XTERRA Mountain Champs

Though I am way behind on may race reports I will start with the most recent and work my way back, and in essence I am going from a great race where I overcame a few metal hurdles to the races where I was not mentally strong enough to do so.
XTERRA Mountain Champs has always been an important race for me being essentially a home race and one to gain confidence from before going back in to a heavy training load leading in to USA and World Champs.  Last year I had a very off day and I was determined to not relive that experience.  A number of the other guys were not expecting much from me since I had only returned from a couple of races in Europe on Monday preceding the race and they had seen me low in the results in the previous races.  The only though for the race was that I had nothing to prove to anyone else, I needed to prove everything to myself.
I positioned myself high on the shore for the start and was able to run a few steps and dove in and got body length on the field at the start.  Normally a roadie but venturing into the off road scene Kyle Leto caught up and we swam together through the first lap.  Kyle slowly began to gap me on the second lap but I decided to play it a bit safer and maintain my pace rather than push it to stay on his feet since we were at 7500 feet.  I was also banking a bit on the coming ride that even though it isn't technical it is much different than the road and I would put time into him even though he is a strong rider.

That is me to the far left in the 2XU suit.

Once on the bike I was just 10 seconds down and quickly caught up and made sure that I was setting the pace when we hit the dirt.  This was where I had to mentally stay focused through the ride and continually push, it is racing and it always hurts, it doesn't matter how fast or slow you go it will hurt.  I needed to make sure that I kept the pressure on, if I let off then it hurt a lot more.  I gapped Kyle, however Ben Hoffman was inching his way up to me and Josiah was rocketing up the climb and erased a near 2 minute deficit from the swim by 4 miles into the bike.  I couldn't quite hold Josiah's wheel as we hit Strawberry Fields Road and when we peaked out over the top of the climb he had a minute on me.  I burned the decent hoping to open up some room to Ben and then really laid the power on once on Village to Village trail.  The gap grew to 1:45 to Josiah and I knew if he didn't have any mechanical issues we wouldn't see him again till the finish.  I knew Ben was behind and might be closing and there was a strong field behind trying to chase us down.  At the start of Ally's Way, the gap was down to maybe 10 seconds to Ben, I took as many chances as I could on the decent, over cooking one corner and going down.  I was surprised that Ben didn't roll up on me when I was getting going but took off again and headed into transition.

Slim lead up the switch backs over Josiah with Ben closing in.

SRM Powerfile from 2013 XTERRA Mountain Champs.

After pushing the pace on the bike my legs were heavy as I hit the run and with two long climbs with some steep sections it was not a place where you wanted your legs to be moving slow.  I managed to keep things moving well through the first 5k and was hoping the downhill would help my legs turnover but the second climb really sapped my legs and they really started to burn.  I did not see or hear Ben coming up on me until a few long switch backs as the trail wound back to the finish.  It was a huge mental breakthrough as I crossed the finish in 2nd, one of my proudest races of the effort and staying strong throughout the race which is something that I had not been doing the last few races.  It was a nice confidence boost as well that I was able to race up to the ability that I had been showing in training.

Mtn Champs Podium: Cody, Me, Josiah, Ben, Ryan

XTERRA Mountain Champs Highlight Video

Nitty Gritty Details:

Clothing: 2XU Custom Compression Team Kit

Swim: 2XU X:3 Westsuit, 2XU Race Goggles and 2Toms SportsShield.

Bike: Pro Cycling Specialized SW Epic 29, Fast Trak 2.0 @ 23psi Front, Renegade 1.95 @ 27 psi rear with Effetto Mariposa Caffelatex sealant, SRM Rotor 3D+ crank, 38-27 Q-Rings, Sidi Terra, Rudy Project Wingspan helmet and Rudy Project Stratofly w/Multilaser Orange Lens

Bike Nutirion: 1-24oz bottle 1st Endurance EFS, 1/2 Flask 1st Endurance EFS Liquid Shot 

Run: Colorado Running Company Inov-8 f-lite 195 w/ 2Toms BlisterShield,

Run Nutrition: Flask 1st Endurance EFS Liquid Shot 

May Part 1

Drive started snowy on the way to St. George

Ended in the dry desert.

I am a bit relieved May is behind us and I figure I need to get caught up from the 5 races I did among other activities.  These will be rather brief updates as I try to get things on track.  Right at the end of April I had raced St. Anthony’s Triathlon in Florida and the following week I drove out to St. George, UT for the Ironman 70.3 US Pro Championship.  Back to back racing is tough and to make things harder I was going from a very stacked field at St. Anthony’s to an equally tough field in St. George.  The race started perfectly, I really pushed the first half of the swim as was able to do what I knew I was capable of and just hung on to the tail end of the lead pack out of the water.  I worked hard the first few miles of the bike to solidify my position in the group.  It was crazy how easy it was being in that group, even though we were riding according to the rules there was still a significant advantage sitting 4-5 guys back from the front.  About 15miles in on the bike I decided to move up in the pack.  Unfortunately the ref saw my move differently than I did and when I slid back in to line after passing a couple people.  I got my first penalty in a triathlon in 13 years of racing, according to the ref I moved in to a space that was too small, meaning that the distance between the two riders was right at the draft distance.  I saw the distance was larger since there was a smaller space between the two riders I had just passed.  It sucks since it is a complete judgment call by the ref and I suffered the consequence of a four-minute penalty on course where I watched everyone ride by.  In the end I lost 8 minutes as the group I was riding with ended up going 2:12 for the bike and I ended up with a bike time of 2:20.  Once on the run I started steady but unfortunately could not maintain the pace and slowly slid backwards.  It was a tough day because of the penalty and another learning experience in a 70.3 race.

Incredible homestay support thank you to the Guymon family for all the support through the weekend!

Training Peaks did a post race analysis of a few of the Pro's power files and I was lucky enough to be include in that group, you can see their analysis here: Training Peaks IM 70.3 St. George.

A couple weeks later I got to return to the fun side of racing at XTERRA Southeast Championship in Alabama.  The lead up to the race was perfect then the rain came in Friday night and everything changed.  It was enough to drop the water temperature down to wetsuit legal and quite a few pros, myself included were left scrambling trying to find one.  Huge thanks to Casey Fannin for letting me use his after he raced in the short course race before our race, and congrats on the win in coming back from back surgery.  Wetsuit may have been a bit tight or maybe I was just off my game but struggled to keep with the front group and was about 10 seconds down going into T1 but that is much better than the 2 minutes I would have lost without a wetsuit.  The rain changed the trail as well, they were conditions I don’t get to ride in in Colorado, I was more timid riding as I had a good crash in Canada last year on wet roots and I didn’t want to repeat that.  I did hook one of my bar ends on a tree which I forgot to switch before I traveled to Alabama and went down hard Josiah and Brad Weiss both passed as I had to pull vines out of my rear wheel and straighten my handlebar.  I rode the rest of the course pretty clean but newbie pro Nick Fisher caught me towards the end of the bike and we headed out on the run together.  He was faster at the start and opened up a good gap through the first lap of the run.  On the second lap I didn’t know it till very late in the run but I had been closing the gap back down but ran out of trail to catch him and ended up 6^th.