That sums up the XTERRA Panther Creek race in one sentence.  O.K., I may be getting a bit ahead of myself.  Let’s back-track a bit.

XTERRA Panther Creek
Aug 2, 2009
800 meter swim, 16 mile mountain bike, 4.5 mile trail run

Andrew and I loaded up the truck and headed for Ashville.  We were both pretty stoked about this race as we both knew it was a fun one.  Andrew had raced Panther Creek back in 2007 as his first triathlon ever.  Even though he missed it last year (due to a conflict), I was lucky enough to race it and have fun doing so (although I had a flat tire during the race).  From our discussion of the course leading up to the event, we quickly discovered that the course he had raced in 2007 was quite different from the one I had raced there in 2008.  This year, Andrew was looking forward to re-visiting the site of his first triathlon, and I had a vendetta to repay (race without flatting a tire).

Another reason that it would be a fun: we would be meeting lots of friends there.  Some of them we had known for years, others we had met along the way racing different XTERRA venues.  We stayed overnight with our friend, Ching in Asheville and she introduced me to several awesome restaurants in Asheville that only locals would know.  Saturday morning, we went for breakfast at the Sunny Point Cafe and afterwards, we packed up the truck with our gear.  Another friend, Brad, decided to drive up from Charlotte to spend the weekend at the race, as well.  Although Brad and Ching wasn’t racing, all four of us loaded up in the truck, complete with Tybee (Ching’s friendly black lab), and headed for Panther Creek.

Andrew, Ching and Brad had decided to camp out at Panther Creek State Park.  Being a light sleeper, I had decided to stay at a local hotel and not chance a noisy campground.  Once we arrived to the campground, I became insanely jealous that I had done so.  The campground was gorgeous and not another camper in sight.  When we had discussed camping, I had envisioned the typical state park campground with everyone on top of each other, noisy, crowded, etc.  However, the folks putting on the race had secured a private campground just for the race participants.  We dropped off a load of stuff, setup the tents and headed for a pre-ride.

The weather was perfect.  The trails were fast.  It had rained in the previous days, so the course wasn’t dusty and the tires were hooking up good.  While Andrew, Ching and Brad had plans on riding one lap of the two lap bike course at an easy pace, my intent was to only ride about 20 mins of it, with the last 10 mins or so with intervals of near race pace and recovery.   So I’d take off on a short sprint then wait for them to catch up.  During one of my short sprints, I came around a corner that looked flat, smooth and fast.  Taking the curve, however, produced a nice little crash.  The perfectly smooth curve was actually perfectly smooth clay.  The remaining moisture from previous rain left it just slick enough that I skated right across and low-sided.  Once off of the slick clay, the remaining part of the trail that I chose to slide across was small bits of rock and gravel.  This produced a half-dollar size of road rash accented with a nice bruise from where I landed.  Shortly after the crash, I proceeded back to the truck to do a short run and swim brick while the rest of the gang rode the rest of the course.

Later that evening, we met up with Crom and Dave for some good eating.

Race Day

I woke up around 4:45 which seemed way too early after Crom, Dave and I hung out way too late the night before.  I had mostly everything ready to go, but wanted to hit the shower and get a meal in.  When I walked out of the hotel, I was greeted by rain.  A smile came upon my face as I knew the day would be interesting.  I called Andrew to let him know I was on my way, wondering how well they slept with the rain.

Andrew, Ching and I loaded up the truck and headed to the transition area.  We were the first to arrive and was greeted by a friendly race director and park ranger.  We setup our transition and I took off on a warm up ride.  Not wanting to chance a spill, I stuck to the pavement.  After a warm up run, I headed down to the lake for a quick warm up swim.  Before no time, it was time for the race to start.

The swim course was setup as a 400 meter, almost perfectly square, course.  We had to do two laps around the course and then exit via a boat ramp.  The water temperature was perfect for a swim.  We took off and I drafted off of Andrew as we stretched out in front of the main pack.  After turning the first buoy, I lost track of Andrew as he picked up the pace and I settled into mine.  As always, the first lap I intermingled with other swimmers occasionally getting bumped or doing the bumping.  By the time we rounded the last buoy to start the second lap, either they had pulled ahead of me or had dropped back, allowing open water to swim.

Andrew came out of the water in second place and I came out quite a few spots back.  He must have had a smoking fast transition time, as he was already gone by the time I came into transition.

My transition went fairly smoothly.  Earlier I had debated going sockless, but with the mud, I figured it was a blister waiting to happen.  Also, since the trailhead within 5 feet of the transition area, it didn’t allot any time for doing things on the fly.  Therefore, I had to spend a little extra time in transition to put on socks and gloves.  Again, I could have done without the gloves, but I’ve found that in wet, muddy conditions, gloves are a must (for me anyhow).

~16 mile mountain bike course (two ~8 mile laps)

I dove into the trail and began a pretty fast pace.  As a matter of fact, it was a bit too fast.  I came flying around a corner and my mud-caked rear tire slid on a root, causing me to crash.  It was fairly uneventful other than the fact that I came to a stop.  Before the guy behind me could pass, I jumped back on the bike and took off.  Proud that I made it rolling without getting passed, I picked the pace, only to crash again under similar circumstances.  Again, I jumped back on as the guy behind me approached.  Within 30 seconds or so, I went down AGAIN.  This time, he passed me.  Now keep in mind, this all happened within the first mile.  Not a good sign.

OK.  New game plan.  Ride hard and fast, but a bit more cautiously.  Kind of an oxymoron, right?  The bike course consisted of a two-lap ride, so my thoughts were to see how the course would pan out (given the rain) on the first lap and then decide where I could push it and where I should pull back.

I kept up with the guy in front of me for the next few minutes and we, too, passed someone who had just crashed.  It was like a war zone with riders down everywhere.  We dumped out onto a fire road and I took the opportunity to pass him back.  Shortly after, I came upon a relay team member.  He asked if I wanted to pass and I told him that I did, but when it was safe.  He signaled for me to pass and yielded.  For the rest of the first lap, I would remain alone on my ride until, Bence Roemer passed me on a climb.  I had spun out on a wet root, and he came riding up the hill, somehow maintaining vertical.  By the time I got back on my bike, he had gone around the corner and I couldn’t seem to catch back up.

Coming through the transition area at the end of the first lap, they informed me that I was in 5th place.  Having seen the course once, I had a game plan of where to try and make up ground.  I felt as if I may have played it a little too cautiously on the first lap, but after 3 crashes in the first mile, I was a bit gun shy.

Towards the end of the second lap, my quads started to cramp up something fierce.  I guess it was mainly due to my attempt to make up time.  During one of my cramp sessions, a relay team member caught up to me and passed just before we dumped out of the trail.  I headed into transition and attempted to be as quick as I could with two cramped quads.  Attempting to take off my shoes by using the toe-to-heel method proved to be impossible.  On the way out of transition, I grabbed a cup of water and headed into the muddy trail.  Shortly after entering the run, I passed a relay team member.

4.5 mile trail (aka mud) run

It took about a mile to run through the cramps, but they eventually gave way.  It seemed to coincide with the single-track trail turning into fire road.  It was then that I decided to try and make up for lost time.  I picked up my pace the best that I could but without it causing further cramps.  The fire road ended at the edge of a park road where a park ranger was sitting, I ran past her and a water stop that began a lolly-pop loop section of the run.  This section consisted of rolling hills of single track.  Even though the hills were not steep or long at all, each uphill resulted in more quad cramping.  I shortened my stride and reduced my pace in an effort to reduce the cramps.  The only thing that seemed to help was getting the hill over with.  Once starting down hill, it seemed manageable.  Coming out of the lolly-pop section, I ran by someone who was heading into that section.  “If he’s the 6th place guy, I should be able to hold him off,” I thought to myself.  From there on out, my goal was to climb the hills the best that I could and just hammer the down hills.   This continued throughout the run with much teeth gritting towards the end. 

I finished in Panther Creek fashion which meant running all the way down the boat ramp and into the lake, where I was greeted by Tybee, the friendly lab.

Final Results:

Overall Place: 5th
Age Division Place: 2nd
Full results

Sorry, but I don’t have splits (yet).  I’m still trying to run them down.

HUGE CONGRATS goes out to Andrew for winning the race, 1st place overall, securing him in number 1 spot for his age group in the Southeast and currently (as of this writing) also the number 1 spot nationally for his age group.  Way to go, Andrew!!

After the race, we headed straight to Asheville and non-stop to the Wedge for some hard-earned cold ones.  Later, we headed over to the Admiral for some food you would not believe.

Thanks to Ching and Brad for taking these awesome pics!

4am.  That’s what time the alarm went off.  Uwharrie is just a little under 2 hours from my house.  It’s just far enough for me to briefly consider camping but close enough for me to want to sleep in my own bed.  I opted for the latter.

So with a race starting at 9am, why the hell would I get up at 4am (you might be thinking)?  I’m a firm believer of getting there when transition opens (6:30) and getting all the setup done with time to spare.  Doing so prevents any frantic rushing to get things done.  The final result is time to just relax and gather my thoughts before the race starts.  So at 4:30, Alba and I, in a packed truck (complete with dog) were off to the race.

For those of you that don’t know, Uwharrie is a National Forest consisting of around 52,000 acres.  What a fitting venue for an Xterra.  It consists of some of the oldest mountains in North America.  Even though there are only around a 1,000 feet today, they were once over 20,000 feet in height at their peak.

The course that we had to race consists of shared-use trails that are not only used by hikers and bikers, but horses as well.  This makes my third year racing the venue and I’ve yet to encounter any horse riders during a race (knock on wood) although I have seen plenty during practice rides.

Alba and I showed up right around 6:30 and I began setting up in transition.  I met up with lots of folks.  Included in the bunch were Andrew Jones and Peter Lilly.  Also present was Xterra first-timer (and 2nd triathlon), Dirk Wuensche. 

Transition Area

Andrew Jones and Peter Lilly

Dirk Wuensche

There were lots of familiar faces from training rides, other races and friends in general that seemed to be popping up everywhere.  Even folks I had met online from different social sites.  It seemed as if every time I turned around there was someone else saying hi.  Some I expected to see and others were a complete surprise.

Speaking with friends in transition

Before you knew it, transition started filling up and people mulled about with wetsuits on waiting for the race briefing to start.  The weather was shaping up for what would be an awesome day for a race.  It was slightly cloudy and the temp was perfect for racing.

Transition Filling Up

While the sport (half-distance race) was getting kicked off, Andrew and I found a bench away from the crowd to suit up.  The water had been 58 degrees just days before, so we were not looking forward to the swim.  However, once we were suited up and in the water, we quickly realized that not only had the water warmed up quite a bit, but it actually felt pretty good.  The two-lap, 500 meter, triangular swim was off with a blow from an air horn.

I settled into a pretty good pace and made it around the first two buoys without issue.  After rounding the second buoy, the water was pretty choppy.  Every time I breathed to my right side, I would get a mouth full of water.  Not needing to hydrate this early in the race, I chose to stick to unilateral breathing to my left side until the last buoy.

Shortly after rounding the last buoy, and thus starting my second lap, I realized that someone was drafting me.  Every time I breathed to the left, I could see him/her out of the corner of my eye.  Most of the lead pack had already put some distance on me, so there wasn’t really anyone that I could draft behind.  I was content with just keeping what felt like a good pace: not so fast that I’d blow up, but not so slow as to put me too far behind. 

As I was running to transition, I was notified I was in 9th overall out of the water.  I saw Andrew in transition as I crossed the timing mats, so I decided to give him a smack on his back as I ran by his rack.  He seemed pretty surprised.  I’m not sure if it was surprise that I was done already or if it was one of those surprises that someone was touching him (usually followed by the reactive response of an elbow to the nose).

My transition went fairly smoothly, although I’ve definitely had quicker and smoother.  The bike course was still pretty wet from the rain the night before.  During a pre-ride several weeks back, the course was in much worse shape.  Back then, it was very, very muddy and quite torn up from a recent horse riding event.  During the race, it wasn’t quite as muddy in the usual bad spots.  Instead, some of the sections that were normally dry and very fast were now wet and “greasy”.  On several occasions during the race, I felt as if I was out of control.  Not a good position to be in with as fast as I was trying to ride. 

The climbs were a little more difficult than usual since they were sloppy as well.  I would get going good on a climb only to have my rear tire gum up and start to spin.  I could only imagine what some of the other guys were going through that had low-knob tires or other types designed for drier weather.

Towards the end of my first lap of the two-lap bike course, I was barreling down a hill with a nasty little dip at the bottom.  No sooner did I mentally remind myself to bunny-hop over the dip, I spotted someone lying on the ground and someone else who had just stopped.  As I bunny-hopped across the dip, I asked if everyone was ok.  Usually when asking, someone replies back with something along the lines of, “Yep, we’re fine”.  But this time, I didn’t get any response.  I came to a stop.

I looked back to see Kenny Brown standing there over someone who had just endo’d on the nasty dip.  From the look on Kenny’s face, I could tell something was wrong.  “Need a medic?” I asked.  Kenny nodded.  I laid my bike against a tree and ran down to see what was wrong.  The person on the ground, was holding one arm bent and wrenching in pain.  I asked if he thinks he broke his collar bone.  He didn’t say much, but pointed to the huge bulge on top of his shoulder.

“We need to get you off the trail, buddy, before someone plows into you and makes it worse,” I told him.  Kenny and I helped him up.  He let out a loud grunt/groan/yelp as he stood up.  We very slowly helped him walk over to a downed tree to sit on.  He asked how far it was to get out of the woods.  Knowing that we were a looooong ways in, I told him it was too far for him to try and walk.  “Sit tight and I’ll send the medics in.”

I hopped back on my bike and continued on the course.  Once I dumped out onto the road, I notified the volunteers that a medic was needed.  They said that they were already on the way as one of the previous riders that had passed while Kenny and I were helping had told them about the situation.  Feeling relieved that they were already a step ahead of me and that someone was on the way, I commenced my assault to try and make up for lost time.

My second lap was a bit more intense than the first with my attempt to make up time and position.  It was also faster than my first since I had already seen the course and knew where I could go fast and where I needed to be cautious.  I seemed to be surrounded by crashes as I witnessed two more, although they were slow-speed “off-course events”.

Towards the tail end of the second lap, my quads began to cramp on one of the last climbs.  I decided to hop off and hoof it up the hill on foot and to give me an opportunity to stretch my quads.  It seemed to do the trick as they loosened up before getting to the top of the hill.  I quickly learned that moving = no seizing.  There were two others walking the same hill which made me feel a little better about doing it myself.  (By the way, walking hills in Uwharrie is not uncommon).  I made my way down the gravel road, through the parking lot and into transition.

Rolling into transition, I decided to attempt a rolling dismount, something that works pretty well in road triathlons.  Although, the terrain leading up to transition didn’t allow me much time to get my feet out of my shoes, I attempted to do so with shoes still on.  I unclipped my left foot, but left it remaining on the pedal.  I swung my right foot over the seat brought it in between me and the bike, then stuck it out toe-forward as if I was pointing to the dismount line.  When I stuck my toe out, my right quad immediately seized. 

With my right leg stiff as a board, I hopped off the left pedal and hobbled the rest of the way back to my rack.  I bent the right leg a couple of times to loosen it.  The relief was short-lived.  As soon as I attempted to take one of my shoes off, BOTH of my quads seized.  I grabbed the bike rack with both hands, bent over with my head between my arms and tried my best to cover up the yelp I let out.  As I stood there feeling like a pirate with two peg legs, I quickly remembered moving helped.  I danced around a bit bending the legs several times.  Somewhere in the midst of doing my little dance, I managed to change shoes and hobble out of transition.  I ran down the short paved path towards the trail head, trying my best to regain control of my legs.

Upon diving into the single-track trail that ran along the edge of the lake, I almost immediately passed one runner that I had been leap-frogging with on the bike leg.  We chatted a bit in between our panting and I slowly pulled away from him.  Within a mile or two, I came upon another runner that went by the name of “Beach”.  I ran behind him for a short distance but passed him as he cramped up trying to jump over a large tree across the trail.  He said he was going to keep me company for a while and I told him that I welcomed it.  We chatted about him being from Asheville, biking, the course, you name it.  Anything to keep both of our minds off of the cramping.  I kept giving him updates on what was coming in way of trail since this was his first time at Uwharrie.

After hitting the water stop at the boat launch and running through the camping area, we both had a few issues with cramps.  I finally decided (no disrespect meant to Beach) that I needed to enter my own little world to work through the rest of the race.  I picked up the pace a little and tried to make up for lost time on the downhills.  The cramps seemed to subside and before I knew it I was alone.

In the final mile or so of the race, there’s one last hill climb that I had already decided that I would power-walk vs. run.  Once I reached the top, I heard a noise that caused me to look down the hill.  Low and behold, it was Mike Miller (fellow Studio-7 athlete).  “Come on, Mike!” I yelled.  He let out a groan of pain/exhaustion.

“Come on and pick it up or I’m gonna tell on you to Sonni! (his coach)”  Mike picked up the pace and caught up with me.  I slowly picked up the pace and occasionally he’d drift back and then pick it up again.  I’m not sure if he knew I was doing that or not.  He asked how much further it was to the end.  When I told him it was only about a mile, I could feel the relief of tension from him.  It helped me too just saying it.

As we exited the trail and into the parking lot, he passes me on the left headed to the finish.  I stayed right behind him all the way up the hill figuring that the hill would take whatever was left out of him and I could pass him back.  Sure enough, right at the top of the hill he started slowing down.  I made a move to pass him back and the crowd started cheering us both on.  Their sudden increase in cheering must have given him the clue that I was attempting to pass him, so he looked back.  When he saw I was right on his tail and gaining, he sprinted toward the finish line.  Unfortunately, I just couldn’t catch him and he finished one second in front of me.

 
Trying to catch Mike (he’s behind the spectator)

I finished 14th overall and 2nd in my division.  It was a tough but fun and interesting race. 

Full results can be found here: Results

Big shout-out to my buddy, Andrew Jones for his 2nd place finish overall and first in his division.  That’s 75 points for you, Andrew!  Also, big congrats goes to Dirk Wuensche and Kenny Brown for completing their first Xterra!!

Andrew Jones

 
Kenny and Dirk

Special thanks always goes out to my wife, all-around race supporter and photographer, Alba. Her cheering gets me through races.

Been a while.  So let’s see…  recap…

Spent two days up in Uwharrie last weekend with my good friend, Andrew. Had several other good friends head up for one day festivities as well.  It was great to ride with you all.  Dirk, I hope you end up doing Uwharrie.  John and crew, my apologies for being so burnt out from the previous day’s activity.  You can also officially call me “crash”.

Andrew and I camped overnight and enjoyed two days of running and riding.  For those of you that think mountain bikes beat up muddy trails, you should see what the horses have done.

Also met some great, excited new triathletes at the transition clinic at REI.  I look forward to seeing them at the races.

Be on the lookout for a complete writeup from me on the new GU Chomps!!!

Upcoming?  A “warmup” sprint tri this Sunday.  :)

Four Days of Rain = Getting Nowhere

BLOG: http://marcbarton.spaces.live.com

So Xterra Fort Yargo was a bit disappointing for me.  Not because of the event itself.  I thought the venue was awesome, the people were great and the race was all around fun.  However, I was a bit disappointed in my performance.

I could come up with all kinds of excuses about not being able to train as much as I've wanted, not getting a good night's sleep the night prior, how I played defeating mind games with myself during the swim, the silly crash I took close to the finish of the bike leg, how I my front brakes were messed up (braking = on) after the crash, or how I just didn't seem to fuel or hydrate properly prior to running.

What it really comes down to is I just didn't perform to my level of expectation or how I have during the past.  In the past, during my sprint (sport) off-road triathlons, I could get away with some of that nonsense and still fair pretty good in the competition.  Now that I am doing longer distances as part of the points series, that has to come to a stop.

My next race is this Sunday at the Xterra Uwharrie.  I look forward to the race with enthusiasm and vigor.

Drop me a comment to wish me luck or to throw some advice my way.  I'll glady accept either.  :-)

Xterra Fort Yargo is a week away (April 26th) and I'm very excited about the first race of the season.

Tomorrow, I'm heading up to Uwharrie to pre-ride and pre-run the course that will be used for the May 4th Xterra Uwharrie.  It'll be my last long ride and run as I will begin to taper my training.  This will allow optimum recovery before the race.

See you on the trails!

Marcus