2011 Xterra Beaver Creek Race Report

I had a few goals going into this race--Swim under 24 mins, Bike under 1:45, run under 50, transitions under 3 mins total, finish 3rd in my age group and top ten overall amateur.

I drove up to the race after work and heading home first to have dinner and finish packing.  I didn't think I would make it to packet pickup and would have to do it in the am, but as I drove I saw that I was going to arrive 10 mins prior to packet pickup close.  The race was on!  As I drove up the mountain to the Beaver Creek Village I was amazed at how beautiful it was. I was really sad that Adam and the dogs weren't there.  The race website said that dogs weren't allowed in the village were T2 and the finish area were, so they didn't come to watch because I didn't think they would be able to.

I parked my car and made a mad scramble around the village looking for packet pickup and made it in as the last one to get my packet!  Whew!  It was a little hectic getting there so late, but kind of nice so that I wasn't up there just thinking about my race.

The location of the comfort inn in Avon, CO was close to the start  and the price was the least expensive (if you can call $140 a night inexpensive) but it was a pretty crappy hotel. Paper thin walls, and just yucky overall.  I probably won't stay there next year even if I have to pay a little more.  I didn't sleep well at all for the first time since the night before my exam.

I'm a bit obsessed about transition set up, so while the race didn't start until 9 am, I went to set up my T2 right at 6 am when it opened and then down to set up T1.  By 6:30 I was done and headed back to my hotel, caught a few minutes of the tour, then took a nap up until 8am.  I was surprised at how relaxed I was.

I finally got up and going for the race and still felt relaxed and not that nervous.  Maybe I needed to be a little more nervous?  I just didn't know what to expect and how I would do.  I had goals, but they were somewhat arbitrary based on times from previous years and wanting to podium in my age group overall.

The women were the 4th of 4 waves each 1 minute apart.  All the Xterra races I have done have been fairly small.  This one was "large" by Xterra standards.  There were 270 finishers in the Long course event, but in the small little pond they had us swim around laps it felt like a whole lot more.

The water was perfect long sleeve wetsuit temperature.  Cold at first but after swimming for awhile it was perfect but with no overheating. I made sure to do a little more warmup than my last race and told myself to sight more often.

Swim: 1500m (short maybe 1-2 minutes?) 23:27 (23:10 on my watch at swim exit), 24/74 females, 23/63 amateur females, 3/11 AG, 80/257

The waves went off 1 minute apart and before I knew if we were off!  I got a pretty good start and it wasn't too rough and then we we started passing people from the wave ahead of us by the first buoy.  For the rest of the race, every time I sighted I saw a sea of red and yellow caps ahead of me (the men's waves) and a few purple and lime green (my wave).  I felt good and relaxed on the swim but was breathing every other stroke always to the right which is not normal for me. The swim was at maybe 7400 feet, and while some of my bike rides and runs end up at around this altitude, I've never swum that high.

The swim went by quickly--being surrounded by so many people and having a short course helped.  When I exited the swim, I saw 23:10 and was happy with that.  I also saw my teammate Danielle right ahead of me, which provided some good motivation.

T2: 1:18. 9/74 females, 2/63 amateur females, 1/11 AG  My wetsuit bottoms gave my trouble as usual so I felt like I was in there forever.  Since the race was point to point, we had to put our wetsuits and caps/goggles  in a bag and tie it.  I started to put my stuff in my bag and a volunteer came up and said she would take care of it for me. Awesome service! Overall everything went smoothly, I just need to get out of my wetsuit quicker.

Bike: 15.5 miles (I think), 3600 ft of elevation gain, 1:52:15, 38/74 females, 27/63 amateur females, 5/11 AG

The bike started out flat for the first 1/2 mile or so and on the pavement.  Right away there were a lot of people out on the course.  I passed some and got passed by some.  Then we turned on the the dirt and the start of the climb.  There was a long line of racers riding up the course single file. I kept in a small gear and my legs weren't tiring, I was just really out of breath.  It took a few minutes to get my breathing under control and I finally got the nerve up to start passing people when a girl from my age group passed me.  I tried to stay with her and passed people as she did to keep her close.  Then she started to slow and I felt good so I passed her back.

I looked down at my computer thinking I had to be so far along, but I was only a couple miles in.  I didn't feel too tired climbing, but conserved my effort a little because really, I was not that far into the race.  I had to unclip 2x on the climb, once when someone in front of my couldn't make a turn and another time when I couldn't quite make a turn.  Just before the first aid station at 8600 ft, there was a long section of s turns going up the climb, this is around when I started to get a little tired.

After the aid station we moved onto a paved road and continued to climb.  I started to get passed, and saw two girls in my age group go by pretty quickly.  I just kept moving along in my smallest gear at 5mph.  The climb eventually ended at just under 9500 ft, and I was so glad that it did.  It wasn't the end of climbing for the day, but the end of the long one. Just over 5 miles and I had been on my bike for over 50 minutes!

Now for the downhill section--the first part wasn't too bad, but I was still getting passed by some men.  Then it moved to single track downhill and I slowed a little more and got passed some more.  I was really wishing I had been able to preride the course, I think I would have had a lot more confidence and saved a lot of time on the downhill parts. That and I just need to ride my mountain bike more and improve my skills. The rest of the course for me was the most difficult.  I would much rather just climbed the whole time rather than going downhill.  Definitely something to work on.

Towards the very end of the ride, we got to the corkscrew--a steep downhill with some tight turns.  By this point I guess a few guys were backed up behind me and riding my ass through this section which made me even more nervous(and apparently complaining about my slow speed).

About the complaining--these guys had a 1 or 2 minute head start on me and also had 13 miles or so on the bike to pass me.  If they don't want to get stuck behind me on downhills when I am nervous, they should swim faster or climb faster.

Anyway, my nerves and lack of skill caused me to crash.  I stood up and waited for them to go by and my teammate Aaron passed and asked if I was ok and gave me some advice on what to do for the rest of the ride downhill.  Very nice of him.   Unfortunately, I was already flustered and managed to crash 2.5 more times. The .5  was me slowing and then conking my head on the side of a tree.  Thank goodness for helmets!  After that I got off my bike and ran the rest of the hill.  I got a weird look from a volunteer, but I didn't care.

The last few miles were downhill, but not too bad.  I had seen my goal time slip away and I just wanted to get to T2 and start running!

T2: 1:02, 15/74 females, 4/63 amateur females, 1/11 AG  Pretty fast transition, I place my shoes on one side but put my bike on the other so I had to run around to the other side to get my shoes.  A little silly of me.

Run: 5.75 miles, 48:01, 14/74 females, 7/63 amateur females, 3/11 AG

I started out pretty quick and passed Aaron on an uphill and thanked him and continued to work on passing people.The course climbed up for the first 2 miles, then a fast downhill for a mile back to transition, then back up for another 1.5 before another fast downhill for 1.25 miles to the finish and total elevation of 1300 ft.   I took a lot of walking breaks.  The course was not that tough, but the altitude combined with the fatigue from the bike and the heat (for me) was just really difficult.  Even with my walk/run strategy uphill I was still passing quite a few people and not getting passed at all.  I really looked forward to the cold water at the aid stations and of course the downhills where I really made up ground on people.

I passed 2 women early on in the run, one beat me by 10 minutes at my last Xterra, the other beat me at my 2 road tris.  This was getting encouraging!  Then I passed a girl in my age group (the one who passed me and I passed back early in the bike--she got me again on one of the downhills) who I thought was in 3rd in our AG.   I always had someone in my sights and even though I was tired I kept moving, doing what I could on the uphills and pounding the downhills. On the last downhill to the finish I passed several more women, one that also beat me by 10 minutes at my last Xterra.

Overall: 3:06:05, 24/74 females, 13/63 amateur females, 4/11 AG  I didn't make my overall time, overall and AG place goals, but I was close and I did make my swim, transition, and run goals.  The competition was much tougher than any previous years in the overall and in my AG so while I would like to have been on the podium, I am happy to see my improvement and see that I have so much more room to improve.  With each race I keep getting better and I learned several things that I need to work on.

It was nice to see so many members of my team so out on the course or after the race--it made it a much more enjoyable experience, something I think I was missing when I did those road tris on my own.

The race was run very well.  The things I like best about the race:
-The venue was beautiful
-swim course was easy to sight
-post race food--they had a good spread of food right at the finish line and a bbq a short walk away
-lots of aid stations/volunteers, probably not an easy thing to set up on the trails
-chip timing--nice for data obsessed folks like myself
-great volunteers--I still can't believe that volunteer packed up my swim stuff for me.

Things that could be improved:
-course congestion--it would have helped a lot on the swim and bike to spread out the swim waves by 3-5 minutes instead of 1.
-t shirts--if x # of female racers sign up for t-shirts size y, shouldn't you order x number of t-shirts for women size y and only give those shirts to the people who designated that they wanted a shirt in size y?  When I showed up, all they had was barf green men's shirts.  I don't really care about the shirts, but some people do,  and it just shows that whoever ordered the shirts didn't put a whole lot of thought into it.
-numbered bike racks are always nice.