We took the camper and camped the first night at El Malpais Nat'l Monument (very cool place and worth a trip there on its own). Then we went to the race venue at Fool's Hollow Lake in Show Low, but missed getting the very last spot by about 20 minutes...luckily, I had a sneaky backup plan that had us camping right outside the park on a dirt road, but within range of riding to the races each day...very sneaky indeed. The camping near the lake is fantastic.
I have to apologize that I didn't take ONE SINGLE photo of Dina racing. I never even thought to pull out the camera because I had Mila in tow and she needed to eat, sleep, play, eat again, get her diaper changed, and we worked hard on being at the right place on the course for cheering when Dina came in from each leg.
(late update: Dan Rees graciously sent me some pictures he took of Dina during the run leg of her race...thanks to Dan for saving me on that one)
Like I said before, Dina has had a very rough spring with nagging injuries, colds and other strange viruses, so this was going to be interesting. She didn't get to train a single time between Jay Benson and the Deuces Wild Olympic...whoa!
She managed just fine and paced herself after taking off very aggro in the swim and realizing her body wasn't quite ready for that. She backed off and swam steady, then biked steady into T-2 for an unknown run leg. She wasn't sure she would be able to finish, but she did with smiles and laughs to spare. I was amazed at her spirit and ability to push on and do quite well. She did the whole thing in something like 3:16...it's a hilly course and not fast for an Olympic.
A couple of comments on Dina's race: although she got a little nervous beforehand because it is a race, she didn't let it get to her too much even though she was going into a pretty competitive race with virtually NO training. I was impressed. She started out pretty hard, but realized that wasn't the right thing to do and backed off to a level she could sustain and had fun the rest of the race. She stopped to kiss Mila a couple of times, play games with Ben and John Rees (and nearly miss a timing mat in the process), etc. She still ended up 3rd in the Athena category.
On Sunday, the XTERRA went pretty well for me and I'm overall satisfied. I can't really complain, but did have a couple of minor problems.After Dina's race on Saturday, I attempted to get out on the mtn bike for a quick ride around the bike course, but they're having early monsoons there too and I got hit by a nasty fierce storm at the top of the long, broad dome mountain that we have to climb to the top of in the race. With the lightning and hail, I had to act fast and hoof it back down the way I went up in the sloppy mud and cold, driving rain. It screwed up my bike a little bit and my brakes were rubbing pretty badly for some reason when I got back to the camper. I tried to fix them later, but it didn't seem like I was 100% successful (dang disk brakes!). I didn't worry too much about it since they often sort themselves out magically once you use them a few times on a ride.
The next morning dawned chilly and we were to the race venue with baby Mila by 6AM...way to go Mommy! I didn't have too much to worry about and even got in a good little warmup. I checked the disk brakes again and they were rubbing a little but I had hope they wouldn't hamper my speed too much.
I got enough warmup for the swim and started in the front, and when the gun went off, I hit it hard right in the scrum. I hate those aggressive swim starts, but I wanted to get out in front quickly to avoid being too far back on the mtn bike single track (passing is not so easy in mtn biking). I was quickly engulfed by the idiots and hit in the head and pushed down, so I backed off to the second line. Soon, most of those clown blew up and I found some open water in front, but could still see swimmers ahead of me, so I had no idea what place I was. I got into a very good rhythm and knew it was a good swim when I exited the water. I felt good going up the ramp to the wetsuit strippers, but they botched the strip job and it took probably 30 seconds longer than it should have. Some guys passed me in transition and I would have to work to catch them.
Out on the bike, I was feeling good. But I soon realized that my brakes were scrubbing my speed somewhat and I was getting caught by a few guys who would not normally ride up to me like that. I struggled on the early shallow climbs in the woods until it got steeper. I tried to just dug a little deeper to stay with a couple of guys that I just couldn't let go. It was a little frustrating, but I figured it might not matter on the downhill side of the mountain.
We soon got a little higher on the mountain where the rain fell the hardest and the mud was DEEP and sticky. It is that structural mud that makes fine adobe, and that's exactly what happened on our bikes. It stuck to everything and we were all soon pedaling 50 lbs+ bikes up that steep hill. We would loose 2/3 of our pedal power to slippage, and it began to be a battle of survival. Guys were clogging up everywhere and falling down and just mentally losing it. It was a little comical, but not so much when we were "in the thick of it." I knew the course just got steeper and steeper at that point, so I found a very low gear, let it skip out for a minute or two until the chain wore through the mud and just kept it there. I was a good strategy and I began to catch and pass those guys who had passed me not long before. I kept riding, to my amazement, while they were all forced to push and/or pull their mud-laden bikes up the ever-steepening gradient. We soon hit the upper stretches where there were rocks mixed in with the mud, and that made it interesting because the sticky mud would pick up the rocks and lodge them tightly between wheels and brakes, or wheels and frame. It finally caught up to me too (at one point, I think I was the only one still actually on my bike) and I was stopped dead in my tracks and fell over onto another guy who was pushing his bike at almost the same speed as me -- my cleats were all clogged up and wouldn't unclip from the pedals. So, I had to push a bit, but the really rocky section saved me because the mud cleared enough to get back on and ride the rest of the way to the top, where I figured I was back in the top-5 to 10 spots and now motoring with a lot more gusto.
I hit the nasty descent and never looked back. I knew that everyone else were now having at least as much trouble with their bikes as I had been, so I made hay while I had the chance. I pushed the limits on the very slick, muddy descents and used my brakes very little. We got to an intersection of muddy trail with muddy road and the people said we were about 3 minutes behind the leaders and we're in about 5th, 6th, 7th...that was good news.
The rest of the bike went well and I ended up with the 7th fastest bike split and in about 7th place (that's not always the case). I never felt bad on the bike, whereas last year, I felt a little crapped out by the final steep climb before the last descent into T-2, so I was happy going into the run.
I had a much better T-2 and hit the road in 7th/8th. I love it when you begin to feel your running legs early in a race. I had 6th place in my sights pretty early and ran him down before the course got really technical.
XTERRAs are weird. The course designers are encouraged to throw a lot of obstacles in your way, and that's what they do at this XTERRA. Much of the run is standard off-road running, but at one point, we had to run down a nasty slick rocky hill to the bottom of a lake spillway wash with huge boulders (imagine running across the Cochiti Lake dam), then back up a long, nearly verticle hill. That was at mile #1! That cracks your legs for the rest of the race and you never fully recover from it. I did better than last year and got my speed back up. I began to see a couple of guys ahead, but one guy that I entered T-2 just behind was just killing it and he was pulling away, despite my good run feelings. I saw the guys he was catching and figured I might if I really pushed it, so I did.
Way out on the far end, there's an out-and-back on a jeep road, and that's the first time we got to see where we were. I was in 6th, with 4th and 5th clearly not running as fast as I was, but still quite a ways ahead. Oddly, I thought 2nd looked a little slow too, but too far ahead for this late in the race. I pushed it hard and hoped 4th and 5th would crack. I got my wish with 5th...he died just enough, but 4th held tough.
Again, we had to descend a loose rocky slope to swampy islet of the lake and they made us run right through the lake...not as badly as last year, where it was chest deep and I was forced to actually swim. This time, it was only up the thigh depth and I elected to stay on my feet. Beyond that, it's another steep uphill trudge, now with totally squishy wet feet. Just before getting on the final stretches of the lake bike path and the final paved finishing stretch, they took us down into another swamp, where I got a little lost but have Dina's cheering to thank for helping me navigate to the correct place to climb back up to the lake path.
At that final point, I turned it on with what I had, but felt a knarly hamstring cramp forming and had to back off, so I never quite caught the 4th place guy, who had had a great bike ride.
So, it was 5th overall and I was happy. We all had a lot of war stories to share with each other.
Dina and I noticed how the Arizona tri scene is quite different from ours. These guys all have these entourage "posses" of other people who do everything for them and blow smoke up their butts and just hang out with these guys. They all have fancy haircuts and cars and clothes and what the heck is that all about?
So, it was a fun trip. Now we're off to the Milkman this weekend.
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