6/22/2014 Curt Gowdy Xterra Race Report

Pre-Race:

My race bag is packed so all I have to do is fill up my water bottles and camel back in the morning and load up the van with our stuff.  Last week my husband and I drove to the race location (Curt Gowdy State Park, WY) and biked most of the bike course.  Might I mention this was my 3rd mountain bike ride ever.  The trail starts out pretty easy with packed dirt single track and becomes technical about a mile in.  I'm not sure if it's the flashbacks of my spill going 40mph on my tri bike or that first fall on my mountain bike that left a hematoma on my shin that makes me scared of falling off my bike on the trails.  I am pretty accident prone...with anything from power tools to plant stands.

I will be in the last swim wave so I can take my time on the bike course- especially the trail called "Mo Roka" with rocks booby trapping the easy way across the trail and (one-foot) sheer drops off rock obstacles.

Race Morning:

I decided to give the bike a shot since I was informed there was a cut-off at mile 9 and I would still be able to do the run UN-officially. We found a small spot on the bike racks and set up our transition.  After all my stuff was laid out and I was about to put on my wetsuit a girl on the same rack asked if I could move my stuff to the adjacent rack since that would even out the number of people on each rack.  I was a little put off by this since I had already set up my things.  I talked back to her a little then grudgingly moved my things. 

The Swim:

The water temperature was 60 degrees and literally gave us a brain freeze when we finally mustered up enough courage to dunk our heads under.  We stayed wading in the water until our wave went off.  I positioned myself in line with the buoys and noticed a guy next to me with a snorkel.  WHAT!?  This guy was holding a snorkel and appeared to be preparing it for the swim.  I immediately looked over to my husband to see if he was seeing this.  Since the gun was about to go off and I was a short distance from Matt, I couldn't figure out a way to get the word 'snorkel' across without the guy seeing it.  About this time I was thinking of clever remarks such as, "Is that race-legal?" or "Do you have fins on too?"  Needless to say I kept my mouth shut. 
The gun went off and since I was in a wave of beginners (me being one of them since this was my first off-road), I was swimming alone for most of the course.  After the first loop I noticed my feet were frozen but still awake enough to feel the sharp rocks on the short stretch of beach before the second lap.  I finished the second loop with no problem and was the first out of the water in my wave.

The Bike:

I was pretty nervous as I set off for the bike but after a few people passed me and I saw others stopping at the same rocks I had to step over it seemed this was the way an off-road triathlon works, at least for the inexperienced like me.  I racked myself a few times, or whatever you call it for women, fell a few times...the worst being on top of a cactus, and hit my ankle on the pedals numerous times.  I had to stop at one point to tighten my saddle, and luckily I brought the tools along. 

I got to the midpoint of the bike, and since I didn't have my watch on I had no idea what time it was but no one was stopping me from continuing, so I kept on biking.  The second half of the bike was where I fell on a cactus and I began wishing someone would tell me I didn't reach the cut-off.  It was hot and exposed and I was ready to be back in transition to begin the run I was now starting to dread.  The single track snaked around a hill and I thought I saw the next aid station, but the trail turned back around away from them.  I finally reached the end of the rocky area and found a medic on a bike.  He asked me if I was the last person out there...I hoped I wasn't but told him I hadn't seen anyone for a while.  I kept going the last 3 miles to transition and was greeted by cheers.  I never did see that last aid station.

Back in transition I re-racked my bike and asked if I could still go out on the run.  "Are you sure I have enough time?"  I put on my shoes, grabbed an extra gel and set off.  The run signs were already misplaced- probably taken from the middle of the road to get ready to load back in their truck.  I felt pretty strong in the first quarter mile until I came up on the first aid station of the run...already torn down.  I stood there for a few minutes with Matt, who had just finished 10 minutes before, debating what I should do.  I didn't have any water with me, the aid stations were most likely going to be taken down, and I had a dehydration headache in the making.  I decided to throw in the towel.  I had already made it further on the bike than I thought I could and wanted to get the cactus pins out of my leg. 

I have a new appreciation for Xterra races.  Road triathlons are completed and won based on endurance and fitness whereas off-road triathlons are more based on technique of bike handling and trail running.  I saw some guys out there that didn't look very fit but were blasting over the rocks.  I also saw fit guys walking their bike over the rocks.  I will definitely give off road TRIs another chance next year.  For our next one I will do the research before signing up for the race.  Curt Gowdy was supposedly the toughest and most technical off-road- which I didn't find out until we rode the course and talked to some people.

New Gadget!

My current GPS watch ends workouts if I pause it for too long (to use the restroom) and there is no way to add to the workout once it decides you are done.  I have a motoactive and they have discontinued it.  Going onto the forum you can see many people are upset about it since there were lots of kinks to work out, and it is a really cool watch. 

Before the motoactive I had a Suunto watch that had a memory belt (HRM) that could store data completely separate from the watch.  This was pretty new technology at the time it came out since it's largest (I think) competitor is Garmin and they didn't have a way of recording data in the water yet.  The only problem with the Suunto watch I had was it used a footpod to calculate distance on the run.  The footpod was pretty inaccurate and looking back I don't know how far I was actually running when I was training with it!

The new watch I (FINALLY) received in the mail is my new Suunto Ambit2s.  It has some pretty cool capabilities and can connect with the sensors from my old Suunto watch.  I've been having fun playing with the settings and customizing the workout screens.  The software used to analyze workouts is much better than the one I used to use a few years ago- they now use Moveslink (Movescount.com) where there is an app store and training calendar with all the training log goodies.

I haven't used it yet but I'm looking forward to obsessing over the numbers soon and watching myself improve!