Xterra Del Valle

Thoughts on the weekend that come to mind.

The course, awesome. Lot's of nice people and that's what I love about Xterra races. Laid back.

The organization, now that's where it gets complicated.

Blue Adventure's I have no experience with. I show up Saturday afternoon for packet pickup as usual and the adventure race is just wrapping up. This is when the worst fears came crashing down and came true race day.

I had worried about course layout for weeks leading up. The mountain bike and run were not easily mapped, and even tougher followed during a race where volunteer's struggled to direct the athlete's. This area you cannot fault the organizer's for and I give them credit for doing the best job possible, but I just don't get it. You need to know the course when you have two separate route's with a huge mix in skill.

Swim went great. With only 35 starters in my wave, which was 15 minutes after a packed long course wave, it was nice and easy to find smooth water. Soon we ran into the middle of the second loop for the long course swimmers. That was an easy obstacle, and I found myself next to a strong swimmer sharing the orange color cap of the short course athlete's. As I exit the water second to him it is apparent quick that I just got beat by a 12yo boy! It was a great moment for him and the crowd, but with a swift pat on the back on my part I bid my time and ran first into transition which was at least a 2 minute run to my MTB bike.
1st out of 35 with a 12:26 600m swim.

No issues and off on the trail, a beautiful mix of fire road and single track through the Livermore hills. I start battling right away with the AG of the long course, but separate myself very quickly after the first few downhills and technical section's. I pass a few trail forks with volunteer's, but by the time I realized I was going a long way out for a 7 mi bike I was over a half mile off course and too far. This is where you learn the hard lesson's. I was ready to give up and just go drive home. I mean no way was I this far off and still going to make a charge back to the podium. Here's where luck and persistence pay off and I grumble my way back to my route and bitch and moan to every person I caught up with. Next thing I know I am looking at my Garmin reading 40 mph downhill, and that section lead right into an empty transition area and I promptly rack my lonely bike, but still pissed off about the detour I forget to grab the Garmin I had ready to use for the trail run.
5th of 35, 48:55, actual 8.3 mi and 10.0 mph/avg.

Now the fun of trail running. What I didn't expect was two major factor's. First off, again a 2.9 mi run turned into 4+ mi. and when you have to run waist deep in water while avoiding rattlesnakes, that sucks. But all that aside when I struggled into finish first, you really don't think about that stuff too much more. I had way underestimated my time and was so dehydrated it was pure suffering the last 30 minutes. The clock has my run as 14:22 Min/mi average based on a 3 mi run, and I know even though I was dying and slow I was for sure turning 10min/mi leading me to believe that I finished most of the long course run. It was a great course. Creek running, and rock gardens. I Love that stuff and with a proper Xterra trail run going on I was some what relieved that the other behind me where in for a tough go.

All and all a win is a win and I will humbly take it, even with poor performance on the run which I walked some hills. This won't stop me from entering another Blue Adventure race either, since they learned some valuable lessons on course layout and volunteer planning.

Willow this weekend, and the bottom line is that is what matter's this year.

Go Ducks, hope they win game 7!