Where in the hell am I going to put all this sh*t? In asking this question as I stared at the
space I had selected for myself in transition, I had inadvertently answered one
of life’s deepest questions: What sport could possibly be more complicated that
the complicated sport of triathlon? The
answer: Offroad triathlon.
The Xterra World Tour is a series of trail running races and offroad triathlons held at various venues around the world. In the triathlon series, professional athletes compete for a prize purse while amateurs race for national titles and spots in the World Championship via a points system. In an Xterra (offroad) triathlon, competitors swim, mountain bike and trail run as opposed to the traditional bike and run on the road. Last year I started taking mountain biking a little more seriously and began racing in the Ohio Mountain Bike Championship Series. This year I decided to take it a step further and combine mountain biking and triathlon to see what would happen. Xterra at East Fork was my first step into this realm.
The Xterra World Tour makes its stop in Ohio at Xterra at East Fork. East Fork is an Ohio State Park just outside of Cincinnati. The race was on Saturday, June 21st and consisted of a 1000 meter swim in the park lake, 12 mile mountain bike ride and 6.5 mile trail run. To the best of my knowledge, there is no set distance in Xterra triathlons although they can be roughly condensed into three distances, America Tour Races (East Fork), EPIC races (long distance) and sprints/super sprints. The sprints and super sprints do not count towards the points series. Since I had never been to East Fork and knowing the course is a huge part of mountain biking, JMac and I drove with our number one dog, Holly, down to Cinci on Friday in order to stop at the park and pre-ride the mountain bike course. On the course maps we had printed out, the course seemed to be a pretty straightforward loop of the “marked” mountain bike trails. The problem was that the mountain bike trail seemed to intersect with itself and other hiking trails. We made slow progress finding our way around. I’m pretty sure there is a color coding scheme to the madness but we did not have that information at the time. What we did get was a basic feel for the trails. In doing my own research via Quickdirt (http://quickdirt.com/2014/02/01/2014-ombc-races-top-5-lists-race-summaries/ ), my go to source these days for the nitty gritty in Ohio mountain biking, I learned that the East Fork trails were fast, flowy and less technical by Ohio mountain bike standards. My only caveat to this would be that if the trails are wet, they become more technical as there are many roots and turns which can become slick. I know this because about forty minutes into my pre-ride it started to downpour. While I escaped without incident on Friday, I would not be so lucky on Saturday. I cut the pre-ride short and we packed up to check into our hotel.
For dinner I had located a small local brewery called Fifty West not too far from where we were staying (and oddly enough near Route 50W). They had a nice selection of small, medium and large plates for dinner and a nice range of beers from which to sample.
Saturday morning dawned overcast and humid—like chew the air humid. Ich. I had the standard hotel continental breakfast (oats with raisins and almonds and coffee). We checked out, took the H Dog for a walk and drove to East Fork. This race had a late start compared to most triathlons—9:00 a.m. In an effort to be more spouse-friendly I did not insist that we get there as soon as transition opened. Instead, we arrived at the late hour of 7:00 a.m. Well, offroad triathletes must take after their mountain bike cousins because I was still the fourth or fifth athlete to arrive and get into transition. I checked in, picked up my tech tee and a smattering of sample schwag. Note, I was asked to produce my USAT card, which although I think that’s the rule for USAT races, I don’t know that I have ever been asked before at a “local” race.
I surveyed the transition setups around me and tried to take my traditional setup with my tri bike and adopt it to my circumstances for the day. This is what I figured out:
JMack had left to go for a ride of the mountain bike course himself so once transition was set up, I did a warm up run, including my new favorite dynamic warm up. http://triathlon.competitor.com/2013/08/training/your-best-10-minute-run-warmup-2_46795 This warm up seems to help the tightening in my hips quite a bit. I then went to hang with the Holly Dog until JMac returned. I meant to eat a banana during this time but wasn’t up for it. I think the humidity was staving off any urge to eat. JMac returned with a course description: wet, slick, two smaller loops instead of one large, well-marked and eat on the road section between the loops. Got it. We headed down to the beach for the start. It was a small crowd. In the end I think there were about forty-five participants in the offroad tri with an additional eight or so in the kayak division (paddle a kayak instead of swim). These numbers were down about twenty from the previous year. I think the wet conditions scared some folks off. The water was calm and pretty warm but I decided to go with the sleeveless wetsuit. I hadn’t been in open water all season and in the event of a mid-swim panic, wanted the buoyancy of the suit. I warmed up in the water while they sent the kayaks off. Then, it was a mass, in water start. The horn sounded and we were off.
I stayed to the outside but quickly found my groove. The water temp was perfect. It was a simple out and back course (19:19 including the run to transition, 17th). This was the best open water swim I have had in a while and I ran into transition feeling pretty good. I navigated transition fairly effectively and hopped on the mountain bike (1:22, 9th). The ride began with a sustained climb on the park road to get to the trails. I tried to spin it out in an easier gear as to not use up those matches in the first half mile of the ride. I headed into the woods on the tail of a couple of guys. As mentioned earlier, the trails really are very flowy and generally non-technical in the scheme of things. But due to the rain the previous day and overnight, they were very wet and very slick. I tried to be assertive, sticking with the guy in front of me but unable to decide if I should take the pass. Unfortunately, in my hesitation to pass I allowed another female to catch me and pass both of us. I subsequently passed the guy too and found myself in kind of a no-man’s land with not a lot of other racers around me. I hopped off my bike for a couple of log and sketchy-looking , rocky stream crossings but managed to ride everything else. Unfortunately, I realized pretty quickly I had not set up something correctly on my watch and I was not getting any heart rate data. I rely on this quite a bit but had no choice to just try to go with how I was feeling. I popped out onto the park road and took in some fuel before my second lap. Since it was hot and humid I opted for a few salted dates, which tasted awesome—sweet and salty at the same time, and some margarita Clif shot blocks. I was also drinking constantly from my Camelbak. After my nutrition meltdown in the heat last summer at Musselman I have tried to be super conscious of drinking and getting my electrolytes.
Apparently, I was the only competitor interested in refueling on the road section because as I slowed down, I was passed by a couple of male riders. (Note to self: Need to learn to eat faster on mountain bike). As I entered the trails for the second loop I was hopeful that the trails had dried out some as it had warmed up considerably in the last hour. The trails near the lake edge which could catch a breeze had dried out but the ones lower, and completely covered by foliage seemed to be in worse shape. In a momentary lapse of judgment my handlebar caught a piece of hanging vine, turned sharply and flipped me off on to my left side. I jumped up, flipped the bars back around, refused a polite offer of assistance from a passing competitor and jumped back on my bike. Whew. Nothing appeared to be broken, bike or otherwise. A little while later, while making a sharp turn I misjudged again, braked when I should not have on a slick hump of mud and went over again on to my left side. Seriously? Ugh. This one hurt. While I was muddy, it did not look like there was an excessive amount of blood so I flipped my bike over, hopped on and raced toward the end of the course. At some point during this time I had bumped my watch and stopped the clock entirely so I had no real idea where I was or how much longer I had to go. It turned out to not be that far. I popped back out on the road and headed for transition (1:41:13, 31st).
Transition was fairly uneventful even though it seemed to take an excessive amount of time to tie my shoelaces and take my biking gloves off (1:08, 13th). I grabbed my new handheld water bottle and trotted back up the hill before turning into the woods. Two items of note here: First, I opted for the handheld water bottle after listening to Zen Tri’s Ironman Texas report http://www.zentriathlon.com/home/2014/5/18/podcast-ironman-texas-2014.html . Brett suggested carrying a water bottle on the run just to splash yourself off in the heat between aid stations. While this (obviously) was not an Ironman, I thought the idea was a good one as it was hot, humid and there were only two water stops on the course. Given this was a trail run I thought I might be out there longer than normal. Second, despite my time, I really enjoyed this run. It was a true offroad course. I felt like I was running through the Amazon. The trail was mostly narrow singletrack. It was rooty, up and down and included log-overs, stream crossings and even some short, steep sections where I could almost put my hands down to help myself up. There was also a section of very muddy, horsepoopy horse trail and another section of paved multipurpose trail. But the majority was singletrack. I had not done a lot of singletrack running in my training so I was worried how my ankles and knees would hold up but they seemed to do fine. I tried to maintain what felt like a consistent pace and get through. Looking back, I probably could have gone harder but in the heat, I think I felt more maxed out than I was. Also, the course was a lollipop with only a little bit of lollipop stick at the end. So I held back a little bit on the loop section not knowing what would be coming next (1:14:17, 32nd). JMac and the H Dog were waiting for me at the aid stations, giving me a nice boost.
The final section was a reverse of the original climb so it was downhill to the finish. In the end, I finished 2nd AG, 5th female and 27th overall (3:17:21). I had been hoping for a time closer to three hours but every race is a learning experience. Also, this race served as a reconnaissance mission for the OMBC race to be held at East Fork later in the season. So, I’ll be back.
