Xterra Nationals has come and gone but the memory remains strong for me. Life seems to throw you challenges at a moment’s notice so I guess you need to learn how to roll with it or crash.

Dave and I arrived on Friday, September 23, 2011 and got in around noon. We headed to registration, got our goodies and had our race numbers put on. Gotta be careful with that wet paint on your arms while it’s drying or it will get all over your clothes if not careful!

I went and got a nice hair cut at the Paul Mitchell booth and met a really nice stylist there. Later on I learned that she was only 17 yrs old! We talked about children for some reason and how she felt pressured by her father to have them. I gave her my two cents about life and enjoying yourself before entering parenthood. She was so happy to hear my advice and thanked me.

We immediately got to our motel and were so time strapped. Dave got both bikes built in about 2hrs and we had just enough time to make it to the Night of Champions dinner. Let the stress begin! The night was awesome as usual. Dave went up to the stage area as he is an Xterra Ambassador. I was happy to win my 5th Regional Champion award. It’s such an honor for me. Each winner was given a cool maroon long sleeved shirt for recognition.  We got home about 9:00am and finished up our race prep stuff and off to bed.

The alarm goes off at 4:30am and sleep was pretty lousy as I knew it would.  Racing over the years has given me so much experience. I always make sure I get good sleep two-three days before a race. It really helps and you just don’t stress so much about it. Anxiety always creeps in and your head keeps thinking and going over things.

We head off to T-1 at 5:30ish and set up our gear. It’s dark and chilly and I was pretty cold. I did remember to bring my headlamp this year so I could see where I was going. The weeds seemed tall in the parking lot and I kinda chuckled to myself because the weeds were hitting my shins and almost to my knee. Shorty!

Everything looks good and we head off to Snowbasin and just walk over to get our T-2 set up. We even stopped and took a glance at Lance Armstrong’s shoes too as well as many others. Dave and I head in to use the bathroom and we sat on the sofa for a moment of peace. I closed my eyes and put my head on Dave’s shoulder and oddly enough, I sensed someone or something near us. I opened my eyes to see Lance Thatcher, one of my Melrad teammates taking a pic of us asleep! Very cute.

We took one of the first buses back to Pineview and it was nice and warm! We rechecked our gear and decided to go out for a warm up on our bikes. As we rode along, I started to notice that my brakes weren’t working well. We got back and Dave checked them and couldn’t fix it for me. It was time to get the wetsuits on and down to the swim start. So I literally had no rear brakes that were working and about 20% stopping power on my front. Here was when I just had to HTFU about it and worry when I got on my bike. I still had a swim to do.

SWIM: The water was warm for me and nice. It seems that I have been swimming in COLD water ever since the season started. I think Xterra Real was hovering in the low 50’s or less. Santa Cruz was cold too and lately, my master’s pool has been freezing. So upon entering the water and hearing it was around 65degrees, I was happy, happy. The start went fine and I was glad to not get swum over, kicked or hit as what usually happens. Even going around the buoys went well. I didn’t have time to think about the altitude and all since I had my bike problem. I finished the swim and headed up  to my bike.

BIKE: Lucky we start on the flat road and then climb! My brakes, well, lack of them really had me worried during the climb in Wheeler Canyon. I kept pulling on the lever but it was just squishing into my handlebar grip. Focus Meiling….focus…I kept telling myself. I managed to slow down when I needed. Even unclipped on the hairpin turns. The downhill was very exciting to say the least. I wasn’t able to go as fast as I wanted but I made it and was thrilled. Dave knows my dh skills and I knew he’d be proud of me at the moment. As I was coming towards the bridge near the end of the bike portion, a guy in front of me suddenly stopped to let me by and so I went ahead and forgot how sharp the right turn was. Of course I put on my brakes and nothing so I kept going straight, crashing over and into the creek. I landed hard on my left hip and left arm onto some rocks. The pain sunk in so fast and I was so mad. I got up, climbed out of the creek, getting my shoe all wet.

Amazing how your focus just makes you more determined. I tried to check my leg because I was worried I had a wound but didn’t. Tough doing a body check while riding a bike. I got to the end and was happy to see T-2.

RUN: My hip was hurting me from the getgo and so I just slowly jogged out of T-2. The pain was there but I just kept going. Hoping it would just go away. I was proud to get through the moment and just did what I could. Of course I had to keep asking myself, “Why me?” but that served no purpose. My goal now was to just get to the finish line and take care of my injury afterwards. Of course it was a bummer to have women in my age group pass me on the run but there was nothing I could do. I was giving it my best at that moment. What more could I ask of myself?

The run towards the end seemed so long to me. I was elated to see Big Kahuna and the finish line a few hundred yards away. I walked around to get my HR back and just needed a quite moment to myself for a quick reflection of my “challenging” day. I met my challenge and defeated it. I am proud of that.  It’s being able to deal with adversity that makes you a real champion.

I waited for Dave until he crossed the finish line before getting ice for my hip. I put the finisher’s medal over his head and he was pretty surprised about that.  We enjoyed our lunch inside and relaxed and talked about our race day adventures.

A few days later in retrospect, I told Dave that I can now officially call myself “Bad-*ss.” If I was crazy enough to do a race like this without brakes I can call myself anything I want.  Like my father would have told me as a young child when I fell down and hurt myself, he’d just tell me to deal with it. Daddy, I did just that and more! Next challenge…..Worlds!

Ok, who said that using a ski lodge is a perfect venue for a typical Xterra race? ( some sicko I think) Well, it is and this “short” course race is a real killer. Want hills? Check. Want surprises? You got it.

Being from the Bay Area and cutting costs for Dave and myself, we did our annual car trip to Running Springs, Ca. It’s about an 8hr drive from our home so we opted to leave Friday night, drive part way until we were tired and find a Motel 6 in Lost Hills. Got up the next morning and headed off. The drive itself is pretty boring except for all the crazy drivers we saw. We saw a car whiz by us only to pass an 18 wheeler on the right hand shoulder! R U kidding me???? Yes, it was a car full of teenagers probably thinking ,”hey, this could be fun…” Glad I’m beyond that age and smarter to say the least.  I’ll get my jollies on the trails thank you very much instead.

Well, we did get some more excitement by driving by this huge motorhome that was owned by Guns and Roses! As we passed by,  I gave one of the guys who was sitting in the passenger seat a thumb’s up and he winked at me! Wow…that made my day. I even had a Guns/Roses CD in the car for some odd reason.

We eventually got to the race site at about 2:30p.m. We picked up our registration goodies and were warmly welcomed by the nice volunteers there. AVIA shoes had a small booth there also. They had samples of their wonderful shoes. I must say, the AVI Stoltz are the best trail shoe for Xterra racing. I fell in love with them last year. Finally, someone came out with a lightweight and grippy trail shoe!

Dave and I went out for a short bike just to check the conditions and a run to get our legs moving.  Ate early dinner and sat around our tent and off to bed in the car! Oh, my aching back. It was an uncomfortable night with waking up about four times to use the bathroom. Thank goodness the race director  keeps the bathrooms open for the campers there. They even had a volunteer stay overnight to lock up the gates so we would be safe sleeping in the parking lot. Pretty cool I thought. 

Race morning: Got up at 6:15a.m. and weather was clear and a bit chilly. Ate breakfast and the surprise for the first-timers is the bike ride up this hill to get to T-1. It’s part of the race course and the “lake” is above the parking lot. It takes about 20min of ez riding toget there but it is hilly. What a great warm up. Of course you have to pack your swim gear up and they give you the big plastic bags to pack up your gear after your swim. They bring them down to you to T-2. I’m not fond of having two transition areas, but there really is not much they can do to change things. Move the lake?

Swim: The lake is pretty small and you rack your bike on the opposite side of the swim start so that means you get to walk around the lake too. More warming up. Water temp was in around 75degrees so many opted for no wetsuit. Not me. The swim is fairly straightforward. However, I did see a group of swimmers on the wrong side and thought what the heck? They cut the course big time if they skipped the other buoy, which is my only conclusion.

I love my wetsuit, it’s a Profile Design Gold Cell and comes off so easily!

Bike: Stuffed my swim gear into the trash bag and off to the trails. It a mix of fireroad, singletrack but was pretty dusty, loose and has it’s rocky portions so a good all around course. I did really well on the dh section this year. Mind you, in my opinion, the dh section was not for a beginner rider at all. There was a line to find but it can be sketchy for many and I whizzed thru it w/o harm.  Yay! I thought the bike course was much shorter than before but it wasn’t. I didn’t even have enough time to down my GU Roctane and before I knew it, I was heading into T-2.

Run: Yes, the run is ONLY 4 miles but it seems like 10! It’s a bit confusing as they have you traverse up/down along the ski slopes and then reach a BIG hill that I managed to jog very slowly up. You get a little rest before you meet up towards the green water tower that I call the “green monster” Here comes the crack up though, so you are in complete oxygen debt at this point and you look up towards the tower and on the side you see this guy dressed up in a Grim Reaper outfit! Oh, when you thought that you have really found hell. It made me laugh so hard. It was so clever. He even had the fork to poke us with if he wanted but he didn’t. He just told me to run faster. I got up the hill but I think a sloth would’ve beaten me. You then go down the other side to and it flattens out to the turn around but then you go back up to the tower on the other side this time! After a few more climbs, you can see the finish line. Lucky, it’s on a downhill. The two volunteers there even hold up the Xterra tape for you to cross over! All in good fun for such a tough course.

I ended up with a second place finish in my AG. It was a fun day for the most part. We all received a leather coaster with Xterra Snow Valley stamped on it. Podium peeps got handmade wooden plaques. It seemed very eco friendly there too, which is a plus. 

The long drive home was not fun at all! Thank goodness that Xterra always makes their races so very memorable and challenging.  See you next year Snow Valley!