First of all, a big thanks to those of you who made it out. I know it's tough to commit to something with family and on such short notice. But in the end, it was a great weekend for camping, hanging out and especially for doing this type of event. It's something that any of you who like off-road and mountain adventure should do.
I’ll spare you all the details of how we worked on getting this together and everything that I had to do to make it happen. Suffice it to say that I now realize that a day of chainsaw work is not all that detrimental to preparing for a ½ Ironman the following week =) A big thanks to Dina, who kept encouraging me and filling in the gaps left at home during the time that I was working on this race. It actually turned out to be a great course.
Speaking of the course, I thought it was beautiful. It was also challenging, especially at that altitude. I will admit that the run was a bit long: probably about 2.5km per loop instead of the advertised 2km per loop. Throw in the forest and mountain obstacles, and that turns out to be a pretty tough addition. The bike course was not much over the 10km per loop, but some thought it was longer than it was. Again, chalk it up to the challenge and altitude. I patterned these courses after what I’ve seen at XTERRA events, and in particular, the XTERRA Indian Peaks at the Eldora Alpine and Nordic ski areas. My bike time was exactly the same, but they do say their race course is 12km per loop, if that gives any reference.
The runs took in both wide and open xc ski trails, along with some very forested terrain that serves as the snowshoe trails in the winter. It had been raining a lot in the weeks before the race, so everything was green and wet.
Running at altitude is tough and takes a lot of people by surprise. I think we triathletes are especially surprised, but that is what makes doing these types of events great. They’re different! Even though I ran a grand total of only 51+ minutes at this little event, it served me well the following weekend at the half-IM I did at the Elephant Man because it was so tough.
The bike course was also very interesting and required a variety of skills. There were never any LONG sloggy climbs, but there were plenty of tough hills and slow stretches to make it a very hard workout. The return leg on the “Northwest Passage” xc ski trail had plenty of fast and fun riding, with just enough technical challenge thrown in to make it interesting for the real mountain bikers. This was a very ride-able course and Dina even enjoyed it. That’s saying something from an arguably non-mountain biker.
The cool gray weather, wet forest and green environment made for a beautiful day of racing. I was a little bummed that we weren’t able to see Wheeler Peak out on the “Piece de Resistance” (pronounced with a French accent) trail at the far end of the course, but the low foggy clouds and cold air made for a real Pacific Northwest experience. The course and challenge was hailed (almost universally) as awesome.
That afternoon, the GetOut!NM team hosted a cyclocross clinic that actually had an impressive turnout. I was pretty psyched to see how many people were interested in the clinic and the camping. 
The next day, there were two (actually advertised as four different races) consolidated practice cyclocross races. These were a lot of fun and there were just enough guys and gals from around the state to make them interesting. We found a GREAT ‘cross course that had lots of real cyclocross elements: grass, grassy run-ups, boggy areas, really muddy corners, fast sections, wooded downhills, etc. It was a lot of fun.
I jumped in at the last second just to add to the mix. It was fast off the start with some quick-starting juniors, but the altitude probably got to them quickly and I was able to capitalize on the high concentrations of lactic acid coursing through their bodies and ended up on my own after the first lap. I worked on finding good lines and speeding up where I could, especially over the barriers. It had been a while since I’d done a ‘cross race, but I’ve done a lot of them in my life and the XTERRA racing I’ve done helped me to handle the run-ups and barrier sections. It was a blast.
Hopefully, this event will grow in popularity. We’ll likely attempt it one more time and see what kind of turn-out we get.
I jumped in at the last second just to add to the mix. It was fast off the start with some quick-starting juniors, but the altitude probably got to them quickly and I was able to capitalize on the high concentrations of lactic acid coursing through their bodies and ended up on my own after the first lap. I worked on finding good lines and speeding up where I could, especially over the barriers. It had been a while since I’d done a ‘cross race, but I’ve done a lot of them in my life and the XTERRA racing I’ve done helped me to handle the run-ups and barrier sections. It was a blast.
Hopefully, this event will grow in popularity. We’ll likely attempt it one more time and see what kind of turn-out we get.
No comments:
Post a Comment