is the little upward curve that pretty much all shoes have right at the toe).  I don't think that I will be able to be 100% on this one.  I found a pair of shoes that I can wear to work on most days -- but they definitely won't cut it with a dress.  I also have a new pair of running shoes: Altra Intuitions.  They are zero drop shoes with a big toe box.  So basically, I am to learn barefoot running with a bit more protection/cushioning than barefoot or Vibram 5 fingers will give you.   I was already running in Newtons -- but they actually have several mm or drop and they also have a pretty big toe spring.  He said that I could bend my Newtons to get rid of the toe spring and then I could at least wear them until they wore out.  So like transitioning into Newtons from other running shoes, I have the same slow, gradual ramp up to running in the Altra's to do.  The recommendation was to just walk around in them, and my other new shoes for 2 weeks so that my feet would get a bit stronger and my achilles would start to stretch out before attempting any run in them.  Yesterday I went for my first run - -a little less than 2 miles.  They are definitely light and you can definitely feel that your calves are working harder than even with the Newtons.  I am going to take this slowly.  As for the toe -- it is starting to bend a bit further than it used to, but still has a ways to go.

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.

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.

XTerra Las Vegas Race Report

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.

Life Exploded

So its been quite a while since I have been able to write.  Things seem to have exploded since I had that great weekend down in Huntington Beach.  What exactly exploded?  Well, work for one.  Things were getting pretty busy and then they sprang a major audit on us.  I can't wait until they leave at the end of this week.  Gabby also unexpectedly has come home from school for a while--she is doing some research and working through some issues and then is planning on returning to school in the fall - this has been taking up a fair amount of my non-working time.  I am also working very hard at getting back to being an athlete and a regular routine.  I'm going it without a coach this year--so there is also that time spent planning your workout program that I haven't had to deal with for several years.  Let's see--I am also coaching a friend who is just starting to bike--she has signed up for Cycle Oregon later this year  (and talked Don and I into doing it too!).   I think that maybe somewhere I might have a spare 5 minutes--anybody have a great idea what I should fill it with?

My diet has leveled out--my body seems to be adapted to being vegan as I am not noticing changes like I did the first few weeks.  My weight has stabilized at about 145 (which for me is 16-17% bodyfat)--so I guess if I want to get any lighter I will have to do it the hard way--I was hoping that the few pounds that I lost easily at the beginning would continue for a bit more.  I am finding that I feel satisfied now on less food.  I have found some great recipes and lots of good restaurants and am really not missing the meat or dairy at all.

So I think I am having a bonus, completely unexpected side effect of going vegan.  This is going to sound weird--but my hair is growing.  Now for most people having your hair grow is quite normal--but for me it isn't.  I went through several years of my hair actually getting shorter--and then we discovered that I was hypothyroid.  Getting some hormone into me seemed to stop the shrinking hair, but it hasn't really grown  (for the record I have not had my hair cut since we moved to Portland in 1999).  The last several weeks, it seems like its getting just a bit longer.  I will be tickled if it really is going to start growing like normal--somebody will have to recommend me a hairdresser!