With an 8am start it was early up and out the door. The race is held at the McDowell Mountain Park just outside Fountain Hills and while the weather was still threatening, the rain had stopped and the temperature was cool but not freezing. It was a mini-Xterra reunion with both Mel McQuaid and myself, as well as Trevor Glavin and Cody Waite racing. The womens field was small but stellar with Leanda Cave, Lisa Ribes, Anna Curi Preisig and the Wassner Twins joining Mel and myself on the line. We all enjoy some laughs and jokes before the race as Mel arrived literally 15mins before the start having hit the snooze button as few to many times and preceeded to do a few jumping jacks for warm-up, but it was game on right from the start.
Leanda warning us about the mountain lions ;)
Leanda and Lisa both took off like rockets with the rest of us just trying to hold it close. By halfway through the first run it was Leanda out front and Lisa, Mel, Bec, and myself running all together. Once we hit the single track, Mel and I managed to put some time on the other two and headed out onto the bike together. I would right now love to say that I totally threw down and hammered out the bike, but with riding a borrowed TT bike and having only 2 rides in an aero position under my belt for the past four months I painfully watched Mel simply ride away from me. Everytime I race this course I am surprised at just how hard the bike is and my quads were defnitely letting me know this. Bec caught me a little passed halfway, then unfortunately blew a tire and had to walk it back to transition. I held third through the rest of the bike and headed onto the second run having lost 3mins to Leanda and Mel but gaining a bit of time on the rest of the girls and sort of stuck in no man's land ran strong to the finish.
Leanda held off Mel by about 30sec for the win with Lisa and Laurel rounding out the top five. Leanda, Mel and Lisa all look great heading into the Abu Dhabi Triathlon which I wisefully will not be attending. The weather held off just long enough for us to get in a nice group warm down run and get all our gear out of transition before the skies opened up and the rain poured down again. So I have to admit pretty happy with the result and glad to have the first race out of the way as it always hurts the most. Definitely looking forward to adding that swim back where it should be for the rest of the races this year. Also looking forward to a bit of a recovery week and very excited to be getting some quality time in on my own triathlon bike when it get here in a couple of days. Thanks to everyone at the Phoenix Triathlon Club and all the volunteers who put on another terrific race, and thanks to Kerry Yndestad for the race photos. (full race results here)
Post -race Xterra chit-chat :)
I didn't think that I really dug all that deep for the race, but at 2hr20mins it was one of the longer MTB races I have done and the first race effort of the year and training the next week was miserable. The body gradually got itself sorted out and I got back to some great training sessions this week. Mel McQuaid also rolled into Tucson this week and I have enjoyed getting some pool sessions in with her even though we end up chatting way too much and inevitably missing send-offs. She is focusing on the high stakes Abu Dhabi Triathlon in a couple weeks so I have passed on joining her on her marathon bike rides.
Up this weekend is the Desert Classic Duathlon, now in its 14th year. Other than being a duathlon and therefore lacking the most important thing - a swim - this is a great race I raced numerous times years ago while I was living in Tempe. Held out in Fountain Hills at the McDowell Mountain Regional Park, it is a 3.5mile trail run, 21mile bike, 3mile trail run and usually attracts a great group of local triathletes and a solid group of pro's.
