XTERRA Solstice was held in La Grande, Oregon. It was a 1000 meter swim in a lake, 16 mile mountain bike, and 6.2 mile trail run race. This is the last race for me for 4 weeks until XTERRA Beaver Creek in Avon, Colorado on July 17.
At the race venue before setting up my equipment I was attending to some very important matters when dad took this picture.
My sister, Tarah, her husband A.J, and their 2 year old daughter Setra came from Maui to visit us here in Oregon for a week. Quite chilly here compared to the Hawaiian islands.
This is how I usually set up my equipment in the transition area. This is the place where you can get free speed if you can get out of your wetsuit and put on your helmet and bike shoes and then get moving in less than 1 minute. The swim to bike transition is called T1 and the bike to run transition is called T2.
The swim leg was held in Morgan Lake. Due to the cold weather, no one was wanting to get into the water any sooner than they absolutely had to.
I had a nice swim, its like a bit of an intense warm up for the bike and run.
On to the bike! This course had some long climbs, narrow singletrack, and rock gardens plus long stretches of deep mud. It was a challenging, fun 16 mile ride.
Off the bike! The clock behind me is keeping track of total time, starting when the swim began.
Going out for the run. I paced myself much better than last week at XTERRA Farragut. I held back more on the bike on this course because I knew that it would be worth it to feel fresher on the run. And you can gain or lose a lot of time in 6 miles.
On the last half mile of the run. I felt good like I was able to run at the best of my ability for this kind of course that had us running downhill through elk country, around a loop, then back up the long, long hill. There was also foot-deep patches of mud throughout the run and I almost lost my shoes more than once!
The beautiful Morgan Lake behind me.
Finished in a total time of 2:33:34. Got 7th place overall out of 81 racers. It was a fun race!
My Niner mountain bike got pretty muddy and my chain got bent from a branch or rock hitting it so it was slipping a lot for the last half of the bike leg.
Giving my faithful steed a bath! Then we packed up and went for a nice big after-race lunch at an all you can eat chinese buffet. It was delicious by the way!
At the race venue before setting up my equipment I was attending to some very important matters when dad took this picture.
My sister, Tarah, her husband A.J, and their 2 year old daughter Setra came from Maui to visit us here in Oregon for a week. Quite chilly here compared to the Hawaiian islands.
I had a nice swim, its like a bit of an intense warm up for the bike and run.
On to the bike! This course had some long climbs, narrow singletrack, and rock gardens plus long stretches of deep mud. It was a challenging, fun 16 mile ride.
Off the bike! The clock behind me is keeping track of total time, starting when the swim began.
Going out for the run. I paced myself much better than last week at XTERRA Farragut. I held back more on the bike on this course because I knew that it would be worth it to feel fresher on the run. And you can gain or lose a lot of time in 6 miles.
On the last half mile of the run. I felt good like I was able to run at the best of my ability for this kind of course that had us running downhill through elk country, around a loop, then back up the long, long hill. There was also foot-deep patches of mud throughout the run and I almost lost my shoes more than once!
The beautiful Morgan Lake behind me.
Finished in a total time of 2:33:34. Got 7th place overall out of 81 racers. It was a fun race!
My Niner mountain bike got pretty muddy and my chain got bent from a branch or rock hitting it so it was slipping a lot for the last half of the bike leg.
Giving my faithful steed a bath! Then we packed up and went for a nice big after-race lunch at an all you can eat chinese buffet. It was delicious by the way!
1 comment:
Fun that so many family members got to come & cheer you on!
I like how you included pics of your transition area and showing how muddy the bike got!
So were these last two swims similar to swimming in Alaska? The coolest swims I've been in were low to mid-50s and it was mentally tough!
Chinese buffet sounds great!
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