by Marcus Barton

It’s hard to believe that the XTERRA East Championship race was over A MONTH ago.  With everything going on (vacation, getting ready for XTERRA Whitewater, you name it), it’s been difficult to get this race report done.  Alas, here it is.

Dan and I headed to Richmond Saturday morning since our day jobs wouldn’t allow us to get out of town sooner.  We debated leaving Friday afternoon, but it just didn’t pan out.  After arriving, we shot straight for the course to go for a pre-ride.  We hit the XTERRA University clinic hosted by Conrad Stoltz and Melanie McQuaid.  If you haven’t hit one of these clinics at the Championship races, you’re missing out.  No matter what your skill level, you could still learn a thing or two.  Even if it’s little tips and tricks about the course, I always pick up a few nuggets.

After XTERRA University, we picked up our packets and headed out onto the course.  We rode portions of the course that were reverse from last year just to get a feel for the flow.  We bailed out on the rest of the course in order to reserve our legs for the race.

Race morning, we headed down to the transition area and began to setup.  I looked up and saw a BEAUTIFUL sunrise.

We took off on the swim in three waves.  Pros were first, men up to 39 in the second and everyone else (including me) in the last wave.  There wasn’t as much of a current in the James River this year, but that was due to less rainfall than last year.  Unfortunately, this meant a heck of a lot more climbing, crawling, and swimming over rocks.  I just couldn’t seem to get into a comfortable rhythm.  The very second I felt like I had a rhythm going, I’d hit a rock.  I’d try my best to shimmy across the rock without wasting too much time.  I decided to try and sight a little more to see if I could spot anyone having to crawl over something in front of me.  It was a futile attempt as the entire field in front of me looked like a bunch of whack-a-moles popping up and down.  We made it to the island, a quick romp across the island and back into the river for the return swim.

Coming out of the water, I felt pretty good, but still a bit frustrated that I couldn’t get a good rhythm going.  I headed for T1 as quickly as I could.  I was happy that we weren’t forced to run down the pea gravel embedded sidewalk.  There were a steady stream of swimmers coming out of the water and into T1.  This meant that I had to contend with traffic and passing during the bike leg.  My goal was to beat as many of them out of transition as I could.

T1 went fairly smoothly although I did have a bit of trouble with my shoes.  Unlike some of my brethren, I choose to put on my shoes in transition for certain races (this being one of them).  This time around, I hadn’t pre-positioned my straps properly, so it caused me a bit of time getting them on and strapped.  Like going into transition, there was a steady stream of folks coming out.  We had a short road ride before we came to the concrete bridge that crosses the river.

mmmmmm  Gloves are tasty.

Running up onto the concrete bridge and over the river, fellow 40 year old, friend, and MelRad Alumni, Frank Fernandez-Posse yells out to me from behind.  “Go, Marcus!”  Frank and I had chatted on the phone a couple of times leading up to the race.  We were both excited to be there and to duke it out a bit.  We headed over to the island where we engaged in a little fast fire road riding along with some sweet single track.  As we departed the island, Frank was still hot on my tail and passed me on the rickety wooden bridge that crosses the dryway.  He pats me on the back as he passes and says, “Come on, let’s go.”  I tucked in behind another rider he passed and the three of us headed for the stair case.

The staircase is a three-story tall, concrete, spiral staircase that we have to climb in order to cross a set of railroad tracks.  Originally designed for pedestrians, it is a bit difficult to climb it with a bike over your shoulder.  Luckily, unlike last year, we only had to climb the staircase once and did not have to descend it.  After crossing the railroad tracks, we rode some of the sweetest, fun, and technically interesting single track courses on the circuit.  With drops, tunnels, weird bridges, and some of the greatest trail maintenance I’ve seen, Richmond is just a bit different than most trail systems out there, especially for one located smack-dab in the middle of the city.  The local trail gnomes have done a tremendous job with some of the brick and stone work.  Absolutely amazing.

I continued to keep Frank, a great biker, in my sites as we rode the trails.  He maintained a good two or three rider spots ahead of me.  As we caught up with the tail-end of the first amateur wave of riders, this proved to be a little difficult.  With every person that I had to pass, it seemed he’d squeak a little bit further out of sight.  At one point, another rider and I became a little tangled up during a poor passing attempt (on my part).  I apologized profusely as I continued my Frank pursuit.  By the time I got going again, he was completely out of sight.  I searched through the switchbacks for him but just couldn’t spot him.  I had lost too much time passing and he was riding a good bike leg.  Once we arrived back onto the pavement at the end of the bike portion of the race, I had an opportunity to look straight ahead to see if I could spot him.  Nothing. 

After a horrible T2 (I was flustered and seemed disorganized with my gear), I headed out on the hot run.  While fumbling with my hat and bib (see pic below), I looked up to spot a racer off in the distance.  I couldn’t recognize the person (he was too far), but it sure looked like Frank.  The signature bald head (like mine) and the coloring of the uniform made me think it was him. I set out to try and reel the person in, regardless of who it was.

As I got closer, sure enough, it was Frank.  As I passed him, he gave me words of encouragement and I returned the favor.  He’d  been nursing an ankle injury and it surely showed up on the run (I hope it’s better by now, Frank).  I continued on to the flood wall and tried to maintain a good pace.  The heat coming off of the rocks, river and the flood wall was overwhelming.  I pulled back my pace a bit just so I could handle the heat.  After the floodwall I ascended the “Ruins” which is a staircase made of railroad ties.  Once on top of the ruins, I was really beginning to feel the affects of the heat.  The run quickly turned back to single track where I welcomed the coolness of the shaded trail and rolling terrain.

I passed one more person in my division just before we went onto the dryway, an area of large boulders and rocks.  I had asked Kahuna Dave the day before if we’d be climbing the hill on the island just after the dryway and he stated that we wouldn’t.  My strategy was to pick up my pace after the dryway and negative split all the way back. 

I picked up a rabbit just after the dryway.  Looking at his calves, he had a 45 stamped on one (which meant he was in the 45-49 division) and a permanent IronMan tattoo on the other.  Running at a pace just a little faster than I could maintain, I tucked in behind him and asked if he’d mind the company.  “Nope, let’s do it,” he replied.  I stayed right with him until I saw a red arrow pointing us up the hill on the island.  DRATS!  My whole strategy was ruined.  I had paced myself thinking that I had mile or so flat run left.  A last minute course change dictated that I’d need to quickly modify that strategy.  I didn’t have the juice or the mental capacity to attack the hilly trail on the island.  As I started to climb the island hill, both quads started to burn and cramp up.  I pushed through it the best that I could but lost my rabbit in the process.  I grunted, groaned and generally whined my way through the hilly singletrack and over to the other side of the island.  As I came out onto the flat section of the course, I could see the concrete ramp leading to the bridge back across the river.  I faintly spotted two runners ascending the ramp.  “I can catch them,” I thought.  I picked up the pace and attempted to reel them in.

Coming into the finish, I was 29 seconds off from those two guys, WHO JUST HAPPENED TO BOTH BE IN MY DIVISION!  Lesson to be learned:  Every second counts!

Final results were 7th in my Division (bleh) and 23rd overall amateur out of a field of 197 amateurs.  Due to my placement and one of the guys in my division being Canadian, I qualified to race as part of Team USA at the 2011 Cross (offroad) Triathlon World Championships to be held in Extremadura, Spain.  (yay!)

Be a Warrior!

Marcus Barton

78 degrees.  That was the temperature when Dan and I arrived at transition area for our pre-race setup at the XTERRA Southeast Championship race last weekend.  That may not sound that bad, but you have to consider that it was 5:45 AM at the time.  We knew it would be a hot race in Alabama that day.

Even though I currently reside in Charlotte, North Carolina, I was born and raised in Alabama.  My wife, Alba, is from New York city, and has taken many “back home” trips with me to Alabama.  She has created a phrase that describes hot days like that as “Alabama-hot”.  No matter where we are, if it is really hot outside, she calls it Alabama-hot.

While getting checked in, we saw the regular crew, Janet, Andrew, Jen and the rest of the bunch.  It was great seeing them all again.  We setup our transition area and set out for a quick warm up ride.  We had missed seeing the new section of the bike course during our pre-ride, so we used a portion of it for the warm up.

Heading down to the swim area, I hopped into the water about waist deep.  The water was like a hot tub.  I didn’t even bother doing a warm up swim in fear of overheating.  Instead, I decided to lay down on a cold section of grass in the shade while reviewing my game plan in my noggin.  “This is going to be a hot swim,” I thought to my self.  I think the advertised water temperature was 83 degrees.  Alabama-hot.

Before I knew it, we were on the starting line.  The infamous cannon fired and we were off in typical washing machine fashion.

More pics at the XTERRA FaceBook page.

The first lap was a bit odd.  There were two distinct groups of swimmers and somehow I ended up right between the two in open water.  It must have been where I started off the line.  I would breathe to the right and see a group of swimmers thrashing.  With a breath to the left, I would see another group.  I’d site for the buoy and no one was in front.  Very odd.  At one point, I caught a glimpse of Dan, but lost sight of him somehow in the shuffle.

Coming out of the water for the short beach run between the two 750 meter laps, I felt pretty good.  I even goofed around with someone taking pictures and gave them double hang-ten hand signs along with a big smile.  Wish I could get a copy of that photo (hint, hint).

The second lap went smooth as well.  I felt like I could have pushed the pace a little faster, but I was really concerned with overheating.  The water was just that hot.  I decided to stick to the conservative side and save it for the bike and run.  Heading into transition, after the swim, I wasn’t sure about my standings, but knew I was looking forward to the bike.

I was surprised to see so many bikes still on the racks when I arrived into T1.  With my swim, I felt my conservative pace would have put me further back in the pack, but apparently it wasn’t as slow as I’d thought.  I quickly donned my bike gear spying teammie and rackmate Jo Markaham on my way out of transition.

Man, that Lazer helmet ROCKS!

The ride on the road was short before hitting the trailhead but was long enough for me to chew on, I mean put on, my gloves while riding.  I was still breathing hard from the swim and transition when I hit the trailhead.  Once on the trail, it took a little while for me to settle into a comfortable pace and calm my breathing.

For the first portion of the course, I had someone right behind me, tagging along as I passed numerous riders.  I would call out a request to pass and would hear him say “one more,” adding to my request.  We picked off quite a few riders together and I asked him twice if he wanted to pass.  After the second time I asked, he stated I was picking some really good lines and that he wanted to just hang with me a while.  No problem.  Riding together with another rider is always more fun that riding alone.

By the time we arrived at the first fire road, we had been tailing another rider for a while.  The rider following me took the opportunity to pass the rider in front of us.  As he pulled along my side, he said, “Come on, let’s catch the guy in blue!”  I glanced down at his calf and saw he was in the 45-49 age division.  Good, not one of my competitors.

I jumped in behind him but ended up behind the blue rider.  The three of us rode up the gravel road in a mini-peloton, drafting.  As we went through the water stop manned by one busy, busy volunteer.  He handed off a cup of water to the two in front of me while running along side of us, but had nothing to give me.  Darn, if he only had three hands.  We stayed in our group until the trail turned to single track where I passed the blue rider on the next climb. 

The two of us stayed together until hitting the long fire road climb.  I let him pull away from me on the climb as I took the conservative approach.  I had completely blown up on the same climb two years ago when the heat conditions were similar.  Alabama-hot.

About half-way up the climb, I hear “abracadabra” (an inside joke between Dan and I).  “Go get ‘em!” I exclaimed as he slowly passed me.  I continued the climb and somehow lost track of where I was.  When I reached the top, I was actually a bit surprised that it was over already. 

On the first downhill I was bombing pretty good, floating across some really rough, rocky sections, just holding on and letting the bike do it’s thing when I hear what appears to sound like a spoke breaking.  You know that “ting” sound that everyone dreads to hear.  About the same time, something started going wrong with my chain.  I couldn’t quite figure it out on the fly, but it seemed like the derailleur wasn’t picking up the slack.  The only problem was, I wasn’t pedaling, so there shouldn’t be any slack to pick up.  I pulled over to give it a quick inspection and didn’t see any broken spokes or anything out of place.

For the rest of the rolling sections before Blood Rock, I continued to have the same problem.  Through trial and error, I determined that something was preventing my cassette from free-wheeling.  This resulted in anytime I attempted to coast, the cassette would continue to try and throw the chain forward.  The only way to prevent it was to pedal all the time, even on fast downhills. 

Upon diving into the Blood Rock trail, there’s a nice rocky section to jump right at the beginning.  I dove off of it flawlessly.  However, the flawed part was the speed and angle at which I went into the small turn just after the drop.  I overshot the turn and laid the bike down, jumped off and landed squarely on my feet.  I only lost a few seconds, but it disheveled me a bit mentally.   The rest of Blood Rock went smoothly and I picked good lines going through the really technical section.

Melanie coming down Blood Rock

The SWEET downhill following Blood Rock is my favorite part of the Oak Mountain trail.  It’s fast, technical and fun as heck.  Towards the bottom, I caught up with Pro, Fabiola Corona, being followed by another guy in my division.  At the same time, another 40 year old had caught up with us.  The four of us continued on the trail until we made several passes.  Next thing I knew, it was just me following one 40 year old.

Me in the back

Once we hit a pine thicket, I felt something stinging/biting me on the back.  “Ouch, what the heck is that?  Horse fly?  Ouch!” I was thinking while trying to reach it with one hand while the other was on the bars.  Not sure what it was at the moment, but it sure stung like hell.  Could it have been a yellow-jacket?  They do nest on the ground in pine straw (usually).

I continued following the 40 year old wondering what my passing strategy would be.  A half-mile or so later, I get the same stinging sensation on my left arm.  I quickly swatted the critter away and in the process, I felt that, whatever it was, was fairly large.  Too big to be a biting fly, it had to have been a horse fly or bee/wasp.  As the stinging sensation continued, I ruled out that it definitely wasn’t a horse fly.  The sensation lingered way too long.

About the time I made that conclusion, another one flew through one of the vents in my helmet and started stinging me on my forehead.  I winced.  I squinted my left eye.  I shook my head.  I tried everything I could without taking my hands off the bars in a very tight, twisty section of the trail.  When I finally had an opportunity to take my hands off the bars, I banged my helmet.  Nothing.  Knowing I couldn’t continue a Popeye ride, I loosened my helmet a bit and slid it back on my head, back and forth, until either it flew out or was squished, all without stopping my pursuit of the fellow 40 year old.  I followed him for the rest of the bike leg and passed him entering transition.

Put your right foot in and shake it all about.

I met up with Dan in transition where he quickly exclaimed, “Let’s go so we can run this together.”  I quickly transitioned and took off after him.  I inspected my noggin the best that I could.  It was swelling a little but not as bad as I would have thought for a bee sting.  Maybe it wasn’t a yellow-jacket.  Not sure, but it still hurt like hell.

We ran the entire run, each taking turns on the lead.  We picked off quite a few people early on in the run, but once we hit the hills, we found ourselves alone, for the most part.  The hills were just as tough as I remembered and even tougher given that it was hotter than at the start of the race.  Alabama-hot.

We finished side-by-side on the run.  Dan took 3rd in his division and I took 4th..

Thanks to the BUMP crew for some OUTSTANDING trails.  If you find yourself in the Birmingham / Pelham area, you should really hit these trails.  When you’re done, hit the bike wash behind the BUMP building.  While you’re at it, toss some bucks into their donation box.

Also, my hat’s off to the XTERRA crew and volunteers for putting on another great race!

Next stop: XTERRA East Championship TOMORROW!

Be a Warrior!

Marcus