Right after Xterra Vashon (July 11), I put training on hold and went on a 10 days road trip with my husband. I think I managed 1 short run during the 10 days we were away but I did do a lot of surfing and I am counting paddling on my surfboard as swim training…as long as I am in the water it counts!
We got back from our trip late July and only a week away from Xterra Black Diamond. Considering that I was still carrying the mystery bug that makes me so tired and that I hadn’t trained for 10 days, I decided to skip Xterra Black Diamond and try to get ready for Xterra Portland instead as it gave me 2 extra weeks to get ready…

My Melrad Racing teammate Robert Jackson is the race director for Xterra Portland, so I couldn’t miss this race! I like the bike course, it’s fast, fun and twisty! Rob does great job with this race and it’s definitely a must do for any Xterra racer.

Left for Portland on Friday am, made a quick stop in Bellingham to pick up my friend Kristen Holman. Rob asked me to stop in Seattle (sort of) to pick up the “bike in/out” and “run out” flags. After a long detour thru the suburbs of Seattle, we found the address and ended up with two long flags with long poles that stretched the length of my Jeep!
Back on the road, we faced traffic and road construction and finally arrived at Hagg Lake around 6pm… We got on the bikes for a quick spin and during our 20 minute spin I managed to crash in slow mo and bruise my elbows pretty badly!
Back into town, we headed to my friend Darren who invited us to spend the night! Kristen cooked a great dinner and we shared some wine (the prefect pre-race drink!)

Morning came quickly and we were up early hoping to arrive at Hagg Lake for 7ish am. The temperature was already high and the sun was shining. It turned out to be a very hot day with temps topping 98 degrees.
Did my usual transition set up, warmed up and wondered if I should go with or without the wetsuit…but being a crappy swimmer I opted for my super fast Profile Design GoldCell. The air temperature was slowly rising and I couldn’t wait to cool down in the water.

The race started with a mass start on the beach… The swim was pleasant and refreshing, out of the water in 22′ and change, pretty lame for a 1200m swim but I think the swim was long. Ran up to T1, peeled off my Goldcell and jumped on my Specialized Epic and started chasing whoever was in front! I could feel I was undertrained but overall I was having a good ride, easily clearing the short technical section I couldn’t ride last year with my hardtail. I made all the passing until half thru when I accidentally when off course, when I found the course again, I ended up behind people I had already passed…I guess I lost about 5 minutes with this mistake, but I’ll blame it on the heat, I wasn’t thinking clearly…once I concluded all the re-passing, I found myself alone, and trying to make up some time on the leaders. On the last 1/3 of the bike course, there is a mandatory dismount to cross over a very small bridge (made of a 2×8) and a very steep climb where you literally have to climb and haul your bike up at the same time, that’s where I was informed I was 5th. At least now I had some idea of where I was in the pack.
Shortly after, I was back in transition making a quick change into my Avia Bolt. When I started the run, the heat was getting really oppressive, and as usual this season, my running legs were nowhere to be found.
Once again, I ran most of the run course by myself, only passing or being passed by a few guys. Never saw any of the other women until the last 1/2 mile of so, when I notice someone was on my tail…I picked up the pace to try to hold on until the finish line and made it with about 20 seconds to spare.
Finished 4th overall and once again 1st in my AG…
This AG win would be enough to secure the Xterra point series Regional title for my AG.

By Alexia Droz

Alright, it’s been a month, I know! I’m a little slow coughing out race reports these days.

I’ve been to Xterra Vashon a million times, I like the race and it’s close to home (well, in comparison to other Xterra point series races). This year, I had company since teammates Tim and Rob where racing and teammate Jo was cheer-leading!

The weeks leading to Vashon were definitely interesting. After Xterra Farragut (where I got sick during the race), I took an entire week off, then tried to ease back into regular training during the following weeks. Needless to say, I wasn’t exactly in tip top shape, but I was feeling healthier that I have been in a while.

Race morning was a little cool and overcast. Got set up in transition, warmed up, blah blah blah…
The swim started in 3 waves, with the gals being last 10 minutes after the start of the first wave. I did my best to avoid the jellyfishes and was out of the water in 12ish minutes. Transition was super fast, in 2 seconds I pealed off my super duper Profile Design Goldcell wetsuit.

The bike course is 3 loops and each loop starts with a steep switchback climb, it can get very congested especially on the first loop. Once at the top of the hill, things started rolling a bit, well sort of, my rear tire felt flat, I kept checking but it looked normal. I passed a bunch of guys, and then a woman passed me, I tried to stay on her wheel but couldn’t, either I had no legs, or something was wrong with my wheel or both. On the 2nd loop the photographer informed me I was the sixth women….uhmm… a few minutes later, one of the women I’ve been chasing dropped out with a flat (yeah - she was in my AG), and soon, I had my eyes on 4th. During the 3rd loop, I moved up to 4th, until I clipped a tree and crashed during the downhill, ouch!

Once back on the bike, I realized that I had some foliage stuck in my rear rotor & hub, the wheel was barely moving so I had to pull over, during which I was passed and dropped back to fifth…Finally, I hurried up back to transition, trying to stay close to the fourth place woman.

I rocked T2! 19 seconds! Moved up on spot in the process.
I took off as fast as I could hoping I could handle the run at a decent pace, but my lack of fitness was starting to show. I passed a few guys during the run and never saw any other women. Crossed the finish line in 2h12 and 4th overall/1st in AG…

After the race, I realized my rear wheel was barely moving… no wonder it felt “hard”.

some pictures:

Since I have been back from Las Vegas and the West Cup, I haven’t really been feeling in tip top shape. Actually, I wasn’t feeling that good while in Vegas either, but after Vegas, things went downhill really, really fast. I had massive headaches, felt dizzy most of the time and I was extremely tired, so for the past 6 weeks, training has been all over the place. Some days I felt fine and managed to train almost normally, some days, I just couldn’t do anything. Eventually, I was diagnosed with an ear infection, was given antibiotics and told to not do any training for a week, it seemed to do the job.

About 2 weeks before the race in Farragut, I got back into normal training, I did noticed that the day after a swim, I would get headaches, but overall I was feeling much better. I was pretty excited to get back to training, and racing. I knew that I would probably not be ready for the race in Farragut with only 2 weeks of training behind me, but the racing opportunities in the Pacific Northwest are limited to about 3 months of the year so you take it when it’s there!

On the Friday before the race I headed East to Idaho, taking the slowest most scenic route! I don’t really enjoy interstates so when I travel to a race, I also like to enjoy the drive getting to it!

My hotel was about 40 miles from the race site and having done this race last year, I decided to skip the pre-ride and just relax instead…Race morning was pleasant, since the race didn’t start until noon! I was feeling still pretty good when I arrived at Farragut State Park. I ran into teammate Tim Holland at registration, it’s always cool to see teammates at races…
I got set up, then went for a warm up ride and then a warm up run. Then it was time to suit up for the very very cold swim!

We headed down to the beach, I was prepared for the cold water with my Profile Design Goldcell, my neoprene cap and booties! However I wasn’t quite ready for the cold water, it was announced at a balmy 46 degrees! I knew I had to get in the water before the start to “get used to it” , it took me a few minutes to master the courage to actually put my head in the water, the result: instant Slurpee brain freeze!  Because of the cold water, the swim was shortened to 750m (instead of 1500m)…in my opinion, 750m in these conditions is plenty!
The race director fired his shotgun (it’s Idaho) and we were off! As I ran from the beach into the water, I tripped over a rock…my foot was partly saved by the booties but it did hurt anyways… then I started swimming and amazingly got into a pretty good rhythm. The tricky part about this swim is the current, or whatever is going on in this lake (which is a 1000′ deep), so you really have to pay attention to where you are going…

I got out of the water in 13′ and then started the long trek up to transition (up the stairs, across the field, it’s far). Once in transition, the first sign of “something’s wrong” appeared: I had to sit down to remove my wetsuit and put on my bike shoes! I never do this, ever!
Once on the bike, I go cranking like I usually do but it felt a lot harder than usual. I could not generate and speed or power, and my heart rate was thru the roof, almost like I had heart palpitations!

About 15 minutes onto the bike, my heart rate was still super high, even thou it had a few descents to “recover”, but that’s when I started getting dizzy! Then the headaches appeared…the bike course felt incredibly long, turns out it was a bit longer than last year and totaled 23 miles… I was doing my best to keep going, and as I was approaching the end of the first loop, I was starting to wonder if I should continue or not? My condition was getting worse as the race went on… but against my better judgment, I continued onto loop 2…
During loop 2, I got passed more than usual, had to pull over to puke twice, and I was getting so dizzy that I crashed head & shoulder first onto a tree that should have been avoided pretty easily under normal circumstances … I was feeling so bad at that point that I couldn’t eat anything to get ready for the run, and I was now very seriously considering throwing the towel … but, I hadn’t seen anyone from my age group and I knew I could be leading it (or be dead last).To top it off, a DNF meant no points… so I got back to T2, racked my S_Works Epic, put on my Avia Bolts, and went for the run …
bike: 2h09 (15 min slower than last year! Yikes)

The run was extremely unpleasant, the view was nice, but I had to concentrate hard to not fall, stumble or trip. The pressure in my head was unbearable and the dizziness was still very present. It took all the willpower I had to actually finish the race…The run course felt super long too, but it’s probably because I was feeling like crap! Finally, I had the finish line in sight! I finished in 3:28. I could not longer stand up, I had to lay down, someone got me some ice and 1/2hr went by before I could stand up again…
At the awards, I found out that I won my age group! Good thing I kept going and finished!

I find it a little ironic, I had tons of great races last year where I didn’t win my age group, and for once a super super bad race translate into an age group win … it’s too weird…

In any case, this is my 9th Xterra/triathlon season and to this day, I have finished every race I started.