Buffalo Creek XTerra Short Course Triathlon

The XTerra race went much better than I was expecting. Sat morning I got up with Chris at 6:05 (he was volunteering at 6:30), had some coffee, set up my transition area, and then ate a breakfast of banana, oatmeal w/ a little peanut butter at 7:30. Then I had some time to kill so I actually worked on my thesis at our campsite - lame!!



I ran for about 10 minutes as a warmup, and then my group got started at about 10:00. I was starting with about 65 women. The swim felt really great. I think all the open water practicing has paid off. I felt really confident in my sighting and was in the front 10 of my group most of the time. For a bit I found a girl to draft off, and then we were running into the men (who started about 5 minutes before us!), so I went around her. I got out of the water at 14:16 (a little over 800 m so I guess that is around 1:45 per 100 m which is fine with me!).

Trying to find the cord to get this darned thing off.

Heading out on the bike - the scenery was great!

The transition went pretty well except 1. it is hard to get the wetsuit off, and 2. it was hard to get my bike out from under the rack. The mountain bike course was almost all on dirt roads but that didn't make it easy! After about a mile we went down a decent sized hill for 1 mile that was filled with ruts and potholes. It was tricky and you definitely had to watch your speed. A little bit after the hill I passed a girl in my age group. Then we went onto a single track that was sandy and steadily uphill. It was tough but not technical. I passed a decent amount of people here and also got passed by some folks. Didn't see anyone else in my age group here. Then it was back to that hill and it was killer on the way up!! I mostly got passed on the hill, including by a few women in different age groups, except one guy who was walking his bike and I was really tempted to join him. I got back to the transition zone in about 1:06. I was exhausted!

I forgot to take off my gloves and camelback leaving the transition zone, so I ditched them at a trail junction. It was hot but there were kids along the run with water guns - that was really nice! At this point I had caught back up to two women and we were running close together for the first part of the run - which was on a trail w/ some pretty steep sections. There was a lot of walking! My legs were really tired. Even the downhills felt hard b/c I was worried my legs might give out. I passed one of the other women and the other one got pretty far ahead of me. Also another woman came flying by and I was really impressed! It's nice because most of the time the women I passed/who passed me are really encouraging of each other. Finally we got onto level ground for the last mile or so of the run. There was a woman not too far in front of me but I didn't have it in me and didn't see the point in chasing her down.

Smiling at the finish line - that's a good sign.

I crossed the finish line in 1:45 and felt very good about my race. The 2.5 mile run took me 20:43, which is a little over 8 minute miles. Not bad considering all the walking. I think this might be the hardest triathlon I've done (maybe with the exception of my first). Amazingly my heart rate monitor said I burned 1415 calories! I was definitely pushing it a lot of the time, especially on the bike. But it was also pretty fun, and nice to be by myself in the woods every now and then instead of just on the side of a road. I might have to do more of these XTerra races :). The first place woman finished in 1:32 - her bike time was 52 minutes. Wow! I was the 9th woman and actually won my age group (out of 11 women)! I've never won in a tri, so that was really exciting! Plus I definitely wasn't expecting it. Chris took some credit because he threatened me to not lose before the race ;).

There was also a full length race that was twice as long as mine - I am really glad I didn't do that one! It would have been extremely hard. There were a few pro triathletes racing and so it was cool to watch them fly by me (I got passed by the two leading men on the hill from hell and they made it look easy). Anyway, I won a 3 month personalized coaching deal from an endurance sports group in Denver, so that's pretty exciting. I'm not sure when I'll use it - maybe it will be good to put toward a half-ironman training?? Part of the package is VO2 max/lactate threshold testing, which I've always wanted to have done so I hope it works out!

Oh, the other big accomplishment of the day is I didn't crash!! :)
Perfect way to recover - a beer and a hammock.