XTERRA Solstice triathlon

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!

Amber Monforte

Most people already know that Conrad Stoltz and Amber Monforte are my coaches. However, there is a lot of information out there about Conrad, anyone who has been involved with triathlons has heard of him or knows a thing or two about him. I just wanted to write a little something about Conrad's fiancee, Amber, who has been primarily responsible for my training schedules and strategy since December 2009.

Amber and her dog, Kona whom she rescued from the pound.

Amber Monforte grew up around the Reno, Nevada and Truckee, California area and has done many different sports but tried triathlon in 2003 and loved it. She is also an avid XTERRA racer and raced pro in XTERRA for a few seasons before she chose to focus on a full-time job as a nurse in Reno. She still does some races whenever she can take time off her job. Just recently she won the women's 30-34 age group at the Honu 70.3 in Hawaii and received her slot to the Hawaii Ironman this October! But the Ironman will just be practice for the Ultraman in Hawaii which Amber is planning on doing this November. Hawaii will be her second Ultraman. Her first Ultraman was in Canada in August, 2009 which covered 320 miles total of swimming, biking and running.

Ultraman Canada was a tough 3 day race with 6.2 miles of swimming then a 90 mile bike ride on the first day, a 170 mile bike ride on the second, then a 52.4 mile (double marathon) run on the third and last day. Amber finished 4th place overall including the men, and won the women's race. Not only did she win the women's race with a total time of 25 hours, 36 minutes, and 49 seconds, she also broke the women's Ultraman Canada record by almost 4 hours and beat the women's world best time at the Ultraman distance set in 1989 by Tina Bischoff by about 9 minutes. I have no idea how she does it, but I can tell that she enjoys it. I once asked her what motivated her to do all the training and race Ultraman. She said that she likes to challenge herself and see what her limits are.

Conrad running with Amber during Ultraman Canada. Ultramans are usually invitation only events and you bring your own crew for support to provide entertainment, food, and fluids. There are no aid stations like in "normal" triathlon races. I hope to be in Hawaii in November to cheer Amber on at the Ultraman!

Her coaching skills are very good, as she seems to know exactly how I am going to feel before and after a workout. Conrad and Amber know my goals for this year, and they're doing their best to give me the most effective training path to my goals and still make it enjoyable and fun. Since Amber is based in Reno and we're roving across the western states, we communicate by email and she writes up my workouts weekly which makes it exciting to see what I'll be doing. Sometimes scary too, as my dad calls her the "Torturer".

XTERRA Farragut

Yesterday I raced at Farragut State Park in northern Idaho. The day had perfect racing conditions. Beautiful and sunny weather, the trails were almost dry after all the rain showers. Everything was feeling good and I was just going in to have a fun day! About 60 people did the XTERRA race, which made it a bit low-key, but the competition was still high nonetheless!

The XTERRA race was hosted by Adventure Sports Week which was a full week of races such as swimming, running, mountain biking, and "Adventure Racing" which usually consists of kayaking, running, biking, rappelling and navigation.

This is the beach where we started the swim. Even though it was sunny outside they cut the 1 mile swim in half because the water was cold, about 53 degrees F due to 4 weeks of unusually cold, rainy weather and they were worried about health/safety issues for the people in the race.

The swim start was a mass start. I was on the far right, already swimming in this picture.

The swim was one 750 meter triangular loop from the beach, around two large orange buoys then back to the beach.

I was the 3rd swimmer out of the water.

It was a long run back up to transition from the beach, and all uphill!

Out of T1 (transition: getting out of my wetsuit then putting on my bike gear) and on to the bike.

This is one of the major hills on the beautiful 23 mile mountain bike race course of singletrack and doubletrack through meadows and pine and fir forests.

I was hammering it pretty good on the bike which left my legs a little cooked for the run.

Dad took all of the pictures of the race, he even got creative and climbed up a tree for this shot.

Off the bike and into T2 putting on my running shoes which isn't an overly easy task after riding hard for 1 hour and 40 minutes.

Out of T2 and heading out on my 10k run, the last leg of the race.

This gradual hill back to the finish seemed like it was about 20 miles long!

At the finish..... hungry, tired, thirsty, and happy to have put in an solid race effort. I finished in 10th place overall and I know that I did the best I could and am still improving!

I had a great family greeting at the end of my race, my great aunts and grandma from my mom's side came over from Seattle to watch and take in the triathlon racing atmosphere!

From left: Evelyn (great aunt), me, Elaina (grandma), and Eloise (great aunt).

Farragut State Park

We've been parked at Farragut State Park for 3 days now and will be here until Sunday, after the XTERRA race that is held right here on Saturday at noon. My Niner Air 9 29er mountain bike has been cleaned, tuned up and I switched my tires to a lighter and faster rolling tread for the singletrack and doubletrack course. The distances of this race are a one mile swim (which will be two laps of a half mile loop with a beach run in between) , 22 mile mountain bike (2 laps of a 11 mile loop) , and a 6.2 mile run on a technical course strewn with rocks and roots.

During World War II, this area that the State Park is on, used to be the Farragut Naval Training Station, a major training base for the U.S. Navy. Over 293,000 sailors received basic training at this facility throughout its 30 months of operation. It was also used as a POW camp for 900 Germans working as gardeners and maintenance men. Then in 1946 the facility was decommissioned and turned into a college until it closed down in 1949 because of financial problems. In 1964 it became a park and has been the site of several Boy and Girl Scout outings and Jamborees. This park is large, about 4,000 acres and has over 220 individual campsites and 45 miles of hiking, biking, horse and llama trails. However large and famous this park used to be, its pretty quiet here, we rarely saw other people out on the trails.

It has been raining on and off here for a few days, even occasionally small marble sized hail as shown above.

Behind me is Lake Pend Oreille, where the swim will be on Saturday.

We went exploring Farragut's trails and attempted to pre-ride the race course even though it has not been marked yet. It took us 3 hours and a lot of map studying on mom's part, to get some idea of what the course will be like. It'll be a fast ride on race day, a few hills but mostly rolling, a lot of twists and turns and a few mud patches because of the rain.


Mom and me riding through one of the meadows of Farragut! So far we have seen a couple deer and hundreds (not quite, but you get the idea) of squirrels and gophers.



Lake Pend Oreille, at 65 miles long, is Idaho's largest lake. It is also known as the 5th deepest lake in the U.S. In some places the bottom reaches 1,150 feet deep.

Even on a sunny day the lake water temperature hit 53 degrees F.

Idaho and Montana

After about 10 tries, we're successful in finding a solid internet connection! We were in southern Idaho in the Twin Falls area since my last blog post, so I will pick up where I left off. As our adventures progressed, we drove from Twin Falls through the Sawtooth Recreational Area, going alongside the Salmon river and visiting some Lewis and Clark historic sites before going into southwest Montana.


A beautiful sunset at Indian Springs trail area southeast of Twin Falls.

This is what happens when you live in an RV and you ride in some wet weather, then you need the clothes again for another ride. The stove is a multipurpose miracle, it heats up the RV, drys out our cycling shoes, shirts, shorts, pants, and mom is cooking our dinner!

Dad and I went for a long trail run at Indian Springs, mom biked along and took pictures. It had been raining with thunderstorms scattered across the sky, and now it finally cleared up!

Southern Idaho's bean, potato and hay fields are behind me as I run down the trail back to the RV.

The weather stayed excellent for Dad and me when we went on an 80 mile road bike ride last Sunday. Even though I enjoy mountain biking more, road biking is still useful for training and I also will be doing some road triathlons this year mixed in with my off-road triathlons. I use a "triathlon bike" which is a different version of a road bike built purely for triathlons. Both triathlon and road bikes are light with thinner tires and wheels so you can cover many more miles faster and easier. But a triathlon bike can be faster because of the steeper positioning of the body on the bike for aerodynamics (as shown in picture above). Triathlon bikes can easily reach 25 to 30 mph on a flat road. This ride was for endurance with some harder effort intervals thrown in for good measure. I probably won't be racing any races that long anytime soon, but without endurance, speed doesn't do any good because I wouldn't be able to go fast for very far. We were very lucky to find a nice 20 mile bike path between Bellevue and Ketchum in Idaho. The area is very pretty, just north of Sun Valley where lots of celebrities and pro athletes own vacation homes.

After our bike ride we drove on. This is the top of Galena Pass at just over 8000 feet.

Crossing Galena Pass and going down the other side of the mountain we saw the famous Sawtooth mountains mentioned a lot of times in Louis L'amour's books.

Now we crossed the state border into Montana. I'm swimming in the Bitterroot Aquatic Center pool in Hamilton, Montana. This is only the second time that I have swam in an outdoor pool since Maui. Most other outdoor pools are closed, but the locals say that summer is supposed to start next week.

I'm swimming with a pull buoy between my legs and paddles on my hands, which helps to build shoulder strength without kicking. In my races its not really necessary to kick while in the swim leg of the race because its a good idea to save my legs for the bike and run.

Yesterday we went riding in the Rattlesnake trail area in Missoula, Montana. They have very nice and smooth singletrack and beautiful meadows. Some really steep and long climbs too!

Montana is a nice place, as far as the places I've seen. Lots of hills, but not quite so high, with green forests and pastures all over.

After over a month of being in the hot desert which is awesome because it is very different from Alaska, I must admit it is nice to get back into the forests and mountains just for a change!

My next race is in 8 days in Farragut State Park in northern Idaho, its an XTERRA off-road race and I'm super excited to get to race on my mountain bike again since XTERRA Las Vegas.

Internet Problems

I apologize for the long delay since my last blog update. I have been encountering internet problems that would not let me upload pictures onto this blog. I'll update the blog as soon as I can! We have recently traveled north from Utah, through beautiful Idaho, and currently we are in Missoula, Montana. Then in a few days we will travel back into Idaho to Farragut State Park, just north of Coeur d' Alene, Idaho. My next race is XTERRA Farragut on June 12, the mountain biking has been great so far here in Montana so I am getting good practice before the race! Please check back, and I will have the blog back up and running properly as soon as possible.

Cheers,
Taylor