XTERRA
It was actually more fun that I thought it would be, and by that I mean I actually enjoyed the racing instead of suffering through it, since most of these 2+ hour multi-sport things I’ve done have been suffer fests for me, cuz of that stupid run. it’s probably because I try to kill the bike a little too much, and don’t leave enough for the run.
I “think of” the bike as my strong point, but I’m starting to realize that I’m channeling too much of that thought onto the bike leg, and I go out on it trying to slaughter everyone. This comes at the expense of the “traditionally hardest” part of the event, the run. Either way, I need to get it through my thick skull, that I still never have the fastest bike split anyway.
the swim isn’t hard, once you learn how you’re supposed to swim, it’s just really uncomfortable. Everyone’s in your f’ing personal space, you’re gasping for air, swallowing water, faster swimmers swim up your ass and over you, unless you kick them in the face, it’s just an unpleasant experience. And I’m sure someone has probably pissed in my face too, w/o me realizing it, I’ll just accept that. Before I started doing tri’s I used to think swimming was fun and that I was good at it, then I started doing tri’s, and realized swimming sucked, and that I really sucked at it. I think I’ve progressed to fast midpacker, but it’s still not where my bike and run are at, and I’m not sure if I will ever get it there.
anyway the Austin xterra swim in lake Austin was “unpleasant”, mostly because my wave was about 50-strong with a very tight channel to swim through. for the first time ever (surprised it hadn’t happened before), I had my goggles punched off (another variation is to have them kicked off). Everyone sprinted out of the gate and I was run over and crowded in, even though I lined up towards the outside of start line. I got the goggles back on and was able to keep going, but in no way was I able to establish a rhythm at this point, since I’m not fast enough to sprint ahead of everyone and get out of the traffic. The first 500 meters were very shallow and walkable for about 200 meters. I decided to move over to the 2-foot deep section and just swim instead of walk, since I wasn’t walking any faster and it was tiring to my legs. After the turn-around things opened up much better, and I was able to get in my rhythm. I think I passed about 30 ppl on the way back, since a lot of ppl had spent themselves on the way out.
Finally made it out onto the beach, in fast mid-packer time, and went through transition. I’ve finally accepted the fact that my wetsuit will not get over my ankles unless I sit my ass down, so I sat my ass down as soon as I got to my bike. Still struggled with it a bit, but nothing too bad.
Ran out of transition with my bike, mounted, and sprinted out-of-the-saddle to get up to speed. I’m sure I impressed everyone, “Check out that dude, he’s slaughtering everyone. He’s going the wrong way, but he’s dropping that guy that’s following him!” I make it about 75 meters, look back and see flags down the middle of the grassy field with ppl riding it. I also noticed the poor dude that chased me out of transition and followed me the wrong way. Oh well, I jumped the curb, and got back on course.
Rode up the road climb out of Emma Long park (lake Austin), trying to keep my HR down. I always have a hard time pulling the reins back at the start of the bike leg, and I’m usually in the red for a good 5 minutes or so. Enough that I make myself want to puke. I’ve come close a few times. I’m sure it doesn’t help that my stomach is full of water (and god knows what else), my body is now up right, sort of, and my HR is 189.
The bike leg was actually rather uneventful, which is not a bad thing necessarily. I passed a lot of ppl on the road, then more on the first double-track section of the dirt. But mostly tried to pace myself as much as possible, in contrast to what I’ve done in the past. The first quarter of the course was on the turkey creek (whatever) side of city park road, and through the archery range, with the middle half on the city part motorcycle trails we all know and love and hate, and the last quarter back on the archery range side, doubling-back through a few of the sections. it was a cool course, even though I had it in the back of my mind that I might get an arrow through the thigh every time I saw a deer, hog, lion decoy littered with arrow markings. Starting on the City Park side of the course, I pretty much rode on my own the rest of the way. I think maybe I passed 3-4 more riders, but that was it. I passed everyone in my wave (30-39), except the other Barron (that’s double RR), and everyone in the 20-29 class that had started 5 minutes ahead, except for about 3-4 of them.
Towards the end of the lap, I saw Diamond Dave, and he’s like “You like my ramp?” Ramps had been built and setup for about 4 of the knarlier sections, like it or not.
Crossed back over to the archery side, tore up the downhill road and nearly decapitated myself on a telephone pole anchor at the bottom of the road. This would be right where we got back on to the grass. I don’t know what it is, but every time I see a course marshal motioning me to slow down, I take it as a challenge to go faster. It’s probably the same psychological thing in my head that drives me to speed up, to see how fast I can get up to, whenever I see one of those “Your Speed Is” signs/guns out on the road. Anyway, I kept my head, rode through the infield (correctly this time), and swerved around the ambulances that got to transition at the same time that I arrived (for a completely unrelated reason to the race, or me).
Made it in and out of transition quickly with no hitches, and headed out on the run. I hear someone call my name, and see Mr. Moya riding up to me. He rides next to me for maybe 75-100 meters, if even that, letting me know how far ahead the leaders are (I hadn’t seen another racer going the same direction I was in about 20 minutes, and I was sure I was going the right way). Anyway, we hear a honk coming from the road and some official is yelling at us (really at hector), “You can’t ride next to him, he can be disqualified for that!”, or something to that effect. So we say our goodbyes and that’s that.
I knew the run course was going to be really hard, so I just settled into a tempo run. After about 800 meters we have to climb up this stupid-steep cliff-side. there’s a trail there, but you literally had to get on all fours to climb up some of the stuff. Lots of ppl snapping pics there of the climbing fools. I complain, but I liked it. Got to the top and most of the first mile and half of the course is very twisty and I can’t settle into a good running rhythm. Finally get out on some of the open stuff and settle into a good pace. There were 4 water/aid stations, which was great, I made a point to pour water over my head at everyone of them, since it was getting a lot hotter. I basically run the whole thing on my own, but I keep thinking that I’m gonna blow up, since I’ve recently been exploding during my runs in the last couple of tri’s I have done. Either way, it’s mostly downhill on the way back, and I was able to pick up the pace a bit. Navigating was a bit confusing, since the trail wasn’t necessarily “cut” in certain sections, it was only flagged. I did go straight through the woods at one point, and had to come back to find out where I was supposed to go, but it didn’t cost me much more than 30 seconds or so. From that point on, I just made it a point to look very closely for the red flags.
As I got back to the cliff, I initially missed it, but a course marshal was close by and alerted me to it. It was kind of cool, because they had it roped off, with a rope down the middle that you could use to semi-rappel down it.
Made it all the way down, back into park, and was feeling really good at this time, so basically ran/sprinted in the last 300 meters or so. I knew I was racing against guys that had started ahead of me, so I gave it everything.
Wound up 4th overall, 2nd in my wave, and 1st in my age group, so I was happy. There was also pizza and beer at the finish pavilion, neither of which I had had in over a month (since my last Thumper Thursday). It was good. To top it off, the awards were English pint glasses (that’s 20 ounces!), which I happily filled. Damned enablers.
It was a really well run event, kudos to Mike Carter and Doug H. and everyone of their volunteers. There’s actually some hope (slim chance, but it’s there) that we’ll get to keep some of the new trails, but that’s a very big maybe since it’s on golden-cheeked warbler nesting grounds.
I “think of” the bike as my strong point, but I’m starting to realize that I’m channeling too much of that thought onto the bike leg, and I go out on it trying to slaughter everyone. This comes at the expense of the “traditionally hardest” part of the event, the run. Either way, I need to get it through my thick skull, that I still never have the fastest bike split anyway.
the swim isn’t hard, once you learn how you’re supposed to swim, it’s just really uncomfortable. Everyone’s in your f’ing personal space, you’re gasping for air, swallowing water, faster swimmers swim up your ass and over you, unless you kick them in the face, it’s just an unpleasant experience. And I’m sure someone has probably pissed in my face too, w/o me realizing it, I’ll just accept that. Before I started doing tri’s I used to think swimming was fun and that I was good at it, then I started doing tri’s, and realized swimming sucked, and that I really sucked at it. I think I’ve progressed to fast midpacker, but it’s still not where my bike and run are at, and I’m not sure if I will ever get it there.
anyway the Austin xterra swim in lake Austin was “unpleasant”, mostly because my wave was about 50-strong with a very tight channel to swim through. for the first time ever (surprised it hadn’t happened before), I had my goggles punched off (another variation is to have them kicked off). Everyone sprinted out of the gate and I was run over and crowded in, even though I lined up towards the outside of start line. I got the goggles back on and was able to keep going, but in no way was I able to establish a rhythm at this point, since I’m not fast enough to sprint ahead of everyone and get out of the traffic. The first 500 meters were very shallow and walkable for about 200 meters. I decided to move over to the 2-foot deep section and just swim instead of walk, since I wasn’t walking any faster and it was tiring to my legs. After the turn-around things opened up much better, and I was able to get in my rhythm. I think I passed about 30 ppl on the way back, since a lot of ppl had spent themselves on the way out.
Finally made it out onto the beach, in fast mid-packer time, and went through transition. I’ve finally accepted the fact that my wetsuit will not get over my ankles unless I sit my ass down, so I sat my ass down as soon as I got to my bike. Still struggled with it a bit, but nothing too bad.
Ran out of transition with my bike, mounted, and sprinted out-of-the-saddle to get up to speed. I’m sure I impressed everyone, “Check out that dude, he’s slaughtering everyone. He’s going the wrong way, but he’s dropping that guy that’s following him!” I make it about 75 meters, look back and see flags down the middle of the grassy field with ppl riding it. I also noticed the poor dude that chased me out of transition and followed me the wrong way. Oh well, I jumped the curb, and got back on course.
Rode up the road climb out of Emma Long park (lake Austin), trying to keep my HR down. I always have a hard time pulling the reins back at the start of the bike leg, and I’m usually in the red for a good 5 minutes or so. Enough that I make myself want to puke. I’ve come close a few times. I’m sure it doesn’t help that my stomach is full of water (and god knows what else), my body is now up right, sort of, and my HR is 189.
The bike leg was actually rather uneventful, which is not a bad thing necessarily. I passed a lot of ppl on the road, then more on the first double-track section of the dirt. But mostly tried to pace myself as much as possible, in contrast to what I’ve done in the past. The first quarter of the course was on the turkey creek (whatever) side of city park road, and through the archery range, with the middle half on the city part motorcycle trails we all know and love and hate, and the last quarter back on the archery range side, doubling-back through a few of the sections. it was a cool course, even though I had it in the back of my mind that I might get an arrow through the thigh every time I saw a deer, hog, lion decoy littered with arrow markings. Starting on the City Park side of the course, I pretty much rode on my own the rest of the way. I think maybe I passed 3-4 more riders, but that was it. I passed everyone in my wave (30-39), except the other Barron (that’s double RR), and everyone in the 20-29 class that had started 5 minutes ahead, except for about 3-4 of them.
Towards the end of the lap, I saw Diamond Dave, and he’s like “You like my ramp?” Ramps had been built and setup for about 4 of the knarlier sections, like it or not.
Crossed back over to the archery side, tore up the downhill road and nearly decapitated myself on a telephone pole anchor at the bottom of the road. This would be right where we got back on to the grass. I don’t know what it is, but every time I see a course marshal motioning me to slow down, I take it as a challenge to go faster. It’s probably the same psychological thing in my head that drives me to speed up, to see how fast I can get up to, whenever I see one of those “Your Speed Is” signs/guns out on the road. Anyway, I kept my head, rode through the infield (correctly this time), and swerved around the ambulances that got to transition at the same time that I arrived (for a completely unrelated reason to the race, or me).
Made it in and out of transition quickly with no hitches, and headed out on the run. I hear someone call my name, and see Mr. Moya riding up to me. He rides next to me for maybe 75-100 meters, if even that, letting me know how far ahead the leaders are (I hadn’t seen another racer going the same direction I was in about 20 minutes, and I was sure I was going the right way). Anyway, we hear a honk coming from the road and some official is yelling at us (really at hector), “You can’t ride next to him, he can be disqualified for that!”, or something to that effect. So we say our goodbyes and that’s that.
I knew the run course was going to be really hard, so I just settled into a tempo run. After about 800 meters we have to climb up this stupid-steep cliff-side. there’s a trail there, but you literally had to get on all fours to climb up some of the stuff. Lots of ppl snapping pics there of the climbing fools. I complain, but I liked it. Got to the top and most of the first mile and half of the course is very twisty and I can’t settle into a good running rhythm. Finally get out on some of the open stuff and settle into a good pace. There were 4 water/aid stations, which was great, I made a point to pour water over my head at everyone of them, since it was getting a lot hotter. I basically run the whole thing on my own, but I keep thinking that I’m gonna blow up, since I’ve recently been exploding during my runs in the last couple of tri’s I have done. Either way, it’s mostly downhill on the way back, and I was able to pick up the pace a bit. Navigating was a bit confusing, since the trail wasn’t necessarily “cut” in certain sections, it was only flagged. I did go straight through the woods at one point, and had to come back to find out where I was supposed to go, but it didn’t cost me much more than 30 seconds or so. From that point on, I just made it a point to look very closely for the red flags.
As I got back to the cliff, I initially missed it, but a course marshal was close by and alerted me to it. It was kind of cool, because they had it roped off, with a rope down the middle that you could use to semi-rappel down it.
Made it all the way down, back into park, and was feeling really good at this time, so basically ran/sprinted in the last 300 meters or so. I knew I was racing against guys that had started ahead of me, so I gave it everything.
Wound up 4th overall, 2nd in my wave, and 1st in my age group, so I was happy. There was also pizza and beer at the finish pavilion, neither of which I had had in over a month (since my last Thumper Thursday). It was good. To top it off, the awards were English pint glasses (that’s 20 ounces!), which I happily filled. Damned enablers.
It was a really well run event, kudos to Mike Carter and Doug H. and everyone of their volunteers. There’s actually some hope (slim chance, but it’s there) that we’ll get to keep some of the new trails, but that’s a very big maybe since it’s on golden-cheeked warbler nesting grounds.
posted by Sangulo at 12:33 PM
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