Rocking Curt Gowdy

Xterra Curt Gowdy
1200 meters/1312 yards Swim
14.1 mile mountain bike
5.4 mile trail run
6700-8000 ft. elevation

'Kick Curt Gowdy's Ass', Jonny sleepily tells me as I leave for my race.  I said I would but I admit that I wasn't feeling it.  Between the prediction for a high of 90 degrees and a feeling of being unprepared for the bike, I briefly thought about bagging it.  But I had blinked awake without my alarm at 4:19 a.m. and was not going to fall back to sleep anyway so I dragged my butt out of bed, loaded the zillions of water and ice and food for before, during and after the race into the car and started the nearly 2 hour drive up to Wyoming.

The smoke in Longmont and towns north of Longmont was thick.  The mountains had disappeared in the haze and it was settled into the landscape like a thick fog.  Breathing it in was awful and I wondered how I would ever get the smell out of my car.  But once I got north of Fort Collins the air cleared, the mountains reappeared and you would never know there was a fire.  Thankfully Curt Gowdy was not getting smoke from the fire even though it's only about 35 miles away.

I thought I was going to get to the race not too early, not too late but it turns out the Xterra crowd is pretty laid back and I was one of the early birds.  Got a good spot in transition but had too much down time sitting around.  But there are worse places to sit around and wait for a race to start.

As I listened to the race director's pre-race talk I admit that I felt some doubts start to bubble.  He was going on about all the medical support on hand complete with ATV for the bad crashes.  He said that like it was a certainty.  Then he talked about the 'beast' of a climb out of the Canyons at the end of the bike which was the one part of the course I missed out when I pre-rode it.  Water temp. was 62-63 degrees which is cold for me but the air temp. at 9:00 a.m. was already too hot.  Standing on the beach waiting for my wave to start and cooking in my wetsuit I told my inner Goldilocks to HTFU.  Then I got in the water to warm up, felt the biting cold water on my face and the feeling of my breath being knocked out of me and decided this was stupid, I was getting out and going home.  It would be so easy to get out now while I could.  Then I swam a little and once my heart rate came down and I got used to the cold I was fine.  Got back out since my wave wasn't for a while and decided I was going to do this thing.  The whole thing.  No wimping out and DNF'ing before the run or bail out point on the bike. 

So I decided to banish the doubts I had and closed my eyes and did some self-hypnosis stuff.  When I
opened my eyes I saw a woman who looked like she must have been the oldest woman there, like she was the oldest woman I'd ever seen at an Xterra.  She had a pleasant look on her face so I smiled at her and she starting chatting with me.  Turns out she's done all kinds of Xterra's, been to Nationals in Utah and Worlds in Hawaii as well as the Mountain Championships we have in Colorado.  She just moved here from Florida where she claims they have the most technical bike course for one of their races.  She was going on about how fun this race or that race was.  Her joy for the sport was infectious and I immediately felt better as well as inspired.  She had pre-ridden the course and said she planned on walking the whole part of the Canyons climb, too steep and technical to even attempt so I felt a bit of pressure taken off right there knowing someone with good technical skills was going to walk it.  Such a neat woman, I hope I'm still doing crazy off-road triathlons with technical bike courses like Curt Gowdy when I'm 62.

The Start

By the time my wave lined up in the water I was back in attack mode, ready to take on the day, no more doubts.  And I did.  Swim went great, even with holding back and keeping an easy pace I managed a 1:52/100 yard pace for 1200 meters/1312 yards which is good for me.  The swim course looked so small because it was two 600 meter laps with a very short, couple of steps run on the beach in between.  I'm used to doing a bigger 1000 meter loop at masters so this was a piece of cake.

The Swim

Took some time in transition to put on socks and gloves.  I got terrible blisters the last time I did an off-road tri sockless and the gloves were a luxury I felt I deserved given the tough bike course.  Well worth the extra few seconds.

The bike was awesome.  I was able to ride so much more stuff than I rode a few weeks ago.  It felt like the fun, flowing course I initially thought I was signing up for.  And the other racers were great, I had no trouble passing or letting people pass me and everybody was so friendly and supportive and so happy to be out there.  One guy with a big grin on his face passed me and said, 'What an awesome trail, isn't it?'  and I had to agree.  There were places still that I had to get off.  Steep climbs that I didn't feel like fighting as well as the technical parts on Mo' Rocka.

The Bike

But this time around it seemed like the smooth single track went on forever because I didn't have to get off at every single rock or drop-off.

I know I posted these photos already but I want to have them in my race report.

I guess I wasn't as unprepared as I thought I was.  Also watching other people ride stuff gives me the confidence to ride it.  For the second half of the race I ended up changing places back and forth with a 51 year old woman.  I thought how cool that she's doing races like this at 51 then got a jolt when I realized that I'm only 3 years away.  We encouraged each other along and it was nice to have company on the hike up the Canyons trail.  I'm very glad I missed that part out in my pre-ride because if I had known about it ahead of time I'm not so sure I would have come back. 

In the end I finished the bike portion in about 2 hours 3 minutes compared to the 2 hours 5 minutes it took me to ride the shorter course when I pre-rode it and left off the last 2.4 miles including that long steep climb out of the Canyons.  And I felt way better this time around, not that same exhausted, mentally drained way.  I was tired, I'll admit that but not discouraged.  (My official bike finish time was 2:12 because my cyclometer doesn't record time when I'm stopped so I lost 9 minutes or so stopping to let other people pass and getting off and on my bike.  But I want to compare apples to apples.)

The course deals a cruel blow in that you have to run through the finish area to get to the uphill single track to start the run.  The very same single track I did on the bike.  Plus I had to run past my car and I had my key on me.  But I wasn't the least bit tempted.  I shuffled along at a painfully slow pace but I got back on that single track and told myself my race was only just starting and I repeated the process every time I ticked off a mile.  With 3.4 miles to go I told myself I was starting a long 5k.  With 2.4 miles to go I was starting a short morning run with the dogs around the lake, etc.  The course was much hillier and more challenging than my typical, flat-ish run around the lake but I told myself it anyway.  The course is my favorite kind of run course, rolling and none of the climbs too long.  There were a few places that were so steep that it made more sense to power hike them but they were short.  Such a fun run course, wish there were more trails around me like this.

At the start of the run I was thinking I could break 4 hours, a much better finish than my anticipated 4 1/2 hours but as I passed the 5 mile marker I knew it wasn't meant to be and in the end I finished in 4:04:55.  But it was o.k., I was just so happy to finish and to have had such a fun race.

The Finish

I did a good job of drinking water and taking in gels.  Thankfully some cloud cover and a slight breeze blew in just as I hit the exposed part of the bike course.  The cloud cover stayed through the run and this made a huge difference to the day.  It was warm but not unbearable because the sun wasn't beating down.  The race director added some aid stations due to the heat and that helped a lot.  There was plenty of water and the volunteers were happy to throw cups of it on me.

There was no pizza left at the finish line but I had brought plenty of my own food in anticipation of the food being either gone or non-vegetarian.  I had to hike almost a mile back to the transition area to get my bike and gear then ride the mile back to my car so it took a while to get out of there.  Didn't get home until nearly 5:30.

Going forward the biggest area for improvement is the run.  I was still so painfully slow despite doing way more running than last year.  I'm going to start hitting the track at least once a week and continue with the hill workouts.  My next race is the Mountain Championships in Beaver Creek in 3 weeks.  This is kind of like agility Regionals except you don't have to qualify.  The race is a bit longer and more challenging than a typical Xterra and you get more points for a given placement.  The good news is that I don't think the bike course is nearly as technical.  It has a lot of climbing though and some very long sustained climbs and a net elevation gain since it's a point to point race.  I think the run also has a lot of climbing and a net elevation gain so I'll be hitting those hills the next few weeks.

I'm still a bit tired today but the only muscles that are significantly sore are the muscles on my back just behind the lower part of my armpits, my lats maybe?  They're sore from all the turning and braking that I did on the bike.  I'm hoping to get back to training tomorrow though.  We've been having a terrible heat wave, triple digit heat for the past 5 days including today so it's not a good day to be out anyway.  Poor dogs, they get a nice walk early in the a.m. but not much else I can do with them after that and agility practice is out of the question outside of a few quick weave pole entries in the backyard.

Here are the final numbers.  I was not DFL.  There were 9 DNF's and 2 DQ's.  One guy had a crash that exposed 6" of his shin bone yet he seemed to have a good attitude about it though he did not finish.  I passed woman walking on the run and she had some cuts on her back.  They didn't look that bad but I saw her seeking medical attention at the finish line and it sounded like she had cactus spines in the cut.  Ouch.  There were a lot of cacti out there, many of them blooming.  So pretty but not if you land in them.  I saw a lot of guys on the side of the trail with mechanical problems and a few carrying their bikes back to the finish area.  Didn't see or hear about any other injuries.

Overall had a great time.  I think Curt Gowdy and I will meet again next year.

FINAL STATS

Swim (1200 meters/1312 yards):  24:36 mins. (1:52/100 yards), 5/5 in age group, 142/191 overall

T1:  3:37 (wore socks and gloves)

Mountain Bike (14.1 miles):  2:12:45 (hours:mins:secs), 5.5 mph, 5/5 age group, 168/191 overall

T2:  1:53

Trail Run (5.4 miles):  1:22:06, 16:26/mile (winner of age group was 11:46), 5/5 age group,    168/191 overall

Finish:  4:04:55, 5/5 age group, 46/59 women, 165/191 overall

Epic or Apocalyptic?

'You should get a will made out before you do that race', Jonny says to me on the drive back home from Wyoming where we've been checking out the bike course for the Xterra Curt Gowdy triathlon.  I've been looking forward to this race since last December or so when I signed up for it.  IMBA (International Mountain Bike Association) gives the trails at Curt Gowdy an 'Epic' rating.  After riding them today I realize that by 'Epic' they mean 'Apocalyptic'.  Jonny rates them 'Crazy Technical'.

Though the trails are mostly rated Intermediate level and I'd heard nothing but good things about them I became concerned when people on the Facebook page for the race started posting things like,

Time for some input on Xterra Curt Gowdy bike course.
OK...I agree that it's not mountain biking unless there's blood, but . . .  I rode the course last week and all I can say, prepare for carnage. There's "IMBA advanced" and there's "Xterra advanced" and that is one major difficult, technical and long course. Beginners are gonna freak. 


and


Checked out the course this morning, there is going to be carnage on race day.

and

  Anyone who doesn't pre-ride and has less than advanced skills is going to do a lot of hike-a-bike.

and so forth and so on.  I figured these people were being over-dramatic but started to think I'd better get my butt up there to pre-ride the course sooner than I was planning.  So Jonny and  I took a vacation day for a little road trip up to Wyoming.  It's only a 1 hour, 50 minute drive and somehow we (and by we I mean I) had to stop twice and drag it out.  One stop was to fuel up on coffee.  The other stop was to deposit said coffee.  In other words, I needed a rest stop and what better place than a welcome center with a cool bucking bronco statue?

We got there eventually after driving forever down a lonely road full of antelope and wind farms.

The trails started off innocently enough with some challenging but ride-able hills.  This trail is a lot steeper than it looks.

To be fair there were some nice smooth parts.

But just beyond the smooth single track was a rocky drop-off that no way was I riding it.

And this was the problem for me.  Nice smooth trail then some unrideable obstacle that I had to get off for for maybe 2-3 steps then back on the bike for 30 seconds then back off then back on for maybe a minute if I'm lucky and so on.  I must have gotten off at least 50-60 times and that's probably an underestimate.  So frustrating and exhausting.  And that was on the 'Intermediate' trails.


The Advanced trails were practically impassable even on foot.  Here are some photos from the Mo Rocka trail.

Looking downhill.  Hard to convey how steep that is and you can't see the drop-offs.

Here's the same trail looking uphill.  Now you can see the drop-offs.

Even Jonny wouldn't ride down it and he's got some serious skills.  I could barely walk down it in my bike shoes with my bike.


Here's another crazy hill.  You're supposed to go over the top of the rock coming downhill, not to the side where the branches are blocking off the dirt trail.

I couldn't figure out how I was supposed to walk down that so I cheated and came down the dirt part that was blocked off.  I know, naughty, but I didn't want to end up like this guy.

There were some nice views if you could get over your exhaustion and frustration enough to enjoy them.

By the 5-6 mile point I was wondering what I'd gotten myself into and by the 9 mile mark I'd had enough.  The total bike portion is 14 miles but when we got back to the car my cyclometer said 11.7 miles.  This took me 2 hours 5 minutes and I was mentally spent by the end.  To add insult to injury on the drive home I took another look at the map and realized we'd left out a 2.4 mile loop at the end, half of which was Advanced trails with a climb that the race director describes as 'a real kicker'.


Then after all that I have to go back on the same trails and run 5.3 miles.  Never mind the swim which is listed as 1200 meters/1312 yards on the website and 1500 meters/1640 yards on the course map.  Either way, not a trivial swim by any means.


Granite Reservoir though this isn't the bank that we swim off of.

So I have some soul searching to do.  That bike course is hard enough on its own, not sure I want to endure that again plus 2.4 more hard miles.  Let alone as part of a race.  The bike could take 2 1/2 hours, the swim 26-33 mins. depending on the actual distance, the run?  Who knows, could be over an hour if I'm spent after the bike.  Could be a 4 hour race, maybe even 4 1/2.  This is not tempting.  I could eat my entry fee and spend another day down at the USDAA trial that weekend instead.  Or I could plan on a DNF and only do the swim and bike.  Or maybe do the run if I feel o.k.  I should probably go up there one more time to check out the part of the course that I missed and to give it another go but the thought of doing that course 2 more times let alone just the once on race day makes me want to crawl into the fetal position.  I'm not one to take on things that are hard just for the sake of them being hard, they also have to be fun and for me this course is definitely not fun.  I don't mind working hard at something for work or something that will make the world a better place but I'm not willing to torture myself just for the sake of some stupid hobby.  On the other hand all my other races will seem easy peasy by comparison so maybe I should just gut it out.  If only this was later in the season and I had more time to work on my skills and strength.  It's going to take longer than 3 weeks to be in the kind of shape to do that course justice.  In the meantime all I keep thinking to myself is, 'Mo Rocka My Ass!'.