Battle

I ended up racing the long course at Xterra Del Valle on Sunday. For me, it was more of a battle than a race.

The venue was very nice, and I snapped a few pictures with my cell phone during my warmup.

The lake:

Looking back at start/finish from the run course:

Run course:

This was the longest triathlon that I have entered since Crested Butte in 2005. The swim is listed as 0.74 miles (1300 m). We swam two (2) laps with a short beach run in between. I definitely like the longer swim. I was able to find a rhythm and stick with it for long while. My goggles came off when I dove in for the second lap, but I got them back on quickly. No big loss. I enjoyed the swim.

The bike course was tough. Some single track, mostly fire roads with very little shade. It was 16 miles with around 3,000 feet of climbing. I had no power left to climb after the first major set of climbs. I was still rolling pretty good on the flats and rollers, but when the trail pitched up, my pace dropped off significantly. There was a lot of room for improvement in the marking and marshaling of the bike course. In particular, two spots on the bike course were confusing, and quite easy to make a wrong turn and cut the course short. The worst spot was where you turned right on the first lap to do an "inner" second loop. The second time around you were supposed to turn left. The sign was down at this intersection. The course marshal was about 100 yards ahead of the turn. From his position he could not ensure that the riders made the correct turn, and he could not sign that the sign was down. Three people that I exited the water with and battled with the whole bike course, took the wrong turn and cut the bike course short. The rider behind me remarked that half of his team also took the wrong turn.

Another bad spot was near the end of the second lap where the course come down towards the transition area, only to make a sharp left and head back up for a short climb before descending back to transition. It was really disheartening to be within sight of the transition area, but have to turn away with less than 100 yards to go. There was a marshal here, about 20 yards away from the corner yelling at riders to turn left, but he did not catch everyone. The rider in
front of me ignored the marshal and went straight back to transition.



The 5.5 mile run course felt more like an adventure race. About a mile of the course was in a creek, with some spots thigh deep in water. Then it started uphill. The total climbing in the run was over 800 feet, and it was all in one climb. There were no breaks. I did as much hiking as I did running. It was brutal. It was a beautiful run course, but brutal.




Here are the numbers:

10 of 14 finishers in age group
82 of 99 finishers overall
25:40 swim time (42nd fastest)
2:16:33 bike time (76th fastest)
1:31:50 run time (86th fastest)
4:14:03 total

Next up: bike leg on the relay team at TBF Tri for Real.

Gwen and Gary - Are you ready?