Thru Endurance We Conquer!

For the 4th race in the US Championship series, the Xterra tribe traveled to Oak Mountain State Park in Pelham, AL. With a great lake swim, an awesome bike course and a new run this year, this is one of the best stops on the Championship tour. Add in the good old Southern hospitality all the athletes enjoyed and that makes the South East Championship a do not miss race. Melanie took the win in 2:39:58, followed closely by Shonny and Renata. Christine and Emma rounded out the top five. I finished 8th for the second year in a row, but felt like I had a solid race. My swim is back to where it should be, my bike was strong and I mostly stayed upright and the run was better then expected given the calf injury. I'm starting to feel like my fitness and race-readiness is coming back. Now to start looking ahead towards my next Xterra at Beaver Creek!

And staying on the trail this time! I picked up Honey Stinger athlete Pat V from the airport on Friday and we headed down to the park to pre-ride the course and maybe check out the new run course. This was Pat's first time in Alabama and he was looking forward to riding. I just wanted to put in a clean ride and stay upright! After picking up packets and saying hello to the Xterra gang, it was time to hit the trails. I really love the trails here at Oak Mountain - not quite as twisty as the Waco course, but plenty of sweeping corners and challenging rock gardens. And exposed bridges as I found out on Thursday! The course is easily divided into a few sections - the first one a rolling section filled with roots and rocks, then second offering more gradual climbing with bridges and rock gardens, then the long double track climb up to Blood Rock. After the climb, it's the descent over Blood Rock and back down to lake level, and finally another rolling and twisty segment leading back...

Finally in Alabama and it's time to start thinking about the race on Sunday. I headed over to Oak Mountain State Park to review the bike course today, then get a swim in. All I have to say was that today was not my day. I was scattered loading everything into my car, distracted when getting ready to ride and my bike sounded like one of the many I'd seen strapped to the roofs of cars and RVs during the drive. I should have lubed the chain at least before heading off. I started out, already cranky because of the noise. Then I hit the single track and most of my crankiness went away. I was having a good time, riding comfortably through the trees. Didn't quite feel like I had the best flow on the course, but still felt okay. Then I saw a guy in the middle of the trail, waving at me to slow down or stop. A huge rat snake was snoozing on the trail and didn't really want to move out of the way. I took a few pictures, then the guy moved the snake off the trail. I think it was t...

Or freezing my tail off at the Chatfield gravel pond! Despite some gloomy clouds and cold temps, Megan and I braved the 53 degree water at the pond to get a good open water swim in last Saturday. The air was colder then the water, so there were not that many other swimmers. I decided that the quick immersion was the way to go. Megan said there was a bit of a squeak when I came up for air. She had a few choice words upon getting in the water herself. But once we got in and everything went numb it was fun swim. We worked on some basics like sighting and some race stuff like starts, surging and drafting. Everything was good. The water was the cleanest and clearest I have seen. Then it came time to get out. Torture! Since the air was so much colder then the water there was no warming up at all. Trying to get a wetsuit off with numb hands and no body glide was quite the challenge. And changing for our run was even harder. I had to tie Megan's shoes for her and I am not sure my fingers w...

In our first venture down to Cortez for the 12 Hours of Mesa Verde, Nick and I come into the race with no major expectation for place, number of laps or even our lap times. We finished the day with a new respect for the speeds required for the "shorter" endurance relay races, a total of 8 laps and a 4th place finish against some really fast teams. The winning team - now three year defending champions - Team Holley of Kara and Chris Holley put down 9 laps, followed by Tokoy Joes/Cycles of Life with Gretchen Reeves and Cannon Shockley and U and I with Jenelle Kremer and Ryan Ashbridge - both doing 8 laps. Nick and I finished shortly after 7:00pm with 8 laps, with the Dunton Hot Springs/Team Red Dress of Bojo Post and Gusieppie Prinzivalli closly behind, also with 8 laps. The Ascent Cycling crew was also well represented with Lane, Tom and Jeremy racing solo, Amber and Scott also racin in Co-Ed Duo, David and John in Duo Men and Patrick, Isaac and Austin racing 3/4 Men. There wa...

Two good things happened before Nick and I left for Cortez. First, I had my two month follow up from my eye surgery. And after he dilated my eye and looked around, I received the good news. "It looks great, no evidence that I was ever in there." So my eye has completely healed and my vision is fine. My behaving and sitting on the couch for two weeks was more then worth it to hear that. He did not sound worried about a recurrence either. And with that, and a comment about seeing me in the papers one day. And with that I was discharged from his care. Yea!! And the second was my calf. I had been dealing with a strain in my left soleus since before Waco and nothing seemed to help. I had even managed to give myself a small case of frost nip after a track workout! So imagine my surprise when I go for my massage and instead of working on my calf she spends most of the time on my hip flexors and hamstrings. I walked out of there feeling like I had been run over by a truck. I was al...

Wow. Nick and I got into Cortez this afternoon and headed to Phil's World to check out the course for the 12 Hours of Mesa Verde. And I am now looking forwad to getting out and racing. A little worried about some of the more technical sections since I haven't really been riding super techy stuff. But it will still be so much fun. The course is a mix of fast sweeping turns, punchy climbs, rocky descents and sections of single track parralleling jagged cliff sides. In a word loads of fun but a good challenge. It was a little longer then we had anticipataed. But worth every minute of pedalin. That was a true riders course with something for everyone.

Thanks to a murky river swim, twisty, tight single track trails on the bike and a slightly long run through the woods, the Xterra South Central Championships in Waco is one of the most challenging races in the series. It's also one of the most fun races. I haven't had the best luck in Waco during the race, but the riding and running in Cameron Park is just awesome. The local community also takes great pride in the event, from the care taken in marking the course, to the hospitality provided to all athletes. It's well worth the trek and I hope will remain a fixture on the Xterra Championship series for many years. Without the defending champion in the field, it was a wide open race. A few unexpected challenges popped up, but nothing that this year's winner couldn't handle. In the end, Melanie came through first, followed closely by Shonny and Christine. Suzie had a great race to finish fourth and Emma rounded out the top five. Despite strained calf, I was able to hol...

 Starting out in the morning - kinda chilly at 9000 feet!  Waking up to freezing temperatures but sunny skies, Nick and I decided to take advantage of the nice weather and do some exploring on the bike yesterday.Time to load up the backpacks with cold weather gear and some food and just see where the trails would take us! He'd just gotten his GPS working as well, so we were able to experiment with that. On the game plan - Pikes Peak and the Ring the Peak Trail. We drove a few miles up the tool road, parked the car and hit the trails. With in a few minutes, we were on the Ring the Peak trail. There were some sweet sections of single track before Catamount, with a nice downhill winding through the aspens. The views of the Rampart Range were great, but looking over to US 24 on the op of Mount Ester was a little crazy. That was a long drop - it had to be quite the climb up on the Ring the Peak trail. Nick told me he and Dan had just hiked it last year, pushing the bikes. I ...