XTERRA USA Championship. Snowbasin, Utah

I have been training in Seattle for 3 weeks after we left Bend, Oregon and parked our RV for the winter. I apologize for not having blogged in awhile. I've been super busy with my biggest training block of the season and was waiting to have new material. And here it is........ the Xterra National Championship Race in Ogden, Utah! This is the biggest XTERRA in America and the last XTERRA championship before the World Championship in Maui. The pros have been racing all season long to stack up their scores in the points series according to their placing at the West, Southcentral, Mountain, Southeast, and East championship races. The reward for the racer with the highest points at the end of the season takes home an extra $10,000 dollars along with the winnings. It also is the last race that offers slots for age-groupers to race in Worlds.

Some family members came from Alaska to watch the XTERRA! From left is Janine, Mitch, (my dad's brother) dad, me, and Janine and Mitch's youngest of 4 sons, Conway. We stopped for pictures and stretching our legs out at the Snake River canyon just past Twin Falls, Idaho. We drove from Seattle in a ghetto rent-a-wreck van 840 miles to Ogden, Utah.

When we arrived to Ogden Thursday afternoon I had to get into my race gear and meet the XTERRA TV crew at the Snowbasin ski resort for a tv interview! This was a fun experience, the crew was very easy to work with. My mom is interpreting everything that I say in sign language.

Also for the tv I had to do a couple posing shots and some action shots on my mountain bike and running.

My parents were interviewed too. They also were doing a feature appearance on Scott, a blind man who will be racing on Saturday as well.

On Friday, my cousin Conway and I went for an easy pre-race run and spin through Huntsville. It was a beautiful, but chilly morning!

Then later that afternoon we all went to my race packet pick up in Ogden. We were showing Mitch, Janine, and Conway the full XTERRA experience.

Friday night was the Night of the Champions dinner. After eating a plate of salad and gluten-free pasta, they announced the regional champions in each age group from 15 to 70+ year old. All of the age-groupers that are region champs are the ones who got the most points in their region from the races that they have raced in this year. In the picture above are the Northwest region champs in each age group. That's me in the brown shirt and blue jeans!

Saturday morning! Getting my bike ready in T1. My running shoes are in T2 up at the Snowbasin resort about 3,000 feet up the mountain.

After warming up on the bike and in the swim, its already close to starting time! I'm in the orange cap. The male pros are in the blue caps, female pros in pink, and the age-groupers in the yellow. My orange cap is for the jet-ski to find me while I'm swimming so they can film me underwater for the Xterra tv show.

Conway is singing the National Anthem right before the start! Other than dog mushing, singing is his passion and he also would like to have a career doing what he loves to do.

Mere seconds before the cannon went off....

The swim start was a mass start so that made it more interesting! There were 3 different XTERRA races going on this morning, first was the XTERRA USA Championships, the XTERRA Utah (non-qualifier for Maui and open to anyone), then the Sport XTERRA which was half the distance of the USA and Utah races.

The swim was two half-mile laps and the jet ski found me when I was about to finish my first lap.

I have been working on my swimming technique ever since I had it scrutnized by Bob Bruce in Bend and I'm getting close! My swimming is starting to feel more powerful and not so much effort is being wasted being inefficient.

I'm swimming by the XTERRA Utah racers waiting for their mass start.

Out of the water! Its a long run to T1.

Now its time to put in some hard effort. This bike course is not the easiest in the circuit. It is about 19 miles long with about 3,000 total feet of climbing from the Pineview Reservoir to above Snowbasin. This is where the pure mountain goats stand out!

My coach Conrad says that he's not a good climber, but today was an exception. By the end of the bike Conrad was 5 minutes and 20 seconds ahead of 2nd place and he held it through the run! "I'm feeling strong!" was what he said to my parents when he passed by them on the last steep climb of the bike course.

After about 2,300 feet of climbing comes the steepest and hardest climb of the bike course!

Here's what the hill looks like! After this hill there's still about 3 miles of steady uphill singletrack.

Conrad running on his way to the win!

The trail run was 5.8 miles of rocky singletrack with some stretches of jeep roads and several brutal hills to climb! My overall time was 3 hours and 5 minutes.

Today was a good but challenging day for me. I went into this race a little more nervous than usual but then after the swim I felt better. On the bike I started to feel tired at mile 15 (which doesn't happen very often for me) so I slowed down to conserve energy for the run. But I didn't realize until later that this tired feeling was the effect of being close to 8,000 feet. My coaches Amber and Conrad prepared me really well for this race, my fitness was very good and I was as strong as I could be today. I still got 2nd place in my age group and I'm happy with that! Racing at altitude takes a different strategy and body awareness, and I learned today that I can dig even deeper. This is what it takes to do this sport that I love, and I love finding out new things about racing and myself and how far I can push!

Now its time for another little training block to prepare for the XTERRA World Championship in Maui on October 24th! In two days we will be flying from Seattle to Maui and staying with my sister to put in some quality training and quality living in Maui!

Bend, Oregon

We have been in Bend, Oregon for about one week now and have been loving every day here! Bend has an abundance of trail systems for hiking, horseback riding, running, and mountain biking that I have not seen anywhere else. The weather here has been sunny the whole time, and a bit chilly at night because its a high desert terrain with pine forests and sagebrush.

On my birthday on August 17, I went to a masters swimming session to put in a workout before a videotaping and stroke analysis with head coach Bob Bruce.

I haven't swam the butterfly for over a year, and I forgot how much of a core workout it is!

Bob Bruce is on the pool deck with his videotaping camera attached to a rod that is submerged to tape me underwater. All it took was 75 yards of sprinting for him to get enough footage.

Now its stroke analyzing time! Bob played the video in slow motion and explained to me what I already had down, and what I had to work on. My stroke was already well developed, but I needed to enter my hands in the water deeper, and have my elbows higher before I started the pull phase to be able to displace more water. And to put my head down lower. I have been able to swim 3 times after this and for sure it feels awkward, I was more used to gliding and the new style feels like I'm swimming to the bottom of the pool! But now its getting more "normal" for me, and I can tell that it's much better!

Then that night we went to a free running clinic hosted by FootZone.

We had to run a few times with our shoes on, then barefoot. Teague Hatfield, the host of the clinic videotaped us then did form analyzing for us too. I liked how he taught the clinic, very simple and straightforward!

The next day my dad and I went for a 4 hour mountain bike ride with one of my coaches the "Caveman" Conrad Stoltz. Bend is one of Conrad's favorite training spots for the summer!

The waterfall in the picture is Tumalo Falls.

Taking a quick blog picture break at the Tumalo Falls overlook.

Again, Conrad's biking skills never cease to amaze both me and my dad. He disappears within 30 seconds whenever he goes downhill without braking on the corners, and sometimes disappears even uphill too! As a coach, Conrad was very helpful, has a wealth of information and gave me many tips on how to become a faster mountain biker. But, I couldn't help feeling a little intimidated and like I have a lot of work to do to become even half as fast as Conrad. This is none of Conrad's fault, its my mind getting the best of me. Self-doubts are what I struggle with the most and it has gotten a grip on me sometimes (Okay I admit, more than sometimes!). So, after a couple of good eating-the-dirt crashes, I decided to just chill out and not focus on the negative and look at the positive. Some of the stuff I was riding I wouldn't have been able to ride a few months ago. When I overthink things, its never enough or those things hold no satisfication for me anymore. Its very important to me that I enjoy what I am doing, so I'm working on being in the moment as much as possible!

Dad and I went riding a couple days after our ride with Conrad and I made myself relax and ride the bike and direct it where I wanted it to go instead of a little habit of mine of going too fast to control which always ends up with me thundering down the rocky stretch, reacting at the last instant to brake hard at every turn, nearly missing the tree or the drop off....

I immersed myself in that training ride and enjoyed every moment of it! I even feel like I have improved a little more!

On one of our long runs, we went running on the Deschutes River trail besides the pristine Deschutes River with green trees all around and black lava on the river banks.

Currently we're still in Bend, we're gonna squeeze in a few more trail adventures in two more days before leaving for Portland where we'll be parking our RV before staying with relatives in Seattle for 3 weeks.

Snowbasin, Utah

On our way to Bend, Oregon, then Portland and Seattle we stayed at Huntsville, an old and small town in Utah near Snowbasin Ski Resort. We wanted to ride and run the race course of the XTERRA USA Championship that will be held on September 25. We were here for 4 days and really enjoyed it here. Its a beautiful valley with the pristine Pineview Reservoir at the bottom, surrounded by green mountains. I'm on a solid 6 week training block so XTERRA USA will be my next race!





I went for a nice open-water swim in Pineview Reservoir. This reservoir is large enough for swimming, boating, jetskiing, windsurfing and other water activities.

The first part of the bike course went through a beautiful canyon called Wheeler Creek Canyon.

This course includes a lot of climbing as you go from the reservoir to the ski resort.

Behind me is the mountain of the Snowbasin ski resort where the bike course leads to and where T2 will be. T1 will be next to Pineview reservoir.

Dad and I went a couple miles off-course and did a bit more climbing than was needed, but we were rewarded for our mistake with this view of the valley.

I'm pretty sure that this part is a section of the race course!

The course had a couple of tricky sections, like this one in the picture and a bridge with stair steps that you have to go down at a sharp curve.

This is the very top of the bike leg and the top of the last long climb.

Without the bike and rider blocking your view, you can see Pineview Reservoir at the bottom of the valley where we started our ride!

I'm running on part of the run course. The run course is a very scenic one, it makes a loop on the side of the mountain and is mainly singletrack with short sections of snowcat roads.

I've been racing for every month of the spring and summer, although I'm not the least bit tired of racing I'm still happy to put in some good training hours to prepare for Snowbasin, and then the XTERRA World Championships in Maui.