Vegas is a great race without a doubt - one lap swim, desert bike course with plenty of challenging climbs and technical descents, wide hard pack with plenty of room for passing, and a run course that seems like it doesn’t stop - it’s either up or down. Since it is an early season race the heat was not really an issue (it never got over 85 or so) and proper application of sunscreen even kept the fairer skinned athletes from burning to a crisp.
The venue couldn’t be beat, the Loews Lake Las Vegas Resort was great to me and everyone I talked to. Having the XTERRA athletes descend can be quite a culture shock to some but these folks handled it exceptionally. From letting us all wheel our bikes through the lobby, onto the elevators and into our rooms to the bell hops realizing just how heavy full carbon fiber bikes magically become when loaded into a bike box to just how particular and nervous some athletes can become when their bike boxes need to be loaded or unloaded - I enjoyed the venue very much and think the bar is set fairly high for the race experience at other locations.
My race went ok - hindsight and a review of the results (mainly the splits) helps to see that. I didn’t finish as well as I would have liked (do we type A’s ever finish where we want?) but I was naively not expecting the talent that races the championship events. I went into it with a one week taper and a hard effort two weeks before at a local race.
The swim - I kind of forgot what lakes can taste like, what it feels like to get in the middle of the swim pack racing for the first buoy and what it feels like to round the last buoy and lose my goggles to a wild swim stroke. Not to mention sighting! Lakes and rivers don’t have black lines at the bottom. I swear if left alone I’d swim in big wide clock-wise circles. ha ha.
The bike - I tried paying better attention to my tire selection for this race and chose the Specialized Captain Control front and rear. They turned out to be a great traction tire, they gripped like mad and with the exception of one washout when I picked the wrong line they held every line. I didn’t feel like I had any power though and walked all the hills.
The run - my legs felt pretty dead on the run as well and although I pushed through it I wasn’t able to power up the hills the way I wanted. I finished feeling like I was spent, so for that day I gave it all I had.