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Third time lucky - Xterra Portland, August 15, 2010

Thursday, September 16th, 2010

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.

Posted in Alexia Droz, Athlete Blog, Race Reports | No Comments »

XTERRA Canada Nationals aka XTERRA Whistler aka best damn trails anywhere

Saturday, September 11th, 2010

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.

View Full Album

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!

Marcus

Tags: Avia, Canada, GU, mountain biking, Nathan, triathalon, Whistler, XTERRA
Posted in Alexia Droz, Athlete Blog, Marcus Barton, Race Reports, Tim Holland, Uncategorized | No Comments »

XTERRA Panther Creek

Tuesday, August 31st, 2010

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

Tags: Racing, triathlon, XTERRA
Posted in Athlete Blog, Marcus Barton, Race Reports | No Comments »

Mama said there’d be days like these…

Sunday, August 29th, 2010

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.

I had a couple of guys from K-town with me and met up with Craig Evans, Casey Fannin and Mark Rudder from the Xterra ranks. A good crew to race with. Well, despite the clear weather report, a powerful line of thunderstorms moved through the Camp Wahsega start/finish, unleashing seemingly nonstop lightning strikes followed by booming thunder and heavy rains. The local news issued flood warnings on race morning, the result of stationary storms that were dumping as much as one inch of rain per hour on some areas. Although the electrical storms moved through well before the start of the race, steady rains remained to take their place. Thus began the 2010 Fool’s Gold saga. More of the full report from cycling news below….

http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/national-ultra-endurance-nue-series-7-fools-gold-100-ne/results

Now on to my report….The dirt around north Georgia is a red clay, which is a greasy nasty kinda dirt if you aren’t familiar with it. The first singletrack section is a fun but technical downhill that had turned into a river. Slippin and slidin all the way down. It was actually pretty dang fun to be honest. The next 15 miles or so were a mix of dirt road and singletrack and now that everything was completely drenched, the rain really didn’t matter. it actually helped to clean the bike. It was a tough slog though. The flat sections that were supposed to be fast had turned to quicksand and stream crossings that should have been a splash turned into water bottle deep. What we all didn’t realize is that red clay and minerals turns into something like sandpaper when it gets watered down and while we were all rocking and rolling through the mud, our brake pads were rapidly being ground down to nothing.

At the 30 mile mark there was a SAG stop and it looked like a block party had started. Half the 100 mile group that started first had already lost their brakes and a bunch of guys were organizing to take the road back to the start. My front brake was pretty much toast, but the rear felt good so I filled a bottle and kept moving. Some of the more technical climbs had basically become unrideable with all the water, but other than that and the previously mentioned quicksand, you could still ride hard. Descents were a bit sketchy because you had muddy water flying in your face the whole time, but it was still a blast. So I drop into one of these singletrack descents at about mile 38 and grab the rear brake. Rather than a quick deceleration, I got more speed and realized my brakes were officially 100% gone.

Now if you are from the South you may remember old Dukes of Hazard shows where they launch the General Lee off some hill or pile of dirt and the scene freezes and the narrator says something witty like, “I reckon the Duke boys gonna have trouble trying ta git outta this one”…well I had my own little scene freezer. I mean, this was a pretty flippin steep hill so I really had one option, a high speed bailout. I pulled one of these back in college riding a long board down a steep road in Boulder. I basically scoped out a bush and threw myself into it. Worked then so I called on those skills once more. I launched the bike in front of me, twisted both my feet and leaned to the right…two or three fast footsteps and then a barrel roll into the woods…worked like a charm. Popped up with no cuts and bike still in tact. That’s where the fun really began.

12 miles to go. No brakes. The rain had stopped and now the mud was as think as molasses. Climbing was a breath of fresh air, descents meant I had to get creative. Some were walks, some were peg leg rollers. Some were done alternating dragging one foot after the other. Sometimes I’d stay clipped in and grab small trees, branches, bushes…basically anything sticking out into the trail that didn’t look like it would win the tug of war with my arm. Those next 12 miles were quite possibly the longest 2 1/2 hours I’ve spent on a bike.

Finally rolled into camp at just over 6 hours and rode right up to the keg of ice cold beer so kindly offered by the race director. The Specialized Epic handled the crap conditions like a champ. Seeing as everyone’s brakes were gone, I can’t knock them for that, the bike never gave me any other problems the entire ride. Little did I know that not only my breaks, but all the bearings, hubs and entire drivetrain were also being ground to bits….but that’s a story for another time…After a dunk in the river to get the layer of crud off, we grubbed some mexican food and hit the road. Really glad I finished the race, but not exactly an experience I’d care to repeat.

Posted in Athlete Blog, Fred Smith | No Comments »

Half-Time

Thursday, August 19th, 2010

By Tim Holland

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This past weekend I took a break from the off-road scene to compete in the Lake Stevens Ironman 70.3. It is always a blast to go back to my racing roots and put some saddle time in on the road. Mountain biking is so much fun, but I love to push my body during those long consistent efforts that define road triathlons.

The weekend started on Friday when Jo drove up to Seattle while I was at work to pick up some rental wheels for the race. I used to ride Zipp wheels when I raced at school and LOVE the sound and feel of riding them, especially the full disk. Some new bar tape too and I was ready to go.

After a quick ride and run in the morning on Saturday we drove up to the race hotel for the required race brief and to get my race packet. I was a little worried about not getting there early but then found out that the transition area was individually marked, and I later found out that it wasn’t just by number but they actually put my name right where I was supposed to go That took a bit of stress out of the race knowing I didn’t have to fight the 1,499 other people doing the race for a spot in transition. After I dropped my bike off Jo and I drove the bike course real quick to get an idea of what was in store.

The course is absolutely beautiful and after driving it I couldn’t wait for the race to start so I could get out on my bike on those roads. I have noticed recently that I get that way about races, a little nervous the week before but once I get to the race site I am so excited and can’t wait for it to start. I think this has helped me a lot because instead of dreading the start and worrying about how I will do I am excited to be there and can’t wait for it to start. Luckily I didn’t have to wait too long because the race kicked off at 0630 the next morning! Some blueberry pancakes that night and I was out to get some sleep.

It was a really cool feeling being in transition well before the sun came up that day. Some people brought headlamps –write that down for next time- so they could see their stuff. I couldn’t help but laugh when thinking that since it was Sunday most people in the area probably wouldn’t be up for another 3-4 hours and all us crazy triathletes would have been out on the course for a long time by that point.

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For my pre-race warm up I went for a run a little ways on one of the legs of the run course which followed the lake and was flat for a bit. Luckily as I was out there I came across a lone porta-potty with no line. Having seen the massive lines for the few that were near the race start I was pretty excited I didn’t have to deal with that wait. By this point things just felt good and I was even more excited to get started.

The race was broken down by all the different age groups and had 14 different waves going off every four minutes. I was in the 29 and under wave and there were more people in that wave than in most races that I have done! The male 25-29 age group alone had close to 100 people!! My Profile Design Goldcell was incredible in the water and even though it was really warm I was happy to have it on. A decent swim of 32 minutes set me up pretty good for the bike.

Photo courtesy of Brightroom.com

The first few miles of the bike I settled in, ate a Gu Roctane to get some fuel and tried to get into a good rhythm. I flew by a couple people early on which really helped boost my confidence. Up until the day before the race I was pretty nervous about the bike because I had just put my aero bars on a week before. My coach did a great job of helping me to come into form in perfect time for the race. I wish I had my Cycleops Powertap with me on the ride so I could have monitored my power and so I could have seen how fast I was going for parts of the race. From all the climbing I have been doing over the past month, first training for the Mountain Championships and then spending about 10 days in California between work and a pseudo vacation, I felt really confident on the climbs and had a ton of energy for the downhill sections. The Zipp Wheels lived up to the brands motto of Speed Weaponry. A solid 2:34 for the 56 mile bike put me in good position for the run.

Photo courtesy of Brightroom.com

Ever since I got my Avia Bolts I have been really excited about doing road triathlons. Those shoes kick butt!! They are so comfortable and extraordinarily light. My legs were a little tired coming off the bike but not too bad. I had to force myself only to think of the first few miles because thinking of running 13 after the bike seems like it would take forever. I tried to take the first half a little easier so I could negative split the second half. The run course was set up in a really fun way, a two lap course that came back to the start/finish area each lap, which meant running by that area a total of 5 times. There were a ton of people there cheering all the racers on which was really cool. Jo had bought an Ironman cowbell and before the race said she would be out there with it so any time I heard the cowbell I thought it was her which helped keep me motivated to keeping pushing. Even though it was getting pretty hot I was still able to run a 1:26 which gave me a total time of 4:36. Whatever my time was I felt like I had put together a good race and was stoked about it.

Photo courtesy of Brightroom.com

After the race and after some Gu Recovery Brew I went to check the results and found that my time was good enough for 2^nd in my age group which gave me a slot to go to Clearwater Florida for the Ironman 70.3 World Championships in November. Considering it was my second race, 13^th amateur overall and 2^nd in my age group was really sweet. And to top it off Mel won the women’s race. Overall I think a good day for Melrad racing!