Big news from GU:
Drum roll please….Watermelon Chomps are a bright NEW addition to the existing lineup of chewable GU. The watermelon flavor is subtle and very appropriate for hot weather. Or when you are dreaming of hot weather. And it’s not caffeinated - you’ll have to get your fix somewhere else but there’s still plenty of power in there to keep you going. Watermelon Chomps will be available starting October 1st!
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 Marcus Barton
I love, love, love, the outstanding, awesome, excellent, bombtastic, sweet, superb, wonderful, fabulous, magnificent, beautiful, and technical trails at Whistler!
Thank you, Melanie, for talking me into this race.
Anyone who has seen my Facebook page has already seen the tons of pictures that we took during this trip. For those of you that haven’t, I’ll share a smidgen of them here.
After a long flight from the east coast to west, we hooked up with teammate Tim Holland and took the drive up from Seattle to Whistler. What was supposed to be a 4ish hour drive turned into 6 or so with all of the traffic. There was great debate if we should have flown into Vancouver instead.
The next morning, Tim, Dan, Danny and I headed out to the trails to get a quick preview of the course. For the race, it would be a two-lap bike and pseudo-two-lap run. Our initial plans were to ride one lap of the bike and run one lap of the run course as a preview. As soon as we arrived at the trailhead, we met up with Conrad Stoltz who was on his second lap. We all dove into the trailhead and started the first climb. I tried my best to stick to Conrad’s wheel as he easily climbed up the hill (of course). He waited at the top of each climb for me to catch up after which we bombed down the descents. This happened two or three times through the first section of the course before dumping out onto pavement. What a blast.
Side-by-side, we rode up the road chatting about the course, the venue and the upcoming race. Before diving into the single-track again, Conrad stated he would ride the second lap non-stop since he stopped at each technical section on the first lap. We decided in our best interests (reserving our legs) and not to hold Conrad back, that it would be best if he went on without us. In a cloud of dust, Conrad sped up the next climb.
Rather than create a lengthy, lengthy post, let me just say that this is THE most technical XTERRA course I have raced to date. Conrad, in his blog post, said it best, “For sure the hairiest, most scary, most technical XTERRA course I’ve seen. I walked some of the most hectic sections to check them out, then get on the bike, motivate and attack. Felt the rush of adrenaline, realized I forgot to breathe. What a rush. The riding here is in a class of its own”. ‘Nuf said. Couldn’t have said it better myself. So instead of rehashing, here’s a few pics. Click on them for larger versions.
After our fun preride, we realized that we didn’t have time for the preview of the run course. Instead, we headed back to the Nita Lake Lodge to attend the Q&A with the pros and the pre-race briefing. We listened in as questions were answered by Conrad Stoltz, our own Melanie McQuaid, Danielle Kabush and Mike Vine. It was a great session and many tips were thrown out to the crowd of athletes. If you’re ever attending one of the championship races, you should definitely make it a point to attend one of these Q&A’s. I pick up something from every one of them, regardless of how many I sit through.
On to Race Day
Race morning, it was a balmy 45 degrees. Heading to the race start, we found a bit of fog and chilly air while we setup for transition.
Since I couldn’t take any C02 or Big Air on the plane, Alexia hooked me up with one of her cans of Big Air. When you buy Big Air in the store, it comes in a green can. Genuine Innovations hooked our team up with special cans, blue for the guys and pink for the girls. You guessed it. I rocked one of Alexia’s pink cans! Both Tim and I had tire-related issues on the pre-ride, so the Big Air he was carrying came in quite handy to get us riding quickly. We donned the Profile Design Gold Cell wetsuits and headed for the water.
In classic XTERRA fashion, the swim consisted of two, 750 meter laps with a short beach run between.
The bike leg was, again, a BLAST. There were some great climbs, technical, rocky drops and downhills. And just to make things even more interesting, they threw in some ladder bridges to boot. One minute, you’re doing a technical, climb, and the next, you’re going around a man-made switchback consisting of a u-shaped ladder bridge with a 10 foot drop on one side. A two-lap course, we were able to hit all of the great terrain twice, totalling around 13 miles.
The run course was equally as fun. Again, a multi-lap course totalling about 5 miles, it was a great, technical challenge. Throw in a few more bridges, log hops and a grueling climb that you had to climb TWICE and you have XTERRA Canada. Finish up the race with about 2k of road running, through a neighborhood and you finish up at the Nita Lake lodge.
My age group (40-44) was the largest age group in the race, filled with some very talented folks and a speckling of guys who used to race pro. The top 3 guys in our age group finished ahead of pro men and I managed to keep an 8th place in the division at 2:56. Full Results.
Knowing that we would want to hit more trails, we all stayed an extra couple of days to take in more hiking and biking. Alba and I decided went to the top of Whistler, saw a bear and went to Rainbow Falls. We also went to Southside Diner and had a burger with fried egg and bacon. The poutine was excellent, too.
Check out even more pictures in this album. ALSO, check out the highlight video.
Be a Warrior!
by Marcus Barton
I raced the XTERRA Panther Creek Tri back on August 1st. I know, I know. That was 4 weeks ago. After some pestering from a few of my buddies who wanted the low-down, I figured I would post it anyhow. Plus, with going into my next race, I have been thinking a lot about Panther Creek, as any racer should. What went right? What went wrong? What changes should I make to improve? You get the idea. So since it’s been on my mind lately, it does make it easier to throw it on paper. Well, uh, not really paper, but again, you get the idea.
For the second year in a row, it was a wet course. It was on and off raining in the area the 24 hours leading up to the race. I wasn’t overly nervous about it, as I had a pretty good race there last year and it was muddy as all get-out.
Fred and I had chatted a couple of times leading into the race and we hooked up on race morning to talk strategy among miscellaneous small talk. It was still on-and-off misting as you could tell from the foggy camera lens in the picture below.
Like last year, the bike course was modified slightly to prevent the racers from going through a slick boulder and bridge section. It’s a fun, fun section when it’s dry, but could be very, very sketchy when wet. Here’s a dry picture of the section that was cutout.
After getting transition all laid out and things ready for the race, Fred, Dan, and I decided to head out on the course for a little quick pre-race warmup. This also gave us an opportunity to check out the course and to see if my decision to go gloveless would work given the wet conditions. It was slick as expected with every wet root acting like a gremlin to throw your wheels out from under you. The ESI Grips worked well, even wet and even without gloves. I was pleasantly surprised as I knew that going gloveless could save me time in transition, especially if it continued to rain. Have you ever tried putting on wet gloves?
On a second lap of the section we decided to pre-ride, I opted to push things just a little too hard. Inevitably, I crashed. Not only did I crash, but I did so twice. The second time down, my decision to go without gloves bit me. While hitting the dirt, I tried to catch myself and both of my hands scraped across sharp, pea-sized gravel. The result were cuts and scrapes to both of my palms. The pic below was from post-race while cleaning the wounds. Can you imagine what they looked like bloody?
Getting back to transition, I grabbed my Bellwether Scout gloves from my transition bag and placed them in their appropriate spot. There was no way I was going through that twice. I headed down to the water for a warm-up swim. During the swim, as soon as I took off, the first couple of strokes were painful. I expected the cuts to sting, but that wasn’t the problem. The real pain came from the fact that my right palm was not only cut, but bruised quite a bit. Matter of fact, it had already begun to swell and discolor. “This is not going to be fun on the bike,” I thought. After my warmup swim and RIGHT before the race start, I ran back up to transition and swapped my Scout gloves for a pair of the Bellwether Supreme gloves. I normally reserve these for road biking because I favor full-fingered gloves on the mountain bike. My decision to use them was based up the fact that they have a padded palm. They ended up being saviors on the bike course.
The swim consisted of a 400 meter course of which we would have to two laps. On the first lap I attempted to keep a strong, fast pace to stay ahead of the main pack. I knew I couldn’t keep up with Fred’s super-fast pace, so rather than blow up trying, I just kept him in sight and settled into my own pace. I was in 6th place coming out of the water and couple of minutes behind Fred (pretty significant on such a short swim).
My transition went super smooth and I entered the trail in 4th place. I passed another racer very early in the bike which put me into 3rd. I held 3rd place for a good portion of the first (of two) laps. That’s when my friend Dan caught up to me. “Abracadabra,’ he says as he passes me. We stuck together into the second lap. About a third of the way through, I crashed again on slick roots, hitting more sharp gravel, taking a huge chunk out of my tri suit and my arse with it. I shook it off quickly and kept on trucking. About the time I caught back up to Dan, I heard Ryan Oconner behind us and I informed Dan that we had a tail. Ryan kept his pursuit and eventually passes me once the trail widened. Shortly after his pass, I tried to pick up my pace in an effort to keep on his tail. It wasn’t long before the conditions took over and I crashed, AGAIN. Same side, same area, leaving more arse on trail. This allowed both Dan and Ryan to get out of sight. I continued my pursuit to both catch the guys in front and to ward off anyone trying to catch up. As I was about to finish up the bike leg of the race, Bence Roemer catches up and takes a pass.
Sore and beat up, I entered T2 and ditched the bike gear as quickly as possible. It went pretty smooth and I went into the run in 6th place overall.
After about a mile or so of technical single-track, the run course opened up onto a gravel fire-road. I could see Bence in the distance and tried my best to reel him in. Once we entered into a lolly-pop loop section of the course, I wouldn’t see him again. Matter of fact, I didn’t see or hear anyone for the rest of the run. I spent it all alone till the end of the race.
Since the conditions were quite muddy, I was a little concerned that the Avia Avi-Stoltz shoes would get clogged up and lose grip. Only in the most extreme, greasy mud did this happen (which any shoe would have had trouble). The rest of the time, they worked like champs. I held 6th place overall and first in my age group.
Great race and good times!
Congrats to teammate Fred Smith for taking 1st place overall!!!
Full results: http://www.xterraplanet.com/races/view_results.cfm?race_id=1088
Be a Warrior!
Marcus
By Fred Smith
Man, I tell ya what, when I signed up for the Fool’s Gold 50 mile mtb race, I envisioned having a tough but good training day out in the mountains of north Georgia for about 4+ hours. I had never done a 50 miler, but I knew I’d put enough training in this year that it wouldn’t be a problem. The timing was good, it was after all of the qualifier races and right in the sweet spot for hard training leading up to the Nationals and World Championships. It was close enough that I could get there and back in 24 hours and not leave my wife with Penelope, our 7 week old, for too long on her own.