XTERRA Buffalo Creek Race Report

Hi all,
Hope the season is going well for all of you. Word has it that Dan Rees nailed his IMCD and is a probable qualifier for Kona, again! Congratulations Dan. It was a PR for him on that course by quite a bit, so he's proving that sticking with this sport pays off over the long haul.

Speaking of long haul, Laury Goddard and I (and Kim Katko & family), made the long haul up to Bailey, Colorado for the Buffalo Creek XTERRA. Bailey is mostly a tourist trap hole in the road on US Hwy 285 between Denver and Fairplay (a.k.a. "South Park," for all of you fans out there). The venue is at Wellington Lake, a 45 minute drive on a dirt road off of US 285. It is a lovely setting for a race, as well as just hanging out and camping with the family, or whatever. Lots of great campsites can be found, and that's almost a prerequisite if you want to do this race. It's even included with the race entry fee if you choose to do so.

Dr. Goddard and I hauled up there Friday morning, because neither of us had ever seen the venue and with XTERRA, you want to check out the bike course. Unfortunately, the course was too long to go see the whole thing after driving all that way, so we just focused on the very sketchy 3 mile decent along Buffalo Creek itself, on a forest road that consisted of a hard-packed surface transversed by deep drainage trenches (mostly in the turns) and covered in ball-bearing-like eroded crushed granite. It sounds worse than it was, but a lot of care had to be taken on the descent to avoid skittering off the road into the mountainside, or off on the steep slope down to Buffalo Creek.

Friday was nice, but we woke up to a dark, grey day on Saturday morning. We had camped out, so we didn't really have to go far to the venue, which was very nice. We ate breakfast looking out over the lake and wondered what the weather held in store.

The lake is a mountain lake that had only "warmed up" in the last month or so. I loved all of the "ice fishing" signs all over the lakesides. I gathered that the lake temperature was somewhere in the 50s and there were some complaints, but I've done it before and it doesn't seem to bother me too much, although I did get an ice cream headache from it a little bit.

This is the biggest XTERRA race in the world, second only to the world championships at Maui. It was pretty big, that's for sure. I was in a huge wave of guys aged 25-39, plus relays. We watched the pros take off, and they had us all walk out to the edge of the lake in a cove, and I waited for the countdown. Well, there was no countdown or warning of any sort and the guy just sounded a horn and I soon found myself running into the lake with no goggles on. I had them in my hand and had to stop and put them on only after figuring out what had happened after having run and jumped in and actually swam with them in my hand for several strokes. Too much race-start horn response conditioning! What an IDIOT! I was treading water and getting run over and hit and etc., etc., by the whole wave of men 25-39, plus relays, while trying to put the goggles on straight and not be leaky. It was a panicked moment, and to say the least, I didn't do a very good job. I had goggles on crooked and they were half-full (is that pessimistic, or optimistic if used this way?) of water. That sucked. I was SO uncomfortable and distracted and now over-extending myself on the swim to just get going. I finally stopped a little later and dumped out the water and put them on straight, but the damage was done. I had some ground to make up.

I swam steady and tried to focus on getting it together, then I finally got into my rhythm and started to catch the "front group" a little. It was mostly stragglers coming off of it, but I felt like I was back into the race. Unfortunately, the screwed up start made my goggles get all fogged up and with the dark, grey conditions, it wasn't long before I couldn't see a darn thing...just grey darkness. I really had to pull my head out of the water to make out swimmers ahead of me or the buoy on shore. I just focused on swimming straight and smoothly and begged for the end to come quickly to that fiasco. I swam the one-mile swim in 24:40, which turned out to be not so bad, but was a good 2 minutes off of what I should have done, which would have been a very decent swim.

Once out, it was time for the mtn bike adventure. This course is pretty long at 20 miles. I only saw the early parts of the course and realized we were going to be in a lot of big terrain changes. I didn't want to overdo it, but was smarting from the rocky swim, so I sort of hit it pretty hard. My legs felt heavy and I had guys breathing down my neck on the previous-mentioned 3 mile decent. That always makes me nervous. I prefer to do stuff like that alone, but I would never have that luxury in this very popular and competitive race. The whole day was spent either catching guys, getting caught by guys, or trying to stay with those guys.

At the bottom of the climb, I found myself with a cluster of fast mtn bikers. I tried like hell to stay with them. I did OK at first, but when the climbing got technical, the heavy feeling was too much. My back started getting achy very early and it affected me all day. I did pretty well to ignore it mostly, but it was always there and I know it took a bit of the frosting off my cake all day. I was riding a dual suspension bike because I figured the course would be a tough one, but I think I would have rather had a much lighter hard-tail because I seemed to have more trouble on the climbs than the descents on this course, and everyone around me all had much lighter rigs. Mine is a hand-me-down from Paul Graham, who is now riding something lighter for that very reason. I admit I want to blame that quite a bit, but it was probably mostly my go-jo that seemed to be missing that day. It wasn't an awful day, but I'd say that I wasn't 100%, or even in the range of an "A" grade.

I also made quite a number of technical errors on that course. It had quite a bit of everything, and the single track had some particular challenges when racing at full speed. I was always behind some guys who were pushing me well past my comfort zone and I focused too hard on staying with them and not enough on what was coming up. At one point, we went into a stand of trees on a steep descent, where there was a stream crossing and a very steep ascent up the other side. I didn't shift in time and found myself WAY over-geared and had to dismount and run up a long hill, all the while getting passed by those who were breathing down my neck just moments ago. Plus, I must have pulled my wheel in the dropouts, because the disk brakes were rubbing badly and the shifting was all messed up. I rode like that for quite a distance while debating on whether I should pull over, lose more spots, and try to fix it. The annoyance got the best of me, so I pulled over and fixed it. It wasn't as bad as I had figured and I was soon off and riding much better. I was quickly getting disappointed in my race, however.

At times like that, you just have to suck it up and focus on improving your situation. I started focusing more on smoother transitions in and out of technical spots, climbing more smoothly, and having fun, dang it! Sure enough, I began to get my act together and felt like I was riding better and during one particularly cool long section of single track, I smiled at how much fun it all was. I got through the final long single track climb (where we met up with the short course racers), got back onto the dirt road and hit the 3 mile climb that we descended early in the race.

It was here that I felt like I was riding a heavy lead bike, but kept myself smooth and made it over in good shape. A guy who had passed me early in the race, but had suffered a pretty heinous crash (and scared the crap out of me because I nearly ran over his head) came flying by me over the top and I grabbed his wheel (drafted, cause it's legal in XTERRA =) and rode really hard into T2.

I was surprised by my T2 quickness. That's usually an indication of how into the race you are and how you might go on the run. But, it was too early to tell because the early part of this run was up a steep mountain trail. It just felt horrible and my upper body went numb. It took a lot out of me to get to the top and I had let two guys pass me early with no response. At the top, the trail started going down steep, off-camber hills, right back into steep uphills. This went on for some time before we hit a very steep downhill to the base of a nice waterfall. At the bottom, we zigged and zagged through thick forest and scrambled through creeks and over little log bridges, making direction changes every few feet. It was tough running, but I started feeling good again and was having fun.

The trail portion was a little less than half of the run. We exited the trail onto the forest road that circumnavigated the lake. It was here that I suddenly felt my run get under me, despite having some cramping in my quads and hamstrings. I used a little less range of motion and a higher turnover and started picking off guys left and right. I noticed a very tiny racer just ahead and realized it was a chick! I was confused but soon remembered that the pros started ahead and some of them were women. It turns out that this was Sara Tarkington, the woman who eventually won the overall. She was quite a runner and it took a second wind and some digging to catch up to her.

I tried to pass her, but she was having none of it and latched onto another guy who surged ahead. I couldn't respond and a gap formed. A storm was building ahead of us and the cool, moist wind was in our faces. Sarah and the other guy lost steam and I caught back up. I found my rhythm again with a couple of miles to go and just held it steady on their heels. Our little group of three (I rarely race in such close quarters with others like this) were picking off all of the fast mtn bikers who could no longer run fast. It was a LOT of fun and I was impressed with this tiny woman's running speed and toughness.

Nearing the end of the dirt road before we descended a short hill to the lakeshore and final stretch to the finish, we passed a guy with his age, 38, on his leg (I'm in the 35-39 AG). I didn't think anything of it, but he made a gasping stuttered, "Uh, uh...," noise, then said, "...that's not good." The guy had been holding 3rd in our age group until our little group, with me in tow, went flying past him. He tried for a few moments to hang onto us, but couldn't quite do it. We started picking up steam into the finish and he fell off a little bit more. I realized at the very end that I had worked my way back into the top-3 of my age group. I finished with the first place pro women and the other guy who had started off a little slow, but obviously picked it up the whole way to the finish, pretty much like I did.

Right when I finished, it started raining. Laury was still out there and had to contend with the worsening weather. He got done and went straight to the car to change and get warm. We waited around for the awards, where we found out that Kim Katko had picked up 2nd OVERALL in the women's short course race...way to go, Kim!

Laury and I hit the road in a pouring rain. It rained all the way back to the Arkansas valley. We stopped in Salida for dinner and were hit by a mob of people...it was the FibARK freak festival (river rafting and lots of other stuff) weekend. No parking, hard to get around, etc. We settled on an out of the way cafe, where the food was pretty good.

It was a great trip and a very fun, if not tough, race. Lots of racers in Colorado! It's just amazing how many of them there are and how many other events there are on any given weekend there.

If you're inclined to do an XTERRA, this one is cool, but be ready for a tough, longer course. They have the short course option too, so that would be a good start. I recommend the race for sure...